She snorted. “All right, well we have our marching orders. Mingle with as many people as possible.”
“Check.”
“Drop the Colson Agency’s name as many times as possible.”
“Check.”
“And don’t get too drunk.”
I hesitated, and we turned to each other. “Let’s…just see how the night plays out.”
She nodded in relief. “Agreed. But no swinging off the chandeliers drunk.” With a quick smile, she started weaving through the crowd. “Call if you need anything.”
“Yeah, I’ll just flicker the chandelier—” But she was gone. With a nervous glance around the ballroom, I grabbed the nearest champagne flute hovering toward me and downed it in three large gulps. Swapping it out for another, I sipped far more demurely, floating through the crowds like the caterers did, hoping to chance my way into a conversation or two.
“…same every year. We have this huge get together—everybody and their mother wants to come—and he never shows up on time. Honestly, it’s like…why not just wait until you’re going to be home to throw a party?”
A musical hum of polite laughter followed the statement, and I drifted closer, blending my way into the back of the crowd. A woman stood at the center—one of those snake-like women who men thought was attractive and I thought was frightful. She was soaking in all the attention, squeezing her manicured nails around her champagne flute and positively bursting from her dress. I watched her with a small smile. She was something my mother would call a trollop.
She held up her glass of wine. “And seriously…the service?”
The smile faded from my face as I peeled off my champagne-tinted glasses and saw the tittering lemming crowd for what they really were.
“I mean, where does he find these people? I’ve had steadier hands getting a bikini wax.”
“Would you like some cheese with that whine?” I interrupted, turning the heads of the crowd unintentionally toward me. The woman’s face soured as she took in every inch of me. She had clearly been going somewhere avant-garde and edgy with her waxing reference, but I had turned it into a classless one-liner with my joke. “I mean, I did see this huge platter loaded with various cheeses.”
“And who might you be?” she hissed with a painted smile.
A little voice in my head told me to be careful—that this woman would gladly eat me for breakfast if it weren’t for the carbs—but I continued forward. It must have been my coffee shop win, bolstering my sails.
“Rebecca White,” I said with a pearly smile, causing the people standing nearest to me to smile as well. “I only thought that it seems like a lovely gesture to throw such a magnificent party for a room full of strangers. I think the least we can be is grateful to our host and not pick on his staff.”
She rolled her eyes at me. “I see why you’re so upset. You’re the help as well.”
Yeah, I guess I was. Kind of. Maybe the agency was getting paid, but I sure wasn’t.
“Yeah, I saw her driving some piece of junk,” the redhead said. “We couldn’t stop laughing. We were dying. I almost peed my pants.”
She must’ve been in the limo that passed us before we parked. “There is no reason to be mean,” I said.
“You might be dressed up like one of us, but you’re nothing like us. You stick out like a sore thumb. You’re obviously one of the hired models. And your car screams you’re from the wrong side of town. But the agency sure shined you up with fancy clothes, makeup, and hairdos. Did you come here to land yourself a millionaire? Because nobody at this party would touch you with a ten-foot pole. How much are they paying you anyway? Your hourly wage to be with us?”
“Hourly wage? Nothing.”
“That’s even more pitiful,” another woman said snidely.
“She’s working on commission,” the blonde said with the silver dress. “She gets a thousand dollars for every client she brings to the agency.”
“That’s even sadder.”
There was a low murmuring of assent, and all eyes flashed back to snake-woman like a tennis match. A muscle was grinding way back in her jaw, but she kept that same Rembrandt smile plastered on her face.
“She’s not out there busting her butt to earn a commission. She’s obviously here to land a rich guy,” the brunette said. Her light tone wasn’t enough to mask the venom in her words, but to be honest, I didn’t blame her. I was the one who had initiated here—she had every right to be angry.
It’s just…the jab about the caterers? The shell-shocked bouncer at the door? Even the condescending peacock on the way in. It all snowballed into one fateful comment. A comment that would serve to haunt me for longer than I could have imagined.
“I’ve already landed a rich guy, so I assure you that’s not why I’m here.”
Her gaze narrowed at me. “You’re a liar. So why don’t you scram? Get back in that piece of shit car of yours and drive off.”
“Markus is actually my boyfriend. And I think he’d want me here at his party by his side. I might not have a lot. But Marcus loves me for who I am. And what girl doesn’t want that?”
Just kidding, just kidding, just kidding. Fucking say it, Becca!
But I didn’t. I just kept my gaze evenly on ol’ snake eyes who looked like she’d swallowed a bug.
“You’re Marcus Taylor’s girlfriend?” Her stenciled eyebrows were in danger of disappearing completely into her hair, and I hurried to defend my work.
“Yes, I am,” I said to the astonishment of the crowd. “Marcus,” I added for good measure, feeling like saying the word somehow bolstered my claim. A dozen pairs of wide eyes fastened onto me—far too exposed in my ridiculous lace. I felt the warmth of a telltale blush coming on fast and decided it would be best if I made a quick exit. “Excuse me.”
“There’s no way Marcus would date that trash,” the woman said. “I know that for a fact.”
“Oh, honey. She’s beautiful. Maybe he found her irresistible. I bet she’s just the flavor of the week.”
“Not a chance. She’s lying and I’m going to prove it. I’m going to make her the laughingstock of the party.”
With no further ado, I hurried off through the crowds to find Amanda. Just make a good impression. Sure. No problem. I’ll just claim to be sleeping with the host. Honestly, I didn’t think it could have been worse even if Amanda had stabbed that peacock with her stiletto.
I found Amanda in the center of a group of men, laughing and talking like she’d woken up at the mansion and had just happened downstairs. As casually as possible, I wound my fingers through the crook of her arm and summoned her attention.
“Could I talk to you for a minute?” I asked with a hoarse whisper and a huge smile.
She sensed trouble and the muscles in her face froze. “Sure,” she said just as cheerfully.
We delicately extracted ourselves from the crowd, and she pulled me away a couple feet away, prepared to fully let me have it, but I beat her to the punch.
“We need to go. Now.”
“Becca,” she said testily, “I forced myself into Spanx. Now, what happened?”
I threw up my hands with feigned innocence. “Nothing that could have been prevented, let me tell you that! It all started with this girl who was impersonating a python, and—”
A sharp tap on my shoulder cut my story short, and I turned around with a sinking feeling of dread. Sure enough, it was my Medusa. Smiling and ready for Round Two.
“What is it again?” she asked with a stabbing grin. “Becky?”
I narrowed my eyes, brave now that Amanda was by my side. “It’s Rebecca, actually.”
“Well, Rebecca, you’re in luck.”
The dread was back, gnawing a hole in my stomach like an ulcer.
“And why is that?” I asked.
The girl flashed me another wicked smile.
“Your boyfriend just arrived.”
Chapter 6
“Your boyfriend?” Amanda said it like an
accusation.
Snake-eyes grinned like a mouse had been lowered into her tank. “Her boyfriend.”
A clammy chill started climbing up my toes before losing itself somewhere in my hollow stomach. My mouth and eyes went simultaneously dry as the belated taste of nail polish remover burned inexplicably in the back of my throat. I wondered if I was being retroactively embalmed.
“Yes,” I bristled defensively, “my boyfriend.”
Two pairs of false eyelashes fluttered angrily in my direction. Two pairs of perfectly manicured nails looked like they wanted to curl in and punch me in the face.
I decided to excuse myself once again.
“Well then, I better get his gift.”
“Gift?” the woman asked.
I stepped backward onto the foot of a caterer who was able to re-balance his tray of booze only by a miracle. “There’s a welcome-home gift I have to get ready…and, um…excuse me.”
The lies just keep piling up! What the hell is wrong with me!
William Colson’s Talent Agency be damned, it was time to abort. Amanda could drive the Volvo home. I’d just catch a taxi. With the disjointed pacing of a frightened gazelle, I darted this way and that—searching for a way out of this gilded labyrinth that seemed designed to keep people in. An easy escape presented itself as people began streaming outside, but as I eagerly followed, I saw a helicopter landing on the grass and decided that was the last direction I wanted to go toward. Instead, I pushed my way through the crowd to what looked like the service entrance.
“Excuse me, excuse me,” I murmured over and over, tapping uniformed shoulders as I tried to weave my way through an army of caterers. But each time I did, someone just tried to hand me another glass of champagne.
Eventually, I was hoisted back into the main room along with a sea of others. My ears hummed with a muted spattering of applause and I felt the noose getting tighter. But at that moment, a woman in a chinchilla muumuu stepped aside, and I suddenly saw a clear path to the front door. My eyes closed in momentary relief, and I silently promised never to sin again.
No sooner had I thought the words, than a pair of red talons closed around my arm and spun me around. It was the same bitchy girl from before, the one who seemed bent on my personal destruction. Her posse was right behind her as if to cheer her on. This time, she had a man with her—facing away from us as he murmured something to a tuxedoed stockbroker behind him.
In slow motion, he turned around. Our mouths fell open as our eyes met.
“You!” he said.
Let me preface this by saying that if this exact situation had happened to somebody else, I would have thought it was the funniest thing in the world. Amanda and I would have reveled in the impossible irony and delightfully downed tequila shots as we waited to see what would happen next. That’s probably why the cosmos saw fit to send this misery to me.
It was the rich man from the coffee shop.
Oh my gosh! This was his party?
Shit!
My heart thundered. No way could this be happening!
His eyes widened infinitesimally as he recognized me, and I turned the parched bone shade of his marble floors. If only I could slip through the tiles. If only there were a power outage, or an earthquake, or even something based loosely off one of those “gigantic animal” sci-fi horrors I was obsessed with. But no such luck. The silicone angel who facilitated all this was staring from one of us to the other with obvious glee, already basking in the grisly aftermath. I closed my eyes, bracing for one of the greatest tear-downs of all time.
But all I got was a soft kiss on the cheek.
“Hello, darling,” he said.
…what?
I opened my eyes to see him standing much closer than he had been before. A tailored arm slid gently around my waist.
“Hello, Markus,” I said.
He smiled, flashing me his perfect white teeth. And damn, did he have the most gorgeous, movie star smile.
When you thought “billionaire.” you usually pictured old men with tufts of grizzled hair coming out of their ears. But there was nothing grizzled about this guy. Quite the contrary. If I had to sum him up in one word and rich had already been taken, I think I would have gone with beautiful.
He had pale golden skin, a mesmerizing color that spoke to the fact that he worked inside all day but still had time for the occasional tropical vacation. His hair was silky and dark—a bit longer than I would have expected considering the rest of his perfectly trimmed lines. It was a guy’s hair. The kind your hot roommate had, and every now and then you just had to scrunch your fingers through it—all the while swearing you were just friends. (Or so I’d been told.) And then, of course, there were the eyes.
I hadn’t forgotten his eyes. Truth be told, they’d flashed through my mind more than once since our run-in at the coffee shop. That impossible emerald gray that made my entire body pause just to look a little longer. It’s just, I never thought that I’d see them again. Or that they’d be staring with unnerving attention…at me.
For one of the first times in my life, I couldn’t seem to talk. Lucky for me, Medusa picked up where I left off. “You…you know her? You actually know…?”
The billionaire squeezed my waist, and I looked up helplessly to meet his glorious gaze. Those ocean eyes sparkled for a moment before he cocked his head toward the woman—a subtle invitation.
My confidence rose a fraction of an inch, and I leaned back unintentionally into his grip as I shifted on my teetering heels. “Rebecca,” I reminded her with a victorious smile that didn’t entirely hide the fact that my knees were shaking.
Marcus smiled. “I’m sorry. It’s just that you took my breath away.”
My eyes tightened painfully into another over-animated smile. Just get it over with, man. If you’re going to out me—just do it already. But instead, he kept going along with the charade. Hey, I’m an actress so I got into character.
I shot him a seductive look. “Then you like the dress, babe?”
“Rebecca, you’re simply a vision,” he said in awe. “I can’t take my eyes off you.”
I touched his face and smiled. When he leaned down, I softly kissed him on the lips. Electricity shot through me. “Thank you. I knew this was your favorite color and I wanted to look perfect for you.”
“So you really know her?” his friend asked.
He stared into my eyes and smiled like he was completely smitten by me.
“We’ve been dating since—oh, when would you say, sweetheart?” he asked.
The fingers squeezed my waist again, and I sucked in a breath. Maybe he wasn’t providing a merciful exit after all. Maybe he’d just devised his own little torture for me. That’s okay, because I could play right along. I was born for this kind of stuff. I excelled at impromptu acting.
“Oh, you know…” My eyes darted around the room as I looked for an exit. “Sometimes, it feels like I just jumped into this relationship.”
He tilted back his head and laughed like I’d just said the funniest thing in the world. Meanwhile, the girl backpedaled so fast I thought her head would spin off in the process.
“I’m sorry, Marcus, I—”
His eyes flickered to me for a fraction of a second, like he’d guessed my dilemma, but a second later he was staring at his blabbering guest, a slight smile playing around the corners of his mouth. I watched him carefully, scouting for any opportunity to slip away, but he seemed instantly bored by the conversation and turned almost immediately back to me.
“No, when would you say it all started?” He posed the question with a curious tilt of his head, causing his dark hair to spill gracefully across his face. “I’d say it all went back to that little coffee shop, wouldn’t you?”
“Coffee shop?” I echoed, a little light-headed. “Oh…I’d quite forgotten.”
“I didn’t.” He looked me straight on and grinned. “I think about it all the time.”
My heart skipped a beat. I gazed into his
eyes, smitten.
“That’s sweet,” was all I could say.
“You two met in a coffee shop?” the woman asked.
I nodded. “I broke up a fight. Marcus was about to get his ass kicked by this huge bodybuilding dude.”
“I had the situation completely under control,” he said.
“Did you, darling? You’re just lucky I was able to sweet-talk that Hulk down and buy him a cup of coffee.”
“I think he was just as smitten with you as I was.”
“I’m so glad I was running late. Or else I would’ve never met you. I think it was fate we ran into each other. And I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”
He softly kissed my hand. “Since the day we’ve met, you’ve captured my heart, my love.”
“Well, it was great to see you again, but I really have to be getting home. I have this…you know…another lover who requires my attention.”
The women all laughed.
“She’s a doll,” one said. “So funny.”
“And that’s why I love her,” Marcus said.
I pulled myself casually away, but Marcus held on tight, eyes dancing as he threw back his head with another sparkling laugh. “Another lover? Rebecca, you liar,” he chided. He pulled me close enough to catch a faint whiff of sandalwood as he smiled down into my face. “We all know the only lover you have here is me.”
“Well, of course, that’s true.”
“Besides,” Snake-eyes just couldn’t leave it alone, “you still have to give Marcus your present.”
“Present?” I blanked. I’d completely forgotten. Goodness—did the lies ever stop?
“You got me a present?” Marcus smiled cheerfully, finally releasing me. “That was considerate of you, pumpkin.”
“Yes…” I faltered. “Wasn’t it?” A shaking hand brought the champagne back up to my lips, but when I finally lowered the glass, they were all still staring at me.
Marcus, in particular, looked like he was having a fantastic time.
“So what is it?” he prompted.
I almost choked on the bubbly. “What is what?”
“My present.” Those damn ocean eyes were laughing at me. “Can I have it?”
Bad Boys & Billionaires: An Anthology Page 24
