Page 23

His sigh suggested we'd reached the limit of his patience. “Play hockey, Max.”

“I was planning to.”

“Try doing it well this time.”

He hung up before I could respond.

I stared at the phone for several seconds, then tossed it onto the couch beside me. Melanie would keep talking for a few more days because attention was what she'd wanted, and eventually people would lose interest when she couldn't provide anything more substantial than photographs she'd taken after entering my apartment without permission.

She'd disappear.

They usually did.

That should've made me feel better.

My phone rang again.

Papa.

I considered ignoring it, mostly because I already knew what conversation we were about to have and had no desire to participate, but something made me answer.

“Bonjour, Papa.”

“You sound tired.”

“It's the middle of the playoffs.”

“It is also all over the news that a woman broke into your apartment, which seems relevant.”

I closed my eyes. Straight to the point, then.

“She didn't break anything.”

There was a pause long enough to make me regret the joke.

“That is the distinction you're making?”

“Apparently.”

“Maxim.”

My father had a particular way of saying my name when he thought I was being deliberately difficult, and twenty years hadn't changed it.

“I'm handling it. My agent says the story is already dying.”

“That isn't what I'm asking.”

Of course it wasn't.

I got up and crossed to the window, more because sitting still had become impossible than because I cared about the view. Vegas sprawled beneath me in daylight, all concrete and glass without the darkness necessary to make any of it look magical.

“What do you want me to say?”

“I want to know what happened, not the version your publicist is giving everyone else.”

“She got into my apartment while I wasn't there and took photographs. That's what happened.”

“You know that isn't what I mean.”