Star Crossed (Stargazer #1)(68)
Author: Jennifer Echols

“I know,” she said to the ceiling. “We have to go soon.”

“I need to fly to L.A. and see what’s wrong with Victor,” he said. “But I’m inclined to blow a client off for the first time ever. Could you?”

“Nothing has ever sounded better,” she said truthfully, “but I can’t. Everything’s probably fixed with Stargazer, but I can’t afford to assume. I need to be in the office bright and early on Monday morning, talk with my bosses, and seal the deal.”

“I shouldn’t have asked.” He smoothed his hand down her belly and cupped his hand between her thighs.

“We have a few hours, though,” she said. “You said you regret never experiencing the cities you visit for work. If we hurried, we could check one cheesy Vegas tourist experience off your list.”

“Besides getting married?” he whispered in her ear.

“Yes, besides that.” She glanced out the window. Her eyes landed on the Eiffel Tower, and she remembered that Sarah had warned her they wouldn’t be able to describe falling in love to their kids if they didn’t get more romantic. “It’s been two whole months since I was in Paris. What do you think?”

17

Wendy realized too late that they should have stayed in the room. They hadn’t even made it out of the casino when their afternoon went south. No sooner had they stepped out of the hotel elevator and started across the crazy casino carpet, hand in hand, than Daniel stopped and swore. Wendy looked in the direction of his gaze. Colton sat at a blackjack table.

“He was supposed to ride back to L.A. with Lorelei last night. What is he doing here?” Wendy exclaimed needlessly, because Daniel was obviously wondering the same thing. Angrily.

He dropped her hand. With Wendy trailing behind him, he stalked to the blackjack table and stood there with his arms folded. She had the briefest thought that the man at the table wasn’t Colton after all but the rumored lookalike, the phantom of Rick.

But she didn’t have time to put her hand out and back Daniel away before Colton—and it was Colton—looked up at them, then did a double take. Turning away from them, he peeked at the new cards the dealer slid him, gave up on his hand, and stood up smiling. He came toward Daniel with his arm outstretched for a handshake.

Daniel kept his arms folded, his face expressionless.

Colton glanced at Wendy in question. She didn’t have any answers, so he slowly withdrew his hand and explained in a rush, “Lorelei and I had a fight. The limo dropped me off at the outskirts of town and I took a taxi back here. Look, nobody notices me when I don’t have my posse with me. Of course, you’re about to ruin that.” He chuckled nervously.

“I quit,” Daniel said.

Colton gaped at him. “You can’t quit. You said I can’t fire you. I have a contract with your company, not with you.”

“Then talk to them,” Daniel said, “but I’m not working for you anymore. I told you what to do, and you didn’t do it.” Without another word, he headed across the casino for the front doors onto the Strip, seeming to forget Wendy completely.

She was left standing awkwardly with Colton, who asked her, “Now will you work for me?”

“No,” Wendy said impatiently, “but I’ll talk to Daniel for you when he calms down. In the meantime, for God’s sake, don’t pee on anything. Or post anything online. And no call girls.”

“I haven’t!” Colton protested, but she was already following Daniel across the floor. She was pissed that he’d gotten so angry. She was more pissed that he was taking it out on her, leaving her to trail after him like a puppy.

He must have realized this because, though he didn’t look any happier, he was waiting for her by the exit. “Sorry,” he grumbled, opening the door for her. “I hate this job. I hate it more now that it’s going to prevent us from being together.”

As she moved into the hot, too-bright sunlight, she tossed over her shoulder, “There’s always Senator Rowling,” half hoping he would consider this an option now that he’d clearly gone off the deep end.

He drew even with her on the sidewalk. They passed the paparazzi camped on the edge of the casino property, six or seven photographers hoping to snatch a shot of one of the lesser stars who’d appeared on the awards show last night.

When they could talk privately again, stepping into the crosswalk together, he said automatically, “I have to work for my dad.”

“You don’t have to work for your dad,” she said. “I’d be willing to bet that before today, you said, ‘I have to do everything my dad tells me,’ but you just recused yourself from a case. That’s not going to go over well in New York.” She laughed humorlessly. “You could work for Senator Rowling, and the next time I get in trouble at Stargazer for speaking my mind, I could work for your dad.”

“I don’t think so,” Daniel said. “He wants everyone in the company to be reserved.”

Wendy humphed. “You have to use your inside voice? Yeah, that probably wouldn’t work for me.”

He opened the door of the Paris casino for her. She knew she should be looking around at the vast interior, designed as a vague approximation of outdoors in the real Paris, near the base of the Eiffel tower. But as they rode an escalator in silence to the second floor and she charged tickets for them to take an elevator to the top of the tower, it was all she could do to hold in her tears. His words stung. She knew she wasn’t reserved. She seemed to be the only person who wasn’t bothered by this. She’d thought he liked her style of speaking, but apparently he only covered up his distaste for her when he was trying to get her into bed.

The elevator was crowded. The observation deck was crowded, too, with tourists peering through the iron bars at a more distant, higher-up view of the fountain at the Bellagio. Daniel waited until some of them had bored of the mediocre view and escaped back down the elevator before he leaned one shoulder against the bars next to her and delivered his next blow. “Why don’t you quit? We can’t stay together when you’re working for Stargazer and I’m with the Blackstone Firm, so you’re trying to convince me to quit. I’m not going to work for Senator Rowling. That’s a moot point. But if there’s another job out there for me, I’m sure there’s one for you, too.”

She tried to keep the clipped anger out of her voice and sound reasonable as she said, “For Senator Rowling, you’re talking about going into a completely different branch of PR, a jump from movie stars to politics, and from a large firm that handles lots of clients to the political campaign itself. Apples and oranges. If I wanted to get another job doing PR for movie stars, in New York there’s Stargazer, there’s the Blackstone Firm, and then it starts to go downhill.”