by Susan Sey
Erik gave her knee a distracted pat as the limo crept forward, easing them closer and closer to Mary Jane’s personal vision of hell. “Sure you can.”
“No, I can’t. This is not what I signed up for. I’m a doctor, not a movie star.” She yanked at the hem of the black cocktail dress that had been elegant and mysterious last week. Now, thanks to a stress-related doughnut habit, it hugged and snugged and blabbed everything. She checked one last time for powdered sugar on her skirt.
“You look fine.”
“You know I hate crowds.” She hauled at the dangerous V neckline as if she could make it swallow a few more inches of cleavage by sheer force of will.
They stopped again. Only two limos left to disgorge their passengers at the red carpet, then it would be Mary Jane’s turn. Her breath came faster and shallower until black spots began to dance before her eyes. She grabbed Erik by the lapels of his tux and shook him with the strength of the truly terrified.
“What am I supposed to do?” she wailed. “Where do I walk? What do I do with my hands? What do I say?”
He gazed at her with wide, startled eyes, finally recognizing her as a woman in crisis. About goddamn time, she thought.
“Jesus,” he said, “you’re hyperventilating.”
He shoved her head toward her knees but she clawed at his hand. “Are you nuts? I can’t bend over in this thing! It took two Spanx just to get the zipper up.”
Erik paused. “I have no idea what that means, but you probably shouldn’t mention it on TV.”
“Spanx, Erik. You know, Gwyneth Paltrow’s girdle of choice? Everybody wears them, even stick-skinny Missy Jensen, probably.” She turned her attention to the window again, the red carpet exerting the same sick fascination over her as bloody car accidents exerted over people who hadn’t seen enough of that sort of thing in med school.
She watched Nixie step out of the limo in front of them, and a queer shock of recognition but not-recognition shot through her.
“Whoa, except her. No girdle on her,” she said, letting her breath whistle out through her teeth. “Hello, Hollywood Nixie. That’s a little stunning, isn’t it? When you’re used to Reception Desk Nixie, I mean.”
“She’s not a Barbie, Mary Jane.”
She ignored him and watched as Nixie’s jeweled bodice--filled with exactly the correct amount of cleavage, Mary Jane noted with envy--shattered the flashbulbs and left them hanging in the air around her like diamond dust. “No Spanx on this girl. There can’t be. It would be a crime to put anything between that material and your skin.” She sighed. “It must be like wearing clouds.”
She glanced at Erik but he gazed determinedly at his knees, and Mary Jane’s brows inched up her forehead. No straight man in her acquaintance would ignore the sight of Nixie Leighton-Brace dressed up like the Greek goddess of sunsets and precious jewels, striding up the red carpet on those thoroughbred legs. Interesting.
“That guy she’s with seems to like it, anyway. God, he’s practically petting her.”
“She’s letting Harper pet her?” Erik sat up and looked out the window.
She smiled at the look of stunned wonderment on his face as he got a load of Nixie in all her glory. The girl had spent a lot of time these past weeks holding back, dressing down, fitting in. But Nixie wasn’t holding back jack tonight. No, tonight she’d unleashed that whatever-it-was Nixie had, that full-tilt charisma and that, together with her perfect bones and her ability to wear couture like it was yesterday’s pajamas, had the paparazzi on its knees before her, worshipping their own personal deity. Tonight, Nixie was burning the house down and knocking the oh-so-practical Erik on his ass in the process. Mary Jane was just evil enough to enjoy that.
“Nah,” she said. “But giving you crap always takes my mind off my worries, and since I can’t put my head between my knees...”
“Nice.”
“Hey, I’m this close to a nervous breakdown and this is working for me.”
“I hope so because we’re up.”
“Oh, dear God.”
He smiled, but it was small and grim. “Let’s go, doctor.”
She crossed herself, said as much of the Hail Mary as she could remember and shoved open the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Sloan stood on the second story balcony outside the ballroom and watched Nixie stride up the red carpet, power and elegance in every step. Sloan’s heart swelled with pride she knew she didn’t deserve. She hadn’t taught Nixie any of this, except maybe how to walk in heels. The rest--the composure, the serenity, the perfect knowledge of her own worth--Nixie had earned all by herself in the years when Sloan was too busy, too afraid to be a mother. Nixie had brought herself up and it showed.
God damn, her little girl had done a good job.
Nixie moved though the crowd, and every face followed her like flowers tracking the sun through the sky. She was so much like her father that Sloan had to close her eyes against an unruly rush of bittersweet love. She didn’t spare a glance for the man she’d screwed for two pathetic weeks, the one now basking in Nixie’s afterglow like some kind of parasite.
“Nixie’s shaky tonight,” Karl said. Sloan turned to find him in the darkness of the balcony behind her, swiping at his scalp with a hanky. She gave a light laugh, though she had to reach a little to pull it off. She didn’t feel light tonight.
“She doesn’t look shaky. She looks...powerful.” Sloan narrowed her eyes and studied her daughter more closely. “Yes. Powerful and pissed.” She cut her eyes to Karl, who hovered just behind her shoulder. Always in the wings, always pulling strings. “You two had words?”
“She thinks she’s in love with the damn doctor.” He gazed down at Nixie who looked perfectly at home in the mayhem of strobing flashbulbs.
A waiter passed by the French doors separating them from the ballroom crowd and Karl took a couple glasses of champagne from his tray. He offered one to Sloan, who took it and helped herself to a healthy swallow. It went down like money, rich and ripe with possibility. He ignored his own glass, she noticed. Just like always.
Sloan followed his gaze to the red carpet, to Nixie’s handsome Viking doctor handing a stiff blonde out of a limo.
“What if she is in love?” Sloan asked.
Karl paced the tiny balcony like a caged animal, his bulk and his energy pushing Sloan up against the railing. “Christ, Sloan, I’m sure she is. Nixie loves everybody. That’s what she does. It’s who she is. But he’s not in love with her, okay?”
“He’s not?”
“No. And he didn’t deliver the news with any kind of finesse, either. Kid took a hard hit.”
Sloan shook her head wonderingly. “How on earth do you find these things out?”
Karl ignored this. “She’s reeling a little still. I don’t trust her to follow through on the bargain we made with Senator Harper.”
“To bring the prodigal son back into the fold?”
“Right.” He stopped pacing and cut her a look. “You’re going to have to help her, Sloan.”
A wave of weariness washed over her. The last time Karl had said those words, she’d had to fuck her daughter’s boyfriend across Europe. God she was tired. But she upended her glass of champagne and set it on the wide marble balustrade with a practical click. Time to shoulder her responsibilities. Again. “What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing like last time.”
“Thank God for small favors.” Sloan felt her mouth curve, but wouldn’t have called it a smile.
“Senator Harper packed this gala with a lot of people who’ll write big, fat checks on his say-so. He’ll expect his money’s worth from Nixie. And if she balks--” Karl spread his hands and smiled, his teeth very white in his beard.
“--I’ll be there with the cattle prod, is that it?” Sloan reached for Karl’s untouched glass of champagne, took a healthy slug. “And what about Bumani, Karl? Or the disaster after that? The next war? The next crisis? How long are we going to keep zapping her b
ack into a place she doesn’t want to be?”
“I’m dealing with that, Sloan. We had a good talk tonight, Nixie and I. I think she’ll be okay. She’s just--”
“Shaky. You said.”
“Yeah. Shaky. So help her out tonight, all right? Keep her focused.”
Sloan drained her glass. “Yes, all right,” she said, but it chafed in a novel, unexpected way. Like a scratchy sweater or pants that were just a little too tight. Okay when you put them on, but irritating within the hour and unbearable by day’s end.
Lucky for her, this wouldn’t be a full day’s work.
What was one more hour out of her life?
Erik waded into the sea of photographers and reporters, literally cutting a path for Mary Jane with his body. He took a certain pleasure in the violence of it, in using his bulk as a weapon against this writhing pack of cameras and microphones and blazing lights that had taken so much from him.
He looked up to get his bearings. He hadn’t meant to look for Nixie, but the sight of her stopped him like a bullet. She was there, just there on the rise of the marble steps leading into the hotel, bathed in the incandescent glow of the spotlight.
Erik blinked, but the vision of her in that dress--oh dear God, that dress--was burned forever in his mind’s eye. She was like a flame, long and slim and deadly hot from her tousled mass of coppery curls right down to her polished toenails. And yeah, he had noticed her toenails lacquered the same amazing sunset-on-speed color as her dress. He’d noticed everything, from the look of utter indifference on her face as her gaze skimmed over him without a hint of acknowledgement to the hand low and possessive on the curve of Nixie’s hip. James Harper’s hand.
Erik stood there, frozen, his gut clutched with rage until somebody squeaked behind him and jammed a fist into his lower back. He came back to himself with a startled blink. Oh lord. Mary Jane. He’d forgotten her. Again.
“Sorry,” he said. “Come on. Let’s get you inside.”
Nixie had spent her entire life on red carpets and in war zones, and to her way of thinking, they weren’t all that different. Both were crowded, hostile places full of shouting, confusion, and strangers with a violent desire for something. About the only way she could tell which was which anymore was the wardrobe.
She walked through the chaos as she’d been taught, smiling and serene, accessible yet apart. The queer weightlessness Karl’s ultimatum had put in her middle helped. It kept her oddly untouched by the storm around her, like somebody had inflated a balloon around her heart. She ought to be feeling more than she was, but it was all trapped inside that straining bubble buried deep in her chest.
Just as well, she thought, moving through the jostling crowd. She didn’t care to fully experience tonight anyhow.
James’ hand lay heavily around her hip, low and possessive and uncomfortably hot through the thin material of her dress. He kept her close, intimately so, their bodies canted together, their smiles bright for the cameras. But even numb as she was, Nixie picked up the darker note swirling under his camera-ready smile. Resentment. Dislike. Maybe even malevolence. Was it for her? she wondered idly. His father? Himself?
She hit the top of the marble steps and struck the expected pose. Let James snuggle the curve of her hip into the line of his while the cameras snapped and whirred. All the while, his anger, his disdain lapped at her like an encroaching tide.
She ran her gaze over the crowd without curiosity, fixed on a point somewhere behind the paparazzi and their shouting, on something beyond the violence of their want.
And found Erik.
He helped Mary Jane, pale and trembling visibly, out of a limo and into the crook of his arm, but his eyes were on her. The void at her center gave a strange, searching quiver, but Nixie forced her gaze to skim over him, past him. She didn’t want to see the judgment in his face. She knew exactly what he thought of her, of James, of this choice she’d made to allow the press to feed on her personal life like this.
She’d made a bargain. Now she’d live up to it. Those kids needed help, and Erik and his sacred principles weren’t getting the job done. But she could. And she would. With his approval or without it.
She turned to her date with a brilliant smile. “Are you ready to go in?”
James returned her smile with something razor sharp that probably photographed well but burned like ice against her bare skin. “By all means,” he said.
She took his offered arm but it felt like a snake under her hand--cool, muscular, faintly sinister. They walked slowly into the foyer of the hotel, mounted the curved staircase like a couple of well-trained stage actors and stepped into the ballroom.
Light and heat, expensive perfume and soaring ceilings, deep red wine inside flashing crystal glasses--it all came at Nixie in a fierce, familiar rush. She tossed herself into it without hesitation and the crowd swallowed them whole. The instant it closed behind them James shook his sleeve free of Nixie’s touch.
“Are we done here, then?” she asked. Where was the relief? she wondered. Shouldn’t she be relieved to be finished with him so soon?
“You wish.” He snatched a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and knocked it back with one long swallow. “Christ, I wish. But no. Daddy dearest won’t be satisfied with a quick photo shoot. Unless I’m well and truly rehabilitated, I’m of no use to a future president.” He glanced at the crowd swirling around them, the fanciful swish of ball gowns against the more sober hush of tuxedos. The prominent personalities and powers who wore them. “Judging from the faces I’m seeing, that rehab is costing my father a bundle.” He twisted his lips into a smirk. “So no, we’re not done here. Not by a long shot.”
He grabbed her hand again and shot purposefully through the crowd, towing her behind him.
Erik threw an arm around Mary Jane’s shoulders and shepherded her through the swarm of reporters. Her entire body vibrated under his touch, as if she were some kind of human tuning fork in the key of terror. And it didn’t ease up when he’d led her up the marble stairs and joined the crowd of DC luminaries, flitting around the soaring ballroom like rare birds. If anything it got worse.
“Mary Jane?” He bent for a better look at her white, pinched face. “Are you all right?”
She didn’t answer. She simply stared ahead, her eyes wide, fixed and dangerously dilated. He didn’t think she was even breathing.
“Mary Jane?” He followed her gaze and said, “Ah.”
Tyrese Jones stood a dozen feet away, looking like he’d sprung off the pages of GQ or something. Erik didn’t know what drug lords paid their accountants these days, but it must be some serious bank because the guy was turned out in what looked like custom tailored Armani. Erik felt a snarl rising to the surface but he squashed it. Maybe things were rocky between him and Nixie right now, but she’d worked hard for this night. He wouldn’t be the one to smear the frosting with an on-camera fist fight.
“What’s he doing here?” Mary Jane whispered, her lips barely moving.
“Nixie must’ve asked him.”
“Why?” It was one word, but so full of anguish that Erik tightened his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into him, as if protecting her from a physical threat.
“She asked a handful of people from the neighborhood to speak tonight. First person testimonials for the clinic or something. See, there’s Mama Mel. And Otto Lyndale--you know, with the huge dog?”
“Yeah.” Her voice was faint, and Erik didn’t know whether she’d even heard him. She was still staring at Tyrese who was, God help them, staring back at her.
“Hey, look,” Erik said, turning her away from the guy. “There’s Daryl Johnson.”
Mary Jane blinked and focused. “Oh my God, the flasher?”
“Yeah, Nixie has a thing for him.”
A ghost of the old Mary Jane surfaced in the smile that tried to curve her mouth. “What kind of thing?”
“Did I never tell you the story of Nixie and the horrible, terrible, no-good, very b
ad day? God, where to start.”
He drew her hand through his arm and started to stroll casually away from Tyrese Jones. “Well, it was the day after you’d been snatched by the Dog crew and Nixie, being Nixie, was worried about you--”
He broke off when Nixie’s advisor materialized in front of them, looking for all the world like a trained bear wearing a tux. His scalp glistened with perspiration but he didn’t look like he’d been rushing anywhere. He just stood there, a rock in the middle of a stream, ball gowns flowing past him like water. He was everything calm and stoic, except for his eyes. They burned like black flame and Erik knew he wasn’t after casual conversation.
“Dr. Larsen,” Karl said. “I’m glad I found you. Do you have a minute? There’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”
Erik glanced down at Mary Jane, who stood in the lee of his arm like a doll. Pretty, blonde, made of plastic. “Sure,” he said. “Maybe somewhere quieter?”
“Certainly.”
Karl threaded a path through the crowd with an ease Erik had to admire. The man didn’t fight for a single step. He simply watched the flow, analyzed it and joined at a precisely chosen spot. Within seconds, they’d landed outside a pair of secluded French doors. Karl opened them with a brisk economy of motion and suddenly, they were all standing in the cool night air, smooth slate stones under their feet, the DC skyline hanging at their backs.
Karl pulled the doors shut behind him, enclosing the three of them on a small balcony, a little oasis of private calm. Mary Jane wilted in visible relief but Erik felt strangely bereft. The ballroom pulsed heat and energy a few feet away, but he felt cut off. Isolated. Wrong, somehow.
“What can I do for you, Karl?” he asked, stepping away from the railing. He didn’t care how absurd it was, he wasn’t facing this guy with a two-story drop at his back.
