Star Crossed (Stargazer #1)(13)
Author: Jennifer Echols

Poor ex is here at Giuliana Jacobsen’s bash wishing he had some of this.

Marching up the jet bridge, Wendy called the number she’d been given for Lorelei’s cell phone, though that was an exercise in futility. If Lorelei was at this reality star’s party, she wouldn’t hear her phone ring. Even if she did see the call coming through, she wouldn’t call back an unfamiliar number. Wendy texted Sarah.

Lorelei is tweeting pics of her v v small boobies. Girlfriend is off the rails. WHY DIDN’T U WARN ME

She had to wait only thirty seconds for Sarah’s answer.

LOL! You said: “I need to get home and pack. I don’t have time for the rundown.” ?

Wendy hated it when Sarah mocked her with emoticons. But she needed Sarah, so her texts were only mildly sarcastic as she asked Sarah to figure out the location of Giuliana Jacobsen’s party. Luckily it was in a club at the same hotel where Lorelei and therefore Wendy were staying. She slid out of her taxi and wheeled her suitcase through the grand entrance to the casino and across the wildly patterned carpet, toward the Big O. The club’s ridiculous name was spelled out in huge letters and outlined in lights over the doorway.

She slowed as she drew closer. She thought she saw a familiar figure seated at a table next to the glass wall. No, it couldn’t be. She’d imagined in her darkest hour that Daniel Blackstone might be here to represent Colton, but that had been her panic talking. Tall, dark, handsome men in impeccably tailored suits were a dime a dozen in Vegas.

Then he turned his head, eyes following the ass of a passing bar waitress. Wendy caught a glimpse of his profile and those high cheekbones. Damn, it was him.

The table where he now sat was a booth way too big for one person, but nobody was going to tell Daniel Blackstone to move. The booth was elevated several feet above the main floor so he could see over the pulsing crowd and watch everybody who came in the door. He would look things over from the outside first, observing, getting the lay of the land, figuring out who surrounded his client, who had jealousies, who was a potential leak. Only then would he move to the inner room, sticking close to the client, persuading him or pressuring him or, in select cases, blackmailing him into changing his ways.

In short, Daniel sat exactly where Wendy would have sat, doing exactly what Wendy would have been doing, if he hadn’t beaten her to it.

And one of the people he was looking for was her.

Her first instinct was to slip past him into the club room. Just then, his eyes passed over her. She could still duck into the club without speaking to him, but the two of them likely would circle each other slowly over the next few days, running into each other at the same elite parties, as she pulled Lorelei out of her mess and he tended to Colton. Might as well get the formalities over with.

She wasn’t going to drag her suitcase awkwardly up the stairs to his booth, though. First she gave the bartender a sizable tip to lock down her suitcase, computer, and suit jacket, which was too hot for the crowded bar. Then she turned for Daniel—grumbling to herself that he’d put her in a position where she had to look up at him—and noticed his black eye.

This time she didn’t laugh that Daniel had finally gotten smacked. She felt his pain. In college she’d heard his older brother had died in the Blackstone Firm office at the World Trade Center when Daniel was a teenager. Her own father had died when she was a college junior. She understood how a death that close could affect a person. His black eye reminded her of his unexpected vulnerability, and her heart softened.

He must know Wendy saw his eye. He probably knew about Lorelei’s post blaming Colton for the injury, too. Any other PR operative would cringe in embarrassment, afraid to be seen in public. Yet Daniel still watched Wendy coming, confident as ever.

She climbed a short set of stairs to his table, feeling as if she were ascending a dais for an audience with royalty. It’s for your job, to keep your job, she kept telling herself as she willed her body forward.

At the last second, she remembered how she and Sarah had jealously made fun of Daniel in college. In the privacy of their dorm room, they would throw up their hands, shriek “Daniel Blackstone!” and pretend to faint like teens in the fifties swooning over Elvis.

That’s why Wendy was laughing as she put out her hand to touch the king.

* * *

If Daniel had meant the morning’s Kentucky bourbon to call Wendy Mann to Vegas—and he still wasn’t sure about that—it had worked. His mind spun with the implications. Now that Wendy was directing Lorelei, the plan he’d been cooking up to get Colton out of trouble would be harder to implement.

But the fact that he and Wendy were enemies didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy the sight of her. Her long blond locks blew back over her shoulders with her own speed as she climbed the stairs to his table, and her slim hips swayed in a tight black skirt.

He stood and put his hand out to meet hers, keeping his face a blank.

“Daniel!” she called over the throbbing music in that throaty voice he remembered. “Wendy Mann.” Her hand slipped farther into his.

He squeezed her hand and hesitated. Not long enough to be rude. Just long enough to make her doubt whether he remembered her.

“We were in Dr. Abbott’s speech-writing class together? And Dr. Benson’s image management class. Several others.” Her blond brow furrowed in annoyance that he couldn’t quite place her.

Good. Now that he’d knocked her off balance, he turned on the charm, as if he were doing a favor for someone underneath him in the business. “Of course. Wendy. Please.” He gestured to the velvet bench beside him.

As they both sat, he signaled the waitress—who was wearing a teddy—and ordered the silliest thing he could think of. “Two glasses of champagne.” He named a good label but didn’t go the last step of ordering the bottle. He needed his head clear, for one thing. And though it would probably help him in his job if Wendy’s head weren’t clear, he didn’t want to attract the attention of having a bottle popped open for them. They weren’t getting married, after all. Ordering ridiculous drinks was enough.

After the waitress had left so it was too late to say no, he turned back to Wendy and asked, “Is champagne okay?” He expected her to have settled far away from him on the long bench, embarrassed and browbeaten by his superior air.

Instead he found her as close as she could sit without touching him. Her elbow was on the table, her arm bare below a white puff of sleeve. Her chin was propped on her fist. She looked utterly comfortable, which made him very uncomfortable—the same way she’d always made him feel. The way he’d been trying to make her feel, damn it! They’d exchanged only a few words in college, but he’d always known she was poking a little fun at him. He wished she would stop. He’d lost his sense of humor years ago. He would sound like a robot if she made him laugh.