Peter made an impatient sound. “Well? Enid will stall Maitland Sills while you get yourself together. Hurry! See you in a few.”

Nancy shut the door and turned to face Liam.

His face looked hard. “So we can forget our plans?”

She pressed her fist against her mouth. Shit, shit, shit. “I’m so sorry, Liam, but everything has to stop for this gig,” she said apologetically. “I’ll be on the phone nonstop for days to publicize—”

“I understand perfectly,” he said.

Hope stirred briefly. “You do?”

“Of course. I shouldn’t have put down a deposit. It was stupid. There’s always going to be something more important for you. Always.”

Hope shriveled and died. She stared at his averted face as he fished under the bed for his shoes. “Liam, I would love to go on this boat trip with you! We can go when I get back!”

“Something else will come up. And something else after that. I know that tune by heart.”

She shook her head helplessly. “We’re not listening to the same tune, Liam,” she said miserably. “And we couldn’t keep up this eternal vigilance routine much longer anyhow. I understand the impulse, and I honor it, but we both have to make money, and this is the biggest—”

He held up his hand. “Stop. You’re just making it worse.”

Her knees went weak with dread. “We’ve hit that wall, haven’t we?”

Liam dragged a shirt over his head and tucked it into his jeans with swift, economical motions. “We are roadkill,” he said.

She lurched forward and laid her hand on his chest. “Liam, it can’t be over just because of this. This is stupid. It’s just bad timing.”

He stepped back. Her hand dropped, with nothing to hold on to.

Her jaw trembled. “I was starting to think we had a chance.”

“So come with me,” he challenged her. “You can’t, can you? Of course not. You’ve made your choice.

No big deal. Don’t sweat it.”

“Liam, I’ve been working for this moment for my whole adult life!”

“Good luck, then.” He took the revolver from the back of his jeans, opened the cylinder and shook the bullets out into his hand. He tossed the empty gun into his bag. “You’d better start making those phone calls.”

“Wow,” she said. “You are the most rigid, uncompromising person I have ever known.”

“Remember what I said last night about putting my foot down? That’s what it all boils down to.”

“And you don’t care what gets crushed under your boot?”

He shrugged on his coat. “This conversation is over.”

Nancy grabbed his arm. “You can’t just cut me off like that!”

He wrenched away. “Watch me.” The door thudded shut.

Nancy sank down onto the bed. The silence was deafening.

Chapter

11

John scanned the shifting crowds. His face itched from the fake goatee, and he sweated heavily in the overheated hall as he listened with half an ear to the self-serving prattle of the blond slut singer.

He’d begun to fantasize about shutting her up. Definitively. After she’d delivered the services she was blatantly advertising with the rolling eyes and the heaving tits. At least she wouldn’t be chattering for that. He’d keep that shiny pink mouth way too busy to talk.

Where the fuck was Nancy, anyway? He did not want to converse with these idiot musicians any longer than was necessary. He was good at improvising a rap, but his ruse as a Hollywood movie producer was a thin one. Anyone asking the right questions would cop to it in no time.

Fortunately, Enid Morrow was too self-absorbed to ask the right questions. And Nancy herself would never get a chance to ask them. He fingered the tiny little transparent gel capsule in his pocket. A designer drug, exactly calibrated for her size and weight.

But where the fuck was she?

He was anxious to get on with it. Instinct was pricking and prodding, saying now, now, now. Even with people around, if he started the job at the right moment and pushed on through, hard and swift and decisive, they would probably be too absorbed in their own shit to figure out what was happening. All they’d notice would be a confusing kerfuffle of motion, a brief swell in the noise level, and voilà. Back to normal.

“…sorry that she’s so late this morning. It’s totally unlike her,” the slut singer burbled.

He smiled and stared at her tits. She obligingly arched her lumbar spine to facilitate his view. “I just hope I have a chance to discuss it with her before I go,” he said. “I wanted to present this idea to the meeting with my team in L.A. this afternoon. Get the ball rolling.”

“Of course,” Enid cooed. “It’s like fate! That you happened to be at the hotel by pure chance, and heard us play!”

“Yes, it is.” He scanned the room with his peripheral vision beyond the halo of blond ringlets in the foreground.

There! Looking pale and tousled and waiflike, her hair streaming loose. Last night’s makeup smudged around her huge eyes. She must not have even taken a shower. Probably had Knightly’s nasty spunk still inside her body. That dirty little bitch.

His heart rate quickened, his mouth watered, his dick stiffened. His instincts, his senses sharpening. Ah. He loved this part. She was his succulent little rabbit. He was the hawk, poised to dive and rend.

Enid craned her neck. The effort popped her bosom further out. “There she is! I’ll introduce you, Maitland—can I call you Maitland?”

“Of course,” he said. She hooked her arm around his elbow and towed him through the room. Aw. How sweet. His new little best friend.

“Hey! Nancy! This is Maitland! He’s the producer I was telling you about from MGM Studios!” Enid sang out.

Nancy looked over at her, her face oddly stiff and blank. “Huh? Oh. Enid, hi. Hey, have you seen Liam?”

Enid’s jaw dropped for a second. “Um, not lately, Nancy,” she said, in a warning tone. “Focus, please. Did you hear me? Maitland Sills? The guy from MGM Studios? Hollywood? Hello? Earth to Nancy?”

But Nancy kept rising onto her tiptoes, her gaze sweeping the room. “Hollywood? That’s nice. Could you folks excuse me for a sec?”

“Nancy!” Enid hissed. “Don’t be an idiot!”

“I’ll just be a moment. I need to check something in the hall.” She slipped like an eel through the crowd, and disappeared.

The predator inside him howled and gnashed its teeth.

Enid caught the vibe, and shot him a nervous look. “Um, ah, alrighty, then. I’m sure she’ll be right back. Say, how about if you just meet with me and Peter? We can speak for ourselves when it comes to big career decisions. Just come with me.” She began to tug on his arm.

Nancy had disappeared. The moment might be lost. The slut singer pulled again, babbling with a smile he wanted to knock right off her doll-like face. She tugged harder. His patience came to an abrupt end. He yanked his arm away, so roughly she teetered, stumbling on her tottering spike heels. “What is wrong with you?” she squawked.

He stared into her eyes. “Get out of my way.” He put a vicious punch of venom behind each softly uttered word.

Enid shrank away, stammering.

He forgot her utterly the second he turned his back on her and hurried after his prey, blood pumping fast and hot and hungry.

As Liam strode through the lobby, he avoided the hostile gaze of that butthead Peter Morrow as he strode through the lobby. He felt like he was caught in the guts of some pitiless machine, and it would churn on whether he was smashed to a pulp in its grinding gearwork or not.

He didn’t want to leave her alone, with the stairwell assholes gunning for her. He didn’t want to leave her at all. But that was not his problem. She’d made that clear. It never had been. She wasn’t his wife, his fiancée, even his girlfriend, and she wasn’t going to be. Because relationships weren’t based on fleeting perfect moments. They were based on solid, firm things. Respect. Compatibility. Shared interests.