Star Crossed (Stargazer #1)(29)
Author: Jennifer Echols

“A lady should never make a blow job joke in public. Let someone else make the blow job joke. You may giggle good-naturedly.”

“Tee-hee!” Lorelei played along.

“Very good.” Wendy patted Lorelei’s knee, then consulted the notes on her laptop. “Prepare me for the unveiling of your mother’s statue. You feel okay posing for the magazines with this likeness of your mom?”

“Sure.” Lorelei nodded. “The photographers will get some cool shots I can use in my tour.”

Exactly what Wendy had been thinking. “You’re not going to do anything to her statue, though.” Wendy didn’t want to approach this touchy subject, but Lorelei was so unpredictable that she felt it was her duty to make sure. “You’re not going to be photographed picking your mom’s nose? You don’t harbor any ill will toward her?”

“Oh, gosh, no,” Lorelei said. “I was so little when she died, you know? I hardly remember her. All my dad ever said about her was how much she loved me.”

“Really.” Wendy’s very low estimation of Lorelei’s ne’er-do-well father rose several notches.

“Yeah. It was only later that I learned all the other stuff. What she was into and how she died.” Lorelei turned away from Wendy, toward the window onto the sunny Strip. She was clearly used to the idea of her mom being gone. It was more a part of her than her mom herself. But it still made her sad, and she liked distraction. Wendy knew the feeling.

“My mom died when I was three,” Wendy said.

Lorelei turned back to her in surprise. “I’m so sorry. How’d she die?”

This question would have been rude coming from anyone else. Coming from another motherless girl, Wendy didn’t mind it.

“She had cancer,” Wendy said. “My dad was between jobs. We didn’t have insurance. When you don’t have insurance, they do stuff to try to save you, but they don’t do everything.” Unlike Lorelei, Wendy had always known the details of her mother’s death. Her father had described it like the losing end of a cash transaction.

Lorelei opened her hand on the duvet. Wendy put her hand inside Lorelei’s. They held hands for a few moments while something passed between them. Wendy wasn’t sure what it was, and for once she didn’t try to analyze it. It wasn’t part of her job.

She drew her hand away and placed her fingertips on her laptop keyboard again. “So. Tonight. Do you have any really good friends coming to the museum?” Lorelei named a few who passed muster. Wendy would call their PR folks and invite them to go with her and Lorelei to a braid bar before the party. Lorelei would get a stylish, dreamy updo to go with tonight’s bohemian outfit, which the wardrobe mistress had showed Wendy. Lorelei would be photographed having comparatively innocent fun with her friends: a first. And Wendy’s own braid would hide the jagged ends where her hair had gone missing.

8

Let Colton in.” Even over the phone, even when Daniel’s tone was stern, his voice in Wendy’s ear gave her a jolt of excitement.

She stood at the edge of the soiree in the spacious lobby of the wax museum. In the center of the room crouched the lifelike replica of Lorelei’s mother, mid-stroke on her electric guitar, mouth open, hair somehow suspended in air, head-banging to her own beat. The press had been fascinated by the amazing work of art. Lorelei had behaved perfectly, thanking her mom’s fans for honoring her memory over the years by enjoying her music. The speech hadn’t even sounded staged—because it hadn’t been. Lorelei had ad-libbed from the heart.

After the unveiling, hors d’oeuvres were served along the museum ticket counter. A tribute band had started their run-through of Lorelei’s mom’s song catalog. They were good. Not as good as Lorelei—but Wendy wanted her to save her voice for the TV mini-concert she’d scored for Thursday, and of course the awards show Friday.

Wendy’s roundup of the movers and shakers in town had been a success. Several hundred guests, most of them famous, laughed and danced, assisted by leather-clad waiters passing around shots of Lorelei’s mom’s notoriously favorite gin. Lorelei was getting a little drunk already, but Wendy figured the night had been hard on Lorelei, despite the brave face she’d worn. Wendy was willing to cut Lorelei a little slack as long as nobody wheeled out a box of syringes and Lorelei’s mom’s favorite opiate.

Now Wendy was trying to calculate how unhappy her arch-rival was on the other end of the phone call. His careful control made it impossible to tell. “Lorelei went out of her way to say something kind to Colton at rehearsals in the afternoon,” Daniel said, “and now this? She was just baiting him, and you directed her to do that.”

“Absolutely not. We’re not keeping Colton out of this party.” Though Daniel hadn’t raised his voice, she felt like shouting back at him in defense. She reminded herself that she was innocent—this time, at least—and she kept her tone friendly. “He should be on the list to get in. The bouncer must have gotten confused. Serves you right for being fashionably late.” In truth, several times she’d caught Lorelei scanning the room—for Colton, she suspected. And despite herself, Wendy felt the same way. She was still angry at Daniel for making the comment about ruining her, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want to see him. The night felt empty without him.

“He is on the list,” Daniel said, “but your people are telling me his name is crossed off because he’s already inside. If this is your trick to embarrass him, Wendy—”

“No trick,” she said quickly. “Put the bouncer on the phone.”

She didn’t find out why Colton’s name had been crossed off the list. The bouncer seemed confused on this point. But two minutes later, Colton’s bodyguard opened the lobby door, followed by Colton’s driver, Colton, and Daniel. In his slim suit, with his black eye, Daniel looked like the height of gentlemen’s fashion on his way to a fight club. He caught Wendy’s gaze briefly and then, frowning, backed against the opposite wall and surveyed the party from his end of the room.

Which, unfortunately, gave Colton the leisure to make a beeline for her. She saw him coming and thought of a lie to tell him about checking in on the caterer, but he was shameless. He actually jogged across the dance floor to catch her before she could escape behind the ticket counter and into the makeshift kitchen.

“Hey, Wendy,” he said knowingly.