in publishing him.”
Phillip was looking at her curiously now. “So you’re not interested in acquiring his next book? It’s going to go to number one on the New York Times bestseller list without even trying, you know.”
“You mean Stomp? But I thought that was already—”
“Nope. I hear his deal has just fallen through.”
“Oh. Well. I see. But still...no,” she said. When Phillip blinked at her in disbelief, she added, “We’re over-inventoried. In that...er...area.”
“In the unbelievably fantastic, must-read, going-to-make-a-fortune area?”
She had no answer to that. Her boss, Melissa Charles—nickname “the Attack Dog”—would never understand a withered romance getting in the way of business. Veronica had had to lie when Melissa had asked her if she’d known Rafael at Capitol U. Melissa had been desperate to land Liar, Liar for Johnson/Charles and Veronica had known that any hint of familiarity let alone a full-blown, live-in love affair would have seen her pimped out to get it PDQ.
She hated to think what her reception would have been. She had, after all, refused to take his calls then blocked him, burned the letter he’d sent her via Matt and banned their mutual friends from telling him anything about her (and she knew he knew about that ban because she’d dispatched Teague to tell him so). So for her to come sniffing around begging for his book...?
No.
No, no, no.
She tried another smile—knew this one was definitely struggling to get anywhere near sweet. “If you’d rather I don’t introduce you, that’s fine by me. You can ask Romy to get you two together.”
“Romy knows him, too?”
“Romy, Matt, Rafael and I went to Capitol University together. We shared a house.”
“Good God! Why hasn’t she ever introduced me?”
“Maybe because he lives in LA,” she said through slightly gritted teeth. Did he want to meet Rafael or stand around talking about him? “But he’s here, and we’re here, so the offer’s...there...?”
He held out his arm. “An offer I can’t refuse.”
“WELL, FUCK,” RAFAEL SAID under his breath as a triumphant-looking Veronica headed for him, accompanied by a guy who was a carbon copy of both her trust-fund-lugging husbands.
She stopped to take a glass from a passing waiter, then laughed at something Preppy Boy said as he grabbed his own glass. And in that instant Rafael may as well have been nineteen again, in that first year at college, about to go feral because some random dick of a guy had hit on her.
His hand jerked, champagne sloshing out of the glass and onto his shoe. Ordinarily he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself from cleaning that off, but the thought that Veronica would spot it, and in the process see that his shoes were handmade, stopped him. Not that he wanted to show off—she had a whole closet full of designer shoes—he just wanted to show her that he’d come a long, proud way, and the shoes were a symbol she’d understand.
Felicity gave his arm a warning squeeze. “You’re not going to strangle the poor man, are you?”
His lips twisted—half smile, half grimace. “I’m more likely to wring her neck.”
“You guys must have had fun at college if she can’t even walk beside another man without winding you up! Get it together, will you?”
And then Veronica was there, flashing a smile—what she called her finishing school smile—and he wanted to grab her by the arms and shake her and tell her not to use that smile on him. He wanted to kiss her, rip those uptight pins from her perfectly coiffed silver-blond hair and tear off her perfect dress and rattle her easy grace. He used to be able to do it. Make her as desperate and deranged as he was. Strip the cool off her just by touching her, so that she was hot and disheveled and gasping and throbbing.
And by God, he was going to do it again.
But to get her to lose her cool meant keeping his. So he quirked up an amused eyebrow, inclined his head toward the guy she thought she was waving in his face like a victory flag, and said, “Number three?”
“How’s the hip?” she quipped back, inclining her head toward Felicity.
“Unattached,” he said. “Needing a replacement. Interested?”
“Is it the balls giving you trouble?”
“It’s the socket. I need a new one, but I can use an old one in the meantime.”
At which point Felicity cleared her throat and he became conscious that he and Veronica were exuding enough heat to light a furnace.
Veronica stepped forward, that smile replastered to her face as she held out her hand to Felicity. “I’m Veronica Johnson, an old college friend of Rafael’s.”
Felicity gave her fake smile for fake smile as she took that hand, shook it. “Felicity.”
“Oh, I know who you are—my sister, Scarlett, is your biggest fan!” Veronica laughed—like sweet bells on a clear night—but it was as fake as her smile; he knew because there was no snort to it. “Not, I promise you, in a Stephen King Misery kind of way.” She pulled Preppy Boy fully into the circle. “And this is Phillip Castle.” Back to Rafael, with her eyebrows set to go-fuck-yourself. “You know how we were talking about your next book? Stamp, is it?”
“Close enough,” Rafael said as Phillip choked on his champagne.
“Well, Phillip’s with Smythe & Lowe, and he’s very interested.”
“Oh, he is, is he?”
“Yes—go figure. And since you seemed so keen to tell me about your books when we had that delightful chat earlier, I knew you’d jump at the chance to speak to someone...impartial? Meanwhile, if you can spare Felicity—” turning to Felicity “—I hope she’ll regale me with all the salacious details about what happens next with Beth and Braxton in This Time Forever so I can fill Scarlett in once I’m back home in New York.”
Felicity waved an airy hand. “Oh, Beth’s going to have a wonderfully tragic soapy end I’m afraid,” she said, and narrowed her eyes ever so slightly. “I’m leaving the show to play Julie in Catch, Tag, Release—didn’t Rafa tell you?”
Veronica’s smile slipped, which told Rafael she didn’t like what she’d just heard. The news, or the name, or both? No time to work it out, because the slip was microscopic and transient and Veronica was bouncing right back hard.
“Oh well, I’m dying to hear all about that,” she said and, before he knew it, the women were separated from the men. She’d done it, of course. A society-girl skill of hers he’d never been able to demystify. Correction—he’d never had to demystify, because she’d never used it against him before.
Well, whatever she’d done, it had worked: he was out of earshot.
Phillip—poor, clueless bastard—was paying the price for that, because valiantly though he tried to engage Rafael in conversation, Rafael simply didn’t give enough of a fuck to listen. The guy deserved better than monosyllabic nonresponses but that’s what he got. He had to know something was seriously awry by this point, but Rafael was too busy straining his ears toward Veronica to care.
Rafael finally shot Felicity a look he hoped she’d interpret correctly as Get Veronica back here now.
Felicity double-blinked at him—her way of saying she understood—and not only steered Veronica back into the circle