by Zoey Dean
He fingered the envelope. Hell if he knew.
"I have no idea what's in there, champ," his father declared. "But you're dealing with a dead mother. It could be really upsetting for Cammie, whatever it is."
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Adam frowned.
"Be sensitive to that," his mother advised. "Don't be surprised if she doesn't say anything at all to you. Or even if she just throws the whole thing away."
"We once did this pro bono case for a woman who was adopted. She was looking for her birth mother," his dad said, tracing a circle in the condensation on the side of his glass with his forefinger. "That's what she thought ... until we found who she was looking for."
"She tore up a file just like this one," Mrs. Flood recalled. "Just couldn't handle the idea of opening it when the time came. I'm going to shower off the Los Angeles grunge; then we have to write that damn brief for tomorrow on that hearsay objection you made. You were correct, the judge is just being picky. You coming, sweetie?"
"Sure." Mr. Flood drained his Guinness, put the empty glass in the dishwasher, and pointed at the envelope. "Use good judgment, okay?"
Like that was helpful. His parents always advised him to use good judgment when they knew that Adam had a difficult decision to make.
Ten seconds later, he was once again alone in the kitchen, staring at the envelope that his parents had brought home. His mom and dad were right. The best thing to do would be to call Cammie, tell her about what they'd found, and just deal with whatever her reaction was. He knew that, but he still couldn't quite bring himself to pick up the phone. Instead, he tossed the package
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atop of his Pomona catalog on the chair, where it silently called to him like a siren to Odysseus.
Maybe there was another way. What if he looked at the contents? Checked it out himself? If it turned out it was nothing, he could just put the whole damn package through his parents' home paper shredder and it would be like it had never happened. Yeah, that made sense. Of course, if there was something unexpected inside, something he was sure that Cammie would want to know, he'd call her right way. He'd figure out what to say to her, too. Or seal the envelope back up. Or ... something.
What the hell. He tried to open the envelope seal carefully, but the glue was too secure--he ended up tearing the top of the package. Finally, though, he had it open, and extracted a thin sheaf of papers that were held together by a single paper clip. The first few pages were absolutely routine; he sighed audibly as he flipped through them. Police reports, photos of the Strikers' yacht, toxicology reports on the people who'd been on board that--
Holy shit.Adam forced his eyes back to the top of the page and reread it slowly and carefully. Then he reread it again, feeling sick to his stomach.
How could he ever tell Cammie about this?
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Cheesy Romantic Chick FlickEduardo's bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel was aglow with lightly scented vanilla candles, dozens of them, set on every surface--the pearl marble counters of the kitchen and the bath, the clear Lucite Philippe Starck table and chairs and butcher-block countertops in the small kitchen, the white glass coffee table between the taupe Minotti leather sofas. Same thing in the bedroom. The antique nightstands on either side of the four-poster bed held more than a dozen small tapers between them. The aroma of the rose petals he had sprinkled across the hand-embroidered Belgian lace quilt lingered in the air.
Sam lay on the bed in Eduardo's arms; the lovely quilt had fallen to the Persian rug sometime during the previous torrid hour. He was naked. She was naked. The truly amazing part of the equation was how okay she was about it.
They had finally done it. Made love, in a torrent of passion that had lived up to every fantasy she had ever had about the experience.
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Well, not every fantasy. If it were going to live up to every fantasy, her body would be better than Cammie's.
"You are so beautiful, Samantha," Eduardo murmured into her hair.
Damn, the boy meant it.
Sam had always wondered if making love would really be all that different from drunken sex. Maybe all that carried-away shit was just what perfect-looking actresses feigned with perfect looking actors who usually weren't so perfect-looking in real life. The director of photography and the editor would stretch the images so the actors got longer and leaner. Lighting made them look ten years younger. A soft-focus lens eliminated pimples, bumps, and bruises.
Sam was a Hollywood kid who knew every Hollywood trick in the book. And now she knew something else: the truth about making love and for the first time feeling beautiful in the eyes of a boy who adored you. Compared to this, drunken sex sucked ass.
"Are you happy?" Eduardo whispered.
"What do you think?"
She could feel his smile though her eyes were closed. "You sounded happy."
"Don't let it go to your head."
To think that she'd been nearly petrified with nerves when they'd stepped into the bungalow. After dinner in the Polo Lounge, they'd strolled through the lush gardens of the hotel back to his place. Eduardo had gotten some assistance from the hotel staff; the candles were
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already lit, the rose petals strewn. What touched her most, though, were the dozen tulips in a vase by the bedside. She had once mentioned in passing that tulips were her favorite flower.
Once inside the door, he'd gotten a decanter of 1935 Taylor's vintage port from the bar and poured them each a small glassful. They'd sipped it by the roaring fire. There'd been no pressure. He had meant what he said, he told her. As much as he wanted to make love to her, he would wait until she was ready. He'd kissed her. Kissed her again. And ...
She was ready.
In a perfect world, she'd have been light as a feather and he'd have carried her to the bedroom; he looked strong enough to do it, too. She was thankful he didn't try. She was also thankful that he didn't do any of the following: Sit on the bed and ask her to undress for him. Begin to undress her himself. Begin to undress himself . Instead, when they were in the bedroom, he kissed her some more, so much that she wanted to be in his arms forever. It was amazing how her self-consciousness fell away with her clothing. The look in his eyes had told her everything: she was beautiful to him.
"How about if we spend the rest of our lives in this bed?" she suggested, snuggling against him. "We would only get up for the occasional shower."
"Our friends and family might come looking for us," Eduardo teased.
"We could plant a rumor that we ran away. Tibet sounds good."
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He kissed her hair. "I've been to Tibet. The food is not so good. Someplace more romantic. How about Saint-Tropez?"
"Been there. Too many Americans."
"True," he mused. "Same thing with the Scottish moors ... I've got it. Corsica. By yacht from Italy. They have the best cheese in the world."
She craned around and gave him an arch look. "You want to go to Corsica for the cheese? "
"I would go just about anywhere with you, Samantha." He kissed her softly again.
"Except my prom."
Eduardo smiled. "I've already promised my family. Take photos for me. Then I can see how beautiful you looked in your dress."
"How about if I just wear the gown for you sometime?" Sam asked. She knew that there hadn't been much chance of Eduardo changing his mind and staying, but it had been worth asking him. If he'd said yes, she would just have worked it out with Parker, who wouldn't have argued. He didn't want to make an enemy out of Sam. Now, she had to tell Eduardo about Parker, which she still hadn't done.
"I know you, Samantha. You would never wear a formal gown twice."
She laughed. Right on the first try. He understood her and thought her thighs were hot. What a guy. She just wouldn't think about tomorrow night, she decided. Sam curled into him and kissed him lightly. It was just like a cheesy romantic chick flick--the hyper talented
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woman with the thunder thighs who gets the hottest guy to fall not just for her brains but for her body too. But Sam didn't give a damn--she was too busy starring in it.
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Pink Velvet Prada Pumps
Ben loaded another blenderful of blueberries, peeled kiwi, and sliced peaches, surveying the crush of club goers that had closed in around his smoothie stand.
He shook his head ruefully. An article in LA. Weekly had come out the day before, reviewing the hottest new clubs in town. Trieste had been at the top of the list. The article guaranteed that the club would stay hot for months, but for the real trendsetters it was the beginning of the end. They never went to a club that had been written about in the newspaper, even if it was the city's alternative weekly. Slowly but surely the place would become post hip, full of valley and South Bay kids, European tourists, and various wanna-bes. They'd flock to Trieste like low-rent travelers to the cheapest all-you-can-eat buffet in Las Vegas.
The orders came fast and furious and Ben found himself playing a game as they did, trying to guess the size of the tip that would come from the particular customer. This one for the burly bodyguard of a twenty-something singer who'd gone from triple-platinum
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superstar to laughingstock after starring in one of the worst movies ever made, then resurrected her career with her first decent CD since the twentieth century. Tip? Five bucks. He'd guessed three. A banana-and-guava special for one of the Big Brother winners. Tip? Two bucks. He'd guessed four. Coconut, passion fruit, and cherries for a former guitar player for the Dead Kennedys. He thought he'd get a fiver. Tip? A twenty.
Finally, the boss showed up--a clean-cut Wall Street type who'd made a fortune by getting out of Internet stocks right before the bubble burst and then selling AOL and Amazon short through their precipitous declines.
"Thanks for your hard work," he told Ben. "Now go take a break. Next week I'll get you in the back office, or else your father will mess up my wife's next surgery on purpose."
Ben's relief--a tall, thin young woman in a red tank top and tight black trousers, with two lip piercings and spiky black hair, stepped in for him.
"I'll be back in twenty minutes," he told her.
"Got it covered." She was already taking orders.
He drifted away from the juice bar toward one of the backyard chaise longues and realized he was hungry. A Trieste burger would be tasty--they made them with buffalo instead of beef--so he put in an order with one of the barbecue chefs, then sprawled in a lawn chair, realizing he was famished.
Shit. Not him.Jack Walker was back at Trieste. He wore skinny
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black jeans and a black T-shirt with a skull on it, very punk. The moment he spotted Ben, he waved and dodged through the crowd, then pulled up a wicker chair of his own next to Ben's. "Hey, man, can we talk?"
He knew Jack; the guy wasn't likely to go away until Ben let him say his piece.
"I've got twenty minutes and a burger to chow down. So you might want to cut to the chase."
Jack nodded. "I'll leave you about eighteen minutes to yourself. I just wanted to apologize."
Ben was taken aback. "That's unexpected."
"Look, you're right. I can see how you might think Maddy is easy pickings."
"Thanks."
Jack raised an eyebrow. "Hey. I've seen you dawg with the best of 'em."
"In the fall, yeah. I'll grant you. But they those were college girls. Maddy's junior-high material."
Jack looked amused. "I hear you got me uninvited as her prom date."
"Good news travels fast."
"I just wanted you to know that I'm cool with it."
"Ben! Buffalo burger's up!" the chef with the body art on his neck called.
"Thanks, Willie." Ben got up and retrieved the paper plate with his oversize buffalo burger. It was served on a fresh-baked hard roll with sides of cabbage salad and baby red potato salad.
"I can't quite figure out your game," he admitted to
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Jack, as he bit into the potato salad and then sat down. "Is this some kind of lead-me-not-into-temptation thing?"
"You think you have it all figured out, my man." Jack chuckled, then stood. "Anyway, we good?" He held a hand out to Ben.
He and Jack were practically best buds at Princeton; he didn't want to see the end of that just because of Jack's penchant for women. He understood where that came from; it all had to do with growing up poor in New Jersey and wanting to show the world and his own soul that he was a guy with power. Maybe his friend would get over it. Maybe he wouldn't. If he didn't, he wouldn't be the first Princeton graduate to be a first-class womanizer.
Maybe Jack was more mature than he'd thought. He sure hadn't expected him to be man enough to apologize.
He bumped his buddy's fist with his own. "Yeah man, we're good."
Sweet.
From the far side of the outdoor patio, Cammie eyed Ben and Mystery Punk sharing a manly bonding moment, doing one of those primitive anthropological gestures that had long ago replaced the handshake. Ben looked hot as ever, damn him--as much as she loved Adam, part of her would always smolder for Ben. Whether that was because he had dropped her and she had something to prove because she still had feelings for
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him, or because he'd had the balls to call her on her considerable bullshit, she wasn't sure.
Cammie wasn't at Trieste for Ben, though. She'd come for Dee, vowing to make good on her promise to secure her a hot prom date. The weird thing was, until that very afternoon, she'd had one. His name was Zack Bronson; he was the tall, skinny, but undeniably smoking drummer for the neo-New Wave band Fluffer, which had just been signed by her father's agency. Everything had been fine until Zack had called before dinnertime to say that Warner Brothers wanted him to play a showcase in Miami on Saturday night, which meant the prom fix-up with her friend was definitely off, so have a nice life and peace out.
Asshole.
That left Cammie a girl on a mission to find a young, reasonably sane, definitely smoking-hot guy who was free the next night and would like to go to a high school prom. She could have hit any number of clubs in search of such a guy, and told herself that she'd picked Trieste because it was the flavor of the month and not because Ben was working there.
She watched Punk Boy throw back his head and laugh at something Ben was saying. Hmm . He was kind of cute in a skinny Johnny Rotten/Sid Vicious kind of way. He might have possibilities.
She snaked through the crowd to where they were sitting on a couple of lawn chairs under a big tree. "We can't go on meeting like this," her voice purred.
"Cammie!" Ben sounded genuinely pleased to see her
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as he rose and gave her a great big bear hug. She felt the contours of his hard body and had the fleeting thought that it would be nice if the hug didn't end, though of course it did.
"Welcome home." She smiled nonchalantly, pulling over another of the wicker chairs and turning a sexy smile on Punk Boy. "Hi. I'm Cammie Sheppard."
"Jack Walker. How's it going?"
She could see his immediate attraction to her in his eyes. Cammie loved when that happened, much as she expected it to happen.
"So, you're a friend of Ben's," he gathered, his admiring gaze fixed on her. "Lucky Ben."
"You have no idea." She crossed her legs smoothly, because she knew that in her pink-and-white floral Kenzie baby-doll minidress and her pink velvet Prada pumps, it was all about her legs. She was gratified to see Punk Boy's gaze head south ... and stay there.
"He let you go?" Jack's eyes didn't budge from Cammie's bare thighs.
"Yo, let's change the subject," Ben suggested, then took the last bite of his burger.
"Sure," Cammie agreed easily, leaning toward Punk Boy. "And who are you?"
Punk Boy gave her the coverage, coverage being a film studio's two-page version of any story when no one wanted to take the time to read the actual book. Fr
iend of Ben's from Princeton. In town for summer. Internship with Fox. Living in guesthouse. Hot car on loan.
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Got it. It was getting better and better.
When Ben announced that he had to return to the juice bar because his break was over, Cammie made it clear that she was perfectly happy to hang with his friend. With his friend, Jack launched into an epic about the new reality show he was helping to develop-- Th e Pickup Artist. The gimmick was that hidden cameras would follow various guys and girls to clubs and through malls in a competition to see who had the best pickup batting average.
Cammie pretended to find this concept fascinating, though in actuality she felt certain she could puke a better idea. Meanwhile, Ben had a tiny blond waitress with a gymnast's muscular build bring over two orange sherbet smoothies, which gave Jack an opportunity to expound for fifteen more minutes on the various personalities at Fox, a third of whom were or had been clients of Cammie's father.
Finally, Jack got to the question she had been waiting for.
"I was thinking, Cammie. Tomorrow night, maybe you could show me a few of those clubs."
Deft. Not.
"Wow, I'd love to," she lied, then shifted to the truth. "But tomorrow night is my high school prom."
Jack nodded. "Yeah? And you're not too cool to go?"
Cammie laughed genuinely for the first time. "I am, actually, but my boyfriend had his heart set, so ..."
She'd calculatedly thrown in the B word, knowing that Punk Boy would be disappointed.
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Sure enough, he sighed.
God . Guys were so goddamn predictable.
"Boyfriend, huh?" Punk Boy sighed again. "Should have known."
"Yes, you should," she agreed, giggling on purpose and touching his arm. Physical connection was always good. "You know, I just thought of something."
"Yeah?"
"I've got a close friend who wants to go to the Beverly Hills High School prom tomorrow, but her date fell through at the last minute. If you're not busy, maybe you'd want to take her."