Hot on His Heels (What Happens in Vegas)

by Margo Bond Collins

  “Ooh. Maybe it was that woman who was rude to you when you stopped in front of her,” Amelia suggested.

  “Oh, God. No. It couldn’t be her.” She could feel the blush moving into her cheeks again and rolled over to let the A/C blow directly into her face.

  “Why not?” Amelia sat down on the end of Sadie’s bed and began pulling off her boots.

  “Because she didn’t look…editorial enough.” She flopped onto her back again. “But what if it was? What if I just ruined my entire chance at tenure?” Raising her forearm to cover her eyes, Sadie recited, “‘This is the Hour of Lead.’”

  “Don’t be so overdramatic, Emily Dickinson. You haven’t ruined anything.” Amelia’s voice turned soothing. “This is why you invited me along. Don’t worry. I’ll talk to everyone. We’ll find this editor of yours.”

  “‘Distance and duties divide us, / But absence will not seem an evil / If it make our re-meeting / A real occasion.’” Sadie sat up and smiled at her friend. “Seriously. Thank you so much for being the extravert in this friendship.”

  “W. H. Auden. And no problem.” Amelia stood up and dropped the boots in the closet. Crossing her legs to sit on her own bed, she stretched her arms into the air. “Hey. You think we can also track down the hottie from earlier while we’re at it? Damn.” Amelia’s Southern drawl came out in full force, turning the word into two syllables. “He was something else all together.”

  “That shouldn’t be too hard—it would be impossible to miss him,” Sadie agreed.

  “Must be a cover model,” they said at the same time, then cracked up laughing.

  Two hours later, Sadie stood frozen at the entrance to the exhibition ballroom, staring out across the expanse of tables and banners. Her stomach twisted at the thought of making her way through the hundreds of people crowded into the room. If she weren’t desperate to find Jocelyn, she’d have dashed back to her room and pulled the crisp sheets over her head.

  “I can’t go in there.”

  “Of course you can. You had no problem making your way through the crowd at the opening ceremony this morning.” Giving her friend a tiny shove in the small of her back, Amelia pressed Sadie inside. “Remember, you’re on a mission. There’s nothing to be afraid of. No one here will even notice us.”

  That was part of the problem, though Sadie would never tell Amelia that. For as long as they had known each other, Amelia had assumed that Sadie’s almost paralyzing fear of anonymous groups came from some terror of being noticed, singled out, remarked upon in some way.

  But she wasn’t afraid of being picked out of the crowd. Because one thing she knew for sure? That would never happen.

  Really, Sadie’s problem was the exact opposite. She was terrified of never being noticed at all.

  Add dating or sex into the equation, and that anxiety intensified. Bad enough never to be noticed—but never to be noticed by men was somehow worse.

  No one would ever look up, see her, and feel a jolt of electricity course through him.

  Hell, Sadie would be lucky if anyone ever saw past the frizzy hair, the loose clothing, the way she rounded her shoulders just enough to protect herself from all the people who dashed past her on their way to someplace important.

  Not that she couldn’t deal with any kind of group. Put her in front of a classroom, and she was in her element. Best literature professor ever, more than one student had proclaimed. And academic conferences, with their reasoned arguments and discussions that grew heated only over purely theoretical issues—she knew how to handle those. Still, she could count on her fingers the numbers of times anyone had initiated a conversation with her outside of the carefully controlled discussion sessions at an academic conference.

  And this was no academic conference.

  Here, at a romance publishing conference? This was most definitely not her element. The room was filled with flamboyant women dressed in bright, flowing dresses, business-attired editors and publishers deep in deal-making conversations with one another, and cover models in all their amazing beauty. Far too many of these people were…not out of her league, exactly, but playing a different game altogether. And Sadie didn’t know the rules.

  Was it really worth it to try to interact with these people, just to find the one person she wanted to interview?

  Not only was it worth it, her shot at tenure depended upon it. She needed her book to be revolutionary. And she was certain a Q-and-A with Jocelyn Dellarivier would give it that extra oomph it needed.

  “Look over there,” Sadie hissed, scrabbling behind her to grab Amelia’s fingers and tug her friend up beside her. “Those are cover models. Actual, real-life cover models.” Pulling Amelia to an empty corner, she pressed her back against the wall. After a second, Sadie realized she was scanning the group for the beautiful man from the morning session.

  Amelia let out a long, low whoosh of air. “Yes, yes, they are models. Damn. They can model for me any old time.”

  Choosing to ignore the fact that she was the one who had pointed them out in the first place, Sadie said, “Quit staring.” Stepping into Amelia’s line of sight, she waved. “Over here. Come on. We’re here on a mission, remember?”

  “Who knew this many people read romance? I thought we were the only ones.” Amelia’s gaze took in the crowd, groups of people weaving their way through the various booths, but her eyes inevitably wandered back to the slightly raised dais where the cover models were signing copies of the books featuring their beautiful, toned bodies. “But maybe we could start over there,” she said, a dimple flashing in her cheek.

  Sadie couldn’t help but laugh at her friend. “Okay, okay. We’ll go check out the models. But can we at least start with Intertwined Publishing’s booth? If we’re going to objectify someone, it should at least be someone from Jocelyn’s publishing company.”

  “Are any of Intertwined’s stories set in Scotland?” Amelia asked, her stare riveted to one particularly muscular model sporting a kilt and, as far as Sadie could tell, little else.

  “If they’re not, we can come back and meet McDougal.” She dragged her phone out of her oversize black shoulder bag, pulled up the online conference map, and studied it one more time, as if she hadn’t memorized every detail before she even got on the plane out here.

  “I’ll bet McDougal is frugal with underwear.”

  Sadie shook her head and smiled. “You’re terrible, Amelia.”

  “I want him to punish me,” she replied. She caught the man’s eye and wiggled her fingers in a flirty wave.

  “Come, Amelia,” Sadie said, pointing at the large screen with the Intertwined logo. “There they are—the models and the main booth.”

  “Okay.” Reluctantly, Amelia dragged her gaze away from the kilted laird. “Books and eye candy. Lead on.”

  Taking a deep breath, Sadie dove into the crowd, all the while reminding herself that it was fine if no one saw her.

  She didn’t need to be noticed.

  That, Sadie had decided long before, was why she felt such an affinity to Jocelyn Dellarivier. The editor was famous—among certain circles, anyway—for her reclusive nature. She did all her editorial work electronically. Not even her authors knew who she really was.

  Yet according to Intertwined’s blog, Jocelyn Dellarivier was here, somewhere at this conference, quietly on the lookout for new talent. And, for the first time, she was tweeting.

  It would be quite the coup to track down the recluse. Scoring an interview with Dellarivier would be the perfect finishing touch to the academic treatise Sadie had been working on ever since she took her position as an assistant professor.

  Under the Covers: Feminism and Romance Novels in the Twenty-First Century would be the definitive work on the topic.

  It didn’t matter if no one here noticed a slight, frizzy-haired woman in an oversize skirt and cardigan as she slipped through the throngs of people packed around the tables hoping to snag autographs from their favorite authors.

  Sadie
didn’t need to be seen in this world.

  Once her book was out, she would be heard in her own world.

  The world that really mattered. The real world.

  Maybe if she said it to herself often enough, she would eventually believe it.

  …

  Jake glanced up from adding more copies of The Bedroom Bargain to Janie Gooding’s stack to sign and groaned.

  Crap. There was the tiny, beautiful fangirl again.

  Sadie Quinn. Why do I know that name?

  Maybe this time she was after someone else.

  But no, she had planted herself right in the signing line. He gauged the time it was likely to take her to wend her way up to the front. Maybe he could duck out long enough to grab coffee and bring some back for Kamille and Janie, avoid the woman altogether.

  The line was moving fast. He could hear her talking to her friend, explaining why she needed the Jocelyn Dellarivier interview and how her book—the one that she was creating from her dissertation—wouldn’t be solid without it.

  Sadie Quinn.

  Dr. Sadie Quinn. Working on expanding her dissertation into a book.

  Holy shit. It’s her. The serial emailer. The woman he had come to view as a professorial harridan.

  The realization hit him like a bucket of cold water.

  She had spent the last three years emailing him. Though, as far as she was concerned, all of her unanswered correspondence had gone to another woman—messages that might, under other circumstances, have been flattering.

  If, for example, he actually was the female editor he claimed to be. Then it might be nice to be called the most feminist editorial voice in the business.

  “Hey, Jake,” Janie called over her shoulder, flipping her long, dark, straight hair behind one shoulder. “Could you grab my bag from under the other table? I have a clip in there, and my hair is driving me crazy.” The line of fans snaked away from the table and around behind Intertwined’s models, also busy signing books and prints of book covers. Janie would be there for the rest of the day if the fans had their way.

  The task of rooting through her purse gave him something to focus on other than his strange fascination with his own superfan. He watched her out of the corner of his eye, only half paying attention when he gave the hair clip to Janie.

  Sadie Quinn. He had a hard time believing she was really a college professor. This woman acted more like a librarian.

  Oh, she had the professor look down—shapeless skirt, sloppy sweater—but under that wild mass of light-brown curls, she looked too young, too delicate. More like the undergraduates she taught than the professor she was.

  It didn’t seem fair that he knew so much about her but she knew almost nothing about him.

  But he couldn’t give away anything without giving away everything about who he was and what he did for a living.

  Or why he had to keep it a secret.

  …

  “Look.” Amelia’s loud whisper was followed by a shove against Sadie’s shoulder, so hard that Sadie almost dropped the phone she had been using to check Jocelyn’s Twitter account. “It’s that hot model guy from the session this morning.”

  Sadie pushed Amelia’s pointed finger down. “I see him.” Tilting her head to one side, she narrowed her eyes, then pulled a pair of glasses out of the voluminous bag hanging over her arm. Perching them on her nose, she peered first through them, then over them.

  “What are you doing?” This time Amelia was the one hissing.

  “I’m pretty sure that’s Kamille Stone right there.” The woman at the front of the line finished gushing at the author and moved away from the table, and everyone took a step forward.

  “Who?” Amelia scanned the people around them.

  “The woman behind the table. The publisher.” Sadie tapped her chin with one unpainted nail. “And that guy isn’t acting like a model. He’s acting like he works for the company.”

  “You know they can probably hear every word we’re saying.” Amelia nudged her friend forward as the line inched closer.

  With a shake of her head and a flick of her wrist, Sadie pointed one finger in the air and waved it around in a circle to indicate the whole room. “Ambient noise. They’re not hearing anything.”

  As the last person in line stepped away from the signing table, Sadie moved up to take her place.

  “Actually,” Kamille Stone said sweetly, a huge smile on her face, “the acoustics in here are amazing. It’s like they funnel the sound straight from the line up to us.”

  Amelia’s answering smile faltered, and the hot burn of a flush flashed up the side of Sadie’s neck and into her face where it settled like a campfire emitting a flickering glow.

  It didn’t matter, though. She could ignore any embarrassment she felt.

  All I have to do is pretend I’m talking to a colleague.

  “Hi,” she said, sticking out her hand. “I’m Professor Sadie Quinn. I was wondering if you could help me find Jocelyn Dellarivier. I’m working on an academic book and need to interview her to round out the final chapter.”

  Despite a bemused expression, the publisher shook Sadie’s hand, then pulled her off to one side of the table. Amelia followed, listening avidly. “As I’m sure you know,” Stone said, “Jocelyn is deeply private. She is indeed here, though. Have you considered reaching out to her via email?”

  Sadie’s heart sank, her expression falling to match. “I’ve tried,” she said, her voice glum. “She never responded.”

  Stone gestured toward the man Sadie had been doing her very best to avoid—the gorgeous guy from the auditorium this morning.

  “This is Jake, my PA,” Stone said. “He probably knows as much about Jocelyn as anyone.” She flicked an oddly sharp glance toward her assistant. “Jake,” she said in a saccharine tone. “Please make a note to tell Jocelyn that I would appreciate it if she would answer her emails more regularly.”

  The look Jake shot toward his employer was equal parts amused and exasperated. “I really don’t think Jocelyn is here to socialize,” he said pointedly, aiming his remarks as much at Kamille Stone as Sadie.

  “But she is supposed to have a presence at the conference.” Laughter danced in the publisher’s eyes.

  Jake shook his head and sighed, but a smile hovered around his lips.

  “It would be really good publicity,” Sadie assured him earnestly.

  The comment drew his attention back to her, the full force of his gaze knocking her silent for a moment.

  He really is beautiful.

  She waited for him to break the silence. Instead, he merely blinked at her, and Sadie realized how long his eyelashes were.

  “Oh,” she whispered, “‘the fringed curtains of thine eye advance.’”

  “Pardon me?” Jake’s brows drew down in puzzlement.

  “It’s a line from Shakespeare. The Tempest,” Amelia said, as if that explained everything.

  Get it together, Dr. Quinn, Sadie admonished herself. You’re here to interview Jocelyn Dellarivier, not rhapsodize over some man’s eyes. No matter how stunning he might be.

  Publicity. That’s where she had been.

  “An interview with Jocelyn Dellarivier would be excellent publicity for Intertwined,” she finally managed to spit out.

  Jake shook his head a little, as if coming back to himself. “I don’t really think she cares about the publicity.”

  Kamille snorted. “But the company might.”

  “She always says no to interviews.” His tone had lost the lightness it had before, and Kamille finally shrugged.

  “Up to her, I guess,” the publisher said.

  “But it would do more than offer advertising.” Sadie leaned in, warming to her subject. “My project is designed to bring an entire new generation of scholars to read romance novels.” She launched into a description of her monograph and its significance in legitimizing romance novels as objects worthy of feminist study within the academic community.

  After only a
minute or so, Amelia took Sadie by the elbow and pulled her away. “Come on, sweetie,” she said. “Your audience’s eyes are starting to glaze over.”

  “Not at all,” Kamille Stone said, but she didn’t encourage Sadie to continue, either. “It was nice meeting you, Professor Quinn,” she said. “I will see what I can do to encourage Jocelyn to communicate with you.”

  This time Jake was the one who snorted. “Not likely,” he said dryly. But he watched Sadie as she left, his eyes narrowed in a considering gaze.

  “I don’t think they believe they can get Jocelyn to talk to me,” Sadie said to Amelia, craning her head back to watch the Intertwined publisher as they walked away. “It’s all crumbling around me. ‘Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’”

  Amelia rolled her eyes as she continued to tug Sadie out of the room. “Percy Bysshe Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias,’ and it doesn’t really suit the situation, you know.”

  “But it does. I am about to lose my shot at tenure. That was my last chance.”

  “Come on,” Amelia said. “Time to take your mind off your troubles. Let’s go see if we can find out what those Scotsmen have under their kilts.” Placing one hand on her chest, she declaimed, “‘Wherever I wander, wherever I rove / The hills of the Highlands forever I love.’”

  For the first time since they had arrived, Sadie’s laughter was completely unforced. “That’s from a Robert Burns poem. And it’s not the hills you love.”

  “Maybe not.” Amelia grinned as she tucked her arm into her friend’s and headed back toward the models. “But it’s a start.”

  Chapter Three

  “I’m pretty sure you’re forgetting the vacation part of this working vacation.” Amelia peered in the mirror as she adjusted first the straps on her sundress and then the angle of her wide-brimmed straw hat.

  Sadie didn’t even look up from her computer screen. “You’re insane. It’s burning up outside.”

  “Of course it is. It’s a desert.” Amelia stopped at the door. “Sure you don’t want to take a break from finishing that chapter and come with me?”