She scuffed her size-four baby blue Dolce sandal with the daisy between the toes against the restraining fence. The truth was, Dee was lonely. In this romantic setting, she wished she had someone there with her. Even if the guy did look like the alien in that movie
Independence Day
, Dee knew she could love him if he loved her. Looks could be fixed; a guy could always go for plastic surgery from Ben's dad. No one had to be unattractive anymore. That was the best thing about living in the twenty-first century.
Of course, Dee knew she didn't have a boyfriend, even though with her cute looks, huge blue eyes, and baby-girl voice guys came on to her all the time. For some reason, it never worked out. Most of the guys she fell for turned out to be gay.
It wasn't like she had good role models for a relationship! Her parents were still in Europe, Dad doing business, Mom trying to mend their marriage. Her father was a serial cheater—Dee had known that forever. Her mother always got the best jewelry afterward. But lately her mother seemed unhappy with their arrangement. Dee didn't want them to break up. She was the only person she knew whose parents were still married to each other. She was well aware that it might not work out—that her dad might come home with a different wife, and her mom might not come home at all. It happened all the time.
That was why Dee thanked Hashem—the common Hebrew name for God, though Dee had learned at the Kabbalah Centre that the actual name of God had been lost for thousands of years, which was just so mystical and awesome—on a daily basis that He'd brought another family to her. A family by choice, one that would always be there for her.
It was amazing, really, how one day she'd run into Sam's new stepmother at the Kabbalah Centre and how they'd instantly bonded. When Poppy had asked Dee to move in and help prepare for the baby, Dee had felt more needed than she'd ever felt in her life. Now that Ruby Hummingbird was alive and thriving, the three of them were like one soul with three bodies. That was how close they were.
If only they could be with her now! A couple of the baby nurses would need to be there, too, since someone had to feed the baby and change the baby's diapers and all that yucky stuff. But still, it would be so fun.
Dee dug her new cell phone out of her Donna Karan sports bag and touched the digit 1 three times—speed dialing Poppy's private number. But after just three rings, Kenny Rogers singing “Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town” came on.
Dee smiled. Until the day before, it had been the Rolling Stones' classic “Ruby Tuesday.” She'd been the one to suggest that song to Poppy, and Poppy had done it!
Then Poppy's voice: “Hi, it's Poppy and Ruby. We've taken our love to town, so leave a message after the beep!”
Dee left a message and then dropped her phone back into her bag. She'd been uncertain about going on this trip, what with Ruby and Poppy needing her so much. But Poppy had been amazing about it. Sure, they'd miss Dee. But Dee really did need a break with kids her own age. Dee had reminded Poppy that age was meaningless. Poppy was only a few years older than Dee, anyway. Plus, all three of them were very old souls. Whenever Dee looked deeply into Ruby Hummingbird's eyes, she knew they'd been together in a former life.
She couldn't talk about stuff like this with Sam and Cammie. She knew that they just tuned her out, and she tried not to judge them too harshly. She and Poppy were simply more
evolved
than Sam and Cammie. So it was no wonder she'd grown closer to Poppy and the baby—two people who wanted and needed and understood her.
Sometimes she did wish life could go back to how it was before Anna Percy showed up in Beverly Hills. Not that it had been Anna's fault or anything. Dee wasn't into placing blame. But back then, it had been like being in the coolest, most exclusive club in the world—her and Cammie and Sam doing everything together. She remembered how they'd first started talking about the senior trip to Vegas when they were in ninth grade.
Only now that the trip was here, and it wasn't anything like she had imagined. She thought they'd run around Vegas being crazy, flirting with guys, and everything would be perfect. That was the picture she'd had in her mind. Dee gulped hard, tears threatening. Funny how a person could feel so lonely in the middle of a crowd.
No—she refused to be negative. She was simply vibrating on a higher plane now, and she had learned that it could be lonely at the top. People misunderstood, even your best friends. Dee was happy that she finally had some direction and focus, even if her friends didn't understand. Sam had always been the smart and talented one, Cammie the hot and bitchy one, and Dee had been … well, just Dee. The tagalong. The loyal friend. She liked being the evolved one better than being the loyal friend. If she and Sam and Cammie had grown apart, at least it was for a very good reason.
It wasn't Sam's fault that she wasn't as far along on her spiritual path. And Cammie … well, Dee was pretty sure that Cammie was a lost cause. But that didn't mean she wasn't fun to hang around with—when she wasn't picking on Dee.
The gondolier reached the end of the canal and held a high note that rang out, then finished his song with a flourish. Everyone applauded him.
“Gnocchi! Gnocchi!” Dee yelled down, clapping along with everyone else.
A pretty girl with dark curly shoulder-length hair turned to Dee, who had to look up at least six inches to see the girl's eyes. “Excuse me. Why did you shout ‘gnocchi’ just now?”
“I wanted to thank the gondolier for the song,” Dee explained earnestly, happy that someone was engaging her in conversation. “Gnocchi is Italian for ‘thank you.’ ”
Sometime last year Dee had been buying cashmere boy shorts by Australia's Nude Sleepwear when she'd run into an Italian guy named Giancarlo, who was shopping for a Leigh Bantivoglio bustier for his girl-friend. They'd flirted, gone out for coffee, then made out in front of Fly Boutique for a while. Then he'd invited Dee back to Le Parc Central Hotel in West Hollywood, since his girlfriend wasn't with him on this visit to Tinseltown.
When Dee turned him down, Giancarlo hadn't been upset. He'd just kissed her hand and whispered, “Thank you for a lovely afternoon. Gnocchi.”
“ ‘Thank you’ is
grazie
,” the curly haired girl corrected her. “Gnocchi are little potato dumplings.”
Dee's eyebrows furrowed. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I'm sure! I'm Italian.”
“Oh. Well, maybe he was telling me what he wanted for dinner.”
The girl gave Dee a cockeyed look and stepped away from her.
Sheesh,
Dee thought. No one would have gotten that upset over one little word in Los Angeles. People could be so mean. She'd have to make sure that Ruby Hummingbird wasn't tainted by any mean people.
“I hate mean people, Ruby,” Dee uttered aloud. Then she shook her head. The baby wasn't with her, obviously. But sometimes she had the most powerful feeling that Ruby Hummingbird could
intuit
what she was thinking, because of their cosmic bond.
She slapped a dreamy smile on her face and took off for the spa so she wouldn't be late for the yoga class. Maybe this would be the night that she'd come to truly understand the cosmic nature of the soulful connection between her and the baby. The wonderful, perfect part of it all was that no matter how lonely or isolated or weird Dee ever felt, she always had Ruby's spirit with her. Always.
“Right, Ruby?” she whispered.
Dee could have sworn she heard a baby's voice whisper back, “Right, Dee.”
C
ammie lay with her cheek resting against Adam's chest, listening to the steady beating of his heart. That same organ had been pounding just a few minutes earlier—she knew just what to do to make Adam insane with lust. But Cammie wondered why it always felt like she was giving some kind of performance. Not that she didn't adore sex, because she did. With the right partner, it was better than drugs. But she was always aware of the need to prove how hot she was. She was never able to entirely lose herself in the moment, and it irked her.
Adam gently kissed her forehead. “You good?”
“I'm great,” she assured him, even though it wasn't entirely true.
What the hell was the matter with her? She and the guy she loved were in the killer Rock Star Suite at the Palms (the Palms was much too happening to have anything as gauche as, say, a presidential suite).
The thousand-square-foot space, located on the second-to-top floor of the white tower, was bigger than many apartments. The bedroom had a huge king-size bed tented in white netting, with dozens of silk and velvet pillows in various shades of white, taupe, and black. An indoor garden flourished under special black lights, sprouting exotic blossoms in a riot of colors that scented the air; an automatic sprinkler system periodically sprayed the plants. The marble-tiled bathroom had a hot tub, a Jacuzzi, and a shower with eight jets. The floor was heated so that the temperature stayed at an even seventy degrees. There was a separate sitting room with a red velvet couch, large-screen TV, and Dolby sound system. The mirrored bar area was stocked with every type of alcohol, mixers, and munchies. There was also a music room with Bose amps, speakers, keyboards, and six-foot whiteboards with markers in case lyrical inspiration struck. The whiteboards were the only similarity to the Screenwriter's Suite on the same floor, which had an office walled in whiteboards, plus a top-of-the-line Dell computer, fax machine, high-speed color printer, and three phone lines. Cammie knew this because her father had once represented a successful but incredibly arrogant young director, another poker aficionado who liked to stay at the Palms, who had once trashed the suite during an argument with a player he'd suspected of cheating.
Okay, so the place they were staying rocked. Plus, she and Adam had just made love—and with Adam, that was truly what it was.
Except for that niggling voice in Cammie's head. The one that told her she had to keep proving that she was the hottest girl in the world. The one that told her Adam was simply too good to be bad, and bad was what she craved. Hell, maybe bad was even what she deserved. Was it the bad-girl part of her that had made sure she had a certain Vegas phone number in her purse before she left L.A., a phone number she definitely had not shared with Adam? Maybe.
“So, did you come up with something hot for the contest?” Adam asked. He lay on his back, her head resting on his chest as he stroked her hair.
Cammie mentally put aside the call she planned to make as soon as Adam was out of sight. “I just picked up something downstairs by Skin,” she murmured. “I was in a hurry to get up here to you.”
“And I was in a hurry for you to get here.” He cocked an amused eyebrow. “But what's Skin?”
“The outdoor club by the pool—there's a small boutique,” Cammie explained. She stretched luxuriously. “So tonight should be fun. First I win your little contest, then we gamble the night away.”
Adam shifted so that he could look at her. “Is that your idea of a good time?”
She gave him a soft, sexy kiss. “Well, there
are
other things I like better. But a girl can't spend her entire life in bed.”
“Oh yeah, she could.” Adam returned her kiss. “But I don't know about the whole gambling thing, Cam. It's mostly poor people who get sucked in and ripped off at casinos. I feel weird supporting the casinos.”
“No one makes them risk their money, Adam,” Cammie pointed out, propping herself up on one elbow.
“Yeah, but the lure of it can be irresistible. It doesn't seem right, you know?”
No, she definitely did not know. First of all, if poor people were stupid enough to take whatever poor people earned per week and risk it on a spin of a roulette wheel, they deserved whatever they got. Second of all, she definitely wasn't poor. So it had zero to do with her.
Yet Adam looked so earnest. So caring. She just couldn't tell him how she really felt. She kissed him lightly, teasing him until it turned into more.
“Down girl,” Adam laughed. “Got to jump in the shower and get this show on the road. I'm a judge in the contest you're about to win, and we have, like, a half hour to pull it together and get over to the club.” He swung off the king-size bed. “You want to take a shower with me?”
“Well, I would,” Cammie cooed, holding her hair off her neck, “but that might lead us to things that will make us late for the contest. And we wouldn't want the judge to walk in late with one of the contestants. How would that look?”
He leaned over to kiss her. “Pretty good to me. But I see your point.”
He padded into the bathroom—the boy had a killer behind—and closed the door. Cammie waited until she heard the shower running; then she grabbed her petal pink Gucci baguette purse from the nightstand and fished out her new cell. She'd programmed in the number she wanted before they'd left Los Angeles. She dialed and waited as it rang. Once. Twice. Three—
“Hello?”
His voice was deep, inviting, and sexy as hell.
“Hi there.”
“Camilla.”
Ohhhh, that voice. Cammie smiled and licked her lips. Perfect. She could hear Adam singing in the shower. “Hi.”
“You're here?”
“I came, I saw, I conquered,” Cammie quipped, toying with a lock of her hair. “Or maybe I saw, I conquered, I came.”
“My kind of girl. Now how soon can you get your ass over here?”
Overgrown foliage surrounded the cozy green-topped tables at Lush, whose bases had been made to look like chopped-off bonsai trees. Stuffed parrots dotted the foliage; monkeys swung from the trees. The waitresses wore minuscule bikinis that looked as if made of jungle flowers, with leafy garlands around their heads. There was a rain forest backdrop behind the stage. None of it was real, of course, which Anna decided made it perfect for Vegas.
By the time she and Sam pulled up in the limo, Cammie, Adam, and Parker had already snagged a banquette in the corner. The huge, illuminated sign in the front window had flashed in giant neon letters:
L
USH
! E
VERY
T
UESDAY
N
IGHT
! A
MATEUR