“It’s Lorelei. I wouldn’t have gotten so plastered last night if my driver hadn’t gotten me talking about her. She makes me crazy, man.” Colton took off his trucker hat, rubbed his hair, and put his hat back on, a gesture Daniel had seen many times before. Other actors got this agitated about women. So did rock stars, celebrity chefs, and professional football players. Daniel himself did not, so he couldn’t empathize.
“You’ve got to help me get her back,” Colton pleaded.
“After she cheated on you and you called her names all over the Internet?”
“Yes!”
People in love were foreign and strange. “I’m not a high-priced relationship counselor,” Daniel pointed out. “I can’t help you get her back. I’m a public relations specialist. The best I could do is make it look like you’ve gotten her back.”
“Then do that,” Colton said, “and maybe the rest will follow.”
He had a point, actually. Daniel didn’t care whether Colton fixed his relationship with Lorelei, or whether that was even a good idea. But the two of them getting back together right before the awards ceremony that they both were starring in would be terrific PR. He surveyed Colton coldly, like he was a penguin behind the glass in the Central Park Zoo, and began to plot how he could use the star’s heartbreak to repair his reputation.
“Let me think about it,” Daniel said vaguely, as if dismissing the idea. “In the meantime, we need a short-term game plan. I don’t want to institute martial law”—actually, he did, but instituting martial law only made stars more likely to go on a bender and land in jail—“but I do want to be notified of where you’re going and why.”
“Giuliana Jacobsen reserved the back room of the Big O club here in the hotel for tonight. I was planning to go to her party.”
Daniel kept himself from wincing or laughing out loud at the name of the club, so provocative it was ridiculous. He said only, “Giuliana Jacobsen, the reality star?”
“Yeah, I know. That’s kind of slumming. But it’s Monday night, so there aren’t a lot of parties to choose from.”
“You mean, Lorelei will be there.”
Colton grinned sheepishly. “I don’t know that for sure, but Lorelei’s staying here in the hotel. It would be easy for her to go. Lorelei likes stuff to be easy. And she doesn’t miss a party.” He gazed out on the Strip. His voice turned dreamy as he said, “I love that about her.”
The trucker hat cast a shadow across Colton’s eyes. Daniel studied him. He knew Colton was twenty-one, but in his hat and sweatshirt and mauled jeans, sitting on the tailored sofa, he looked like a fourteen-year-old after a growth spurt. “What are you planning to wear?” Daniel asked.
Colton looked at him in confusion and gestured to the attire he had on.
Daniel frowned at him.
“What?” Colton demanded. “I’m Colton Farr. I wear what I want.”
“You’re a young actor with public relations problems,” Daniel corrected him, “and you look it. If you want to keep your emcee job for the Hot Choice Awards and land an A-list movie role, you need to look like that. Never dress for the job you already have. Dress for the job you’re trying to get. At this point, it wouldn’t hurt for you to act like you’re trying.”
Colton nodded shortly. “I get it.”
Daniel picked up his glass, drained it, and set it back down with a bang carefully calculated to startle Colton while not quite denting the table or shattering the heavy tumbler. “If you’re going to this party, we need to agree on three things.” He counted them on his fingers. “You will not get too drunk.”
“Agreed.”
“You will not piss anywhere except a urinal.”
Colton laughed until he saw the serious expression on Daniel’s face. Colton’s smile fell away as he repeated, “Agreed.”
“You will not call Lorelei names.”
“Of course not,” Colton said. “I told you I wanted her back, didn’t I?”
Daniel almost felt relieved at Colton’s genuine reaction, and sorry he’d brought it up again or ever mistrusted the actor. But that was just it—Colton was an actor.
Daniel stopped himself just before he reached for his empty glass on the table. The bar was here in the room with him. It was tempting to drown this job in alcohol. But he’d always been able to resist. He wouldn’t make an exception for Colton, Lorelei, and Stargazer PR.
Unless they truly sent Wendy Mann. That woman might drive him to drink after all.
3
Wendy sat up—she’d given herself one hell of a crick in her neck from bending over her computer so long, poring over the files on Lorelei—and pressed her forehead to the cool window as the plane circled Vegas. The Strip was gorgeous at night with every casino outlined in glowing color. The hotels looked so tiny from this altitude that she could hardly imagine how vast they really were, even though she’d lived in some of them for weeks at a time. Her heart beat faster in anticipation. After many missions to pull celebrity addicts out of poker rooms and bordellos, she should have been jaded. She was a little jaded, actually. But Vegas still held much of the charm for her that she’d felt on her first business trip here years ago, as excited at the idea as her assistant had been earlier that day.
She loved the luxury the casinos offered to everyone, not just the high-born. She loved that the seedy part of town was around the corner from the luxe side, so she could lean over and peek into the sort of life she’d left in Morgantown without actually taking a step in that direction. She looked forward to the excitement and noise and music and fashion and lights, blinking like a beacon below her. New York got on her nerves sometimes, Chicago was cold, Los Angeles smelled, but Vegas was still magic.
She grinned again, no longer faking her positive attitude but really feeling optimistic that she would figure out Lorelei soon enough. Lorelei might not need money, but surely she cared enough about something to rein in her bad behavior. Her silver-screen heartthrob dad might have pressured her to hire the agent who had placed her on a teen TV show, which was where she’d met Colton. But six years of experience in this business told Wendy that Lorelei herself had formed her new band, secured a recording contract, and arranged for a tour. And she’d asked for Wendy’s help when ticket sales were so disappointing that the tour was threatened.
So Lorelei cared about her music, or her father’s approval, or living up to the legacy of her dead rock icon mom, or what Colton thought of her after all. Or possibly about the drummer from her band, with whom she was alleged to have had an affair. Everybody cared about something. All Wendy had to do was tease out what that thing was, and then yell at Lorelei until the sinking starlet realized she was throwing that thing away. Except this time Wendy was banned from yelling, damn it.
The plane touched down smoothly in the black night and taxied toward the terminal. It was midnight in New York—Wendy could vouch for this by the itching of her contacts—but only nine in Vegas, and Lorelei’s night of partying would just be getting started. Before the flight attendant had finished announcing that passengers were allowed to use their electronics, Wendy clicked her phone on and checked Lorelei’s various social media accounts. Most of the star’s messages that day had been innocent enough, complimenting the other artists scheduled to perform at the Hot Choice Awards, expressing her excitement. Wendy wasn’t ready to sigh with relief, but at least she knew Lorelei could act like a normal person when pressed.
However, Lorelei’s most recent message gave Wendy pause.
Heard Colton Farr punched out his new PR guy. Sounds about right.
“Ha!” Wendy shouted, drawing the attention of the other businesspeople pulling their bags down from the overhead bins. She’d wanted to punch Daniel Blackstone herself many times in college. She was only sorry that Colton had beaten her to it.
That was her knee-jerk reaction. Then she realized the news wasn’t what she’d initially thought. The Blackstone Firm hadn’t sent Daniel after all. Daniel would never allow anyone to punch him. He would keep much tighter control of the situation than that.
She hurried down the aisle to exit the plane, mentally skipping through other men the Blackstone Firm might have sent. Her disappointment disgusted her. Surely she hadn’t been looking forward to seeing Daniel Blackstone. Did she want to get fired? The fact that he wasn’t on the case was good news. The fact that Colton was going around punching people was good news, too, because it made him look negative and Lorelei look better in comparison.
It could also be bad news. Lorelei and Colton obviously weren’t done with each other, and the last thing Lorelei needed was a volatile—even abusive—boyfriend. Wendy had had one of those herself, and she wouldn’t wish it on anyone. The sick feeling that she had another Rick on her hands crept into her stomach.
As she pondered the possibilities, watching the screen on her phone, a new post from Lorelei popped up with a link to a photo. Wendy followed the link and came face-to-face with a full-screen image of Lorelei’s cleavage, if one could call it that. The br**sts were so diminutive that cl**vage was an optimistic term, implying that there were two separate objects and a clear division between them.
On second thought, Wendy puzzled over the picture, not absolutely sure anymore what part of the body it showed. She turned the phone this way and that, frustrated when the photo turned along with the device. Finally she read the caption. Yep, it was Lorelei’s cl**vage all right.
Poor ex is here at Giuliana Jacobsen’s bash wishing he had some of this.
Marching up the jet bridge, Wendy called the number she’d been given for Lorelei’s cell phone, though that was an exercise in futility. If Lorelei was at this reality star’s party, she wouldn’t hear her phone ring. Even if she did see the call coming through, she wouldn’t call back an unfamiliar number. Wendy texted Sarah.
Lorelei is tweeting pics of her v v small boobies. Girlfriend is off the rails. WHY DIDN’T U WARN ME
She had to wait only thirty seconds for Sarah’s answer.
LOL! You said: “I need to get home and pack. I don’t have time for the rundown.” :P
Wendy hated it when Sarah mocked her with emoticons. But she needed Sarah, so her texts were only mildly sarcastic as she asked Sarah to figure out the location of Giuliana Jacobsen’s party. Luckily it was in a club at the same hotel where Lorelei and therefore Wendy were staying. She slid out of her taxi and wheeled her suitcase through the grand entrance to the casino and across the wildly patterned carpet, toward the Big O. The club’s ridiculous name was spelled out in huge letters and outlined in lights over the doorway.
She slowed as she drew closer. She thought she saw a familiar figure seated at a table next to the glass wall. No, it couldn’t be. She’d imagined in her darkest hour that Daniel Blackstone might be here to represent Colton, but that had been her panic talking. Tall, dark, handsome men in impeccably tailored suits were a dime a dozen in Vegas.
Then he turned his head, eyes following the ass of a passing bar waitress. Wendy caught a glimpse of his profile and those high cheekbones. Damn, it was him.
The table where he now sat was a booth way too big for one person, but nobody was going to tell Daniel Blackstone to move. The booth was elevated several feet above the main floor so he could see over the pulsing crowd and watch everybody who came in the door. He would look things over from the outside first, observing, getting the lay of the land, figuring out who surrounded his client, who had jealousies, who was a potential leak. Only then would he move to the inner room, sticking close to the client, persuading him or pressuring him or, in select cases, blackmailing him into changing his ways.
In short, Daniel sat exactly where Wendy would have sat, doing exactly what Wendy would have been doing, if he hadn’t beaten her to it.
And one of the people he was looking for was her.
Her first instinct was to slip past him into the club room. Just then, his eyes passed over her. She could still duck into the club without speaking to him, but the two of them likely would circle each other slowly over the next few days, running into each other at the same elite parties, as she pulled Lorelei out of her mess and he tended to Colton. Might as well get the formalities over with.
She wasn’t going to drag her suitcase awkwardly up the stairs to his booth, though. First she gave the bartender a sizable tip to lock down her suitcase, computer, and suit jacket, which was too hot for the crowded bar. Then she turned for Daniel—grumbling to herself that he’d put her in a position where she had to look up at him—and noticed his black eye.
This time she didn’t laugh that Daniel had finally gotten smacked. She felt his pain. In college she’d heard his older brother had died in the Blackstone Firm office at the World Trade Center when Daniel was a teenager. Her own father had died when she was a college junior. She understood how a death that close could affect a person. His black eye reminded her of his unexpected vulnerability, and her heart softened.
He must know Wendy saw his eye. He probably knew about Lorelei’s post blaming Colton for the injury, too. Any other PR operative would cringe in embarrassment, afraid to be seen in public. Yet Daniel still watched Wendy coming, confident as ever.
She climbed a short set of stairs to his table, feeling as if she were ascending a dais for an audience with royalty. It’s for your job, to keep your job, she kept telling herself as she willed her body forward.
At the last second, she remembered how she and Sarah had jealously made fun of Daniel in college. In the privacy of their dorm room, they would throw up their hands, shriek “Daniel Blackstone!” and pretend to faint like teens in the fifties swooning over Elvis.