Disgusted, Sasha turned away. She made her way down to the bar where Alan looked her over. “You look tired, honey.”
She glanced up the stairs to see Tom and James both watching her. Immediately she looked away, not wanting to see them anymore. “I’m all right, just need a little break. I’ve been at this for hours. How did Nancy ever work both tiers? It seems just when I serve a round of drinks to a table, they’re already asking for more. One tier is all I can handle. Thank God, I don’t have to work both.”
“She didn’t work both tiers unless her partner was ill,” Alan corrected. He glanced at his watch. “Take your break. It’s only a couple of minutes early. If you’re back a couple of minutes early, it will even out.”
“Thanks, I think I will.” Being too close to Corlege and watching the way he treated the woman he’d brought with him turned her stomach. She was tired of seeing so many women debase themselves in order to try to marry money.
She went down the stairs and headed straight for the employee lounge. She’d just gotten her heels off and was sitting back, her head against the very comfortable back of the chair, when the click of heels told her she wasn’t alone. Cautiously, she opened one eye. Meredith Benson stood over her, hands on her hips.
“Go away,” Sasha said. “I mean it. Go away, or I’ll call security and have your ass hauled out of here.”
Meredith’s breath hissed out of her like an angry cat’s. “How dare you talk to me that way! Do you have any idea who I am?”
“You’re the skank who had her tongue down Giovanni’s throat for show.”
“I came in here to tell you that he had nothing to do with it.”
“I know that. You made a scene, kissing my man, making him look bad just because you’re so vain you wanted to be the one to dump him. One doesn’t get dumped if it’s a one-night stand. Go away.”
Meredith ground her teeth. “I’m trying to be nice and repair the damage I did.”
“You’re trying to get Giovanni to let you have your career back. That’s the only reason you would follow me in here and tell the truth. Have you forgotten? Or don’t you read the crap you contribute to? Giovanni and I are a thing of the past. I have absolutely no influence on him at all.”She shooed Meredith away. “Go. Maybe one of your many lovers will take you back after you dumped them for the publicity.”
Meredith pulled her arm back to hurl the heavy glass she held in her hand at Sasha. A hand caught her wrist and yanked her backward. James Corlege took the glass from her hand as Sasha slowly sat up.
“Get out of here,” Corlege advised.
Meredith backed out of the room, her face twisted with malice.
Sasha sighed. “Thanks. She doesn’t like me. I’m not certain why, not when she’s the one trying to screw things up between my supposed fiancé and me.”
His eyebrow shot up. “Supposed fiancé? I saw the ring on your finger. Tabloids lie all the time, but that ring was real.”
She shrugged. “My boss did me a favor. My brother was in a car accident and suffered a traumatic brain injury. I don’t have a lot of money or clout. The Ferraros do. Giovanni was nice enough to offer to help. Being engaged made it easier to breach patient confidentiality. Being a Ferraro made it so much easier to get to the administrator’s ear. Meredith actually did us a favor because we would have had to find a different way to break up.”
He was silent a moment. “None of it was real? Not all those hot looks?”
She laughed. “I should have been an actress, right? No, none of it was real. The Ferraros are very loyal to anyone who works for them. They’ve been extraordinary with me. I was so worried about Sandlin, that’s my brother, and they straightened things out. I can pay for the facility, but I couldn’t get to the doctor and I needed to do that in order to understand why they hadn’t scheduled another operation.”
“You work too hard.” He pulled her foot between his hands and began a foot massage.
It was intimate. Too intimate. It also felt good when her feet were screaming at her. She knew she should stop him. Giovanni was going to have a fit, and James made her want to curl up and hide, but her feet hurt so bad, she didn’t care.
“Isn’t your girl going to get upset with you, James?” Deliberately she used his first name.
“She isn’t my girl. She’s a groupie. Women like fighters. She’ll do me and then the same night crawl into someone else’s bed.”
Her stomach lurched. Wyoming wasn’t that far away. Cattle ranches weren’t the end of the world. She’d never considered herself sheltered. She always believed men were the ones doing very bad behavior and playing ugly games, but she was getting her eyes opened about the women who pursued fighters, the wealthy, athletes and diplomats. It was no wonder these men didn’t have much respect for women. They had become conditioned to get anything they wanted. She let her breath out slowly, once again feeling that maybe she didn’t belong there.
Still, she had a job to do. “I was so shocked to see on the news that Aaron had been arrested for starting the fire and stalking me. Have you been to see him?”
James frowned and shook his head. “It doesn’t surprise me. The cops were by to interview all the fighters. Tom is his closest friend. He wasn’t surprised, either. We knew he’d fixated on you after he got so drunk when he found out about the engagement.”
His fingers moved over her bare feet until she wanted to groan in appreciation. The door opened and slammed closed behind Tom Mariland. He glared at James, his hands on his hips.
“What’s going on in here?” he demanded, his gaze dropping to James’s fingers stroking along her heels.
“Just giving the lady a foot massage, Tom. She’s been working all evening in those high heels. We were talking about Aaron.”
At once Tom crossed the room to sit down on the edge of the lounge Sasha was sitting in, forcing her to scoot over. “That’s such a tragedy, Aaron going off the deep end like that,” Tom agreed. “He was drinking too much, and I think it just got to him. I’d tell you he was a good guy, but I’m pretty certain I’m not going to convince you of that.”
“You know, neither of you is supposed to be back here,” Sasha said, uneasiness creeping into her voice, as if she didn’t want to get into trouble. “How did you get back here? Security is everywhere tonight.”
“They’ve got their hands full with drunks,” James said. “I slipped a couple of guys some money to start an altercation. Just pushing and shoving a bit on the floor.”
Tom nodded. “It isn’t that difficult.”
Sasha was very uncomfortable being so close to Tom, especially with her feet in James’s hands. “Aaron burned down my apartment with everything in it”—she continued their earlier conversation—“so, no, I don’t think you’re going to convince me Aaron’s a good guy. Worse, he could have really hurt my brother by setting off charges in the ceiling of the place where he’s getting care.”
The door swung open again, this time slamming shut so hard the crash was louder than the music. Tom jumped to his feet. James swung around to face the threat, and Sasha jerked her feet out of his hands as Giovanni stalked in. Anger darkened her fiancé’s face. He wasn’t acting. Yeah, the foot massage, as good as it felt, probably wasn’t the best idea.
“What the fuck, Corlege? Keep your fuckin’ hands to yourself.”
Corlege stood up slowly, straightening to his full height. Sasha could see the muscles rippling in his body. He looked coolly confident. If he knew that Aaron trained with Giovanni, he clearly hadn’t bothered to assess his fighting skills.
“She doesn’t belong to you.”
“The hell she doesn’t.”
“Giovanni.” Someone had to be the voice of reason. “He knows you were just being sweet to me for my brother’s sake.”