Absently he flicked his finger across his trackpad. The screen saver blinked off, and five new headlines scrolled up.
“When my dad started the firm,” he said, “things were different. It was a lot easier to keep a secret. There were no social media sites, for one thing. There was no Internet and a lot less television. There were fewer paparazzi because there were fewer outlets for selling a photo. But even more importantly, stars were genuinely stars. There was a reason they were famous—looks, family, occasionally even talent. They didn’t become stars overnight. They didn’t expect to ride the train for a few weeks and lose everything just as quickly. Today’s reality shows have interjected this strange influx of bums, ingrates, and no-talent sons of bitches into the mix, and sometimes you can’t tell who’s who at an Oscars after-party.
“Nowadays it just doesn’t matter, you know? I wanted to work in PR for something that really matters, like politics, like getting someone into office who can make a difference, and keeping that person there no matter what mud the other side slings. But whether the public likes or dislikes Colton Farr for pissing in the fountain at the Bellagio, and whether he’s able to land his blockbuster movie and pull his career out of the gutter . . . I don’t care, and nobody else should, either.”
“I care,” Wendy spoke up. “I mean, not about Colton. But if you’re a little girl living in the middle of nowhere and your life is basically nothing, it can really give you hope to idolize a glamorous star.” She pointed to her pink computer screen. “I have always read the tabloids.”
Daniel leaned closer, gazing dubiously at a montage of overdressed starlets and their ratlike dogs.
“Even reality stars have talent,” Wendy said. “They have a larger-than-life personality that people want to watch, even if it’s just strange or grating.”
“You should know,” Daniel said.
Wendy’s brow furrowed in protest, but then her expression relaxed, backing away from his challenge. “I guess I walked into that one.”
“I meant the larger-than-life personality,” Daniel clarified, “not the other.”
She sniffed. “Right.”
Daniel huffed out frustration. He really hadn’t meant to insult her, but he’d been putting his foot in his mouth constantly around her, which wasn’t like him at all. If he didn’t know better, he’d say she made him flustered. “I’m not telling you anything you haven’t heard already,” he said. “Isn’t that why you got kicked off the Darkness Fallz case? Isn’t that why you got called into the dean’s office a couple of times in college? I know that’s why nobody could take their eyes off you.”
“I think that was the hair. That’s what it usually is.” She grabbed a lock falling over her shoulder and examined the ends. The front of her hair was still bound in a braid, but tendrils had come loose and framed her face in soft gold. The back hung in big curls. Yes, it was the hair.
“Maybe,” Daniel said.
She looked over at him. “Do you need to get in the bathroom? Because I’m going to be a while. I need to wash my hair, which is an undertaking. I used it to mop the floor of that exhibit room. It’s three shades darker than normal.”
“Only at the roots,” Daniel said diplomatically. “It looks like your darker roots are growing out.”
“That’s grease.”
“There’s blood in it, too.” He nodded toward the bathroom. “Go ahead.”
She felt the back of her head for the blood. Then she walked toward the bathroom, slowing once and listing a bit to one side as if she weren’t quite steady on her feet. After she’d disappeared and he could hear the door start to swing shut, he called sharply, “Wendy.”
She stuck her head back out to look at him.
“Don’t lock the door.”
She didn’t protest this time. “ ’Kay.” The door clicked shut.
Reluctantly he navigated away from his news feeds so he could address his father’s concerns with a few well-placed press releases on Colton’s stability and his excitement about the upcoming awards show. But he found himself listening very hard for noises through the bathroom door: The whisper of Wendy pulling the cotton T-shirt across her bare br**sts and up over her head. A cascade that sounded like relief as she pushed the material of her sweatpants to the floor.
The vent moaned, and shortly afterward, the shower hissed. The striptease in his head was over. He tried to go back to his work.
But the sound of the shower danced with Wendy underneath it. The droplets drummed against the shower walls, paused as her body blocked the spray, and resumed their beat as she moved. He couldn’t get her out of his head. He pictured her naked with the hot water streaming over her creamy body, turning her bright hair slick and dark.
He turned away from his computer, toward her. He peered down the hallway to the bathroom. He couldn’t go down it. Or, he could, but he wouldn’t.
Just for a moment, though, he put his chin in his hands, staring at the laptop but not seeing it, and allowed himself the fantasy of Wendy. He’d done this before, in college. Back then the fantasy had turned physical. He’d returned to the dorm after class, closed himself in his room, and pleasured himself with the thought of her, this saucy girl from Appalachia who thought she would get the better of him.
The fantasy had involved Dr. Abbott’s class. He’d bent her over Dr. Abbott’s desk, with or without Dr. Abbott still behind it, with or without the whole class watching. He’d wrapped her golden hair around his fist, holding her down and motionless as he entered her.
Now he was still thinking about her hair—how could he not?—but he didn’t need an audience. He’d grown out of that urge for public sex. The new fantasy had him walking down that hall. Turning the knob on that unlocked door. Walking through the mist and raking back the white curtain, slowly so he wouldn’t startle her, to be greeted by that brilliant smile, those sparkling blue eyes. Her long, wet hair would be streaming over her shoulders and down her front. He would reach forward and slick it away from her br**sts—
“Daniel?”
He started in surprise and nearly lost hold of his laptop.
Shaking off his shock, he realized she’d called to him from the bathroom. She was in trouble.
He leaped up and reached the bathroom door in two steps. It was open a few inches, the light golden beyond it. He swung it open.