“Looking for someone?” Kenneth said from right behind her, making her jump and spill half her drink down the front of her dress. He was wearing a shiny black tuxedo with a perfectly knotted blue silk bowtie, and clinging to his arm was a slender platinum blonde with huge blue eyes. She had a tiny button nose and a mouth shaped like a glossy pink heart. She wore a dress that looked as if it were made of black liquid silk, fitting her as if it had been poured over her slim body, rippling and flowing like a river.
Looking at her clinging to Kenneth gave Chloe an odd, sickly feeling in her stomach which she had never experienced before.
Chloe glanced down at her dress. It was loose in the bust, and tight in the hips, and now there was a stain on the front that was shaped like a chicken, and she was regretting her decision to carry her sweater slung over her arm. She should have handed it in at the coat check.
High society and Chloe didn’t mix.
“I’m looking for my boyfriend,” she said desperately. “We’re practically engaged, actually.” Where the hell was Henry?
“Is that a sweater?” the blonde asked her incredulously, eyes widening.
“What does your boyfriend look like?” Kenneth asked politely, but she could sense the skepticism in his smile. “Let me help you find him.”
“He’s got bleached blond hair, he’s wearing a plaid jacket…”
“That man over there?” He inclined his head at Henry, who was standing in a corner making out with the waiter. The waiter was still holding the tray in his left hand, and people were walking by, grabbing canapés off of it.
Tarts. Riiight. He’d gone to seek out tarts. She mentally added a new item to her to-do list for tomorrow: stab Henry through the heart with a fountain pen.
“No, no…ah…another blond guy in a plaid jacket.” Right. Because the room was crawling with them. She edged away, holding her sweater in front of the stain, blinking hard and trying not to hyperventilate. She gave the bust of her dress another tug, holding it in place. “He’s here somewhere.”
Kenneth turned to the blonde. “Tiffany, or whatever your name is, do you see that man over there? Silver haired man standing by the bar? Richard Bogdanovich. Loves younger women. Just got divorced from his fourth wife and he’s looking for a fifth. And he’s never learned to hold out for a pre-nup.”
Chloe watched in amazement as Tiffany practically left scorch marks in her rush across the room.
“She’s fast for a human. How did you know all that about him?” Chloe asked.
“I didn’t. I have no idea who he is. Let’s get out of here quickly before she finds out I was lying. The sculpture garden is supposed to be lovely.” He inclined his head towards the back door.
Chloe took a deep breath, and quickly downed what was left of her drink. A walk in the dark with the devil himself? Sure, what could possibly go wrong?
I bet that’s what my grandmother thought the first time she laid eyes on Kenneth’s grandfather, Chloe thought warily. Right before she went crazy.
“Fine. Let’s get this over with,” she said.
Chapter Four
Playa Linda
The supposed princess glanced up from her iPad, looking alarmed.
“‘She’s too smart for us?’ ” Bobbi repeated scornfully. “Does that sound like something Jax would say?”
“Crap,” Pixie said. “Hell no. He always thinks he’s the smartest one in the room. You’re right.”
“He set this whole thing up to throw us off. That bastard. That brilliant bastard,” Bobbi said, caught between homicidal fury and admiration. “I am going to…I don’t even know what I’m going to do to him, that’s how pissed off I am.”
“He double-crossed us. That son of a whore.” Pixie shook her head.
“Worse. He double-double crossed us. He pretended he didn’t want us to follow him here just to throw us off his scent.”
“So he four-crossed us! I hate being four-crossed.”
“It’s all I can do not to shift and rip someone’s throat out right now, I swear to God,” Bobbi hissed.
“Hey, don’t look at me! It was your boyfriend and your brother. And you totally fell for it.”
Bobbi leaned across the bed and grabbed the girl’s laptop. She held it up to show Pixie. The princess who supposedly couldn’t speak English had been updating her Facebook page. In English.
“Motherfucker,” Pixie said.
The girl quickly pulled her earphones out of her ears and stood up. “So I can go home now?” she said. “Jax said as soon as you figured it out I could go home.”