Playing Dirty (Stargazer #2)(9)
Author: Jennifer Echols

Sarah came back down to earth. “Excuse me,” she said, recovering her dignity. She clopped across the flagstones in her heels and passed Erin and Owen tickling each other on their way out of the mansion.

In the bathroom, Sarah clung to the marble counter and stared into the mirror at her pink highlights. She needed to concentrate, remember why she was here, and develop a plan. Without calling Wendy. She didn’t want to drag Wendy any further into the mess she’d made for herself at Stargazer.

So. She wasn’t getting the feeling she’d expected from the group. She’d thought at first that the drunken party would quickly devolve into a three-way fight among Quentin, Erin, and Owen, with seemingly levelheaded Martin refereeing.

Tension definitely filled the air. But some of it was a result of Sarah’s presence and the fact that Quentin was coming on to her. It made sense that the others in the group would want to stop Quentin from hooking up with a PR expert sent by the record company, which would create even more tension. They were about to be in hot water for missing their album deadline, whether they broke up or not.

What was absent, other than the one time Erin had slapped Quentin on the shoulder for no apparent reason, was tension directly between Quentin and Erin. Likely there was sexual tension between them, and Sarah wasn’t detecting it, despite her honed senses. She’d gone through this with bands before. The members spent so much time together, knew each other so well, and were such good friends or archenemies, that they conveyed messages to each other without saying a word.

Or Quentin could be just as close to leaving the group as the mysterious caller had warned Manhattan Music, but the band was covering up their troubles to get rid of her.

At any rate, she would get to the bottom of it. She could use Quentin’s passing attraction to her to edge closer to him and find out what was going on.

The problem with this plan was that she liked Quentin a little too much. Enjoyed his cheesy pickup lines. Thrilled each time he touched her hand. She couldn’t be sure at this point, but she didn’t think it was all because of the tequila.

She convinced herself that she was doing a great job for Stargazer. Natsuko would act aloof from the likes of Nine Lives, but upon encountering someone handsome and friendly like Quentin, she would flirt. Seduce. Make a pretense of following through.

Sarah would never actually sleep with a drug addict. Or anyone she’d just met, for that matter. Natsuko might not, either, but she would at least respond to Quentin and lead him on. Otherwise, the whole band might sense that Sarah wasn’t a scary bitch after all, but a marathon runner who’d just learned to apply makeup at age twenty-nine.

She knew how she could make this work. Quentin hadn’t been drunk when she got there. But she’d taken note of every sip he’d consumed since she’d arrived, and by now he was more inebriated than such a big man should have been. He couldn’t hold his liquor at all—which was the opposite of what she usually saw in hard-partying musicians. Whatever the reason, she intended to take advantage. After a few shots of tequila, it would be lights out for him. Just before that happened, she intended to be very much in his way.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, watching her badass and not entirely familiar reflection in the mirror. A year ago, she wouldn’t have dreamed of cooking up a scheme like this or placing herself so dangerously close to a star. Even nine months ago, after her makeover, she wouldn’t have done it. But her experience with Nine Lives in Rio had changed her. She had no husband, no social life—and if she didn’t make a bold move to save her job, nothing left to lose.

She headed back out to the game, pausing in the kitchen. Through the glass-paned door, she glimpsed Erin walking along the pool’s edge. Erin watched the men to make sure they weren’t paying her any attention. She held her margarita glass low and behind her, then dumped its entire contents into the water.

What the hell was going on here? Too much to figure out in one night. Best to file it away for later: Erin hides sobriety from men. Sarah let Erin think she’d gotten away with it. She waited until Erin sat back down with the men before she exited the kitchen and returned to the poker game herself.

As Sarah took her seat, Quentin touched her hand. “I was about to come in there after you.”

“I’m fine,” she assured him. “And ready to get you undressed.”

He smiled at her as he dealt. In fact, he couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away from her for long. Cards fluttered onto the flagstones and into Erin’s lap amid shouts of, “Q! Earth to Q!”

The others folded. Sarah squared off against Quentin again. He stared at her long and hard, considering whether to call her bluff.

“You’ve been awfully quiet tonight, Q,” Erin remarked. Perhaps she was jealous of Quentin’s attentions to Sarah.

“Strategery,” Quentin said with a straight face. Sarah couldn’t tell whether he’d seen the Saturday Night Live imitation of George W. Bush or he really thought it was a word.

He looked at his cards, then looked at Sarah. His dark green eyes pierced her eyes, caressed her cheek, paused over her lips, stroked her neck, lingered at her cle**age. He had the audacity to tilt his head to make sure she knew he was contemplating her ass again. This was good for her bluff, though. The longer he stared at her, the closer she came to forgetting she held only a pair of threes.

“ ‘Let the Wookiee win,’ ” Owen quoted Star Wars in a bad British accent.

“I fold,” Quentin said finally, throwing two eights on the table.

Sarah turned her cards over.

“Oh!” the others moaned, and Quentin laughed. And laughed, and laughed, and started everyone else laughing because he was laughing so long. Sarah recognized that infectious laugh. A full thirty seconds of his laugh ended the album In Poor Taste.

“Damn, woman,” he said finally, brushing away the tears at the corners of his eyes. “That’s some poker face. I got lucky the first time, and no luck since.”

“Story of your life,” Owen said. Erin giggled more loudly. Quentin’s eyes flickered toward them.

“You bluff well, too,” Sarah told Quentin, although she suspected it was easy for a blissful ignoramus to look noncommittal.

“Course, you ain’t as inebriated as we are,” he said, pouring her another margarita. He paused. “Inebri—Is that a word?” Now he faced her full-on, knee to knee with her. He stroked his fingers from her scalp all the way down to the ends of her locks.