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Past Sarah’s shoulder, Wendy saw Tom stop short a few feet from them with a cardboard holder and three coffees.
Seeing Wendy’s face, Sarah’s eyes widened. “What is it?” Sarah whirled to glance behind her. “Oh, Tom! Thank God. The way Wendy looked, I thought you were Daniel, eavesdropping on us.”
Tom sauntered over to the table and sat down, eyeing Sarah. “You think it’s good business policy for Wendy to slap Daniel Blackstone on the ass?”
“I think she already has,” Sarah said.
Wendy kicked Sarah under the table.
“Metaphorically,” Sarah said without missing a beat. “I was just making fun of the way Wendy talks about men when you’re not around. Wait, you didn’t need to know that, either.” She looked to Wendy for help.
“We both apologize,” Wendy said, trying her best to sound like Audrey Hepburn. “We are very sorry you walked in on our sexist language. Sometimes in our private discussions, we are not very professional.”
“Professional?” Tom’s brows shot up. “You two? I think we left that place about five minutes after I started work.” He put his chin in his hand, settling in to find out more.
Wendy gave them the brief version of everything that had happened in the past three days. She mentioned but downplayed Daniel’s suspicion that Rick was her attacker. Last night she’d been so sure he was right, after brushing past the Colton-like character in the club. But in the bright light of day, she wasn’t so sure anymore—though she was still wary of passersby and kept one hand over the top of her paper cup of coffee.
Since they were so curious, bordering on disbelieving, she unfurled her bun and showed them the three places where her hair had been lopped off, and the gash stitched together in the back of her head. She explained that the attacks were why she’d stayed the last two nights in Daniel’s room. As she pinned her hair up again, Sarah and Tom grilled her about why the police hadn’t done anything, and then about what else had been going on between her and Daniel.
“How much do you know about this guy?” Tom demanded.
Wendy opened her mouth to explain that she’d known Daniel by reputation her entire adult life—and then stopped. Tom had turned the tables on her somehow, making her feel like he was her older brother rather than her younger one, and she needed to defend her boyfriend to him. “Daniel’s not my boyfriend,” she said testily. “I don’t need to know anything about him.”
“It sounds like you’ve been tumbling all over each other like puppies,” Tom insisted.
“No, that would be you and your girlfriend, Miss New Jersey,” Wendy countered.
“Whoa whoa whoa,” Sarah said, putting a hand between them to interrupt their glares at each other. “Seriously, Wendy, we need to talk about what tack Tom and I are supposed to be taking when it comes to Colton, who’s officially a client for a rival PR firm.”
Wendy stared at her without speaking.
“What?” Sarah asked.
“Are you wearing a bra?”
Sarah hung her head. “No.”
Tom looked at the ceiling.
“We need to take care of this,” Wendy said, sweeping her hand in a way that indicated all of Sarah. “Come with me. Walk and talk.” She raked her chair back from the table and led them out of the food court, into the mall. In a high-end shoe store, she chose an ankle boot with a three-inch heel and approached the counter. “We’d like to try this in a seven, please.” Then she sat across from Sarah and Tom where they’d settled on the store’s low seats. “I thought I’d made it clear what tack you should take,” she told them. “Daniel and I are working together to make it look like Lorelei and Colton are reuniting. I need you guys to help us any way you can, and that includes helping Daniel.”
“But what if I just happen to skew Lorelei’s PR in a way that makes her look good and Colton look bad?” Tom asked.
“And there are so many ways I could sabotage Colton’s PR without Daniel knowing,” Sarah added.
“No,” Wendy said. “I don’t want to screw Daniel over.”
“Why not?” Tom asked suspiciously.
“He’s with the Blackstone Firm, in case you hadn’t noticed,” Sarah said. “Screwing them over is practically part of Stargazer’s mission statement.”
“Daniel and I have been working together some since we’ve been here,” Wendy reminded them. “He’s had the opportunity to screw me over, and he hasn’t. I’ve had the opportunity to screw him over, and I haven’t.”
“But now we’re here,” Tom pointed out.
“And you need to screw him over if you can,” Sarah told Wendy. “Katelyn knows you called us to help you. With extra resources added to your tab, you’d better come through with something spectacular.”
“That doesn’t have to include sabotaging Daniel,” Wendy protested. “It could simply be doing my job and getting Lorelei out of trouble.”
“And getting her album nominated for a Grammy,” Tom said, “because at this point, I don’t think just doing your job is going to cut it.”
“Nah.” Wendy waved away his concerns with a confidence she didn’t feel. “Lorelei will record a beautiful mini-concert in an hour, and she’ll do great at the awards show tomorrow night. Everything will turn around for her. You’ll see.”
The salesman came out with the shoes then. He offered them to Wendy, but Wendy pointed to Sarah. After he left, Sarah held the box as if she wasn’t sure what to do with it. “These are for me? What’s wrong with what I have on? I just bought these.” She stuck out one sad Mary Jane with a hiking tread.
“What’s wrong with them,” Wendy said, “is that you’re in Vegas, where everybody goes out of their way to look good. You’re part of my posse. You’re a reflection on me. You can’t dress like you teach kindergartners at a Montessori school. We’re getting a scarf and chunky earrings, too, to make what you’re wearing into something presentable. Or just cover it up. And then you are marching right back to your room to put on a bra.”
With a grimace, Sarah tried the boots on. “They fit, but Wendy. I’m running a marathon in two weeks. I’m not willing to break my ankle in heels just because you’re embarrassed to be seen with me.”
“Precisely because you run marathons, you could punch holes in steel plate with your ankles.” Remembering Tom, Wendy turned to him. “You’re very tolerant of us while we conduct this meeting in a women’s shoe store. Thank you.”
“No problem.” He grinned.
“Are you putting up with it, or are you kind of enjoying it?”
“I’m kind of enjoying it. Taking notes like David Attenborough.”
“You’ll make somebody an excellent husband.”
Tom put up his hands. “Hold on there, cowgirl.”
“Not for me, Scruffy! You’re just a baby.” Running her eye up and down him, she appraised his usual attire. “You just need to iron.”
“I don’t iron.”
“Send your clothes out to be pressed, then, and charge it to my room. Jesus.” She turned her sights on Sarah again. “Do you have something to wear to Lorelei’s birthday party tonight?”
Sarah gestured to what she was wearing. “This?”
Wendy took a deep breath and prayed to God for forbearance. Then she said, “I’ll give you a hint. Sequins.”
“Then, no.” Sarah stuck out her bottom lip.
Wendy shook her head in disgust. “When I get a minute this afternoon, I’ll buy you a dress and have it delivered to your room.”
“I feel like your mistress.” Sarah grinned.
“Speaking of inappropriate relationships,” Tom spoke up, “seriously, Wendy, what are you going to do about Daniel Blackstone?”
Wendy glanced around the shoe store to make sure they wouldn’t be overheard, then scowled at him. “Why do I have to do anything about Daniel Blackstone?”
“Because his head was in your lap!” Sarah exclaimed, exasperated.
“You love saying that,” Wendy grumbled.
“I’m just dishing it back out, girlfriend,” Sarah said. “I can’t believe this day has finally come. You and Daniel have both met your match. Only, you’re not really a match for him. Not long-term. If this is a fling that will be over when you go back to New York, that’s one thing. If you think you can keep meeting in New York without anybody finding out, I don’t know. That’s really iffy. And Stargazer cannot find out about this, Wendy.”
Wendy’s stomach twisted. “It’s not against company policy to have a relationship with the Blackstone Firm,” she protested.
“It might as well be,” Tom said. “That’s the first thing I learned in this job.”
“And they already don’t like you, Wendy,” Sarah said. “In case you forgot, they fired you on Monday, but you clung to Archie’s leg and he couldn’t shake you off.”
“Plus, I’ve been doing a really good job of keeping Zane Taylor clean,” Tom volunteered. “Maybe too good. I’ve told the bosses that you laid the groundwork, but they don’t listen when they don’t want to hear it. And now this photo of Lorelei is making the rounds.”
“You can’t give them another excuse,” Sarah insisted. “You’ve got to get Lorelei out of this scrape, and you’ve got to dump Daniel.”
Wendy grimaced. “What if I didn’t dump him? Isn’t there another way out of this?”
“He can’t leave the Blackstone Firm,” Tom said. “It practically belongs to him. You could leave Stargazer and—”
“No!”
“—go to work for—”
“No!”
“It’s not that bad, Wendy,” Sarah broke in. “There are plenty of PR firms that—”
“No!”
“Hey!” Sarah put her hand on Wendy’s thigh. “We know you’re scared.”
“I’m not.” Wendy rose and pointed to the counter, indicating that Sarah should pay for her shoes so they could move on to the next item of clothing. “There’s nothing to be scared of. The only reason I would lose my job is if Daniel and I really fell for each other. I’m not going to let that happen.”
* * *
Midafternoon, Daniel found Wendy in their room. She’d draped her suit jacket over the back of the desk chair, so he got a better look at her br**sts than he had that morning. The sight heated his blood. He made a valiant effort to stare at her face instead while he waited for her to acknowledge him.
She’d set up her laptop on the desk rather than balancing it on her thighs on the bed, which told him that things had gotten serious. She even held up one finger so he would hold his thoughts while she finished an e-mail. “There!” She tapped the trackpad with a flourish and spun in the desk chair to face him. “How are you feeling?” she asked, beaming at him.
“Better, after eating,” he said. “How do you feel? I’ve stopped asking you, but you’re the one with stitches.”
“A hundred percent. Lorelei’s TV appearance went so well. Did you see it?”
He sat on the bed, very close to her chair, and tried not to stare at the tempting hem of her skirt as she crossed her toned legs in front of him. Wendy looked very sexy in skirts. “Colton and I both watched it, and then I watched it again online. You and your crew did a super job setting that up and getting the video out there.”
“It turned out great,” Wendy agreed. “I could have kissed that girl right there in the studio, but PR professionals do not inadvertently start lesbian rumors about their clients.”
Daniel laughed. “I can tell Lorelei’s public image is turning around because of that video, and people are getting excited about the fact that she and Colton might be back together. I only wish there was something else we could do.”
“Something else?” Wendy exclaimed. “I don’t know how you work at the Blackstone Firm, but over at Stargazer we are tired. Maybe we’re underachieving.”
Daniel shook his head. “It’s just that Lorelei and Colton’s bad PR has been incredibly bad. In order to counteract that, the good PR has to be over the top. Their apparent reunion and your video are steps in the right direction, but I’m not sure we’re there yet. I’m still thinking. Maybe I’ll come up with something.”
Wendy was looking at him like he was insane, so he shrugged and changed the subject. “Thank you for bringing Sarah out here to help. I know it was really for Lorelei, and only incidentally for Colton or for me, but I appreciate it all the same. Sarah is good at what she does.”
“She thinks the same thing about you,” Wendy said. “She told me you were like a master class in this business.”
“Well,” he said quietly. “It’s second nature now. I grew up with it. Couldn’t get away from it. I . . . ”
She raised her eyebrows, probably wondering why he’d stopped talking. And why he was talking about himself voluntarily. Good call.
He started over. “I know it was just a big mistake to be asleep on your lap when your colleagues came into the room. I feel awful about it. Sarah gave me a talking-to.”
“Yeah,” Wendy said regretfully, “Sarah does that.”
“I, um . . . ” He was never tongue-tied, but Wendy had this effect on him. She watched him with concern in her blue eyes as his speech ground to a halt. He doubted he would have gotten himself in this fix with her if she’d only been kind. Or only brilliant at her job. Or only hilarious, making him laugh like he hadn’t laughed since high school.
