But they didn’t just think she was charming. They cared about the woman they were paid to protect. I could tell easily enough that wasn’t always the case. It was damn easy to see why too. Quite a few of these people treated everybody as their servant, even the ones who were clearly not working for them. Most of what I saw just solidified my opinion about the upper-class.

Fuck. I needed a drink. Somebody was roaming the room with a tray of drinks, and Carly saw me eying the tray and she leaned over.

“The bar’s open. Go grab you a drink if you want.” She winked. “I’ll bet they’ve got that bourbon you liked.”

“I’m fine.” I shouldn’t drink on the job, right?

“Oh, come on.” She leaned against my arm, hugging it a little. “If you get one, then I won’t feel so bad if I ask you to get me one.”

I couldn’t really explain the charm she possessed, not in words. But standing next to her, I fully understood what charisma was for the first time in my life. Which explained how I found myself wandering the brightly lit, wide-open hall, searching for one of the open bars Carly had mentioned. I found one tucked under the staircase and caught the eye of the guy behind the bar as he finished passing two tall tumblers off to a couple who looked as wide-eyed as I didn’t want to admit I felt.

“Drink, sir?” he asked.

Sir. I resisted the urge to look behind me. Barely. “Ah, yeah. Do you have...?” I wracked my brain. “Angel’s Envy?”

“Of course. Single or double?”

I swallowed. “Double. Make it two.” I remembered how Carly how had taken hers. “No ice.”

He nodded. A moment later, he slid two small, squat glasses to me. “Angel’s Envy. Neat.”

As I headed back to Carly, I pondered the wisdom of asking for two. If I’d been smart, I would have gotten three. One to toss back before I headed back, and then another to have after I gave Carly hers.

I told myself to keep it in mind for next time.

And there I was thinking I’d make it to the next time. An hour ago, I’d been convinced I’d trip over my feet or drop spaghetti sauce down the front of my obscenely expensive sweater. So far, I hadn’t seen any spaghetti, and here I was, making plans on how to drink next time.

Was this really my new life for the next few days?

It wasn’t hard to catch sight of Carly in the crowd. I towered over most everybody, and Carly wasn’t one of those delicate little princesses, even without her heels. The heeled boots she wore tonight should’ve counted as dangerous weapons – in more ways than one – and they put her at just under six feet tall. How she could walk in those things amazed me, and how she could walk gracefully amazed me even more.

Of course, she’d paired them with a black velvet skirt that ended about three inches above her over-the-knee boots, and the vivid blue shirt she wore was cut low in the back, baring an expanse of soft, pale skin that made my hands itch.

Apparently, quite a few other men liked the way she looked too, but she didn’t look at any of them. She was too busy talking to an older woman. The woman’s smile was a match for Carly’s and they looked like they’d discovered their own little world. A world that didn’t include the rest of us.

I moved closer, feeling more than a little out of place. Then Carly saw me and she waved me closer. Shit. I couldn’t move.

I’d just now figured out who Carly was talking to. It was the writer. The one who’d written the mysteries. The one who owned this museum of a house. I’d known I was out of my league, but seeing the two of them together made it hit me even harder.

“Here he is,” Carly said, seizing the bourbon from my hand and tossing half of it back.

But she didn’t stop there. She twined our fingers together, swinging our hands back and forth like I was some new friend she’d found on the playground at school. Except I’d never seen anyone on the playground who looked like her.

The smile on the older woman’s face widened. She looked like the kind of person who smiled often and laughed loud. Someone I’d probably like. When she held out a hand, I reluctantly tugged my hand free of Carly’s and accepted hers. She gave my hand a light squeeze and the rest of me a quick look-over.

“I have to say, I’m glad to see you’re still standing.”

“Ma’am?”

“Well, after that hit in the head from Carly’s bag...”

Frowning, I slid Carly a look.

She pursed her lips and then shrugged. Tossing back the rest of her bourbon, she put it on one of the trays tucked against the wall and then dug her phone out from the tiny purse she’d elected to use tonight. I wished she’d hit me with that one after the fiasco on the street. The other one with its heavy metal buckles hadn’t done me any favors.

“Here. I guess you might not have seen it.”

“Just about everybody else has.” The author sounded amused.

“Hush,” Carly said, nudging the other woman with her elbow as her fingers flew across the screen of her phone.

A moment later, her face and the back of my head, appeared on the screen. In miniature, I watched an instant replay of the moment where she’d swung her purse at me. Hit me. I couldn’t stop the wince. Then it happened over and over again. Below it was a caption.

Crazy Carly is at it again!

Smaller print continued on and I squinted my eyes to read it.

Has Carly Prince finally gone off the deep end? A rough-looking knight in shining armor saves her from being hit by a car only for her to attack him. Read on for the full video!

I flicked at the screen. But as it started to move, Carly took the phone away.

“Hey!”

“You saw enough.” She shoved it into her purse.

Our hostess laughed. “Carly, he’ll just look it up later.” Then she looked at me and winked. “Are you going to be traumatized by the video of you grabbing her before she was made into a pancake, or will it be from the blogger speculating that you were homeless and Carly’s attack was justified?”

Blood rushed up the back of my neck at how close she came with her last speculation, but I shrugged it off. “I don’t know about justified, but she didn’t exactly know who I was or what I was doing. Being pissed off was a natural reaction.”

Carly sniffed. “Mrs. G, don’t encourage him. He’s already incorrigible.”

Mrs. G.? I guess it suited her better than The Grande Dame of the Modern Mystery. I remembered seeing that title on one of her books.

She smiled at the both of us. “Then he should fit in just fine with you. Oh...oh, dear. Carly, excuse me, would you?”

Carly gave a reply, but I didn’t hear what she said. Something else had caught my eye. Unconsciously, I’d moved to put my back to the wall when I’d rejoined them, and now I had full, nearly unrestricted view of the room before us. I didn’t know what to call it, exactly. It wasn’t a living room, at least not like one I’d seen before. This wasn’t where people flopped and watched TV at the end of a long day or shared a beer or three with friends. It was too classy, too elegant for that.

It was also big enough to hold a good forty people, more as they mingled in and out of the hallway and the dining room. A dining room holding a table long enough to seat the entire population of the city.

My gut tightened as I realized somebody out there was looking in our direction with a whole lot of rage.

As if they’d picked up on my tension, Ryan and Jake moved closer. They’d been holding people at bay from a distance of two feet, giving Carly and her friend the illusion of privacy, but now they closed that gap. Jake bent towards me while Ryan stood at his back, facing the crowd, searching for whatever was bugging me.

“What is it? What do you see?” Jake asked.

“I don’t see anything,” I said, shaking my head. Instinct had me echoing his low tone. I didn’t bother looking at him as I continued to skim the room, trying to keep it subtle and low-key, the way I’d seen them doing it, but I doubted I pulled it off half as well.