by Jami Alden
But it got worse from there. “Of course, my favorite shots of you are of the more…candid variety.” His mouth had slackened with booze and lust, and he’d reached out a fat, maggoty finger to touch the bare skin of her arm.
She knew exactly what he was referring to. It had been over a year since her ex had posted those photos, and people—even supposedly sophisticated, filthy rich men like Mort Zimmer—still thought it was awesome fun to throw them in her face at every turn. Alyssa had wanted to punch him, to bury her small fist in his sweaty, piggy face, but of course she couldn’t. After all the work she’d done to prove to her father that she’d cleaned up her act, that she was worthy of his attention and affection, worthy of being accepted into his real family, she wasn’t about to risk it all by getting into a public brawl with one of San Francisco’s most prominent real estate developers.
“Are you even listening to me?” Grace asked, her face right next to Alyssa’s, the scent of vodka like a physical presence on the older woman’s breath. People who claimed vodka didn’t have an odor hadn’t been around Grace Van Weldt after four martinis.
Alyssa resisted the urge to jerk her arm from her stepmother’s grip. No public scenes. That had been her mantra for the past six months, and she was sticking to it. Her temples throbbed so hard her knees almost buckled. Even if it killed her. “I’m sorry, Grace,” she said, softening her tone with an appropriate level of contrition. “I needed a breather from the crowd.”
“Ha!” Grace barked, drawing a few stares. Despite Alyssa’s father’s efforts to maintain an appearance of happy family harmony—scandal-courting illegitimate daughter and all—it was no great secret that Grace despised Alyssa and what she represented: Oscar Van Weldt’s brief affair with the model and actress Alexis Miles. Or, as the press liked to call her, “Sexy Lexy.”
Grace would have been content to look the other way and go on as before, had Lexy not turned up pregnant, insisting Oscar support both her and her child in a style she knew he could more than afford. Grace’s animosity was nothing new. The first time Alyssa had met her stepmother at the age of four at her father’s insistence, Grace had waited until everyone had left the room and then pulled Alyssa aside. “If I had my way, you would have been a stain on some doctor’s examining table.” The most chilling part was the smile that had never left her face.
Grace wore the same smile now, though the vodka caused it to blur around the edges. She was a master at that—saying the most horrible things to a person, a cool, perfectly composed smile on her face the entire time.
Alyssa tried to follow her stepmother’s lead, though the building headache made it almost impossible. “I still haven’t been over by the buffet, Grace, so if you would excuse me—”
“Is everything okay?” Alyssa’s half sister, Kimberly Van Weldt, put her hand over her mother’s and gently but firmly removed it from Alyssa’s wrist. “Mother, Chandler Tate-Wallace was asking about the ring. Why don’t you freshen your drink, and I’ll take Alyssa over to her.”
Grace muttered something about having to take care of her own drink but started off in the direction of the bar.
“Where’s Chandler?” Alyssa asked, scanning the ballroom for the woman.
Kimberly smiled conspiratorially and waved a slender, perfectly manicured hand. “Oh, that was just an excuse to get Mother to leave you alone.”
“Thank you,” Alyssa replied, feeling her headache ease infinitesimally, and gave her sister’s arm a grateful squeeze. When her father had proposed his plan to shoehorn Alyssa into both the Van Weldt jewelry empire and the family business, Alyssa hadn’t expected an ally in the half sister she’d met exactly twice in her life.
But Kimberly had been shocking in her welcome. Despite her cool reserve and ice-queen good looks, she’d welcomed Alyssa with relatively open arms. Sure, she was still a little reserved, but considering she’d been born with a silver spoon in her mouth and a stick up her butt, she’d turned out to be surprisingly cool as far as Alyssa could tell.
Tall and elegant in her silvery blue strapless taffeta gown, pale blond hair in a sleek knot, and Van Weldt diamonds glittering at her throat and ears, Kimberly was the polar opposite of Alyssa. Where Alyssa was constant, kinetic energy and impulsiveness, Kimberly was cool elegance and reserve. While Alyssa’s antics had been splashed across the covers of every major tabloid in the US and Britain, Kimberly had never so much as received a parking ticket.
So when Kimberly had stepped willingly into the role of big sister, Alyssa had glommed on without hesitation, hoping some of Kimberly’s composure and control would rub off enough to make her father proud of her.
Alyssa glanced around the massive ballroom and saw her father’s stocky, tuxedoed form as he spoke to the party’s host. Grace had caught up with him and clutched his arm, probably to steady herself because the woman wasn’t prone to shows of public affection.
Oscar looked and caught Alyssa’s gaze. His face creased in a smile, and he waved her over. Her stomach clenched in nervous anticipation as she worked her way through the crowd. She’d grown so accustomed to his disapproval it was still hard for her to believe she would receive anything other than a harsh lecture when she reached his side.
But Oscar reached for her hand and brushed a brief, dry kiss on her cheek. It was as much affection as he showed anyone, and Alyssa’s soul sucked it up like a desert drinking rain.
“You look very lovely tonight,” he said, “and you are doing a beautiful job displaying the jewels.”
Alyssa ignored Grace’s scoffing laugh and slurred comment about other things Alyssa had displayed. Her father had just given her the kind of praise she’d been craving every day of her twenty-four years. She wasn’t about to let Grace ruin it. “Thank you, Daddy,” she said with extra emphasis for Grace’s benefit. Usually she tried to have empathy for the woman’s position—it had to suck to have to deal with your husband’s illegitimate child—but sometimes Alyssa couldn’t resist getting in a dig of her own. She held up her right wrist, adorned with a platinum cuff encrusted with diamonds. “But I think a warthog could be wearing these pieces and still get a good price.”
“You make them glow,” Oscar said. “That is why the campaign is so successful.”
Pleased heat rose in her cheeks. She knew damn well the campaign was successful because of her notoriety, but it felt pathetically good to hear her father say different.
“Speaking of the campaign,” her father continued, “I would like you to come to the house for breakfast tomorrow. I have things I need to discuss with you.”
The warmth fled, and anxiety took over at the sober tone of his voice. “Is something wrong?” She racked her brain, going over her every move in the last week, wondering if she’d done anything to embarrass herself or the family. “Have I—”
He cut her off with an absent pat to her hand. “You have done nothing, but we need to have a talk.” His watery blue eyes got a sad, faraway look.
“Okay,” Alyssa said, uneasy despite her father’s assurance that she hadn’t done anything—this time.
Another guest, a prominent venture capitalist, came up and shook Oscar’s hand. Instantly the distracted look was gone as Oscar smiled and greeted the man and his wife.
Alyssa took that as her cue to work the room, pimping the Van Weldt diamonds like a good little girl.
She flitted around the room, her bright smile fixed, teeth gritted as she made inane conversation, laughed at stupid jokes, pretended not to notice the stares, the whispers, the snide comments behind her back.
It’s worth it, she reminded herself, holding her father’s small bit of praise close to her heart.
But it didn’t make it any easier. When she’d moved up here from Los Angeles, she’d hoped for a new beginning. A clean slate away from the crazy spectacle she’d let her life become. Unfortunately four hundred miles wasn’t nearly enough distance to wipe away the stupid things she’d done in her past, especially when her stupidity was well document
ed by international media outlets.
Someday I will prove myself. Someday these people will stop thinking they’re better than I am.
Her temples throbbed again, and she felt a wild churning in her chest—the rising need to do something wild, something silly, something that would really knock this staid crowd of muckety mucks on their asses. The urge that made her want to give the world the finger and say, “If you’re going to stare, I may as well give you something to look at.”
The same impulse that, at the age of eighteen, had made her strip down to her bra and thong and do a swan dive off her mother’s boyfriend’s yacht in full view of the paparazzi lurking around Miami. The same impulse that had made her switch costumes with an exotic dancer last year so she could show off her pole-dancing skills.
The same impulse that had convinced her it would be fun to let her boyfriend, Eddie, take racy pictures of her for his own private enjoyment.
Unfortunately Eddie’s idea of “private” included his Face-Place page, where he had about eight bazillion “friends.”
She’d learned the hard way to ignore the devil on her shoulder who liked to egg her on, screaming, “This will be so great!” Yeah, it usually was great, and fun, and funny, for an hour, a day, even weeks. Until the rest of the world weighed in and called her a vapid idiot. And that was one of the nicer articles.
So Alyssa had been ignoring the urge for wild rumpus of late, both to please her father and for her own well being. She was twenty-four now, and it was time to stop acting like a child in constant need of attention.
Don’t I know it, she thought as she felt the eyes of the crowd boring into her skin.
Through it all, she felt another pair of eyes. Hard and so hot they burned her from the inside out.
Alyssa nodded at the elderly woman who said something about the size of the diamond on Alyssa’s finger, but her gaze strayed once again to the gallery where he stood.
This time she caught him looking at her. Her lips curved in a smile when he looked away.
Derek Taggart. His name suited him. Hard and tough with plenty of sharp edges. He was beautiful in a way that reminded her of the harsh granite faces of the Grand Tetons. Rugged and chiseled, with great eyes, square jaw, and cheekbones that stood out beneath his skin.
One look at him, and she knew he wasn’t a party guest. She would have noticed him immediately if he’d been in the crowd. His size alone would have drawn her attention. He wasn’t merely tall, he was huge, towering over her, but from what she could tell it was all hard muscle. But it didn’t take a psychic to see he wasn’t part of this crowd, that he was here to work and he took his job very, very seriously.
She watched him, stationed up on the gallery like a sentry guarding a tower, his weight going from foot to foot as he surveyed the crowd, ready to spring into action at the slightest provocation. The jacket of his suit pulled tight as he folded his massive arms across his chest. His gaze slid back to her, and even from across the room and one story down, she could feel its heat. It unknotted the tension in her neck, slid down her spine, and sent a warm glow shimmering down her thighs.
This time he didn’t break the stare, and it was she who reluctantly turned away. She continued to work the room, shilling for silent auction bids on the small fortune in diamonds that adorned her finger and wrist. Through it all she could feel him looking at her, his gaze like firm, warm fingers tracing over her skin.
Being stared at wasn’t new. She’d lived in a fishbowl her entire life, first thanks to her mother’s and then to her own publicity-attracting antics. Yes, sometimes it chafed, never more than recently, but Alyssa had grown so used to being looked at, watched, and judged she was almost immune to it.
“…disgusting. Mindy is sixteen, and because of Alyssa Miles she thinks it’s okay to go around dressed like a whore and sleeping with everyone in sight.”
The snippet of conversation pierced Alyssa’s warm glow. Almost immune.
Alyssa turned and gave the woman a guileless smile as if she hadn’t heard a single barb.
She blocked out the woman’s comments, instead focusing on him. His stare, sliding over her like a hot flame. He wanted her. She could feel it. That, too, was nothing new. Not because she was extraordinarily beautiful. But she knew she had her appeal and had played up her image as a sultry, playful sexpot in the press. Now it was all but guaranteed that men looked at her and thought of only one thing.
But this was different. Derek was different.
He had no idea who she was.
A delicious thrill had shot through her the moment realization had dawned in the study. When he walked into the room, all her senses had gone on high alert. Not only was he a strange man, he was an attractive strange man. No. Scratch that. A smoking-hot-set-the-skin-of-your-inner-thighs-on-fire man. The last thing she wanted was for him to notice her reaction to his dark, sun-streaked hair, chiseled jaw, and acres of muscles.
So when he’d tried to hustle her back to the party, she’d done what she always did in those situations. Put on her “don’t you know who you’re dealing with” act and tried to shoo him away like the insignificant insect she pretended to think he was.
But he wasn’t having any of it. He didn’t care who she was. Because he didn’t know who she was.
He hadn’t so much as quivered an eyelash when she’d told him her name. She couldn’t remember the last time that had happened.
Derek, who was already a blatant ten, had shot up to fifteen on the hotness scale. When he shook her hand she’d felt scorched all the way down to her red toenails.
And he felt it, too. She could see the surge of awareness in his eyes, the blast of desire, quickly shuttered by his dark gaze. But he couldn’t hide it. Not completely.
The thrill shot through her again, and it was all she could do to keep still as another socialite held Alyssa’s arm so the woman’s husband could admire the platinum cuff. Derek wanted her. And not like other men wanted her. He didn’t want the crazy-sexy party girl or the notorious heiress.
He didn’t want to fuck her so he could brag to his friends and the media about how he’d nailed Alyssa Miles and it really wasn’t all that great after all.
He didn’t want to fuck her so she could introduce him to a producer, a director, or a record-label executive.
Derek Taggart looked at her and saw a gorgeous girl he’d met at a fancy party and wanted to get with. As simple as that.
Sure, he probably saw her as a rich bitch—her initial response ensured that, much to her regret. But she could get past that. Her public persona was another beast entirely. It wasn’t an image she cultivated, but once established she used it to her advantage and had thought she’d made peace with the fact that it would forever taint every interaction she had with another human being.
But she felt a gut-deep thrill from knowing a man like Derek wanted her. Not the image. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had wanted her for herself.
There was nothing to be done about it, though. As the night wore on, Alyssa didn’t have another opportunity to speak to Derek, even though she knew he tracked her every move. She considered sneaking back to the study, just to see if he’d chase her down, but as the silent auction drew to a close she was surrounded by guests who all wanted one last look at Van Weldt Jeweler’s exquisite designs.
“I’m going to walk Mother and Daddy out.” Kimberly leaned down to speak quietly into Alyssa’s ear.
“But they haven’t even done the auction yet,” Alyssa said, frowning. She knew her father would want to stay and find out how much his donated jewels had fetched.
“I know,” Kimberly replied, her voice lowering so no one else could hear. “But I’m afraid Mother is about to lose it.”
Alyssa looked across the ballroom, where Grace clung to Oscar’s arm. As Alyssa watched, Grace weaved, barely noticeable to the untrained eye. Her social smile was gone, and her mouth was pursed tight.
“Oh, and I reminded Bryan to pick you up in th
e back by the servants’ entrance so you won’t have to deal with the photographers.”
Alyssa nodded, grateful her sister had remembered. In the past six months, Alyssa had done a complete one-eighty with the press. Now, unless she was with her family or doing publicity on behalf of the company, she avoided reporters like the plague.
Which only served to make her a more tempting target. She knew that along with the hired photographer there were dozens of paparazzi outside the Bancrofts’ mansion in Atherton, waiting for a glimpse of Alyssa, hoping she’d do something stupid like slip and fall and lose her top or show her underwear.
Finally the auction was over, and most of the guests were milling around the front door, waiting for their cars and limos to arrive.
Alyssa did another scan of the room, tamping down her disappointment when she didn’t see Derek. Stupid. What do you think is going to happen?
She closed her eyes, memorizing his face, taking that memory of desire in his eyes and curling it close.
She retrieved her coat from the coat check and slipped out the back entrance, down the short driveway that led to the street on the side of the house opposite the front door.
And waited. She looked at her watch. It was still early, not even ten. But the crowd at these things always skewed older, and Alyssa figured they all needed to get home and tucked into bed before midnight.
Another ten minutes passed, and Bryan, the driver from the car service, still wasn’t there. Annoyed, she flicked open her cell phone and called.
Bryan’s town car had been clipped on the freeway. Another car was en route, but it would be at least a half hour before it arrived.
Alyssa bit back a curse.
“What’s up with you going where you’re not supposed to?”
The deep, gruff voice slid around her, grabbed her, and wouldn’t let go. She couldn’t have held back her smile if she’d wanted to.
His eyes were hidden in shadow, but his mouth curved into a half smile, and a dimple creased the left corner of his mouth. His lips were firm and full, and she knew they’d be hot against her skin.
