Star Crossed (Stargazer #1)(22)
Author: Jennifer Echols

He couldn’t get past the security guards running in from the casino floor. They spread their arms in front of the crowd to hold them off. At least this gave Daniel a clear view of the young women in sequined clubwear and the bouncers piled on top of them. Wendy was nowhere in sight.

“What happened?” Daniel yelled to the man next to him.

“These crazy ladies were screaming that they’d found Colton Farr,” the man said. “You know, the washed-up actor in the online war with his girlfriend? They were trying to tear his clothes off. Probably wanted to sell them online. The Internet has made us all into animals.”

“But . . . ” Daniel silenced himself. It hadn’t really been Colton. Daniel would have seen him leave the inner room and stopped him.

The man verified what Daniel had been thinking. “It wasn’t even him. I got a good look at the guy. Strong resemblance, though. This guy could impersonate Colton Farr and make a killing.”

The bouncers stood the women up and cuffed them. The security guards lowered their arms, and the crowd flowed in to fill the empty space. Daniel looked around for the Colton Farr lookalike. It might be the same guy he’d seen at the blackjack table with Colton earlier, the one who’d disappeared so quickly when the guards arrived. Even if it was, Daniel had no real reason to think the guy was paparazzi.

He made his way through the club and stepped from the crowded, noisy bar into the quiet of the casino. After a slow survey, he spotted Wendy leaning against an enormous Roman column, laughing into her phone, where a drunken Lorelei wouldn’t notice her when she exited the club.

He stopped. Standing in the middle of the passageway was awkward, but interrupting her phone conversation would be rude. The ringing in his ears from the dance music began to fade, and the happy noise of the slot machines grew. The casino hadn’t been quiet after all. Everything was relative.

Finally she slipped her phone into her handbag, looked up, and spotted him. “Hey, lovah,” she called.

He walked over. “All set with your limo?”

“Yep.”

“Maybe Colton and I will come with you.”

Her smile never faltered as she calmly said, “Nope.”

“We’ll just happen to show up there.”

“We’re getting away from you.” Wendy yawned. “I’m really just trying to get her to bed. The bar we’re headed to closes at two, so Franklin will have a good reason to make her call it a night. My God, it must be so late already, and I haven’t even begun to adjust to Pacific time. What time is it in New York?” She opened her purse to pull out her phone again, then thought better of it and waved the whole problem away as impossible. “I’m really not adjusted to Eastern, either, though. I just spent weeks in Seattle and then eight hours in New York. I’m so confused.”

“Eighteen or nineteen o’clock,” he said.

She pointed at him and grinned. “That is exactly how I feel.”

“Or negative five,” he said. “I’ve been up since I got the call about Colton pissing in the fountain at the Bellagio at four a.m.”

“Oh, you poor baby!” she exclaimed.

Daniel eyed her dubiously. She sounded sincere, just as she had earlier when she told him to take care. His heart warmed strangely.

He must be coming down with something. Funny—after so much world travel in the past six years, he thought he’d become immune to everything.

The moment passed. Her gaze shifted over his shoulder. “Here come my peeps. Good night, Daniel.” She stuck out her hand.

He looked down at her perfect pink nails. “A handshake?” he asked. “Really?”

With a small smile, she leaned forward and wrapped her slender arms around him.

He’d only been joking. Ribbing her about the fact that she needed him. Reminding her how intimately they’d explored the matter earlier. Now he wished he hadn’t teased her. As her body settled perfectly against him and his hands touched her hair, he wanted her—wanted to bury his face in her neck and sniff her perfume until he’d had enough, wanted to take her back to his room and unzip that goddamn skirt—but he would never have her.

He didn’t like this game anymore.

Suddenly, he drew back in surprise. “You’re missing a hunk of hair.” He turned her around to make sure he’d felt what he thought he’d felt under his hand. Sure enough, one long golden curl was missing, with a jagged edge in its place, as if the lock had been cut quickly. He took her hand and put it to the ends left over.

Her lips parted in horror, and her blue eyes flashed toward the club. “I thought I felt a little pull.” With hair that long, she must be very attached to her crowning glory. He watched with admiration as she switched gears and made light of the situation in the space of two seconds. “This is what happens when you come to Vegas, right? I was half expecting to cut something sticky out of my hair anyway while I’m here.”

“But someone cutting your hair . . . well. I was going to say I’ve never seen anything that bizarre even in Vegas, but come to think of it, I have.”

“Me, too.” She laughed, belying her uneasiness. She still pressed her hair with one hand. “I’d better tail Lorelei before she loses me.”

Daniel glanced at Lorelei, Franklin, and two giggling women tottering through the archway that led to the hotel lobby. “We weren’t through talking about Lorelei and Colton,” he reminded Wendy.

“Call me tomorrow,” she sang over her shoulder, already power walking across the casino floor. Daniel watched her until she disappeared through the archway after her star.

Reluctantly he turned back to the club, where dancers thrashed like the damned in hell. He wished he’d been able to talk Wendy into letting him and Colton tag along. Now his night looked grim. He would find Colton inebriated and covered in Lorelei’s drink. He hoped not too many pictures of Colton’s humiliation had been snapped and posted online. It might take a couple of hours to talk Colton into calling it a night, but the faster Daniel could pull it off, the faster he could get to bed himself. Tomorrow was a new day. He would call Wendy, convince her to work with him, and solve the problem.

The music in the bar was so loud that nobody heard him shout, “Damn!” as he realized he didn’t have Wendy’s number. She’d purposefully neglected to give it to him. And he had no way to get it, because her New York office would know better than to hand it over. If she’d wanted him to have it, he would have it. The night had given him a high he hadn’t felt in forever, but right now he was as low as he’d been in a while, feeling positively bereft of her. Muttering to himself, he gave the bouncer a surly wave and stepped back into the reality star’s party.