CHAPTER 14
EMILY
Simon held up a pure-white sleeveless dress. It matched his short, bleached hair and contrasted against his dark-brown skin. His tongue clucked against the roof of his mouth, and he shook the dress until the skirt waved.
“What if I spill on it?”
“Spill what? It’s not like you’ve had a drink in your life.”
“Not true.” I snatched the dress from him.
Something about it jolted me. The color. The shape. I couldn’t place the memory it called up.
A salesgirl appeared out of nowhere.
“Can I start a dressing room for you?”
I handed her the dress, and she passed Bart, my bodyguard until Carter came back from whatever. We’d just gotten to Nordstrom, but I was ready to leave.
“Atta girl. You’ll knock them over in that. Trust me. Club NV will be your bitch.”
I doubted that. Club NV was way above my pay grade, but I always had a good time pretending I was a star.
“I’ll just buy it.”
“I need to see it.” He dragged me to the fitting room, trying to come in with me so he could make adjustments, but I pushed him out.
I got the white dress on and stood in front of the mirror.
“Well?” Simon called from outside. “Do you need me to zip it?”
“No.”
I turned and checked it from the back. It was everything Simon promised. I stood in front of the mirror. The wide neck revealed my collarbone, and the narrow straps showed off my muscular shoulders.
“Are you fabulous?” he called from the other side of the door.
“I think I might be.”
The dress didn’t make me anxious the way it had when Simon held it up, but there was something about it that opened my brain to things I hadn’t thought about. I put my finger on my collarbone and drew it across, tracing the line the way Carter had.
High school graduation. All-girl’s college prep. We’d worn white, and I had a dress almost exactly like this one, with my collarbone and arms showing. The skirt went to the floor, and I’d worn a white cardigan over it, but it was otherwise the same.
I’d had a solo at graduation.
What had the song been?
I took a deep breath and sang the first word in a key I barely remembered, stretching the note as long as I could.
“Amazing graaaace . . .”
I sounded like a frog. I’d never sing again. Not really.
My voice didn’t work anymore, but the dress did.
CHAPTER 15
CARTER
Los Angeles was stuffed to the gills with beautiful women. You couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting the prettiest girl in her hometown or the product of two attractive actors.
Emily laughed with Darlene, who could relax at a VIP-only club. Emily wore a pure-white sleeveless dress that ended right over her knees. Her shoes were bright green. In the flashing colored lights of the club, the dress looked like a rainbow and the shoes looked black.
Speaking of beautiful women.
Even in high heels, she navigated the chaos of the party with grace. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, which admittedly was my job. Fabian, who was on Darlene for the night, made his way to me across the room. He was huge, six five, and built like a bookcase.
“Yo.” I could hear him only in the earpiece. “Gotta whiz.”
“Don’t forget to shake it.”
“Fuck you, man.”
He gave me the thumbs-up and disappeared down the hall to the men’s room. I put my eyes back on my principal, half a room away. Easiest job I ever had, until Darlene’s agent sidled up to her. Hugo Boss suit and a forty-pound pink-gold watch he wore on the same wrist with an Apple Watch. His left cuff was rolled up so it wouldn’t be missed, and when he spoke to her, he made sure to put his arm up and check the time.
She cradled her drink and moved her hips slightly to the music, as if she couldn’t help herself.
I watched as she spoke to Gene. She was special. Like I said, a million pretty girls in Los Angeles, but the tiny dancer was something else. The way she pursed her lips. The way she smiled. The way she took one hand off her glass and rubbed the fingers together to spread the condensation. Nodded. Looked up at him. Laughed a little.
Was she flirting?
He touched her shoulder. Just a fingertip. She moved away half an inch. The signals from both of them were unmistakable. She was talking, biding time. He was circling like a shark.
He took her glass away and led her to the bar.
Guy like that?
A guy like that would buy her a drink and think that entitled him to something.
I looked away. The room was full of stars and no threats. Darlene was at a table with two executives and the actress Claire Contreras. Fabian was back. Hollywood bad boy Brad Sinclair was by the bar, talking to a guy who dropped his sunglasses to ogle two German models. Emily was more beautiful than both of them put together, not that comparisons mattered. But I couldn’t help it.
Neither could Mr. Sunglasses, because he looked past the girls and right at Emily.
I knew the guy. Not personally, but security people exchanged information, and the intel on him was that he was enjoying his friend’s stardom with a hell of a lot of women.
He wouldn’t go near Emily. Not if I had anything to say about it.
I didn’t want to look back and find out how far Gene had gotten with her. The flirting shouldn’t have bothered me any more than Brad Sinclair’s roving eye. And it didn’t. She wasn’t mine to get bothered over. But Gene Testarossa was a douchebag, and Brad Sinclair was a promiscuous little shit.
So yeah, it bothered me. I couldn’t have her, but if someone was going to be with her, he wasn’t going to be an asshole. He wasn’t going to be another Vince. I didn’t want that for her.
Jealousy looked shitty on a guy, and as I watched Gene, then Brad, then Gene, then Brad, I was wearing it like a cheap suit. The movie star was really checking her out and sliding toward her. He was going to make a move. I couldn’t take my eyes off him because I wanted to find a reason to stop him.
My job was to watch her, so I forced myself to look to where she was at the bar.
She wasn’t there.
Gene was on the balcony talking to Michael Greydon.
Darlene was at the table with a suit from Overland Studios.
Claire Contreras was gone.
Emily was . . . ?
“Fabian,” I said into the mic.
“Yeah?”
“Emily? What’s her twenty?”
“Saw her head to my eleven o’clock.”
“I’ll go look.”
There was only one hall, then a choice between two, and as I cut around a corner, I heard a woman weeping before I saw her.
Emily stood in the center of the narrow hall, looking down, arms out. Red gashes slashed across her chest.
Blood. I couldn’t see anything but blood in my vision.
I was there in an instant, holding her up, mentally beating myself to a pulp with lightning one-two punches for letting her out of my sight.
“Nine-one-one,” I said to Fabian as I held her up. She was weeping, yes, but not screaming from chest wounds.
“No,” she choked out.
The blood was flat and dry.
And her dress wasn’t torn.