He moved some of the bottles aside on the bar and set water heating in the coffeepot. After he changed clothes, he poured water over a teabag for her. Then he walked to the window and stared out at the blackness shot through with all the colors of the rainbow, glowing to entice tourists toward their own destruction. For the millionth time in the day and a half he’d been here, he wished he were one of these tourists. The only sounds that penetrated the window were the occasional siren or an especially insistent horn, but the Strip looked like it should be noisy, even through the glass.
He heard the bathroom door open. She padded out in bare feet, boxer shorts, and a threadbare T-shirt, weaving a bit.
“You take the bed,” he said. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”
She shook her head. “No, Daniel—”
“I’m so tired of arguing. Please.”
She slipped under the covers on one side of the bed and propped herself up against the pillows. He brought her the cup of tea.
“Thank you,” she said, taking the mug with both hands. “What is it?”
Sitting down in the desk chair on her side of the bed and propping his feet up near the mound of her feet under the covers, he said, “It’s tea. What did you think it was?”
She took a sip, then said with her eyes closed, “I have no idea what you’ve got at the Blackstone Firm bar over there. Beverages made of ground souls and topped with fallen stars.”
“I think you’re tasting the rose hips.”
She snorted, which turned into a short whine. “Don’t make me laugh. It hurts my head.”
“Did a detective interview you at the hospital?” he asked.
“Yes. His name was Detective Butkus. I asked him if he made that up so people who’d been hit in the head would remember it later. He laughed uncomfortably.”
“You don’t say.”
“Yeah, but I couldn’t tell him anything helpful. I felt like a dork.”
“I talked to the police when they came to the museum,” Daniel said. “They didn’t find Colton’s phone, but they did find what they think the guy used to hit you. It was the butt of a long-barreled Colt .45 from a statue of Wyatt Earp. They didn’t seem optimistic about catching the guy, though. I told them he’d taken a hunk of your hair, and that he’d done the same thing at the casino bar. They said he’s probably an overzealous photographer who took a shine to you.
“Somehow he snuck past security at the museum. He saw the opportunity to steal the phone from you, and he took it. He kept going through the exhibits and escaped through a back entrance. Apparently you can’t get into the museum from the back, but you can get out without an alarm sounding. And they’re not big on security cameras.”
“I guess they’re not too concerned about a patron making off with a wax statue of John Denver.” She set the mug on the bedside table. With no ceremony, she snuggled down in the covers. Her blond brow furrowed. Her soft-looking hand, perfectly manicured in an understated pink, lay next to her cheek.
Sensing that he still watched her, she murmured, “I’m okay. Don’t worry about me. I hurt, and the hospital was torture because I wanted so badly to go to sleep. All I dreamed of doing was getting here and finally lying down and letting go, and now I’m being stared down by the winner of the Clarkson Prize.”
He grimaced. “Sorry.”
“No.” Her hand flailed blindly until it settled on his hand. “I didn’t mean it. I’m relieved to lie down, but I feel so safe with you. Thank you.”
She dropped off to sleep seconds after that, it seemed. She stopped talking—a first—and her breathing turned deep and even. Rising, he turned off the lamp.
Then he bent over her body and gently kissed her forehead. When she half smiled, he couldn’t resist touching his lips to the corner of her mouth.
He stood up straight in horror. Just as he’d feared in the museum, he was falling for her, hard—this brazen, complex strategist, the enemy of his firm, the worst possible woman for him to want.
With a long last look at her pretty face—deceptively angelic when she was unconscious—and a wistful sigh, he eased a pillow from the other side of the bed and a blanket from the top of the closet. He settled on the sofa, facing the Strip, and stared at the view for a long time, mind spinning like the lights in the signs, wondering who had hurt her. And resolving not to let it happen again.
9
The next morning, Daniel sat in a chair, surfing the news on his laptop, like pretty much every morning when he was traveling. Wendy still slept in his bed, which was unlike any morning ever.
Sometime in the night, she’d rolled to face him. The late morning sun kissed her face and made her seem to glow with gold and blush. Her breasts looked large and soft underneath her T-shirt. He thought one of her nipples strained against the fabric, but he couldn’t be sure. It might have been a wrinkle. After considering this for a while, he turned back to his computer screen. He’d been staring at her breast so long that the screen saver had turned on.
“Ow,” she finally mumbled with her eyes still closed, reaching for the back of her head with one hand. “Zounds.”
“Hold on.” He crossed the room, found her painkillers in the bathroom, and brought her a glass of water.
“Thank you,” she said blearily. She eased upright long enough to swallow the pills and down the water, then sank into the sheets again. She didn’t move.
Daniel settled back down with his computer and tried not to think about her. And failed. The shock of finding her on the floor last night played over and over like a tape in his head.
After another quarter hour, she rolled off the bed, stood unsteadily, and disappeared into the bathroom. He expected she would take a long time in there. But seconds later, she emerged in sweatpants and flip-flops, dragging her suitcase behind her. “Daniel, I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me, and I—”
“Whoa.” The sharpness of his tone surprised him, but she looked like she felt terrible. “Can you drop the professional courtesy, just until you feel better?”
She shook her head carefully. “Stargazer expects a bill for my room. I can’t tell them I’ve been sleeping with the enemy, like Lorelei thinks. Even though, I mean, you know what I mean. That we’re not really doing that. There would be no way to explain what’s actually going on without also admitting to them that I’ve complicated matters by acquiring a hair-stealing stalker.”
“Keep the room,” he said. “Stay with me anyway.”
She set her suitcase upright on its wheeled bottom and crossed her arms over her T-shirt, which pushed her breasts up against the fabric. “Oh, suddenly you’re not asking me. You’re telling me. Are you genuinely worried for my safety? Or are you simply trying to keep your friends close and your enemies closer?”
His reasons for wanting her in his room had everything to do with her safety and nothing to do with strategy. And unexpectedly, her suggestion that he was still manipulating her smarted like a kick in the gut.
“Wait.” She unfolded her arms. “Was that a hurt look I saw cross your face just now?”
“Indignation, maybe,” he muttered.
“No, I’m sure it was. Daniel, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I didn’t think you had any.” She rolled her eyes. “That didn’t come out right, either.”
Watching her squirm made him feel a little better.
“I’m really sorry,” she gushed. “I have no idea what to do now that you’re sitting there looking hurt. I didn’t think that was possible. I’m in shock.”
“Stop talking,” he said.
“Okay,” she said sheepishly.
“You look ill.”
“I do?” She sighed.
“Come sit down. I’ve already ordered breakfast.”
She pulled her own laptop from her bag, kicked off her flip-flops, and sat on the sofa. Still feeling insulted, he tried to ignore her and concentrate on his computer screen. She did a better job of this than he did. Surfing bright pink tabloid sites, she
didn’t even seem to notice when room service knocked and wheeled in a steaming cart. She only blinked at Daniel when he handed her a slice of orange and told her to eat it.
After that, she set aside her computer. They ate together in companionable silence, only asking each other in low tones to pass the salt and the butter. He felt a lot better with something in his stomach. She looked less pale, too. He thought the meal had broken the ice between them, until his bare foot accidentally touched hers and she flinched.
When his phone buzzed with the ringtone for his father, he figured he’d better take it, since he’d been avoiding these calls for almost forty-eight hours. He clicked the phone on. “Hello?” he said as if he wasn’t sure who was calling, just to make his father angrier.
His father immediately started yelling so loudly that Daniel was afraid Wendy a few feet away would overhear and be horrified. He watched her out of the corner of his eye, but she didn’t look at him. He used the calmest tones he could muster while getting an earful of abuse.
Finally it was over. He clicked the phone off and placed it far away on the coffee table in distaste, then pulled his computer back onto his knees. He surfed to another of his regular sites and tried to concentrate on the news of a couple of bills making their way through the state legislature in Albany. The longer the silence stretched, the worse he felt, culminating in his realization that he wanted to explain the call to Wendy.
He popped a knuckle. “My dad makes me feel like killing someone.”
“My dad made me feel that way.”
He recalled that college girl again, standing in the dean’s office receiving the news about the death of her father, eyes hollow. She’d been back in class the following Monday, he’d noted at the time. This was what she’d made of herself, out of nothing. The same thing he’d made of himself, when he’d had every possible advantage.
“Your British accent kicks in when you talk to him,” she said.
He shrugged. “I’ve tried to get rid of it. I guess . . . ” He rubbed the bruise under his eye, which had begun to throb. “ . . . I sound like him when I’m stressed.”
“What’s he mad about?” she asked gently. “The picture of Colton in the tabloids with strawberry daiquiri on his face?”
“That, and the rumor he badgered Lorelei so badly at the unveiling of her deceased mother’s wax likeness that she mooned him. I can’t wait to hear what my dad says when the picture of Lorelei surfaces.”
“Maybe that won’t happen.”
“You keep saying that.”
She looked surprised. “Really?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm. My dad used to tell me that when I worried about him working in the coal mine. Of course, he died in the mine, so . . . ” Daniel could tell she was struggling to find a way to end this comment with a joke, but the punch line escaped her completely. She mumbled something inaudible. Then she started over, gesturing to her computer. “Have you actually seen the headline or the photo of Colton?”
“I don’t have to. Why?”
“Just curious,” she said. “I’ve been surfing every gossip site for stories on Lorelei and Colton, like I would every morning for any star I was representing. I’m looking for events we could use to promote Lorelei in the future, or contacts I might find helpful. I’m examining the bylines on pictures in the tabloids to see who’s buying, and which paparazzi are getting the shots and how. While I’ve been watching you, you’ve looked at the political news. That’s it.”
“I don’t have to look at that other garbage. People in my office in New York keep track of it and alert me when there’s a problem. I have to do this job, but I don’t have to enjoy it.”
“Really!” Wendy was aghast.
“Well, yeah.” He’d thought this was obvious, that all PR people felt the same way. “Stars hire me to come here and tell them what to do. I present them with the key to unlock the box and fix all their problems. And then they don’t do what I say. They’re paying me for nothing. If they’re alcoholics or drug addicts, that’s its own problem. But if they’re just obstinate? I don’t understand how they’ve worked so hard to get to this level, or at least lucked their way into it, and now they’re going to throw it all away purely out of stubbornness. I’m Sisyphus for dummies.” He expected to edge further back into her good graces with this joke.
She didn’t laugh. “Look at it from their side. They may be famous, they may be especially talented, but they’re all real people. They get tired. They get frustrated. They want to have fun and do their own thing. It’s hard being a brand name all the time. You should know that better than anybody.”
He looked sharply at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She gave him an innocent smile. “What do you do for fun? Or, to narrow it down, what have you done for fun since you’ve been in Vegas?”
“I got punched the first day. You got hit on the head last night. It hasn’t been fun.”
“You could look at it that way. On the other hand, I let myself enjoy dressing up last night and having my hair done. I get tired sometimes of being the dull workhorse tagging along while my clients enjoy all the glamour. I can have some glamour, too. And the night before, I enjoyed an appletini and got a mani-pedi a few booths away from Lorelei, where she wouldn’t see me. I found a way to have fun despite everything that’s happened. Have you done anything since you’ve been here that wasn’t by the book?”
He gestured to his computer. “I’m having fun surfing the news. I’m interested in politics.”
She gazed at him blankly. “For fun. That’s your fun.”
“Well, for a job. A job I can’t have. You know how they say that if you love your job, you’ll never work a day in your life?”
She gave him a bemused smile like she thought he was kidding. “So what’s this job you can’t have? You want to run for office?”
“Oh, God, no. I want to be behind the scenes, doing basically this same PR job but for politicians whom I actually support.” He paused. “You know, I was class president.”
“I remember.”
“That was just on a whim. My dad was furious because it took so much time away from my class work.”
“Well, your whim got you elected leader of a class of five thousand at a prestigious university, and you still managed to win the Clarkson Prize. I’d say you balanced everything okay.”
He hadn’t told anyone this. He took a breath to speak. Then paused. How could he trust her? This secret wouldn’t ruin him, but it would certainly embarrass his family.
She arched her brows expectantly. And he realized he wanted rather desperately to tell her. She was a colleague in the same industry, a classmate from college. Though she wasn’t an old friend, he was seriously beginning to wonder why not.
“Senator Rowling offered me a job,” he said.
Wendy’s blue eyes widened. “No shit! Doing what?”
“Press secretary for her New York office.”
“Dude!” Wendy leaned across the coffee table between them and shoved his shoulder. “That would be perfect for you! I can see you now, holding a press conference, batting those pesky Times reporters down like flies. Are you going to take it?”
“Nah,” he said with even more reluctance than he’d felt before, now that someone was seconding what a great idea it was.
“You’re not?” she exclaimed. “Then why’d you apply?”
“I didn’t apply. I worked on her campaign when I was in college. They offered me a job then, too, but I couldn’t take it because I had to work for my dad. I still know some people there, and they’ve kept tabs on my work. They came asking for me. I haven’t officially turned them down, because I guess it’s a little . . . ” He opened his hands.
“Heartbreaking,” Wendy finished for him.
“I was going to say ‘disappointing,’ but if you want me to feel even worse about it . . . ”
She laughed halfheartedly. “Why don’t you accept it?”
He
shook his head. “I can’t. My dad expects me to take over the firm next month so he can retire.”
“That sounds like his problem, not yours.”
“No, I have to run the place because my sister really wants to work there. She’s still in college.”
“That sounds like her problem.”
“And my brother . . . ” He looked up at the ceiling, unable to go on. It was impossible to explain his brother, who’d been the only member of the firm killed that morning because he went to work so early to impress their father. Daniel’s voice cracked a little as he said, “You don’t understand.”
“Explain it to me,” she persisted.
“Like . . . ” He was talking with his hands, fingers splayed in front of him, and he’d opened with like—two things his father had constantly belittled him for when he was young. He put his hands down. “Before my brother died, I was interested in history and rhetoric and politics and progress and forward thinking. Nobody told me I couldn’t pursue that, because my brother was there to take over the firm. And then after he died . . . ” Daniel forced himself to put his hands down again. “There was this double whammy. He died, and I couldn’t do what I wanted anymore. But somehow that second lesson never quite sank in.”
“Or,” Wendy said, “you still want that dream career for yourself, and the career you have now is for everybody except yourself.”
He shook his head. “You don’t get it.” She had no idea about that feeling he had sometimes, that he’d had since he was sixteen, of shoring up his whole family so the world didn’t cave in on them.
“Okay,” Wendy said evenly.
He looked over at her. There was absolutely no judgment in her face. She’d been grilling him a few seconds before, but now her expression was devoid of blame.
Absently he flicked his finger across his trackpad. The screen saver blinked off, and five new headlines scrolled up.
“When my dad started the firm,” he said, “things were different. It was a lot easier to keep a secret. There were no social media sites, for one thing. There was no Internet and a lot less television. There were fewer paparazzi because there were fewer outlets for selling a photo. But even more importantly, stars were genuinely stars. There was a reason they were famous—looks, family, occasionally even talent. They didn’t become stars overnight. They didn’t expect to ride the train for a few weeks and lose everything just as quickly. Today’s reality shows have interjected this strange influx of bums, ingrates, and no-talent sons of bitches into the mix, and sometimes you can’t tell who’s who at an Oscars after-party.
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