Which was why her bosses hadn’t put Zane on her visitation list. She wanted to say something cutting about Tom Ruffner’s chances of whipping Zane into shape, but she couldn’t. She was Tom’s mentor and friend. And despite his youth and inexperience, Tom was good at this.
Wendy was beginning to feel expendable.
“But I get you business,” she said weakly. “Maybe my sunshiny personality doesn’t, but my results do. I’m the best you have at pulling stars out of scrapes. Am I right?”
“You’re right,” Archie said, “but you’re not doing us a lot of good if the stars employ us for a month, you pull them out of their scrape, and then they fire us. We need long-term relationships.”
“One more chance,” Wendy insisted. She realized her voice had risen again when a flock of pigeons burst from the window ledge behind her bosses in a flurry of wings.
Startled, Katelyn and Jonathan turned toward the window. As they faced the table again, they looked at each other and, barely perceptibly, shook their heads no. Archie told Wendy, “It’s so much easier to fire you.”
Lowering her voice, Wendy said, “Most workplaces would counsel an employee and allow her the chance to improve before giving her the ax.” Wendy understood that most employees didn’t cost their workplaces hundreds of thousands of dollars overnight, but she left that part out. “I’ll prove to you that I can help some guy out of the gutter and make him love me, too.”
Katelyn and Jonathan shook their heads more vigorously. Archie said, “The only star we’d even think about letting you near—” Now Jonathan was wagging his head no in an exaggerated fashion so Archie could see him out of the corner of his eye. Archie put his meaty hand on Jonathan’s shoulder to stay him, then continued, “—is the star who asked for you specifically, Wendy.”
“Lorelei Vogel?” Wendy guessed. It was that kind of day.
Archie watched her grimly, which meant yes.
Often when a huge star like Lorelei approached the agency, Wendy, Tom, and six other operatives fought over the account like lions over a piece of meat while a laid-back and calculating Sarah watched them as if she weren’t even hungry—which often resulted in the bosses handing the job to her. But nobody was touching Lorelei. Stargazer never turned down a difficult case, and the tacit message to employees was Deliver or die. Wendy knew if she saved her job today, Lorelei would likely be the death of her career anyway.
And she had another, much more personal reason to stay as far away from that chick as possible.
But Wendy’s future lay on the metal table in front of her, with Jonathan pulling the IV out of its arm, Katelyn holding her finger on the button to turn off life support, and Archie waiting with the body bag open and ready. Lorelei Vogel was Wendy’s only sad, unlikely chance at resuscitating her job.
“I’ll take it!” She slapped her hand on the table. The wood reverberated, the coffee sloshed, and all three bosses jumped. “You said Lorelei asked for me specifically. What do you have to lose?”
“A lot, honey,” Katelyn said. “This girl is the head-lining act for the Hot Choice Awards on Friday. If she melts down, she’s doing it on national television and taking our good name with her.”
“Maybe that won’t happen,” Wendy said. “Send me. I’ll meet this pretty delinquent with a smile on my face and a song in my heart. Maybe I’ll even straighten her out, and in that case, I want a raise and a promotion.”
Katelyn glanced at Jonathan, who watched Wendy as if a lunatic stranger had sat down to this conference with him. Wendy got this look from him a lot.
“Come on, you guys!” she pleaded. “You’re concentrating on failure. What if I turned this girl around and made her a showbiz darling? Think of all the recs Stargazer would get from that! And aren’t the Hot Choice Awards in Vegas? That’s perfect. You can’t win big if you don’t take a gamble.”
Archie raised his eyebrows at Katelyn. Satisfied with what he saw in her face, he told Wendy, “Sure. You’re hired. But on a trial basis only, sweetheart. We’ve made clear how we feel about you.”
“Thanks! You won’t regret it.” Wendy jumped up and crossed the conference room before her bosses could change their minds. She took slow, deep breaths and tried to rid herself of the feeling that the dark mountains of West Virginia crouched over her. Then closed her into a narrower and narrower valley until she slipped into the only escape available, a mine shaft, and fell forever.
* * *
Daniel Blackstone was rolling his suitcase into his Las Vegas hotel room when he remembered he was supposed to call his father in New York first thing on arrival. Daniel rarely forgot to touch base with his father. He knew he wasn’t as good a PR rep as his brother would have been. He wouldn’t be as good a president of the company when he took over next month, either, which was why his father deemed it necessary to monitor him. Normally this thought made him feel sorry for his father and sad for his lost brother. But today he was jet-lagged and exhausted, and all he felt was angry.
He would not be calling his father until he was good and ready.
He surveyed the room. In a corner, the hotel staff had set up a bar for him with bottles of expensive liquor and a fresh bucket of ice, as he’d requested. He wasn’t much of a drinker, but the job required it. When he was forced to play host, the setup looked cool. He hoped he wouldn’t need it at eleven in the morning Vegas time. If he did, he was in trouble already.
Satisfied with this arrangement, he surveyed the rest of the place. It was smallish for a luxury suite, smaller than one in L.A. but a damn sight bigger than one in Tokyo. There was a sitting area, a desk where he would spend most of the next week or however long he was stuck here, and a king-size bed. Windows extended the length of the room, with a killer view of the Strip.
At midmorning, the casinos across the street didn’t seem like the wonderlands they were advertised to be. They only looked vast, mostly blocking the dun-colored mountains in the distance. But he knew from experience that in the older, mellow part of the night, after however many drinks his job had demanded of him, he could lie on this bed, look out at the lights glowing in the signs and reflecting against the glass faces of the buildings, and dream that he was on his last trip to London with his brother.
It had been the best week of his life. He’d visited his grandparents every year of his childhood, but this time he and his brother had gone alone to England, in advance of their parents and their little sister. They’d explored the countryside, nearly wrecked their rental car driving on the wrong side of the road, gotten drunk in countless pubs, and marveled at the punk girls in this strange part of the world. That shining vacation, all color, was the last time he’d seen his brother alive.
Since then, all his trips had been filled with black-and-white business for his father. Looming overhead was the inevitability of not doing everything as perfectly as his brother would have, and letting his father down. The women Daniel had dated had told him how jealous they were of him, flying to the world’s priciest and toniest resort destinations, hanging out with the stars, and enjoying fine dining and the best entertainment the world had to offer. He would have preferred some actual downtime and the chance to wander off the beaten path. He did love to travel, but not like this.
What he wouldn’t give to explore Vegas with his brother.
He wanted to ride the roller coaster around the faux skyline at the New York casino. He wanted to see every cheesy washed-up pop star in concert, and maybe a few magicians. He wanted to visit Hoover Dam, even fly over it in a helicopter like a tourist. He wanted to hike Red Rock Canyon. He wanted to win a thousand dollars at craps and feel the high, then lose two thousand and actually miss the money. He wanted to pawn something for cash to win his money back. He wanted a massage in a serene spa. He didn’t deal with call girls, but it would have been nice to share his nights with a beautiful, loose woman, lost like him and lonely.
The thick window was the only barrier between his business trip and the tourists far below who
were just waking up and heading onto the Strip for lunch and more gambling.
The hotel room might not be spacious, but he would take it.
He placed his bag on the suitcase rack and zipped it open. He lined up his shoes in the bottom of the closet, then hung his shirts neatly on hangers with ties around the hooks and suit coats draped over the shoulders. He tried to make his job easier by dressing well and giving the most professional, least approachable impression possible. This helped immensely when lecturing stars on why they needed to stop fathering illegitimate children. Leaving his things crammed in his suitcase bothered him and would mean more ironing later. He didn’t have time to send things out for pressing. He was in crisis mode.
The drama with Colton Farr was still unfolding downstairs. Colton’s bodyguard had texted to say that Colton was in the casino, down almost a hundred thousand dollars at blackjack. Not something that would help with Colton’s image problem—as if urinating in the fountain at the Bellagio last night and getting evicted from the hotel hadn’t been bad enough. When witnesses had called police, Colton’s bodyguard had called Colton’s agent, who’d contacted the Blackstone Firm for crisis management.
This case was so high profile that Daniel’s father himself might have taken it last year. But he was retiring in a month. He was backing away from company duties he didn’t want. It had been Daniel who’d taken the 4 a.m. call and talked the Bellagio manager down from pressing charges—even though Daniel had just finished a monthlong stint in Hollywood, threatening four different people into working together or else. He’d gotten back to Manhattan two nights ago, exhausted and happy to see his cat. Now this.
Personally, he didn’t care whether Colton Farr crashed and burned. He had a handful of clients whose work he respected, like Victor Moore, who’d made some very good action movies. In contrast, Colton Farr went around insulting women and pissing in public places, and Daniel did not do either, so he really didn’t understand why this guy deserved saving, except that it would pay for Daniel’s father’s new Maserati.
Daniel ducked into the bathroom to glance at his hair, which he’d kept short and neat since he’d grown out of his teenage punk phase. Satisfied with his reflection, he turned for the door.
An afterthought stopped him, an image he’d glimpsed in the mirror but had been slower to process. He leaned back into the bathroom and took another look at himself.
That’s what he’d half noticed: the dark shadows under his eyes. He’d always loathed his own harsh face, all angles and planes that looked whiter against his black hair. By the same token, looking naturally mean gave him an edge when he needed to twist a star’s arm. But the shadows under his eyes were new as of a few weeks ago and had gotten progressively worse. There was looking harsh, and then there was looking haggard. Not good for business. He needed to appear as if he was about to run the company, not like it was running him.
He touched the dark skin under one eye, then released it and watched the color flow back into his white fingerprint. GQ was always recommending products for issues like this, products that would inevitably be declared useless by Consumer Reports. He wished for a miracle cream—tubs of it if the stress continued at this level when he took over the Blackstone Firm. Enough for all the years he stayed in charge.
Which would be until his father either died or didn’t know the difference anymore when his beloved business closed for good.
Thirty years from now, possibly.
When Daniel himself would be nearing retirement age.
He straightened and shot himself a disdainful look for being so vain. He had no time to worry about it, anyway. He had a spoiled actor to corral.
Shrugging on his suit coat, he walked to the elevator—a short walk rather than the mile-long trek some vacationers endured in these massive hotels, because he’d made friends with the staff many trips ago—pressed the button for the casino, rode down dozens of floors, and stepped into the cacophony. Slot machines beeped and sang cheerfully. Gamblers laughed and clapped each other on the back. Skirting them all, he headed for the high-roller gaming tables, where the employees still smiled but the clientele grew serious.
He spotted Colton right away, despite the disguise. Colton was average height but broad from working with a personal trainer for the past seven years, ever since he first became the fourteen-year-old heartthrob of a teen sitcom. His UCLA sweatshirt didn’t hide his shoulders any more than his trucker hat hid his highlighted blond hair. He wore designer shades in the dim and flickering light of the slot machines, which could only mean he was a professional gambler, a star, or a wannabe.
But even if he hadn’t looked the part, his entourage at the blackjack table would have given him away: his bodyguard standing behind him, arms crossed, with a conspicuous earpiece that probably wasn’t even turned on; his driver, who’d transported everyone from L.A. and deposited them safely in Vegas, and wouldn’t serve a purpose again, except as a drinking buddy, until the Hot Choice Awards were over five days from now, when he would drive them back home; and a call girl. The woman sat next to Colton at the table, placing her cleavage in his line of sight as he looked to the dealer and signaled for another card.
Daniel paused beside a sparkling bank of slot machines and surveyed the rest of the casino floor. He counted three security guards posted around the vast room, back near the walls, making themselves known in their cheap suits and speaking occasionally into real microphones attached to real earpieces. Two different groups of tourists seemed to have recognized Colton and discussed approaching him, which was why the security guards were there, and why, if Daniel had been consulted, he never would have let Colton out in public in Vegas. Not when the whole country knew he was here for the Hot Choice Awards. And not when he was insulting his ex-girlfriend on the Internet and pissing in fountains.
A couple of other men sat at the table with Colton, both tourists. One was dressed almost exactly like Colton in a sports cap and a sports T-shirt. He even looked a bit like an older Colton, all blond muscle, but without Colton’s soft and pampered features. This guy looked like he opened beer bottles with his teeth. The other man, skinnier and balding, wore a loud Hawaiian shirt.
There was nothing inherently suspicious about tourists sitting at a Vegas table with a celebrity. Stars liked to mix with real humans once in a while.
But as Daniel watched, Hawaiian shirt man, who was sitting on the other side of the call girl from Colton, touched her shoulder. This surprised Daniel. They definitely hadn’t seemed to be together. Daniel had a lot of experience browbeating pimps away from his clients. This guy didn’t give off a pimp vibe.
Sure enough, the touch that passed between Hawaiian shirt guy and the woman had been a signal. Without taking her eyes off Colton, the woman leaned back in her chair until her breasts were no longer blocking him. Hawaiian shirt man pulled something out of his back pocket.
Before Daniel realized what he was doing, he was moving across the floor toward the table. He didn’t shout because that would draw attention to himself rather than the paparazzo pulling out the camera and the woman backing away to give him a clear shot. Daniel hoped Colton’s bodyguard would see the man before he got his photograph and escaped through the casino. The guy might not make it outside, but all he needed to earn his pay from the tabloids was to upload his photo. The casino would ban him and perhaps have him arrested for taking a photo on their property. Too little, too late, if the photo was already out in the world by then.
A photo of Colton losing a hundred thousand dollars, with a prostitute.
Daniel rounded the table. The bodyguard would see the photographer any moment. The security guards would come to assist. Daniel only had to get a hand between the camera lens and Colton. He reached out.
Colton perceived Daniel’s reaching arm and the camera. He half stood and awkwardly swung up his fist from behind him. The photographer leaped sideways off his stool.
Daniel had enough time to cringe at what was coming but not enough
time to duck out of the way as Colton’s meaty fist connected with his eye. The impact launched him backward. His body met something solid that grabbed his arms—probably the bodyguard, finally doing his job.
Daniel pressed down the almost overwhelming urge to fight, to jerk out of the bodyguard’s grasp and slug him, then go after Colton. Long years of practice hadn’t rid him of that instinct but had given him superhuman strength to suppress it. Before he could see or clear his head of the throbbing, he said in as commanding a voice as he could muster, “I’m Daniel Blackstone. I just arrived from New York to handle PR. Get this guy’s camera before he can upload.”
Released from the bodyguard’s grip, he stood blinking, half wishing the bodyguard still propped him up. He struggled to stay upright while bringing the suddenly too-bright casino lights back into focus. The security guards had come forward to help the bodyguard manhandle the photographer and the call girl. The gawkers stared from behind an imaginary velvet rope, unwilling to join the fray but eager to find out what trouble Colton Farr had gotten himself into now.
Daniel had to hustle Colton out of there before more cameras were produced. He stepped around the table to where Colton, fists on his hips, scowled over his driver’s shoulder at the photographer. Daniel said softly, “I’m your new PR specialist. Come with me.”
Colton looked Daniel up and down, assessing. His gaze lingered on Daniel’s eye, which was probably bruising by now. Colton’s lip curled. “I’m down a hundred thou. I was just getting my mojo back. I’m not going anywhere.”
Daniel felt his own fists clenching down by his sides. He’d thought his impulsiveness had been shamed out of him by his father many years before. But at the moment, it was all he could do to keep from slamming this smug asshole square on his nose job. He quashed the startling thought that he wasn’t going to leave Vegas without doing just that.
But not now. Now he had a public relations disaster to avert, whether or not Colton wanted to cooperate. He gave Colton his coldest stare as he said, “You called me, Farr. I have plenty of other business. Come with me, immediately, or I will take the next flight back to New York and bill you for my wasted time.”