Beth snapped her head up. Her eyes flew open as a terrible buzzing filled the room.
She twisted around in the sheets looking for the source. She found it on the bedside table. Her phone.
She snatched it up and looked down at the screen.
Her mother.
Beth hit the decline button. There was no way that she was awake enough to take that call right now.
Soft laughter came from the next room. Beth put down the phone and squinted, trying to get her tired eyes to focus on the form sitting several feet away.
“That thing has been going off practically non-stop since you fell asleep,” Alex said. She might not be able to see him clearly, but she’d recognize that voice anywhere. “I’m amazed it took this long to wake you up.”
Beth rubbed the sleep from her eyes.
“How long have I been out?” she asked.
“A while.”
She checked her phone: it was six thirty-two.
Crap. No wonder the phone had been ringing off the hook. They were over a half hour late for Isobel’s cocktail reception. She had four missed calls—three from her mother—and six unread text messages.
Beth flew from the bed, clutching her phone. “Why did you let me sleep so long?” she shouted as she ran into the bathroom.
“You needed the rest,” came the answer, without a hint of apology. “Besides, you’re kind of cute when you’re asleep.”
Beth took stock of herself in the mirror. Now she knew he was making fun of her. Her clothes were terribly wrinkled. Her hair was matted on one side. And was that a line of dried drool on her cheek?
Of course it was. Heaven help her, she’d probably been snoring too.
Beth fired off a quick text to Isobel.
Sorry. Time got away from me. Be down in ten minutes.
She glanced at the smeared mascara under her eyes, and changed the ten to fifteen. She briefly considered sending the same text to her mother, but put the phone down on the counter.
Nineteen minutes later they were in the elevator. Beth checked her hair one last time in the polished steel wall panel. It wasn’t great. It wasn’t hideous either. As usual, a tight ponytail hid a multitude of sins.
Maybe not dumping a body in the garbage sin, but certainly the slept through the alarm kind. What did it say about her that right now she was more concerned with the latter than the former? She decided not to judge herself too harshly. If she stopped too long to think about the situation her stomach started doing backflips.
Alex slipped his hand into hers. Her nerves must have been showing. “Everything is going to be okay,” he said.
She wanted to believe him. She really did. But she couldn't. Nothing was okay. Everything had changed, and there was no way she could go back to the person she had been. The one who bumbled through life, uncertain of where she was going or what she was doing.
Now people were depending on her, not only for their safety, but for their very lives.
She realized with some sadness that she had never taken a close look at her life until it was in danger. Maybe not being able to go back wasn't such a bad thing—if she lived through this.
She clenched Alex’s hand as the lobby bell sounded and the doors slid open. There was no machine gun welcome committee. She sighed in relief.
Beth looked around the lobby. She didn’t see anyone she recognized. Of course not. Everyone she knew was already at the party. There were a few people on the couches, some with drinks in their hands, some with magazines and computers. No one looked their way.
At least a couple of them had to be federal agents. Alex’s expression gave nothing away.
Beth jumped a little as her phone went off in her purse. Alex squeezed her hand. She wasn't sure if it was reassurance or a reminder to play it cool. Either way, she thought that she was doing pretty well under the circumstances.
She pulled her phone out. There was a message from Isobel.
Seriously. Where the hell are you?
Alex read it over her shoulder. “Remember, even though you're with people you trust, you don't leave my side. Not to go to the bathroom. Not to the bar. Not even for a second,” he said.
“Isobel isn’t trying to kill me,” Beth said, annoyed. Still, she didn't complain when Alex stayed a step ahead of her as they walked into the lounge.
Beth glanced around the packed lounge. It was filled with wedding guests, most of whom she knew. Every unknown face stood out in the crowd. Was it her imagination or were people paying more attention to her than usual?
Alex gave the place a quick scan as well. He nodded casually in her direction when he was done, and led her deeper into the crowd.
“I think we’re all right,” he said. “Salvatore isn’t here. He probably just found out about Staal’s failure.”
“Okay.” She didn’t know what else to say.
Alex let go of her hand and dug into his pocket for his phone. She drew in a long, steady breath as he checked the screen. She was going to be okay. Everything was going to be fine.
“Do you want a drink?” he asked.
Hell, yes.
“No, thanks,” she said. Whatever was coming, it would be better if she faced it with her facilities intact.
He nodded. They stood outside the huddled groups of guests. Panic started to build inside her in earnest. Back in her room, it had been easy to make her decision to stay. But now, out in the open, she felt like a target. Beth fought the frantic instinct to drag Alex back up the stairs, lock the door to their room and never come out again.
“Shall we mingle?” Alex asked.
“No, thanks.”
“Why not?”
Beth shrugged her shoulders, trying to look casual. She had the feeling that she looked anything but. Alex discreetly pulled her to an empty spot along the wall and leaned in close. More than a few heads turned, and people whispered behind their hands. They must have looked like a couple of besotted lovers sharing a moment.
If only.
“You doing all right?” he asked.
“I'm fine.”
“No, you're not. You're stiff as a board, and you don't want to talk to your friends.”
“I'm—I’m fine,” she insisted.
“I'm right here, Beth. I'm not going to let anything bad happen to you. I'll be right behind you. All night.”
“It's not me that I'm worried about.”
“I promise you, I can take care of myself.”
She rolled her eyes. “It's not you either...well, it's not entirely you. It's them.” Beth gestured around the room. “What if someone tries to hurt them to get to me? What if Isobel or my mom or—hell, even Spencer gets caught in the crossfire?”
“There's not going to be any crossfire.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because they can't make this messy, Beth. The man who wants you dead needs it to look like an accident. He's hoping—no, he's counting on no one looking too deep into what happens to you. Taking out a ballroom full of people isn't in his playbook.”
Alex leaned in close and pressed a small kiss against her cheek. It was a sweet gesture, one that did more to calm her nerves than he might ever know. And one that was totally ruined the second she heard Spencer's voice behind her.
“It looks like you two had a good day,” he said, slurring his words. Beth looked at the drink in his hand. Indistinguishable brown liquid—the favorite drink of assholes everywhere—sloshed over the side of the tumbler. She was guessing it wasn't his first. Not by a long shot.
Alex slowly pulled away and looked Spencer up and down.
“Yeah, we did,” he said, wrapping his arm around Beth.
“That’s good,” Spencer said. He leaned in close enough for Beth to catch the wave of alcohol-soaked breath that rolled out of his mouth. “I had a good day, too. I had some time on my hands, so I thought I’d make a phone call over to Bastion Records.”
Oh, no.
“Is that right?” Alex asked, his voice as relaxed as ever.
Beth swallowed past the lump that was rapidly forming in her throat. This wasn’t good.
“Turns out they don’t have a Charlie Parker who works for them,” Spencer said, obviously pleased with himself. He smiled wide enough for Beth to see his back teeth.
“Spencer—”
“Shut up, Beth. I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to Charlie,” he said, poking his finger into the center of Alex’s chest. “What do you have to say about that, tough guy?”
Bad move.
Alex pushed off the wall and stepped toe to toe with Spencer. His body was still relaxed, but Beth spied the twitch at his jaw that signaled the anger running through him.
“I think little boys shouldn’t go poking their noses into things they don’t understand,” Alex said, his voice a low warning. “And I think that if you know what’s good for you, you’ll apologize to Beth for talking to her like that.”
“Is that a threat?”
Alex shrugged. “I’m just spelling out your options.”
Spencer took another swig of his drink. And then another. If he was looking for courage, he was going to need a few more glasses.
No matter how satisfying it would be to watch Alex clock Spencer, she probably shouldn't let it happen. There would be a big commotion. Someone would have to clean up the blood. She’d end up having to drive Isobel to the hospital to see her brother-in-law. It just wasn’t worth it.
She grasped Alex’s arm and pulled, but he didn’t budge.
“Gentlemen,” Beth said, “maybe we should finish this conversation some other time.”
“You’d like that wouldn’t you, Beth?” Spencer said, raising his voice. “Are you scared that everyone will find out the truth about you and your boyfriend here?”
Beth froze. There was no way he could know the truth.
Fortunately, only a few people had turned to see what the fuss was about. The music was loud, and in his drunken state, Spencer wasn't as loud as he could be. But Beth had the feeling that he was just getting warmed up. If Spencer had the chance to be center stage, he'd take it, regardless of the humiliation that followed.
“You’re embarrassing yourself, Spencer,” she said in a low whisper.
“Me? I’m an embarrassment?” he shouted. She should have known better than to appeal to his sense of shame—the little weasel didn’t have any. “That's real funny coming from a woman so hard up she had to pay a fucking gigolo to be her date.”
More heads turned. Beth put her hands up in front of her.
“Spencer,” she pleaded.
Spencer’s grin only grew at her distress.
“Careful,” Alex warned him.
“Or what?” Spencer said. His voice was less confident now that he’d shifted his eyes back to Alex.
“Do you really want to find out the answer to that?” Alex asked. His voice held a sharp and lethal edge.
Spencer’s mouth fell open, and he stood gasping for air like a gutted fish. Alex leaned in so he towered over Spencer.
“Al—Charlie,” Beth begged. She pulled on his arm a little harder, but it was futile.
“Because I would love to show you,” he said.
There was a world of warning in those words, and, to give him credit, Spencer managed to hear it through the haze of his alcohol-soaked mind. He turned and walked away without another word.
Alex turned back toward Beth, a satisfied smile on his face. “You didn't really think I was going to hit him, did you?”
Beth blinked. “A girl can dream.”
“You were right about one thing.”
“Yeah?”
“I should have stolen his car when I had the chance.”
“Like you'd be seen in that thing,” she said.
He shrugged. “I could have crashed it.”
Beth’s laughter was cut short when she spied her mother coming toward them, looking annoyed. More than usual.
“Where have you been all day?” her mother demanded.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Isobel has been looking for you.”
“Has she?” Alex asked with a little too much interest.
“It's nothing. I was just supposed to tell her how things went at the florist's,” Beth said. Alex didn't look convinced.
“Your father and I have been looking for you too, but you weren't answering your phone.”
Beth suddenly wished that she had accepted the offer of a drink. “I turned it off,” she said.
“Why on earth would you do that?”
“Charlie and I went to lunch. Then we walked around the city. I didn't want to be disturbed.”
Her mother rolled her eyes. “The not-wanting-to-be-disturbed part, I believe.”
Great. Everybody thought that she'd spent the whole afternoon jumping pretend Charlie's bones. At least her mother didn't think she had to pay for it. Or did she?
Her mother was giving Alex a long, disapproving stare. Had Spencer gotten to her too?
“What did you do today, Mom?”
“Your father played golf with Mr. Masterson and Mr. Munoz. And I had a lovely lunch with Spencer.”
Bull’s-eye.
“Ah,” Beth said slowly. Suddenly, she understood all the strange looks being directed at her. Spencer had done what he always did best—spread bullshit. Everyone in the room thought that she was such a loser that she had paid a man to pose as her imaginary boyfriend and then spent the day screwing his brains out.
“He had some very interesting things to say,” her mother said.
“I'm sure he did,” Beth said. But she wasn't going to stick around to hear them. She started to walk away, pulling Alex with her. Beth had the distinct impression that he was trying not to laugh.
“Where are you going?” her mother called after her.
She held up her hands in surrender as she went. “To the bar, Mom.”
Screw keeping control of herself. If she was destined to take two shots to the back of her head at the end of the night, she wasn't going to waste her last moments on earth feeling utterly miserable.
Beth snagged a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and found an empty spot at the far end of the lounge.
“Tell me again why I was worried about saving any of these people?”
Alex grinned. “They all think I'm a prostitute, don't they?”
“Yep,” she said. For some reason, Alex finding humor in the situation only darkened her mood further. It wasn't funny—it was disastrous. Spencer had gotten exactly what he wanted: she was a joke.
Given what had happened to her today, it shouldn't have mattered. But for some reason, it cut deep. She imagined what the epitaph on her gravestone would read.
Beth Bradley.
Liar. Sinner. John.
“It's not funny,” she said.
His smile widened. His shoulders began to shake. “It's pretty damn funny.”
“For you, maybe,” she said, taking a sip of champagne. It would have made a bolder statement if she just slammed the thing down, but it tasted too damn expensive to waste on soothing her anger. “I have to stick around after this is over. I'll be the one to clean up this mess.”
“Or not,” he said.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing,” he said with a shrug.
“Tell me,” she said.
“What would happen if for just a minute you stopped caring what all these people thought about you? What if you let them come up with their own misguided opinions, then laughed them off and let it go? What would happen?”
Beth opened her mouth but nothing came out. For a moment she wasn't sure what she was feeling. Alex was laughing, but he wasn't laughing at her. And maybe it was a little bit funny to think of how upset some people were over something that simply wasn't true.
Beth looked at the people watching her from across the room. Some were curious. Some looked upset. Some, amused. And some, a great deal more than she would have imagined, looked like they couldn't care le
ss.
“Maybe you're right,” she said with a grin. “Maybe I'll leave this world behind and move out to DC with you. I could become your pimp.”
“I believe they're called madams,” he said.
“We’ll have to look it up.”
She’d always cared so much about what people thought of her. She spent so much time trying to please everyone that she ended up pleasing no one, herself included.
But not everyone disliked her. Alex seemed to genuinely appreciate her. And there was Isobel, of course.
Isobel. The first person to assume Alex was a man whore.
But her best friend would never…
“There you are.” Beth turned around at the sound of Isobel’s voice. “I've been looking all over for you two.”
Isobel had a drink in her hand and a smile on her face. It was obvious that she wasn’t feeling much pain.
“We’ve been over here. Hanging out against the wall. Enduring the stares of strangers,” Beth said.
“Why? Is something wrong?”
“You didn’t happen to tell Spencer your little theory about Charlie’s real occupation, did you?”
Isobel’s hand flew to her mouth. She shook her head. “No,” she said.
“Why don’t I believe you?”
Isobel flashed her a guilty smile. “I may have let it slip to Jordan, who may have mentioned it as a joke to his brother.”
“Isobel!”
Isobel waved her hand. “Nobody listens to Spencer.”
Beth arched her eyebrows.
“Okay, everybody listened to him,” she amended. “But if it makes you feel any better only about half of them believe it.”
“Yeah, that makes it all better,” Beth said.
Isobel turned to Alex. “So is it true?”
Alex only shrugged.
“Oh my God, I knew it,” Isobel said.
“No,” Beth said. “Seriously, Isobel. He's not a gigolo.”
“Really? That's disappointing.” Isobel turned her attention back to Alex. “So who are you, then? I'm the only other person who knows for certain that you aren't Charlie Parker.”
That muscle on the side of Alex's jaw twitched again, and Beth groaned inwardly.
“Isobel,” she said in warning. Her friend didn't know that she was doing far more harm than she realized. “He's just a friend.”
“No, he's not,” she said. “There is no way that you have a guy as gorgeous as this hanging around you, and I don't know about it.”
“You're not helping,” Beth said. If she had to guess, she'd say that Isobel was about three glasses of champagne into the evening. Nothing short of being blunt was going to get through.
“I just don't want to see you get hurt,” Isobel said. Beth nodded. It was sweet...in a way. A way that Alex was taking all wrong.
“She's not going to get hurt,” Alex’s words were imbued with all kinds of meaning that sailed right over Isobel's head.
“Yeah, well, you make sure of it. Or I'll be coming after you,” Isobel said. She poked her pointer finger into his chest for emphasis before turning to Beth, her eyes comically wide. “Damn, he's solid,” she said in a whisper that was loud enough to be heard three towns over.
“That he is.” Beth gave a pained smile. “Hey, where's Jordan? I haven't seen him all night.”
Isobel's eyes lit up. “Jordan! I should go find him.”
“You should.” Beth watched as Isobel disappeared into the crowd.
She looked at Alex. His expression was unreadable. “She's got nothing to do with this,” she said.
Alex didn't say a word. He didn't have to. At that moment his eyes flashed with the same hardness that she had seen in the alley. Beth looked toward the door of the lounge just in time to see Salvatore Munoz walk through.
He didn't look happy.
Chapter 8