Or was it? She thought of her shock when she saw Daniel’s black eye, the damage Colton had done to him, and felt sorry for him all over again. She’d never felt sorry for him for being born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but tonight he’d looked so . . . solemn, isolated to the point of sadness, sitting there on his throne. Then he’d shown her a side of himself that she’d never seen before, ever, like he was under so much pressure that he was finally close to blowing.
She texted Sarah,
I made him laugh like an embarrassed teenage boy.
As she waited for Sarah’s answer, she read her text over and considered it. She’d been a teenager, eighteen, and she assumed he’d been the same age, when they’d first met. Except she wasn’t sure they’d ever met, officially. So . . . when they first became aware of each other. Or when she first became aware of him. She did hope he knew who she was, and that he’d only been pretending to have a hard time placing her. She would hate to think that after all those nights she’d agonized over whether she could beat him for the Clarkson Prize, he hadn’t even known she existed.
Then came Sarah’s answer.
When it’s whack, it’s crack.
This was one of Sarah and Wendy’s mantras. They’d noticed that when they came into a meltdown situation and there didn’t seem to be any overt cause for the chaos, usually the stars and all their entourage were busy covering up the fact that somebody was on crack: the star, the manager, the boyfriend, the star’s mother.
Wendy snorted at the idea of Daniel Blackstone on crack, then typed,
More likely high on the casino’s oxygen bar.
That was kind of funny, but not what she’d intended to share with Sarah. She typed,
I was able to make him laugh only once before the blast shields went up. Maybe I’ll try again later.
Her nerves calmer now, she took a deep breath—smelled marijuana and looked around curiously, but the smoker was hiding it well—and stood to make her way across the room in search of Lorelei. She was slipping her phone into her purse when it vibrated in her hand again. Glancing at the screen, she saw Sarah had texted,
Stay away from him.
That was a very good idea, and yet as Wendy pictured herself sidestepping him until the Hot Choice Awards in four nights, she felt a little sad. She definitely wanted to see if she could make him laugh again.
She put her phone away and scanned the crowd. She recognized Lorelei in a far corner, having a têteà-tête with Giuliana, whose fake tan looked even stranger under the club lights. Then Wendy saw him coming toward her.
Rick. Blond and handsome and broad with muscles that he’d used to pin her by the throat against the wall when he attacked her at college.
Not Rick, she assured herself, tamping down the wave of panic. After he’d assaulted her, he’d fled New York. She hadn’t seen him since. Even when she went back for her father’s funeral in West Virginia, he hadn’t been around. People said he’d skipped town right after she left for college, stealing his uncle’s truck on his way out. He’d held her captive in her dorm room, then disappeared completely.
No, this was someone much more banal: a huge television star. Yet her heart didn’t slow down as she picked out Colton Farr’s differences from Rick in the dim and spinning lights: his surgically straightened nose, his younger age by ten years, his softer smile. He might not be her violent ex, but he was the last person she should be seen talking to before she’d even introduced herself to Lorelei. By the time she realized this, he was too close for her to escape without an awkward scene, and public relations specialists did not do awkward scenes.
She noted as he neared that he was uncharacteristically dressed like a grown man rather than a teenage skateboarder. His style might have matured, but his approach hadn’t. He gave her a lopsided grin and dipped his head to say, “Hey, beautiful.”
Her grin at him rapidly intensified until she was just gritting her teeth. She dressed well and paid attention to her hair and makeup so she’d be accepted into the stars’ worlds—and yes, there was vanity mixed in. But her client’s recent ex was handing her a line, and her looks had suddenly become a liability. The Darkness Fallz singer’s ire over being forced to quit drugs would be nothing compared with Lorelei’s complaint to Stargazer that Wendy had flirted with her ex.
Wendy gave Sarah a hard time about dressing like a women’s basketball coach on the job, but now she was seeing a certain logic in that mode of fashion. She dodged around Colton. “Hey yourself,” she shouted over the music. “Excuse me.”
“Excuse me,” he countered, moving with her. “Where are you going in such a hurry? I’ll buy you a drink.”
She took a long, calming breath through her nose. Colton was not Rick, and if she couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d fallen into a bottomless pit when she had not, she was going to screw up this case and lose her job for real. She managed to say smoothly, “I’ve had a drink, thanks.”
“Let me introduce myself. I’m Colton Farr.”
She extended her hand for him to shake, to move their conversation from pickup line back to business. “Yes, I’ve heard! Emcee of televised awards shows. Puncher of public relations specialists. Landmark fountain pisser. Congratulations.”
As he took her hand, he turned his head and looked at her with one eye. “And you are?”
“Wendy Mann.”
He dropped her hand and stepped back dramatically. “Oh, you’re Wendy Mann!” He looked her up and down. “Nice.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Do we know each other?” He must have talked to Lorelei about her. But that didn’t make any sense. Lorelei and Colton weren’t on speaking terms.
“Sure we do,” Colton said. “I was at the Little Lingerie fashion show in L.A. a few weeks ago. You were one of the models. Good work up there.”
Gross. This guy had plenty of money. He could be persuaded to spend it on things that would be useful to him, such as a ghostwriter to come up with better pickup lines. If she were on good terms with Daniel, she might suggest this. But she nodded seriously at Colton. “Yes. I was the one dressed as the whooping crane.”
He stared at her for a moment, then relaxed. “I’m kidding with you, Wendy. You’re doing PR for Lorelei.”
She gasped as if he’d made the best. Joke. Ever! “That’s right. How did you know?”