Colton rolled his eyes, but he walked away in the direction of the president.
Daniel stepped into the space Colton had relinquished, boxing Wendy in against the wall. One hand slipped onto the hip of her sequined minidress as he bent to whisper in her ear, “Sorry. I didn’t know he was going to come after you again.”
She hoped he couldn’t feel that she was trembling at the touch of his hand and his deep, soft voice in her ear. Colton or no Colton, she should duck away from Daniel rather than letting him body-block her. He’d threatened to ruin her twelve hours before.
But as she stared into the open collar of his crisp white shirt, inhaling his musky cologne, loving the feeling of his breath in her ear, she was seriously thinking he hadn’t meant what he’d said to her that morning.
Right! It would be easy to ruin you was a term of endearment around the Blackstone Firm, just as I hope you die and rot in hell was an invitation to a birthday party. No, Daniel was only using her. There were no genuine friendships in this business. She felt sick, but this was her life. This was the life she’d wanted.
Ignoring the chill bumps breaking out over her bare arms, she teased him in a tone of mock innocence, “Why did you break up with me?”
He looked down into her eyes. “I thought you broke up with me.”
“Oh, no!” she exclaimed. “It’s all been a terrible misunderstanding.”
“Miss Mann,” he said in a perfect British accent straight out of Masterpiece Theatre, “we should endeavor never to be drawn apart again.”
Her jaw dropped. “Daniel. Do not talk to anybody else like that, unless you want these girls sexting you.”
He beamed at her. “I’m sure. Back to work.” He stole a kiss from the corner of her mouth, then turned and followed Colton across the room.
Wendy pulled the phone out of her purse and checked Lorelei’s accounts. She’d posted only polite compliments so far. Colton had posted nothing. A few entertainment and tabloid sites already showed photos of Lorelei and other stars on the red carpet outside the museum, with begrudgingly positive stories about the party. Wendy concentrated on this very, very important activity so her eyes wouldn’t trace Daniel as he talked with beautiful celebrities. Any of them would be glad to have this devastatingly handsome man. Several of them appeared to be working on it.
Half an hour later, an argument near the hors d’oeuvres drew her attention. Lorelei and Colton were shouting at each other. Oh no. The party would be closing down soon, and they’d almost made it to the other side unscathed.
She put her phone away and pushed through the milling crowd, hurrying for Franklin, who was lounging in a corner. He was easy to spot because he was head and shoulders above everyone else there except other bodyguards, professional athletes, and Daniel. “Can you go corral her?” she pleaded.
As she said this, Lorelei stepped up onto a stool beside the museum ticket counter, then onto the counter itself, straddling a plate of finger sandwiches with her back to the room. As Wendy watched in horror, Lorelei shoved down her skirt and undies and bent over. Half the crowd, oblivious, kept dancing. The other half turned to watch and cheer her on.
No.
Wendy started forward, but it was too late. Brilliant light flashed and disappeared. Wendy blinked blindly. As her vision cleared, she saw Colton moving away and a fully clothed Lorelei stepping down from the ticket counter. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought that Lorelei had just mooned Colton from above, and Colton had snapped a picture.
Anger boiled up in Wendy. She wondered whether Daniel had put Colton up to this in retaliation because Wendy had refused to go along with Daniel’s plan.
Of course, nobody had made Lorelei pull her skirt and undies down. Wendy asked Franklin, “Did you see booty?”
“Yep.”
“Did Colton take a picture? This party has a strict no-picture rule.”
“Colton’s bodyguard is bigger than me. Besides, Lorelei likes to show her stuff.”
“On the Internet?”
“Sure!”
“Look—how could you let her get that drunk?”
“Oh, she doesn’t need to be drunk to moon somebody, believe me.”
The crowd dispersed along with the altercation. Lorelei put her arm around a girlfriend and disappeared into the darkness behind the counter she’d been standing on. Or mooning on. Colton, still gripping his phone, turned to greet a fellow actor from his canceled teen TV show. They embraced drunkenly, then did some kind of immature hand-slapping greeting that would have made Wendy roll her eyes if she hadn’t been a super-nice person. Speaking of which, she saw her chance.
She rushed up. “Hey, Colton!” she exclaimed as if she hadn’t seen him in months.
“Uh-oh.” He tipped his chin down and looked up at her with puppy dog eyes. “You’re probably mad at me for taking that picture of Lorelei’s ass.”
“Fine, tight ass, though,” the other actor said. The two of them high-fived.
Pigs. “I’m not mad at all,” Wendy said. “Hey, let me take a picture for you guys!” She held out her hand for Colton’s phone.
And he gave it over! She squealed with triumph inside. Finally, something was going right for her. “Smile!” She held the camera in front of her and centered the men’s embrace in the frame. She snapped a picture, then said, “Hold on,” and pretended to examine the photo. “The flash is messed up. Try again.” They put their arms around each other. She snapped another picture and pretended to be looking at it.
The second they got bored and turned away from her, continuing their macho catching-up, she fled across the room. All she needed was a head start to get away from Colton and a few seconds to find the photo of Lorelei and delete it.
She didn’t look back. She imagined a heavy hand clapping her on the shoulder at any second. No one stopped her. She slid past the velvet rope across the entrance to the museum exhibits. In a murky room lit only by the exit sign overhead, she stopped between statues of Babe Ruth and Cher and thumbed backward through Colton’s photo gallery to the picture of Lorelei’s na**d butt cheeks. She hit the menu to bring up the command to delete the picture.
Out of the darkness, the phone was grabbed away from her so fast that her fingers stung.
That was the last thing she remembered.
* * *
Daniel spent a long time talking with the movie producer on the sidewalk outside the museum, far enough away from the paparazzi gathered at the entrance that he and the producer wouldn’t be overheard. Surprisingly, Colton had made a good impression when he’d talked with the man. Daniel skirted the subject, building rapport as he and the producer discussed mutual colleagues such as Victor Moore. By the time they wrapped up their talk, Daniel felt confident that the producer would be calling Colton in the next few weeks for a reading to be cast in a blockbuster movie.
They said good-bye, and Daniel was very thankful the producer headed for his car. Colton had been mostly sober when Daniel left the party, but that might not still be the case, the way the gin had been flowing.
The night was dark, but as Daniel reentered the party, the museum was darker. The spotlit statue of Lorelei’s dead mother seemed to suck all the light out of the rest of the room. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, movement was the first thing he detected. The tiny figure edging past the barrier into the exhibit rooms was Wendy, the front of her long hair swept into a braid that hid the space where her missing lock should have been, the back cascading in loose curls around her shoulders. Her curve-hugging sequined dress caught one sweeping strobe light, and then she disappeared.
Colton was harder to find. And it was harder to move around the room looking for him now that the partiers were drunker. Some people wanted to stop Daniel to ask him about Victor and Olivia’s wedding of the century. Others wanted to discuss whether Lorelei was really on coke after all, the way she’d pulled her skirt down. What? Daniel became alarmed as more people told him parts of this story. He suspected Colton had something to do with it.
He finally found Colton coming out of the restroom. Daniel asked, “Did you take a picture of Lorelei mooning you?”
“Yes!” Colton laughed.
“What did you do with the picture?” He prayed Colton hadn’t posted it online. If Lorelei wanted to self-destruct, that was Wendy’s problem. But if Colton posted a picture of that self-destruction and helped it along, the public would associate him with it, even blame him.
Colton opened his hands. “I didn’t do anything with it. I lost my phone.”
“You lost your—” Daniel stopped himself before the top of his head blew off. Colton eyed him sheepishly. Daniel stepped out of the way of another man entering the restroom, then started again. “How could you lose your phone? Do you realize what the paparazzi could do with your photos and your contacts?”
Colton nodded. “I know. I think Wendy may have it. I hope she does, but I haven’t seen her since I gave it to her.”
Daniel pressed his lips together and counted to five. “Why did you give Wendy Mann your phone? She’s the enemy.”
“She was doing me a favor, taking a pic of me and my home slice,” Colton protested. “Since when is she the enemy? I thought you were back to tapping that ass.”
Daniel uttered the filthiest rebuke he had ever delivered to a client in his six years of representing the Blackstone Firm. Colton looked outraged. Daniel thought for a moment that if his father found out, this could be the end of his career. He didn’t care. Colton was not going to talk that way about Wendy. He turned on his heel and stalked toward the forbidden exhibit where Wendy had disappeared.
As he went, he tried to calm himself down. He was afraid he was falling for Wendy. Nothing could be more horrible when he needed to manipulate her to get Colton out of hot water.
She had the upper hand.
And now she had Colton’s phone. Daniel had no idea what she planned to do with the information she found on it. Possibly pure evil. Tomorrow he would get another ten calls from his father telling him that his inability to control Colton was a disgrace to the firm. His brother, had he been alive and in charge, would not have allowed this to happen. Daniel plowed around the velvet rope.
In the shadows, Wendy’s body was a pink and blond spill across the floor.
He skidded to his knees in front of her, grabbing her wrist so he could take her pulse, which was still there, thank God. He kept his fingers on her artery and counted her heartbeats. With the other hand he found his phone and dialed 911, quickly explaining the situation to the dispatcher.
“Daniel,” Wendy murmured. “I’m up. I think somebody hit me.” She reached for the back of her head.
“Don’t move.” He leaped up, hurried to the edge of the lobby, and waved Colton’s bodyguard over. Daniel gave the bodyguard his phone with 911 on the line and told him to bring the paramedics through the back of the building so the paparazzi wouldn’t report that someone had been injured at the party.
On second thought, Colton might be in danger if Wendy’s attacker was still in the building. Lorelei, too.
On third thought, why had he left Wendy alone?
He barked instructions for the bodyguard to find Franklin, and for both of them to close the party down and take Colton and Lorelei to the hotel, pronto. He dashed back to Wendy, who was trying to sit up, bracing herself against Cher’s knee-high boot.
“Hey. No.” Daniel settled on the floor and pulled Wendy’s head into his lap, blond hair everywhere. He ran his hands over her arms, down her legs. “What else is hurt?”
“Just my head, ow.”
Gently he moved his fingers through her thick hair to the back of her scalp. He felt the gash, then parted her hair to look at the bloody wound and cringed. He pulled out the handkerchief he always carried—an old-fashioned habit that had served him well, because he’d used one for many things in PR over the years. But never for this. He pressed it to her head. “I’ll bet it hurts. You may need a stitch or two. And . . . ” He went cold with the realization. He didn’t want to tell her, but she needed to know. “You’re missing more hair.”
“Where?” she squeaked.
Gently he picked up her hand from her lap and placed it over the chopped-off lock, on the other side of her head from the first.
“Daniel,” she wailed. “He had his hands on me. Where is my hair? He has my hair, like a trophy.”
“What else? Do you think he . . . ” Daniel’s voice trailed off. He couldn’t bring himself to finish. Something seemed to catch in his throat.
Wendy finished for him, “ . . . touched me in a way that made me feel all funny? No.”
He sighed with relief at her answer. If her sense of humor was coming back, maybe she didn’t have a concussion. “Have yourself checked out, though, okay? The ambulance and the police will be here soon.”
“Daniel!” She was trying to sit up again. “What did you call them for? Are you trying to get me fired?”
He pressed her back down into his lap. “Why would you get fired for being attacked?”
“Not for being attacked,” she said to the black ceiling. “For the headline LORELEI VOGEL’S PUBLIC RELATIONS MANAGER ASSAULTED IN VEGAS CLUB running the same day as the picture of Lorelei mooning her own musical career good-bye. It all sounds like one big drunken brawl. Oh shit. Oh, Daniel.” She looked at him so sadly, like she was sorry she’d just killed his cat. “That’s what whoever hit me must have been after. Colton’s phone is gone.”
The possible consequences were astounding. And Daniel couldn’t think about any of that right now. Not with Wendy bleeding and devastated in his lap. He said soothingly, “Maybe it’s around here on the floor. I’ll look for it after the ambulance comes.” He cast a glance around the dark room. He might even catch a glimpse of the glow from the phone’s screen.