“You’re letting people know we’re here,” she said when they finally stopped.
“Here and kicking,” Zane confirmed. “Our associates in Manhattan need to know we’re doing business as usual.”
“Will they be at the fundraiser?”
“Some of them.”
Trey was sitting next to her, with Zane on his other side. Sensing her nervousness, he took her hand. “We show up. We drink. We dance. We write a big check for charity. We act like what we are to each other is perfectly normal.”
“What if I screw up?”
“You can’t,” Zane said. “You look too damn delectable to be anything but an asset.”
Rebecca hoped cleaning up well was all tonight would require of her.
Trey saw her skepticism. “We won’t leave you on your own. One of us will be with you at all times.”
“You don’t have to go that far.”
“We do. The more people see us together, the more they’ll understand there’s more to us than Showergate. We’re serious about each other.”
Rebecca snuck at look at Zane. He didn’t bat an eye at Trey’s claim. She knew he’d heard it. He wasn’t murmuring in his phone. He was slipping that into his tuxedo jacket’s inside pocket.
“We’re serious,” he agreed and straightened his black bowtie. He and Trey were so stunning in formal wear she had trouble thinking straight. She definitely couldn’t afford to dwell on them finding each other stunning too. Her knees wobbled badly enough in these dressy heels.
“You’re not nervous,” she said.
Zane’s sensual lips curved in an amused smile. “I seem to have gotten over that. Maybe all I needed was something to fight against.”
She supposed that would light a fire under a competitive man like him. She wished she had a cure for her nerves. She was serious too. About Zane and Trey. About building some sort of future together. The fact that it was
some sort
was what threw her. She wanted the men forever, and she wanted a guarantee. Knowing nobody got that couldn’t squelch her wish for one.
Trey leaned over to kiss her cheek. “This isn’t life and death, Rebecca. We get through tonight, and we tackle tomorrow when it comes.”
“Right,” she said, tightening her grip on his hand. When Zane reached sideways to grip it too, she actually did feel better.
~
Zane was better at hiding his nerves than Rebecca realized. He hadn’t lied about feeling ready to be a threesome in public, but he had trickier irons in the fire tonight. He hoped he wasn’t crazy for letting her brothers talk him into Operation Blue Velvet.
Naturally, they hadn’t heeded his request to leave Missy to him and Trey.
In the confusion of the scandal breaking, Zane had shoved Owens’ confiscated laptop onto a shelf in the library. The boys had found it, read Owens’ name on the case, and decided to take a peek. A phone call to Charlie’s brainiac red-haired friend enabled them to crack Owens’ apparently pathetic security, whereupon they discovered the dismissed chauffeur had a long-term fondness for filmmaking.
Their plan for exploiting that was one Zane might have devised in his college days.
Too smart to propose the plot to Rebecca, the boys had come to him.
“It’s the nuclear principle,” Pete had said with frightening reasonableness. “We’ve got a bomb, and the swimsuit hanger doesn’t. If we want her to stop taking jabs at you and Trey and Rebecca, we have to demonstrate we’re willing and able to use it.”
“Plus, Mystique going after you is the reason the bomb exists,” Charlie said. “It’s poetic justice. We’d be silly to feel guilty.”
“You’ll only push the button if she shows up?”
“She’ll show up,” Pete said. “Once she hears the three of you will be there, she won’t be able to resist making more trouble. She’ll dress to the teeth and try to show you what you’re missing. Or play poor misled thing to anyone who’ll listen.”
“Or both,” Charlie added. “I’m betting that’s not beyond her.”
That was a wager Zane wouldn’t take. “I don’t want you getting caught.”
“We won’t,” Charlie promised. “No one but Mystique will guess where the bomb came from. Caroline has, like, criminal level skills.”
Zane saw this didn’t dampen Charlie’s interest in the girl.
He’d accepted their offer with stipulations, which the boys agreed to honor. All that remained was seeing if Missy would act true to form. Knowing it was best to shelve his worries for the time being, he joined Trey in helping Rebecca out of the limo van.
She looked better squirming to get comfortable in her blue velvet dress than Missy could in a hundred designer gowns—with or without photo retouching. The model would never understand why he and Trey preferred their shared lover, why
her
wobbly ankles were the most alluring, why
her
happy grin made their hearts stutter. Rebecca was a beautiful woman, but she was also a big bright soul. Being seen with her made him proud, no matter what anybody thought.
To his surprise, now that the truth was out, being seen with Trey had rather the same effect.
A man who’d won over those two had something to brag about.
“Watch the curb,” Trey laughed as their date almost tripped on it.
“Damned heels,” Rebecca muttered, holding tight to their hands. “I hope you two are giving me brownie points.”
She forgot her grumbling the moment she saw the illuminated mansion behind the iron fence. The noise of nighttime Manhattan was all around them: the rush of traffic, the machinery of tall buildings. Other guests of the event stepped out of taxis and limos, chattering with their companions. Zane watched all of that fall away for Rebecca. Her face lit up at the fairytale house before her, her lovely eyes going wide.
“Wow,” she said, her delight instantly becoming his. “This is cool!”
The turreted Whitney-Moeller Museum had once been a residence. Back in the twenties, the family donated it to the city, along with its extensive art collection and period furnishings. Today, it was a popular venue for charity events, thanks to its magnificently preserved turn of the century ballroom.
To escort her to it, Zane and Trey each offered her an elbow. The place was too packed for this arrangement to draw more than a glance or two. Rebecca, bless her, was too busy gawking to notice.
“Look at those tiger ice sculptures!” she exclaimed, understandably taking note of the catering. “I have to find out what artist supplied them.”
Trey shot an inquiring look over her head at Zane, who nodded a go-ahead.
“Why don’t we ask?” Trey said. “And maybe grab some champagne.”
He steered her in that direction, leaving Zane with the other terrible trio. Caroline was already scoping the terrain for a likely place to set up her gear. The ballroom was long and tall with a painted barrel ceiling and a balcony on either end. The orchestra would claim the more distant perch. The nearer was arranged with fancy white-clothed tables.
“Up there?” Zane asked, nodding his head toward it. “If you blew out your table’s candle, you’d be very hard to see.”
“That’ll work,” Caroline agreed. She turned back to him, her eyes owlishly fascinating behind her thick glasses. “Switch on your earpiece, Mr. Alexander, and I’ll hear everything you say. It’ll only take a few minutes for me to be ready to make the delivery. All I’ll need then is your signal that it’s a go.”
Zane squelched the childish thrill this cloak and dagger talk inspired. Charlie’s nineteen-year-old friend was much more blasé than him. “Thank you, Caroline,” he said soberly. “Charlie, why don’t you make sure she gets into place safely?”
Charlie leaped to do it, inspiring the teensiest blush in Caroline. For Charlie’s sake, Zane was glad to know she wasn’t nonchalant about everything.
Pete laughed under his breath as he watched them go. “She is so out of Charlie’s league.”
“Maybe not,” Zane said. “Charlie seems to have his own criminal tendencies.”
Pete laughed at that as well, probably because he had them too. “Becca didn’t mean to raise us sneaky, but we sure learned to be.” He paused to narrow his eyes at Zane. “Don’t let her down again.”
“Not while there’s breath in my body,” Zane swore sincerely.
Pete nodded and then craned around the crowd. He touched his hidden earpiece to activate it. “Target entering the ballroom.”
Zane stifled amusement even as his heart rate kicked up a notch. He wasn’t the only person enjoying playing spy.
Missy was indeed coming in. On her arm was a hot young actor from one of the TV shows currently shooting in New York. Missy sure knew how to pick her dates. As irony would have it, Zane had heard some very underground rumors, from people who ought to know, that the stud was in the closet. That, of course, wasn’t Zane’s business. He waited until the actor peeled off toward the bar to approach Missy.
He had no trouble pasting on a severe expression. Seeing the model brought back more unpleasant memories than she probably imagined.
Always aware of her best angles, she leaned picturesquely against a column at the edge of the glittering room. She’d gone Roman tonight in a deep ruby gown gathered with a ribbon beneath her breasts. The shade suited her brunette coloring as perfectly as the style did her height and shape. One knee-high gladiator sandal peeped through a long leg slit, no doubt intended to declare her readiness for war. Her rich red lips formed a curve as he halted in front of her.
“Miss me already?” she asked archly.
“Probably as much as you miss Constance Sharp, now that her family’s collected her.”
“I enjoyed the old bag’s company while I had it. It was useful.”
“You’ll find that particular usefulness has a price.”
Missy toyed with the ruby pendant in her cleavage. “Men like you know what everything costs, don’t you? What’s it costing your little friend Trey, I wonder? His aunt raised such speculations about his childhood before her children whisked her away. Do you suppose Trey’s mean old daddy explains why he turned out the way he did?”
Zane had heard those speculations. He supported Trey in his decision not to address them publically. If people discovered how he and Trey were raised, so be it, but for every person who understood there’d be ten like Missy who’d twist the facts somehow. The world might enjoy putting them under that microscope, but it wasn’t their business.
No one should be forced to share their history.
“Careful,” he said to the model. “You sound like you’re implying bisexuality is a condition that needs explaining.”
“It would need explaining, if it hadn’t been invented by people who can’t admit what they are. If you’re gay, just be gay. Don’t lead honest women like me on.”
Zane let out a sigh, knowing this conversation was pointless. “I’m here to give you a warning. Leave off bothering me and mine, or I’ll make you sorry we ever met.”
“You’re threatening me?” she asked in mock horror. “That’s hardly cricket, Zane. I’m only here to support this fine charity.”
He looked straight into her eyes, waiting an extra beat for her to understand he was serious. “You don’t matter to me. Not as a supposed girlfriend and not as an enemy. Cause me the slightest inconvenience, and I’ll cut you off at the knees.”
This brought true anger into Missy’s expression. Face hard, she opened her mouth to speak. She was too late. He’d given Caroline the signal. The phone she always carried in her clutch purse rang.
“You’ll want to get that,” he said.
She dug it out with a muffled curse. It was a videophone, of course—the latest, smartest model available. The minute she answered, the file Charlie and Pete had found on the chauffeur’s laptop began to play. It showed her and Owens in bed in a hotel room. The picture was excellent, the sound a testament to Owens’ skill at concealing microphones. Missy gasped—and not because of the video’s graphic nature. Quite obviously, she hadn’t known she was being filmed. As she rode her young panting lover, not as gracefully as she thought, she gave him instructions for planting a camera to spy on Zane in his home. She called Zane a revolting cocksucker and Trey a flaming queer. Owens negotiated an additional payment for his risk, and Missy agreed to pay. If this got out, GLAAD would have her ass on a platter—and never mind Zane’s lawyers.
This, however, wasn’t the worst the footage had to reveal—or not from Missy’s perspective.
Excited by the topics she and her lover had been discussing, Missy tossed back her hair and came.
A sound like a dying walrus issued from the phone’s speakers. Missy might not mind the world seeing her naked, but she’d damn well mind them knowing the noise she made when she climaxed.
Missy jabbed her phone off, but not before half a dozen people turned curiously toward the noise. “You
wouldn’t
,” she hissed, her eyes shooting flames. “That . . . that is a private thing!”
“I would,” Zane said, hard as steel. “What’s more, I want you to know I can. Anytime. To anyone. Any damn where you go. If you want
your
privacy respected, you need to stop violating other folks.’”
“No.” She grabbed for his sleeve, her fury tinged with pleading. “Don’t do this.”
Zane shook her off and touched his earpiece. “Make the delivery,” he said to Caroline.
Thankfully, this event was packed with people who didn’t turn off their lifelines for anyone. All around the ballroom, hundreds of phones in purses and pockets chirped and buzzed and played an endless variety of tunes. Attendees laughed, cheery from the free-flowing booze and food, assuming the charity had arranged a stunt to entertain them and raise money. As they opened the message they’d received, a chorus of moaning walruses succeeded the previous cacophony.
“Damn you,” Missy cursed, humiliation tears in her eyes.
Zane caught her wrist before she could storm past him. “It’s a cartoon.”
“What?” she said, tugging to get free.
“They’re watching a cartoon. Not your face. Not the rest of the vitriol you spouted. It’s a cartoon woman having sex, making that sound you do. The caption says, ‘What’s more generous than a big fat O? How about a check with a lot of O’s that helps save endangered tigers?’”
“I don’t believe you,” Missy said.
Zane turned his phone around to show her. “This is your only warning,” he said as she took it in. “Pull anything against anyone I care about, and this will seem like child’s play compared to how I’ll go after you.”