Page 13 of Hidden With You

ChapterFive

Itell myself I shouldn’t care, but when I return to the party and don’t see him, disappointment settles over me like a gray fog. I turn slowly, looking for Jamie, because I think this is my cue to leave, too. I came here tonight in the role of the peppy and perky author, giddy about having her book adapted into a Major Motion Picture—the kind of deal wherein those words should be spoken by that guy who narrates movie trailers, then underscored with a drumroll and a cymbal crash.

In other words, hyper-celebratory.

Right now, I’m just feeling let down. Which is ridiculous, since I don’t know anything about that guy other than that he was chatting with some of the men who work with Jamie’s husband. I mean, hell, I never even learned his name.

I consider asking Jamie but decide against it. Jamie is wired to interfere. She gets even a whiff of a hint that I’m interested in a guy—even if only in a FWB kinda way—and she’ll dive into matchmaker mode. Worse, she’ll tell Ryan, and it’ll probably get back to Mystery Man, and god only knows what kind of nightmarish web I’ll end up entangled in.

Better to ask Leah. She’s much more likely to keep a secret. She’s a spy, after all. More or less, anyway.

Twelve years older than me, Leah Ramirez is the aunt to my elementary school bestie, Camille, who moved to Ohio with her mom the summer after seventh grade, and with whom I communicated in only monosyllables and grunts at brunch. But I’ve kept up with Leah, who spent many an evening and weekend babysitting both of us, and even stayed in my house for two months back when she was between apartments and my parents were out of town.

I’d been fifteen and hadn’t wanted them to hire back my childhood nanny. Apparently in their mind, Leah made a good substitute, and after Leah moved out, neither my mom nor my stepfather, Carter, seemed to notice that I had the run of the house unsupervised except for the live-in housekeeper, Tricia, and other transient staff.

Leah and I keep in touch, though I’m sure she’s probably just in the habit of checking on me. Everyone older than me has always checked on me, the poor little rich girl raised by the staff because her parents were too lame to hang around.

I grimace, irritated at the way my mind has spun off topic. Bottom line is that if I want to know about Mystery Guy without word getting back to him, then Leah is a good place to start.

Unfortunately, even though she works at Stark Security, Leah isn’t at the party. I try to remember where she is—she’d gone out of town for work—but damned if I can recall where. Phoenix, maybe. Or Albuquerque. I remember thinking dry and dusty when she told me, but I wasn’t paying too much attention.

Still, she has her cell, and I’ll give her a call as soon as I get home. So long as it’s before two, I know Leah will answer.

Then again, maybe I won’t call at all. Maybe it’s better I don’t know the guy’s name. Better I just let this infatuation go. Tonight, I’ll write out in my journal the way I’d hoped the evening would go, full of every wild fantasy and erotic detail that comes to mind. Then I’ll turn the page and move on with the rest of my life, same as I’d do with any other guy.

“You’re leaving already?” Jamie asks when I finally track her down. She and Nikki Stark, along with my agent, Evelyn Dodge, have gone down to the beach, and now they’re shoeless and chasing the waves, which cracks me up since Nikki and Evelyn are both the pulled-together type. Shoeless Jamie doesn’t surprise me at all. Frankly, Naked Jamie wouldn’t shock me.

“Come join us,” Nikki says.

I start to decline, then decide what the hell. I kick off my shoes and race in, almost knocking Evelyn over in the process. “Whoa there, girl. I want to splash, not take a bath.”

“Sorry.” I adore Evelyn, especially since she took me on when I was just fourteen and a production company had come knocking, wanting to buy the film rights for Twisted Destiny, the serialized young adult fantasy I was writing that had generated a scarily huge number of fans. Even being raised the way I was—as in, surrounded by money and all it could buy—I’d been intimidated by the process. And since my mom and stepfather were both useless and absent, she stepped in to help with the process, even going so far as to get their power of attorney so that she could legally sign on behalf of Minor Me.

“I didn’t see you up there,” I tell Evelyn, nodding toward the decking and the house.

“I saw you,” she says. “You and Jamie. You both looked good.”

“I hate that part,” I admit.

“But you do it anyway, and you do it well. So good girl.” Evelyn’s in her sixties, but you’d never know it by looking. She has a timeless kind of face, both strong and kind. She always says what she thinks, and the only agenda she ever pushes is her client’s. My stepfather tries to get me to fire her every time he’s in town, telling me she gets too personal and doesn’t focus enough on the business side. But Carter’s an ass, and from where I’m standing, Evelyn has helped build my business right alongside me, which is more than I can say for either of my parents.

“Is everything okay?” she asks me now, frowning at the way I’ve stopped chasing the waves, unlike Jamie and Nikki, who are laughing like crazy a few yards down the beach.

“Sure,” I lie, because honestly, when has everything been okay?

“You were looking for me earlier. I thought maybe you needed something.”

“What? Oh, no. I wasn’t looking,” I assure her. “I just meant that I didn’t realize you were here. I was wondering about somebody I met.”

“Oh?”

“Just a guy I chatted with. No big deal.”

“Well, good for you,” she says, which makes me frown.

“I’m sorry?”

“For not leaving with him.”