Star Crossed

by Jennifer Echols

  * * *

  She woke once more, blinking at the afternoon sunlight glinting off the other casinos through the window. Sore from his manhandling and too much lying down, slowly she rolled under his caging arm to face him. He watched her through sleepy eyes.

  She raised her eyebrows in question.

  He gave her a devilish smile, grabbed a condom from the nightstand, and crawled on top of her. As the night had crept into morning and bloomed into afternoon, they’d talked less, and she’d lost her jokes. All that was left was his body joining with hers.

  After she reached climax and he spilled himself inside her, he stayed in her, covering her body with his, nuzzling her neck. “Wendy.”

  “I know,” she said to the ceiling. “We have to go soon.”

  “I need to fly to L.A. and see what’s wrong with Victor,” he said. “But I’m inclined to blow a client off for the first time ever. Could you?”

  “Nothing has ever sounded better,” she said truthfully, “but I can’t. Everything’s probably fixed with Stargazer, but I can’t afford to assume. I need to be in the office bright and early on Monday morning, talk with my bosses, and seal the deal.”

  “I shouldn’t have asked.” He smoothed his hand down her belly and cupped his hand between her thighs.

  “We have a few hours, though,” she said. “You said you regret never experiencing the cities you visit for work. If we hurried, we could check one cheesy Vegas tourist experience off your list.”

  “Besides getting married?” he whispered in her ear.

  “Yes, besides that.” She glanced out the window. Her eyes landed on the Eiffel Tower, and she remembered that Sarah had warned her they wouldn’t be able to describe falling in love to their kids if they didn’t get more romantic. “It’s been two whole months since I was in Paris. What do you think?”

  17

  Wendy realized too late that they should have stayed in the room. They hadn’t even made it out of the casino when their afternoon went south. No sooner had they stepped out of the hotel elevator and started across the crazy casino carpet, hand in hand, than Daniel stopped and swore. Wendy looked in the direction of his gaze. Colton sat at a blackjack table.

  “He was supposed to ride back to L.A. with Lorelei last night. What is he doing here?” Wendy exclaimed needlessly, because Daniel was obviously wondering the same thing. Angrily.

  He dropped her hand. With Wendy trailing behind him, he stalked to the blackjack table and stood there with his arms folded. She had the briefest thought that the man at the table wasn’t Colton after all but the rumored lookalike, the phantom of Rick.

  But she didn’t have time to put her hand out and back Daniel away before Colton—and it was Colton—looked up at them, then did a double take. Turning away from them, he peeked at the new cards the dealer slid him, gave up on his hand, and stood up smiling. He came toward Daniel with his arm outstretched for a handshake.

  Daniel kept his arms folded, his face expressionless.

  Colton glanced at Wendy in question. She didn’t have any answers, so he slowly withdrew his hand and explained in a rush, “Lorelei and I had a fight. The limo dropped me off at the outskirts of town and I took a taxi back here. Look, nobody notices me when I don’t have my posse with me. Of course, you’re about to ruin that.” He chuckled nervously.

  “I quit,” Daniel said.

  Colton gaped at him. “You can’t quit. You said I can’t fire you. I have a contract with your company, not with you.”

  “Then talk to them,” Daniel said, “but I’m not working for you anymore. I told you what to do, and you didn’t do it.” Without another word, he headed across the casino for the front doors onto the Strip, seeming to forget Wendy completely.

  She was left standing awkwardly with Colton, who asked her, “Now will you work for me?”

  “No,” Wendy said impatiently, “but I’ll talk to Daniel for you when he calms down. In the meantime, for God’s sake, don’t pee on anything. Or post anything online. And no call girls.”

  “I haven’t!” Colton protested, but she was already following Daniel across the floor. She was pissed that he’d gotten so angry. She was more pissed that he was taking it out on her, leaving her to trail after him like a puppy.

  He must have realized this because, though he didn’t look any happier, he was waiting for her by the exit. “Sorry,” he grumbled, opening the door for her. “I hate this job. I hate it more now that it’s going to prevent us from being together.”

  As she moved into the hot, too-bright sunlight, she tossed over her shoulder, “There’s always Senator Rowling,” half hoping he would consider this an option now that he’d clearly gone off the deep end.

  He drew even with her on the sidewalk. They passed the paparazzi camped on the edge of the casino property, six or seven photographers hoping to snatch a shot of one of the lesser stars who’d appeared on the awards show last night.

  When they could talk privately again, stepping into the crosswalk together, he said automatically, “I have to work for my dad.”

  “You don’t have to work for your dad,” she said. “I’d be willing to bet that before today, you said, ‘I have to do everything my dad tells me,’ but you just recused yourself from a case. That’s not going to go over well in New York.” She laughed humorlessly. “You could work for Senator Rowling, and the next time I get in trouble at Stargazer for speaking my mind, I could work for your dad.”

  “I don’t think so,” Daniel said. “He wants everyone in the company to be reserved.”

  Wendy humphed. “You have to use your inside voice? Yeah, that probably wouldn’t work for me.”

  He opened the door of the Paris casino for her. She knew she should be looking around at the vast interior, designed as a vague approximation of outdoors in the real Paris, near the base of the Eiffel tower. But as they rode an escalator in silence to the second floor and she charged tickets for them to take an elevator to the top of the tower, it was all she could do to hold in her tears. His words stung. She knew she wasn’t reserved. She seemed to be the only person who wasn’t bothered by this. She’d thought he liked her style of speaking, but apparently he only covered up his distaste for her when he was trying to get her into bed.

  The elevator was crowded. The observation deck was crowded, too, with tourists peering through the iron bars at a more distant, higher-up view of the fountain at the Bellagio. Daniel waited until some of them had bored of the mediocre view and escaped back down the elevator before he leaned one shoulder against the bars next to her and delivered his next blow. “Why don’t you quit? We can’t stay together when you’re working for Stargazer and I’m with the Blackstone Firm, so you’re trying to convince me to quit. I’m not going to work for Senator Rowling. That’s a moot point. But if there’s another job out there for me, I’m sure there’s one for you, too.”

  She tried to keep the clipped anger out of her voice and sound reasonable as she said, “For Senator Rowling, you’re talking about going into a completely different branch of PR, a jump from movie stars to politics, and from a large firm that handles lots of clients to the political campaign itself. Apples and oranges. If I wanted to get another job doing PR for movie stars, in New York there’s Stargazer, there’s the Blackstone Firm, and then it starts to go downhill.”

  “True,” he said grudgingly.

  “I could move to Hollywood. Lots of great firms there.”

  He stood straighter, towering over her. “Are you threatening me?”

  She was starting to feel ill. “Don’t look so angry.”

  “This is not my angry expression,” he snapped. “This is my expression of rapt attention.”

  “And I’m not threatening you,” she snapped right back. “I’m trying to solve a problem. Obviously I’m the only one.”

  He put his elbow on a guardrail, his chin in his hand, and looked toward Fremont. His face didn’t give away how frustrated he felt, but his body language did. At least he wa
s listening to her.

  “What about your sister?” Wendy ventured. “You said she’s interested in the family business. Can’t she take it over instead of you?”

  “Eventually, but she needs to finish her degree first. And my dad has been looking forward to retirement forever. He and my mom have a trip around the world planned. They haven’t left New York except on business since . . . ”

  “2001?” Wendy asked.

  “2001,” he confirmed.

  “But the Blackstone Firm is a large company,” she said. “Surely there’s someone else there who can take over until your sister graduates, and steer her in the right direction for a few years afterward.”

  “There is,” Daniel agreed, “but that’s not what my dad wants. He wants the Blackstone Firm to be run by a Blackstone, always.”

  “Why is that your problem?”

  “Why are you bringing that up again? He’s my dad. It’s my family.”

  “Right, but why does that mean you have to do what they want? Why can’t you do what you want?”

  “I just can’t.”

  “Since when? When your brother died?”

  He took his arms off the guardrail and turned to her. Though his face remained impassive, the speed of his movements told her how angry he was. “You’re psychoanalyzing me like I’m one of your clients. You should do a lot less of that.”

  “You should do a lot more of it,” she countered. “All you’re doing is putting a bandage on your clients’ problems, stopping the hemorrhaging, and disguising them from the public. If you don’t try to get to the root of the problem and fix that, the problem will just recur. Did it occur to you that Colton might have a gambling addiction? I’ll bet that never crossed your mind.”

  “Somehow we’ve gotten back around to this same argument,” Daniel said, “you telling me that you’re doing this job better than me. At least, that’s what you’re pretending. But what you’re really trying to do is get me to quit my job.”

  “I’m not trying to get you to quit your job, per se,” she said. “I want you to be happy, and you don’t seem happy.”

  “You know what would be easier? Let’s get divorced, which is what we agreed to in the first place.”

  Face burning, she glanced around to see if they’d been overheard. They were the only ones left on the observation deck. Possibly they’d scared everyone else off with the accusations and threats they were hurling at each other.

  Of course, that was ridiculous. Daniel would never have mentioned divorce if he’d thought someone else was listening. He’d made sure they were alone before he dealt her that blow. Decorum and appearance before everything.

  With tears stinging her eyes now, unable to hold them back, she asked, “You would divorce me over your job?”

  “You would divorce me over yours.”

  He held her gaze until she couldn’t meet his anymore. She turned and looked out over the view from the romantic Eiffel Tower. All she could see were the roofs of the nearby casinos and traffic crawling by on the Strip on a dusty, unhappy afternoon.

  “You will divorce me,” he insisted, “if I don’t do what you say. And I can assure you, that is never going to happen.”

  She could picture him staring her down angrily as he said this. She thought she could feel his stare. Determined not to look weak in front of him, like she couldn’t face him, she turned to him angrily.

  He was looking down at the walkway. His expression was a blank, but the hunch of his shoulders and the downcast direction of his eyes made him look hurt.

  If he was hurt, there was a chance for them still. They could talk this out. He would have to look up at her, though, and want the same thing. She waited for him to do it.

  His head moved, and her heart leaped. But his eyes slid over her and off again. He turned to look out over Vegas. He was waiting for this to be over.

  “I’ll go get my things from the room, then,” she said, “and on Monday I’ll have my lawyer work out the divorce and send you something. We don’t have to see each other again.”

  She turned and walked around the observation deck toward the elevator, not expecting him to call her back, not feeling his eyes on her anymore, shifting her mind away from him completely. Her thoughts moved effortlessly back to New York. Her time with Lorelei had been a success. Lorelei still liked her. She would return to the office triumphant—unless there was a nasty contract or some other surprise waiting for Wendy when she got back to New York, but she didn’t expect such a thing. Archie would make good on his promise of a promotion and a raise. She would move on to save the next spoiled star. She would be fine, so long as nobody ever mentioned Daniel Blackstone’s name.

  Waiting for the elevator, she looked down and realized she was still wearing her diamond ring. Correction: Daniel’s ring. She should have given it back to him. That’s what jilted brides did, right? She certainly didn’t want this reminder on her finger, the band feeling cold now, like a medical instrument that would squeeze her finger off.

  Sliding the ring off and slipping it into the pocket of her jeans, she turned around on the deck and looked back the way she’d come, half hoping Daniel had followed her and tiptoed a few steps behind her even now, waiting to apologize.

  But that was a ridiculous idea. Daniel didn’t tiptoe. She thought about him saying coldly, Let’s get divorced, which is what we agreed to in the first place, and that pushed the memory of him looking down and seeming hurt out of her head. The elevator arrived. On the ride down, she held her breath, feeling that she was descending into the depths of a mineshaft. Back in the casino, she rode down the escalator and headed for the door to the Strip.

  She paused beside a bank of giddy slot machines, unable to go on. She took a few shuddering breaths, trying to collect herself before she broke down in tears in public. PR professionals did not make scenes. Not over their own unimportant lives, especially.

  Her skin turned to fire as a sharp point jabbed through her blouse and into her side. “It’s Rick,” a voice growled in her ear. “Remember me?” He wrapped his arm around her waist. “Don’t scream. I’ve got a knife and I will gut your pretty belly. We’re going to take some pictures.”

  18

  Daniel moved from the side of the Eiffel Tower overlooking the Strip to the side with the dull view of concrete suburbia stretching toward brown mountains, because it matched his mood. His heart had been racing ever since Wendy mentioned moving to L.A., which had shocked him into blind anger. She couldn’t leave New York. She just couldn’t. Couples had fun together all the time and then let each other go because a relationship would be inconvenient. People in love did not let each other go.

  Daniel knew this. He’d known it when he asked Wendy to marry him. He’d known it when he asked for a honeymoon. He’d known it when he picked this fight with her, but in the back of his mind he’d been hoping she would be the one to cave so he wouldn’t have to deal with the inevitable.

  But of course she’d been right. She’d been grasping for a solution to the problem and he’d refused to budge, but the solution was obvious. He hated his job. He’d always hated it. He’d taken it because he felt guilty that his brother was dead and he was not. He’d accepted that fate for years, right up until Wendy made him laugh. Now he remembered how happy his life could be. From now on, he wouldn’t settle.

  Rapping his knuckles on the iron rail to bring himself back to reality, he hurried to the elevator, half expecting to find Wendy along the way. He looked for her again in the casino and on the walk back to his hotel room. Outside the door, he rehearsed in his mind what he would say to her, more nervous than he’d ever been meeting a megastar, because this really mattered. He slid his card through the lock and cracked the door. “Wendy?”

  Nothing.

  Damn, he’d missed her. She must have packed the same way she unpacked, by flinging things. But as he walked in, he saw that she hadn’t touched her clothes. She hadn’t been back to the room.

  He called her,
texted her, and e-mailed her, increasingly alarmed when she didn’t answer. She always answered something. She must be more pissed at him than he’d ever been at her.

  He didn’t have much time before he needed to leave for the airport to catch his flight to L.A., but he packed his suitcase as neatly as he could. He really needed to leave and she hadn’t shown up. Pacing, he wondered whether he should pack her suitcase for her, on the off chance she suddenly appeared and they needed to rush out. If he didn’t pack it, they were strangers. Enemies. If he did pack it, they were a married couple who’d had an awful quarrel.

  He packed it.

  She didn’t show.

  He sat on the bed, beating his brow with his fist. He would have to miss his flight and stay. He couldn’t leave without her.

  His phone rang and he dove for it. Thank God!

  But it wasn’t her, he realized as the ringtone played a few more notes. It was his father, barking at him in his clipped British accent that Olivia Query’s baby daddy couldn’t take the pressure anymore of his family living with another man. Though the world would find out with just a little digging the terrible secret that he’d served time in juvie, he’d agreed to be interviewed on a gossip show tomorrow, outing Victor Moore. That was the reason Daniel had to fly to L.A. tonight. He couldn’t stay until Wendy returned.

  Cursing his job, his father, Victor, and all baby daddies who had never heard of condoms, Daniel scribbled a note for Wendy on a hotel notepad: Call me! I love you & I’m sorry. This time he had no regrets leaving it on her suitcase, because he meant it.

  At the airport, already making calls to pinpoint what had gone wrong in Olivia and Victor’s marriage, besides everything, he sat down to wait at the gate for Wendy’s flight. The call for first class was announced. The rest of the plane boarded. The door was closed. The plane took off without Wendy.