Star Crossed (Stargazer) (17 page)

When he reached her, he let go of the handle of her suitcase and encircled her in his arms.

She didn’t protest. It was only after he’d initiated the hug that he wondered what it meant, and what she must think of him now.

He didn’t have a clear view of the wound on the back of her head, but he could see a new pink streak down the middle of her hair.

He let her go and gently pressed her toward his room. “Did they give you good painkillers?”

“Not even.” She sounded bone-tired. “They gave me over-the-counter stuff. They said anything stronger could mask symptoms that come up later. You’re supposed to watch me, and if I forget what year it is or I fall down, you’re supposed to take me back to the hospital.”

“I can do that.” He unlocked the door and held it open for her while she ducked around his arm and walked inside.

“Wow, what’s up with all the booze?” she asked, gesturing to the bar. “Do you ask the hotel for this just because it looks cool?”

“Yes,” he admitted.

She nodded. “I always wondered about PR folks with that setup. I’ve wanted to do it myself, but I don’t have the budget. I guess you have any budget you want, since you own the place.”

“Almost,” he acknowledged.

Her lips parted, and she watched him. She probably was trying to think of another probing question for him with a joke at the end, but her brain wasn’t cooperating.

“Give up,” he said. “Here’s your bag.” He set it down inside the bathroom door. “I didn’t know what you would want, so I brought it all.”

“Thanks,” she said on a sigh of relief, trudging past him. “You’re not going to ask me about the bunny ears?”

“And the bunny tail? No, I didn’t see those.” As she was closing the door behind her, he warned her, “Don’t lock it.”

She stared at him blankly, like she suspected him of something but didn’t have enough evidence to accuse him.

“I’m worried about you,” he explained. “You seem a little unsteady.”

“I am completely steady,” she said, but she gripped the doorjamb so hard that her knuckles turned white. “Okay.” She disappeared back into the bathroom. He listened, but he didn’t hear the lock turn.

He moved some of the bottles aside on the bar and set water heating in the coffeepot. After he changed clothes, he poured water over a teabag for her. Then he walked to the window and stared out at the blackness shot through with all the colors of the rainbow, glowing to entice tourists toward their own destruction. For the millionth time in the day and a half he’d been here, he wished he were one of these tourists. The only sounds that penetrated the window were the occasional siren or an especially insistent horn, but the Strip
looked
like it should be noisy, even through the glass.

He heard the bathroom door open. She padded out in bare feet, boxer shorts, and a threadbare T-shirt, weaving a bit.

“You take the bed,” he said. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”

She shook her head. “No, Daniel—”

“I’m so tired of arguing. Please.”

She slipped under the covers on one side of the bed and propped herself up against the pillows. He brought her the cup of tea.

“Thank you,” she said, taking the mug with both hands. “What is it?”

Sitting down in the desk chair on her side of the bed and propping his feet up near the mound of her feet under the covers, he said, “It’s tea. What did you think it was?”

She took a sip, then said with her eyes closed, “I have no idea what you’ve got at the Blackstone Firm bar over there. Beverages made of ground souls and topped with fallen stars.”

“I think you’re tasting the rose hips.”

She snorted, which turned into a short whine. “Don’t make me laugh. It hurts my head.”

“Did a detective interview you at the hospital?” he asked.

“Yes. His name was Detective Butkus. I asked him if he made that up so people who’d been hit in the head would remember it later. He laughed uncomfortably.”

“You don’t say.”

“Yeah, but I couldn’t tell him anything helpful. I felt like a dork.”

“I talked to the police when they came to the museum,” Daniel said. “They didn’t find Colton’s phone, but they did find what they think the guy used to hit you. It was the butt of a long-barreled Colt .45 from a
statue of Wyatt Earp. They didn’t seem optimistic about catching the guy, though. I told them he’d taken a hunk of your hair, and that he’d done the same thing at the casino bar. They said he’s probably an overzealous photographer who took a shine to you.

“Somehow he snuck past security at the museum. He saw the opportunity to steal the phone from you, and he took it. He kept going through the exhibits and escaped through a back entrance. Apparently you can’t get into the museum from the back, but you can get out without an alarm sounding. And they’re not big on security cameras.”

“I guess they’re not too concerned about a patron making off with a wax statue of John Denver.” She set the mug on the bedside table. With no ceremony, she snuggled down in the covers. Her blond brow furrowed. Her soft-looking hand, perfectly manicured in an understated pink, lay next to her cheek.

Sensing that he still watched her, she murmured, “I’m okay. Don’t worry about me. I hurt, and the hospital was torture because I wanted so badly to go to sleep. All I dreamed of doing was getting here and finally lying down and letting go, and now I’m being stared down by the winner of the Clarkson Prize.”

He grimaced. “Sorry.”

“No.” Her hand flailed blindly until it settled on his hand. “I didn’t mean it. I’m relieved to lie down, but I feel so safe with you. Thank you.”

She dropped off to sleep seconds after that, it seemed. She stopped talking—a first—and her breathing
turned deep and even. Rising, he turned off the lamp.

Then he bent over her body and gently kissed her forehead. When she half smiled, he couldn’t resist touching his lips to the corner of her mouth.

He stood up straight in horror. Just as he’d feared in the museum, he was falling for her, hard—this brazen, complex strategist, the enemy of his firm, the worst possible woman for him to want.

With a long last look at her pretty face—deceptively angelic when she was unconscious—and a wistful sigh, he eased a pillow from the other side of the bed and a blanket from the top of the closet. He settled on the sofa, facing the Strip, and stared at the view for a long time, mind spinning like the lights in the signs, wondering who had hurt her. And resolving not to let it happen again.

T
he next morning, Daniel sat in a chair, surfing the news on his laptop, like pretty much every morning when he was traveling. Wendy still slept in his bed, which was unlike any morning ever.

Sometime in the night, she’d rolled to face him. The late morning sun kissed her face and made her seem to glow with gold and blush. Her breasts looked large and soft underneath her T-shirt. He thought one of her nipples strained against the fabric, but he couldn’t be sure. It might have been a wrinkle. After considering this for a while, he turned back to his computer screen. He’d been staring at her breast so long that the screen saver had turned on.

“Ow,” she finally mumbled with her eyes still closed, reaching for the back of her head with one hand. “Zounds.”

“Hold on.” He crossed the room, found her painkillers in the bathroom, and brought her a glass of water.

“Thank you,” she said blearily. She eased upright long enough to swallow the pills and down the water, then sank into the sheets again. She didn’t move.

Daniel settled back down with his computer and tried not to think about her. And failed. The shock of finding her on the floor last night played over and over like a tape in his head.

After another quarter hour, she rolled off the bed, stood unsteadily, and disappeared into the bathroom. He expected she would take a long time in there. But seconds later, she emerged in sweatpants and flip-flops, dragging her suitcase behind her. “Daniel, I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me, and I—”

“Whoa.” The sharpness of his tone surprised him, but she looked like she felt terrible. “Can you drop the professional courtesy, just until you feel better?”

She shook her head carefully. “Stargazer expects a bill for my room. I can’t tell them I’ve been sleeping with the enemy, like Lorelei thinks. Even though, I mean, you know what I mean. That we’re not really doing that. There would be no way to explain what’s actually going on without also admitting to them that I’ve complicated matters by acquiring a hair-stealing stalker.”

“Keep the room,” he said. “Stay with me anyway.”

She set her suitcase upright on its wheeled bottom and crossed her arms over her T-shirt, which pushed her breasts up against the fabric. “Oh, suddenly you’re not asking me. You’re telling me. Are you genuinely worried for my safety? Or are you simply trying to keep your friends close and your enemies closer?”

His reasons for wanting her in his room had everything to do with her safety and nothing to do with strategy. And unexpectedly, her suggestion that he was still manipulating her smarted like a kick in the gut.

“Wait.” She unfolded her arms. “Was that a hurt look I saw cross your face just now?”

“Indignation, maybe,” he muttered.

“No, I’m sure it was. Daniel, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I didn’t think you had any.” She rolled her eyes. “That didn’t come out right, either.”

Watching her squirm made him feel a little better.

“I’m really sorry,” she gushed. “I have no idea what to do now that you’re sitting there looking hurt. I didn’t think that was possible. I’m in shock.”

“Stop talking,” he said.

“Okay,” she said sheepishly.

“You look ill.”

“I do?” She sighed.

“Come sit down. I’ve already ordered breakfast.”

She pulled her own laptop from her bag, kicked off her flip-flops, and sat on the sofa. Still feeling insulted, he tried to ignore her and concentrate on his computer
screen. She did a better job of this than he did. Surfing bright pink tabloid sites, she didn’t even seem to notice when room service knocked and wheeled in a steaming cart. She only blinked at Daniel when he handed her a slice of orange and told her to eat it.

After that, she set aside her computer. They ate together in companionable silence, only asking each other in low tones to pass the salt and the butter. He felt a lot better with something in his stomach. She looked less pale, too. He thought the meal had broken the ice between them, until his bare foot accidentally touched hers and she flinched.

When his phone buzzed with the ringtone for his father, he figured he’d better take it, since he’d been avoiding these calls for almost forty-eight hours. He clicked the phone on. “Hello?” he said as if he wasn’t sure who was calling, just to make his father angrier.

His father immediately started yelling so loudly that Daniel was afraid Wendy a few feet away would overhear and be horrified. He watched her out of the corner of his eye, but she didn’t look at him. He used the calmest tones he could muster while getting an earful of abuse.

Finally it was over. He clicked the phone off and placed it far away on the coffee table in distaste, then pulled his computer back onto his knees. He surfed to another of his regular sites and tried to concentrate on the news of a couple of bills making their way through the state legislature in Albany. The longer
the silence stretched, the worse he felt, culminating in his realization that he wanted to explain the call to Wendy.

He popped a knuckle. “My dad makes me feel like killing someone.”

“My dad made me feel that way.”

He recalled that college girl again, standing in the dean’s office receiving the news about the death of her father, eyes hollow. She’d been back in class the following Monday, he’d noted at the time. This was what she’d made of herself, out of nothing. The same thing he’d made of himself, when he’d had every possible advantage.

“Your British accent kicks in when you talk to him,” she said.

He shrugged. “I’ve tried to get rid of it. I guess . . . ” He rubbed the bruise under his eye, which had begun to throb. “ . . . I sound like him when I’m stressed.”

“What’s he mad about?” she asked gently. “The picture of Colton in the tabloids with strawberry daiquiri on his face?”

“That, and the rumor he badgered Lorelei so badly at the unveiling of her deceased mother’s wax likeness that she mooned him. I can’t wait to hear what my dad says when the picture of Lorelei surfaces.”

“Maybe that won’t happen.”

“You keep saying that.”

She looked surprised. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm. My dad used to tell me that when I worried about him working in the coal mine. Of course, he died in the mine, so . . . ” Daniel could tell she was struggling to find a way to end this comment with a joke, but the punch line escaped her completely. She mumbled something inaudible. Then she started over, gesturing to her computer. “Have you actually seen the headline or the photo of Colton?”

“I don’t have to. Why?”

“Just curious,” she said. “I’ve been surfing every gossip site for stories on Lorelei and Colton, like I would every morning for any star I was representing. I’m looking for events we could use to promote Lorelei in the future, or contacts I might find helpful. I’m examining the bylines on pictures in the tabloids to see who’s buying, and which paparazzi are getting the shots and how. While I’ve been watching you, you’ve looked at the political news. That’s it.”