The Redhead Plays Her Hand (Redhead #3)(19)
Author: Alice Clayton

“Sounds great, love. Just you and me.” He dropped a kiss on my forehead and shuffled back to bed. He was sound asleep again within moments.

When I left the house a little later, I noticed a tan sedan following me very closely. I turned, he turned. Dammit.

I swear I had a tan sedan tailing me all week long, but I never saw a camera, and no shots showed up in the press anywhere. I let Bryan know, and he was looking into it. Was I being paranoid? Maybe, but I was being careful.

And speaking of being careful, I was carefully remaining in my seat while I watched Adam go bananas on a poor waitress that Saturday night.

“I said medium rare. Medium rare! Does that look medium rare to you? It’s practically gray!” he sniped as she hurried his steak away, apologizing the entire time. I liked my steak cooked a certain way too, but there was a way to do this without being a—

“ . . dick. She was all over my dick from the second I walked into the club,” Adam drawled, settling back against the booth after the steak incident.

Jack, Adam, and I were at a very fancy restaurant, trying to get through dinner so we could get to Holly’s party. Scratch that, I was trying to get through dinner. Jack and Adam were having the time of their life. I know couples don’t always have the same friends, and that’s okay, usually. But for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how Jack couldn’t see that this guy was a—

“ . . dick! She called me a dick. Can you believe that? Guess who doesn’t work for that production company anymore,” he finished.

One more story for me to file away under my Never Have Dinner with This Dick Again heading. I watched Jack, sitting across from this guy, this recently fallen star. I realized I was seeing something new on Jack’s face, something I hadn’t really seen before. It wasn’t quite envy; it wasn’t quite admiration. What was it? Whatever it was, it was enough to keep him from seeing that Adam was really a dick.

“Trent! Hey, Trent!” Adam called, almost yelling across the restaurant to someone who had just walked in. I hid my face behind my bread pudding—

BREAD PUDDING?

I hid my face behind my fresh fruit cup and rolled my eyes at Adam’s table manners, counting the minutes until we could escape this small quiet dinner for three.

Thankfully Adam left the table to go say hello to Trent, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

“That bad?” Jack asked, his hand sneaking under the table to take a spot slightly higher than my knee.

“How could you tell?”

“Really? You think I can’t tell when you’re irritated? Your lip pouts out and you get this little crinkle at the end of your nose and—”

“Five more, George. Five more.”

“I said crinkle, not wrinkle. Crinkle!” He laughed, sliding his hand farther up the inside of my leg.

I patted it and sent it back toward my knee, a safer zone. “Wrinkle, crinkle, all the same thing. Besides, you want these five, believe me.” I winked and saw the green begin to darken. Oh boy.

“Oh no, I want them, but just so you know, I know you’re deflecting.” He leaned closer to me and let his hand move north again. Damn, he was good. I picked up his hand and moved it once more, then picked up my butter knife and made a gesture toward something else below the tablecloth.

“I’m not deflecting. I just . . . I don’t get it! I don’t see why this person is now essential. He’s an ass, Jack. A real ass,” I explained, not hiding my disdain any longer.

He sighed and brought both hands up under his chin to rest. “Look, I know he can be a little direct—”

“Direct? That’s a word for it.”

“But he’s really a good guy. I like working with him. He knows the town; he knows the business. Just lighten up, okay?”

I nodded and noticed Adam coming back to the table. This conversation needed to end. For now.

“Sorry about that. I haven’t seen that guy since we wrapped Motion Sickness,” Adam explained, snapping, actually snapping, for the waitress. She would be getting a big fat tip from me tonight. And speaking of tip, Jack was ready to go. He’d gotten antsy all of a sudden, looking around the room, slouching lower in his chair.

“Where? Who did you see?” I asked quietly, leaning back in my chair and making sure I wasn’t too close to Jack.

This wasn’t exactly the kind of place we normally went to, but Adam picked the restaurant. It was high-profile, frequented by industry people and hangers-on alike; it was young Hollywood, and it was risky. Jack and I drove separately, and he came in through the back entrance. It was high-profile enough that it had a private entrance in the rear for celebrities to enter and exit discreetly. Which was the opposite of what this evening was becoming.

“Four o’clock, camera phones. Those two women have been staring for the past few minutes. Plus that guy at the bar looks familiar. I’ve seen him recently,” he muttered, deliberately not looking at the location he just gave me.

Turning nonchalantly in that direction, Adam took the opportunity to squint at the guy in question and pronounce him paparazzi.

“How do you know he’s—” I started, and Adam just looked blandly at me.

“I know, okay?” he replied, grinning in the direction of the guy.

I’d had enough. “Listen, since it’s clear this is about to turn into something, I’m gonna cut it short and head out. Besides, Holly’s expecting me.”

“You sure?” Jack asked, squeezing my knee under the table.

“Yeah, it’s better this way anyway—if we don’t leave at the same time.”

“We’ll be there soon. Don’t worry.” He nodded, giving me a final squeeze.

“Adam, it was great. Are you coming to Holly’s?”

Please say no, please say no, please say no.

“Wouldn’t miss it.” He grinned.

“Great,” I said through my teeth. Heading out quickly, I averted my eyes when walking by the guy in question at the bar, and I made sure to keep my head turned away from the camera phones. Now that I was gone, I had no doubt that those women would approach Jack and Adam. They were stars after all.

I piled myself into my little car and sped up into the hills. No tan sedans in sight.

Holly’s party was massive, much bigger than her last. Lanterns lined the driveway and laughter and music spilled out of every door and every window. Tiki torches dotted the patio, and the lights of Los Angeles spread out as the perfect backdrop. Floating candles lit up the pool, handsome waiters passed lovely noshy treats, and the bartenders rivaled those in Cocktail.