“Jesus Christ!” Lowenstein gasps, panting for breath and struggling to brush invisible dust off his black suit jacket. “Those assholes could’ve killed us!” He turns to look at the brunette by his side and his expression takes on an almost worshipful quality. “Thank God, Andrea’s got her brown belt. I will never say another word about you taking those classes, Andrea honey. They might’ve killed us!”
Andrea smiles at her husband indulgently. She is a tall, statuesque brunette in her midforties with long, brunette hair pulled back into a smooth ponytail. Her face is flawlessly made up, just enough to look polished and not enough to look as though she uses anything but the merest trace of mascara. She is wearing a tailored, Anne Klein suit, a cream silk T-shirt beneath it and a massive rock that has to go fifteen carats on the third finger of her left hand. Money without advertisement.
“Mark,” she purrs, “you wouldn’t say anything to me about my classes even if this hadn’t happened. And you were not almost killed—it was just stupid paparazzi trying to get a close-up.”
I look at Mark and realize the man is clearly besotted with his wife, even though he is trying to appear in control and unaffected.
“The true credit for your safety should lie with this woman,” she says, turning to meet my gaze. “She’s the one who warned us. Porsche Rothschild, I believe?” she asks, extending her hand toward me.
I feel like an absolute idiot. I have made a fool of myself over a couple of paparazzi in a baggage cart. There was absolutely no danger and now Andrea, a complete stranger, is trying to help me save face.
Her grip is firm, her blue-gray eyes clear, and her smile honest. My kind of woman. I find myself grinning back at her and making a mental note to keep her around, in case a real threat to our safety materializes and I need help.
In the meantime, Jeremy has dusted himself off and is now standing behind me. When I turn around, I see he still has the same stupid smirk stuck on his face but when I concentrate on his eyes, I think I see fear there. A little frisson of apprehension runs down my spine and hits my stomach. Had he mistaken the paparazzi for a threat, too?
“What the fuck were you two doing while Miss Rothschild here was attempting to save my ass from the overeager press?” he asks the security guards. His voice is dangerously low and ugly, deceptively so when you take into account that he is still smiling and attempting to fool the paparazzi on the upper level of the concourse.
“Sorry, Mr. Reins,” the shorter of the two says. He is bald, his body thick with steroid-improved musculature, his eyes small and deeply set into his puffy, reddened face.
“I’m afraid we were unavoidably detained,” the taller one says, his voice deep and gruff, like an ex-military officer. He smiles, his blue eyes twinkle and I realize he is attempting to be charming, but when I take in the flattop haircut and the military bearing, I don’t buy the act. His eyes are flat and cold. He is angry at being taken off guard and resentful of me because I’m the “girl” who just did his job for him—at least, that’s how I figure he is thinking.
“What is it that you people say, Scott?” Jeremy says. His tone is mocking. “Excuses satisfy only those who make them?” He doesn’t wait for the man to answer. “Perhaps you and Dave stopped to bugger each other in the men’s room. It really makes no difference to me. What matters is that I was nearly killed and I pay you to prevent that!”
Jeremy’s voice had taken on a hysterical quality and I began to wonder if Jeremy’s complete personality was just one long acting class. Rage, then hysteria with the bodyguards, and cheeky nonchalance with me; what does he really feel about what just happened?
Mark’s cell phone rings and he turns away briefly to take the call. Behind us, a door from the concourse building flies open and two uniformed security guards come barreling out onto the concrete, heading at a run toward our little cluster.
“Handle them,” Jeremy says to his security guards. He turns his back on the others, blocking my view of them with his body. The smirk has returned as he cocks his head and reaches out with one finger to chuck my chin. “Shall we go to the car?”
“Give me a moment,” I say. “I need to collect Marlena.”
Jeremy raises an eyebrow. “Oh? You’ve brought a playmate along? How delightful! The more the merrier, I always say. Will she be sleeping with us?”
I feel a tiny switch flip somewhere inside myself and I temporarily forget all about Renee Dalton-Sinclair, the Gotham Roses and the salivating paparazzi above us.
I reach out, snatch Jeremy’s shirt collar and, before his little pea brain can register what’s happening, pull him toward me, so close I can smell the scent of cigarettes and cologne on his small, wiry body.
I smile as I look into his insolent eyes, but the smile is all show. I am well aware that he can read the full intent of my warning in my eyes.
“Listen to me, you little punk,” I say. “I am here to cover your ass, not grab a piece of it. You will keep your hands to yourself and your mind out of the gutter where I’m concerned. If you don’t, I promise you this, I will cut your balls off while you sleep and stuff them inside your still-beating heart. Are we clear on that point, lovey?”
I smile and wait for his answer.
“Why, Lovey,” he murmurs. “I didn’t know you cared!”
Chapter 2
I don’t slap Jeremy. I want to, but I realize this is just what he wants me to do, so I stop myself. Marlena is mad as hell, though, and she starts chittering and hissing at Jeremy, who seems highly amused by her. I watch all this and begin to formulate an opinion about my spoiled charge; he gets off on other people’s reactions. I suppose this makes him more of a true director than an actor, but it also fits with Renee’s supposition that Jeremy is staging the threats on his life in order to create publicity. I mean, Jeremy Reins is about as well known as any star in Hollywood. He doesn’t need more publicity, but now I see he craves it.
Andrea takes my arm as we’re walking toward the car, with Jeremy and Mark several yards ahead.
“Porsche, I’m so glad Renee sent you,” she says in a low voice. “I was afraid she might not follow through on this.”
I am trying to calm Marlena down and so I am not being my most tactful self when I say, “He’s full of shit and this is just a big game to him.”
To my total surprise, Andrea nods in agreement. “Actually,” she says, nodding to the two men ahead of us, “they’re both assholes at times, but you need to look past that.”
I’m not sure what to say. I mean, I think she’s just called her own husband an asshole, which even my mother, faced with her husband’s philandering, fails to do when the occasion really calls for it. So I switch to active listening mode and nod sympathetically. “So, you look past their behavior?” I murmur, using her own words to lead her on to her next thought because this is what good therapists do, they open the gate, but never shove the patient through.
“Yes,” Andrea says. “Mark is really an overgrown little boy who desperately wants approval, but he needs to feel that he is in charge. He blusters and tells me what I should and shouldn’t do, and then I just do as I please. You know what I mean?”
I nod and smile softly, but I’m thinking, why would you do that? We enter a building and as we follow the two men down a long corridor, Marlene falls asleep again—she is not therapist material.
“Jeremy is a lot like Mark, really,” Andrea continues. “He comes off like a spoiled brat, but he’s really quite insecure. Mark would give you the shirt off his back, but he needs to be praised. Jeremy’s the same way—he’s really very good-hearted.”
I forget therapist mode and fall into my new bodyguard persona. “Then why the threats on his life? Why set up a scenario like that? Why doesn’t he just buy a poor family a house or something?”
Andrea