Star Crossed

by Jennifer Echols

  “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 breasts were so diminutive that cleavage 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 cleavage 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 rundo
wn.” :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.

  That’s why Wendy was laughing as she put out her hand to touch the king.

  * * *

  If Daniel had meant the morning’s Kentucky bourbon to call Wendy Mann to Vegas—and he still wasn’t sure about that—it had worked. His mind spun with the implications. Now that Wendy was directing Lorelei, the plan he’d been cooking up to get Colton out of trouble would be harder to implement.

  But the fact that he and Wendy were enemies didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy the sight of her. Her long blond locks blew back over her shoulders with her own speed as she climbed the stairs to his table, and her slim hips swayed in a tight black skirt.

  He stood and put his hand out to meet hers, keeping his face a blank.

  “Daniel!” she called over the throbbing music in that throaty voice he remembered. “Wendy Mann.” Her hand slipped farther into his.

  He squeezed her hand and hesitated. Not long enough to be rude. Just long enough to make her doubt whether he remembered her.

  “We were in Dr. Abbott’s speech-writing class together? And Dr. Benson’s image management class. Several others.” Her blond brow furrowed in annoyance that he couldn’t quite place her.

  Good. Now that he’d knocked her off balance, he turned on the charm, as if he were doing a favor for someone underneath him in the business. “Of course. Wendy. Please.” He gestured to the velvet bench beside him.

  As they both sat, he signaled the waitress—who was wearing a teddy—and ordered the silliest thing he could think of. “Two glasses of champagne.” He named a good label but didn’t go the last step of ordering the bottle. He needed his head clear, for one thing. And though it would probably help him in his job if Wendy’s head weren’t clear, he didn’t want to attract the attention of having a bottle popped open for them. They weren’t getting married, after all. Ordering ridiculous drinks was enough.

  After the waitress had left so it was too late to say no, he turned back to Wendy and asked, “Is champagne okay?” He expected her to have settled far away from him on the long bench, embarrassed and browbeaten by his superior air.

  Instead he found her as close as she could sit without touching him. Her elbow was on the table, her arm bare below a white puff of sleeve. Her chin was propped on her fist. She looked utterly comfortable, which made him very uncomfortable—the same way she’d always made him feel. The way he’d been trying to make her feel, damn it! They’d exchanged only a few words in college, but he’d always known she was poking a little fun at him. He wished she would stop. He’d lost his sense of humor years ago. He would sound like a robot if she made him laugh.

  She brought her other hand up from her lap. He watched it coming, feeling slightly dazed. He caught a whiff of her expensive perfume as she placed her hand over his on the table.

  “Champagne is perfect,” she said. “In celebration of seeing an old friend. Thank you.”

  He knew she was making fun of him then, because they’d never been friends. She’d intrigued him in college. But he was competing with her for top honors in their major. His father wouldn’t have thought much of her as competition—a little girl from Appalachia—but Daniel had read her papers and seen her projects, and he’d witnessed her funny and fearless delivery. He couldn’t let her beat him, because he couldn’t explain that defeat to his father. So he’d done everything he could to win. He’d studied harder and worked longer. And he’d stayed away from her.

  Now he almost would have thought she was coming on to him, but she was way too good at her job for that. Her hand disappeared into her lap again. She wasn’t scooting any closer.

  He leaned toward her so she could hear him over the music. “Or in celebration of the end of your six-hour flight.”

  She grinned. “You’re not kidding! I have a crick in my neck that would kill a horse.”

  “You should get a massage while you’re here.” His eyes flitted to the creamy skin of her neck before he forced them back to her face. “You’re in town just for pleasure, right?” he deadpanned.

  “Right!” she said enthusiastically. “And I see you’re in town for the recreational opportunities.”

  He raised his brows, waiting for her to explain so he wouldn’t look stupid by telling her he had no idea what she was talking about.

  She took her hand away from her chin and gestured to his eye. “I’ve heard it’s the latest craze in high-end fitness. Boxing!”

  He bristled at that comment before
giving it right back to her. “Yes, I’m here for pleasure, too. I’m taking a short break because I just got assigned to a difficult case. Have you heard of Darkness Fallz?” He inclined his head toward the enormous speakers in the corner, which were blasting the latest Darkness Fallz abomination.

  She was good. She hardly even winced when he mentioned the supergroup that had just ditched her. And then she said in a reasonable facsimile of an innocent tone, “No, I haven’t heard of them. Are they contemporary Christian?”

  He nearly laughed and ended up only choking on the word no. Luckily his voice was drowned out by the Darkness Fallz chorus: “You’re moving on and it’s like a knife in my eye/I hope you get sick and DIEEEEEEEE.”

  Blinking lights made him turn away from Wendy momentarily, toward the window onto the casino. A slot machine was going crazy, flashing as it spit out a river of tokens. The elderly couple in front of the machine embraced. The man picked up the woman, spun her around, and kissed her.

  “How sweet!” Wendy exclaimed, beaming. “I hope they enjoy their loot. What a good omen, that this is the first thing I see after I step off the plane into Vegas.”

  Besides me, Daniel wanted to point out. He rather liked being her bad omen. But they were pretending to have friendly small talk, so he kept the conversation light. “Are you a gambler?”

  She looked him straight in the eye. “I like people to think I’m a successful gambler,” she said. “Actually I’m stacking the deck. How about you?”

  “I’m with you. I gamble only if I can figure out a way to cheat.”

  “You’re my kind of man.”

  He wanted to stick to that line of questioning. They might only be toying with each other, assessing the enemy’s weapons before they struck, but he was enjoying it.

  The waitress picked that moment to interrupt them. She placed one glass of champagne in front of Wendy and one in front of him. After she left, Daniel lifted his flute. “To pleasure,” he said.

  “To pleasure.” Wendy tapped the rim of her glass against his. The bell-like sound rang through a rare quiet moment in the Darkness Fallz track.