She shouldn’t come on to him. It wasn’t fair to lead him on, and she couldn’t risk her job by following through. But she wanted him. She breathed deeply, feeling her ni**les tight against her bra, and imagined him wrapping his hands around her heavy br**sts. She was twenty-eight years old, a grown woman, and so needy tonight. Why did the man she was falling for have to be the one she couldn’t have?
Against her better judgment, she slid into his lap. He still watched her seriously, which was starting to make her nervous. She tried to lighten the mood by saying, “Boy, will I be sore tomorrow. I’m in okay shape now, thanks to Sarah’s badgering, but I was so much better at eighteen. I used to be built like a truck.” When he looked grim and didn’t respond, she clarified, “A feminine, dainty truck. What’s wrong?”
“We have to get out of here,” he barked. “Now.”
Heat rushed to her cheeks. Daniel wanted to leave with her. She couldn’t say yes to sex with him, yet she’d never wanted anything more in her life.
But as she stared into his dark eyes, racking her brain for what she should say, she realized that wasn’t what he’d meant. His tone was wrong. And then he said, “All of us need to get out of here.”
“Why?” she breathed.
“Someone drugged me.” He nodded to his glass, pushed to the middle of the huge table. “Someone is trying to get past me to Colton. Or the guy who’s been after you is trying to get past me to you.” His intense gaze dissolved into a vacant expression. He looked lost.
A chill swept over Wendy. She felt afraid for the first time. It was not in Daniel’s nature to look lost.
“What?” she squeaked. “Like, a roofie?”
He nodded solemnly at her.
She hopped off his lap, jerked him up by the hand, and dragged him through the club, despite him calling, “Wait. Wendy, wait.” Finally he stopped next to the main stage. Her pulling didn’t budge him. When she turned to him, desperate and questioning, he said, “We have to tell the bodyguards, at least.”
“I’ll call them from the cab,” she promised. “We can’t screw with that right now. We have to get you to the hospital. People die from that stuff.”
“I only drank a sip.”
“You don’t know how much drug was in that sip, though. Come on.” She tugged at his hand.
“We can’t go to the hospital by ourselves,” he insisted. “We can’t leave you out in the open now that I can’t protect you.”
“It’ll be crowded,” she reasoned. “Nobody would dare do anything there. We’ll walk to the crowded taxi stand and take a cab to the crowded hospital. Stop arguing. Don’t make me cause a scene. That’s not good for PR.”
She kept tugging his hand until he reluctantly took a step after her, then another, and followed her through the packed club, dancers jostling them on all sides. When Colton brushed past them, she put out her other hand to grab him so she could warn him what was going on. But he’d already hurried three deep into the crowd. She kept going, pulling Daniel out the door.
She flinched in panic as bodies moved toward them. She’d forgotten about the paparazzi lying in wait for Lorelei and Colton. She forced her heart to stand down, and the photographers, realizing she and Daniel weren’t the celebrities they were after, retreated.
In the taxi, she phoned Franklin, then Colton’s bodyguard. They couldn’t hear their phones in the din, and she had a flash of panic that someone else would get a mouthful of tranquilizer. But on another try, Franklin answered. She told him what had happened and extracted a pledge from him to close the party down and tell the club manager—quietly—what they suspected. Then she phoned Detective Butkus and left a message. She sounded stupid to her own ears. A stolen phone, stolen hair, and a roofie. Their case would hardly be high on the priority list for the crime task force.
Frustrated, she clicked her phone off and looked over at Daniel. He stared out the window, his head bobbing strangely as the car bumped over seams in the pavement. Anxious to make some connection with him, she smoothed her hand onto his knee. Without looking at her, he placed his hand over hers.
An hour ago she would have thrilled at this intimate gesture. Now it just seemed strange, and it certified how sick he was.
At the emergency room, still dragging him by the hand, she marched up to the counter and said, “Poisoned.” Four people rushed from behind the counter and led him through swinging double doors to the bustling network of examining rooms. Wendy followed, not sure whether she was allowed. After all, she was not Daniel’s wife or his girlfriend or even his friend, really, but his business rival, his enemy. This would become clear as soon as they wrapped up their jobs in Vegas and returned to New York. But right now, she was determined not to leave him.
A nurse pointed her into a tiny examining room and shoved a clipboard into her hands, along with Daniel’s wallet. Wendy paused a moment over the expensive black leather, then drew out his insurance card. She examined his New York driver’s license and slowly, neatly copied his name onto the form: Blackstone, Daniel, I. The act of putting pen to paper and scratching down this representation of him tugged at her deep inside, as if helping him in this small way would heal his whole body. With difficulty she resisted the urge to dot the i’s with little hearts.
Soon he wandered in. He clung to the doorjamb for a moment, then pushed away from it, tripped over her feet, and managed to land in the chair beside her.
“Jesus, I’m toasted.” He laughed.
“There’s a whole bed for you to lie down on.” She knew instinctively that he wouldn’t take her suggestion. Lying down would mean he was a patient, out of control. As long as he sat beside her in a chair, he was as healthy and as free to leave as she was, theoretically.
He shook his head. Then he blinked rapidly, as if shaking his head had disoriented him.
Tentatively she reached behind him. She placed her hand on the other side of his head, fingers sliding into his coarse hair, and pressed his head down toward her shoulder. She was a lot shorter than him. She sat up straighter and squared her shoulders to give his head a place to settle.
He resisted, his head pressing up against her hand.
She whispered the words he’d said to her the night before: “Give up.”
After a final sigh, he relaxed against her shoulder with more weight than she’d expected. She remained steady for him, shoulder firm, while she filled out the rest of his forms. She listed herself as his emergency contact and felt another flood of warmth in her belly.