Star Crossed (Stargazer #1)(14)
Author: Jennifer Echols

She brought her other hand up from her lap. He watched it coming, feeling slightly dazed. He caught a whiff of her expensive perfume as she placed her hand over his on the table.

“Champagne is perfect,” she said. “In celebration of seeing an old friend. Thank you.”

He knew she was making fun of him then, because they’d never been friends. She’d intrigued him in college. But he was competing with her for top honors in their major. His father wouldn’t have thought much of her as competition—a little girl from Appalachia—but Daniel had read her papers and seen her projects, and he’d witnessed her funny and fearless delivery. He couldn’t let her beat him, because he couldn’t explain that defeat to his father. So he’d done everything he could to win. He’d studied harder and worked longer. And he’d stayed away from her.

Now he almost would have thought she was coming on to him, but she was way too good at her job for that. Her hand disappeared into her lap again. She wasn’t scooting any closer.

He leaned toward her so she could hear him over the music. “Or in celebration of the end of your six-hour flight.”

She grinned. “You’re not kidding! I have a crick in my neck that would kill a horse.”

“You should get a massage while you’re here.” His eyes flitted to the creamy skin of her neck before he forced them back to her face. “You’re in town just for pleasure, right?” he deadpanned.

“Right!” she said enthusiastically. “And I see you’re in town for the recreational opportunities.”

He raised his brows, waiting for her to explain so he wouldn’t look stupid by telling her he had no idea what she was talking about.

She took her hand away from her chin and gestured to his eye. “I’ve heard it’s the latest craze in high-end fitness. Boxing!”

He bristled at that comment before giving it right back to her. “Yes, I’m here for pleasure, too. I’m taking a short break because I just got assigned to a difficult case. Have you heard of Darkness Fallz?” He inclined his head toward the enormous speakers in the corner, which were blasting the latest Darkness Fallz abomination.

She was good. She hardly even winced when he mentioned the supergroup that had just ditched her. And then she said in a reasonable facsimile of an innocent tone, “No, I haven’t heard of them. Are they contemporary Christian?”

He nearly laughed and ended up only choking on the word no. Luckily his voice was drowned out by the Darkness Fallz chorus: “You’re moving on and it’s like a knife in my eye/I hope you get sick and DIEEEEEEEE.”

Blinking lights made him turn away from Wendy momentarily, toward the window onto the casino. A slot machine was going crazy, flashing as it spit out a river of tokens. The elderly couple in front of the machine embraced. The man picked up the woman, spun her around, and kissed her.

“How sweet!” Wendy exclaimed, beaming. “I hope they enjoy their loot. What a good omen, that this is the first thing I see after I step off the plane into Vegas.”

Besides me, Daniel wanted to point out. He rather liked being her bad omen. But they were pretending to have friendly small talk, so he kept the conversation light. “Are you a gambler?”

She looked him straight in the eye. “I like people to think I’m a successful gambler,” she said. “Actually I’m stacking the deck. How about you?”

“I’m with you. I gamble only if I can figure out a way to cheat.”

“You’re my kind of man.”

He wanted to stick to that line of questioning. They might only be toying with each other, assessing the enemy’s weapons before they struck, but he was enjoying it.

The waitress picked that moment to interrupt them. She placed one glass of champagne in front of Wendy and one in front of him. After she left, Daniel lifted his flute. “To pleasure,” he said.

“To pleasure.” Wendy tapped the rim of her glass against his. The bell-like sound rang through a rare quiet moment in the Darkness Fallz track.

Sipping his champagne, he watched her over the top of his flute as she drank a few long gulps with her eyes closed, then turned her head to one side and stretched her neck. She really did have a crick. Sitting with Daniel and having a drink was her only break—if one could call it that—before she searched out Lorelei. He knew how she felt.

The next second, she set the drink down, her eyes opened, and she was grinning again. “So who of note is here at the bar? Not that you’ve been paying attention. I know you’re on vacation.”

“You’re right,” he said drily. “I’ve just been sitting here relaxing and getting plastered.”

“You do seem three sheets over there. Totally out of control. You might want to cut yourself off.”

“Thanks for your concern. But I did happen to notice Lorelei Vogel pass by.”

“Really!” Wendy blinked her long eyelashes, feigning shock. “What a big star! Did you get her autograph?”

“No. And Colton Farr is here. Giuliana Jacobsen.”

“You don’t say!” Wendy gasped. “Did they go into the back room?”

“Yes.” He leaned closer again, catching another whiff of her perfume, and said conspiratorially, “I heard Giuliana is throwing a party.”

Wendy gaped at him. “Wow! A reality star of her stature is liable to bring all the A-listers over from the Bellagio!”

“I’ve seen them.” He gave her a litany of the D-list celebrities who had filed through. “But like I say, I haven’t been keeping track.”

She slapped her hand on the table as if coming to a spontaneous decision. “This may sound crazy to you, but I think I’ll slip back there to the private room and see if I can get in.” She laughed uproariously at her own joke, it seemed, without letting Daniel in on what was so funny. Then she eyed him knowingly and clarified, “They don’t let just any girl into the private room of the Big O club, you know.”

Daniel laughed. Then corralled his laughter into a polite, halfhearted chuckle. He didn’t want her to know how funny he thought she was. And he hoped she couldn’t see him blushing in the dim and shifting light of the bar.

He watched her very carefully, and he could have sworn she didn’t blush at all as she said, “I wonder if the interior of the club is red velvet. Or pink. Pink velvet.”

He bit his lip. He refused to let her make him laugh again.