The Secret Diamond Sisters (24 page)

“Three days here and you’ve already been corrupted by the Vegas elite.” Nick shook his head in fake mockery. “You know, expensive decorations don’t mean the most fun.”

“But they don’t hurt,” she said.

Nick stepped onto the bottom of a narrow escalator, and Savannah joined him. That was when she saw the sign overhead.

“No way,” she said, shaking her head for emphasis. She looked over her shoulder, wanting to run back down the escalator, but a few people had gotten on behind them. “That is so not happening.”

“How do you know where we’re going?” he teased.

She crossed her arms but managed a small smile to let him know she wasn’t totally annoyed. “It’s kind of obvious. And I can tell you already. So. Not. Happening.”

“You already said that.” He laughed. “Relax. Some people I know are hanging out here, and I thought it could be fun. No pressure.”

Savannah reluctantly followed him around the corner, and groaned when she saw another lit-up sign:

The Imperial Palace Karaoke Club.

Great. And if by
great
she meant
totally not what she ever felt like doing,
then, yeah. It was one thing to put up videos on YouTube—or in her case,
talk
about putting up videos on YouTube—and totally different to perform live. She would panic and make a mistake, if not humiliate herself like she had in eighth grade. If Nick and his friends saw her mess up onstage, they would make fun of her all night and maybe longer. She would never hear the end of it. Dread twisted in her stomach.

“You can memorialize your performance on DVD if you’d like,” Nick said.

“I won’t have to worry about that, because there won’t
be
a performance,” she insisted. “At least not by me.” Still, she followed him, lagging behind as she looked around in horror.

The Karaoke Club was more like a bar than a club. People of all ages surrounded the tables, the majority with large glasses of beer in front of them. On the stage, a group of guys wearing shirts with matching Greek letters were singing a slurred, off-key rendition of “Sweet Caroline.” The crowd contributed to the song with the necessary “ba ba ba!” and “so good, so good!,” pumping their fists or beer glasses in the air for emphasis. A few people were dancing next to their tables, and one girl was dancing
on
a table. She was chunky, and her clothes were too tight, but she was smiling so radiantly that none of that mattered.

The frat boys surrounded two microphones on the small stage, reading the lyrics from a screen. Which meant the words were in front of them.

With the words in front of her, it would be impossible for Savannah to forget them and look stupid.

Maybe she would give karaoke a try.

“Let’s find a table,” Nick said. “My friends aren’t here yet, so we should save one before it gets packed.”

They secured a table in the middle that had just cleared out. The college guys finished their song, and the DJ, Rusty Varney, brought on the next act—an older couple in matching Hawaiian shirts who chose “I Got You, Babe” by Sonny and Cher. They weren’t great, but the crowd sang and danced along anyway.

“Do you come here a lot?” Savannah asked Nick. This didn’t look like a place where kids who went to Goodman would hang out. No one wore the expensive designer clothing she saw on the people at Myst and Luxe. It had a relaxed atmosphere, and Savannah felt overdressed in her sequined blue minidress and tall heels.

“My brother and some of his friends got me into it,” Nick replied, glancing at his beat-up flip phone that reminded Savannah of her own. Well, the one that was hers until the iPhone Adrian had ordered arrived to replace it. Finally she wouldn’t feel like an outcast because she couldn’t Instagram or Snapchat. “They’ll be here soon.”

“Does your brother go to Goodman?” Savannah asked.

“He did,” Nick replied. “He graduated last year. In the fall he’ll be a sophomore at UNLV.”

Savannah remembered seeing signs on the way in from the airport for the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Then she did some calculations in her head. If Nick’s brother was going to be a sophomore in college, that meant he was around nineteen or twenty. Would he want to hang out with a fifteen-year-old girl?

Probably not, but she would try not to worry about it. Nick wouldn’t have brought her if he thought it would be a problem.

“So, are you going to pick a song?” Nick asked. He looked at the couple on stage, who had gone horribly off-key. “I’m sure your singing is better than
that.
”

He was right, but it didn’t stop her chest from tightening and her hands from shaking at the prospect of going onstage. “I guess it can’t hurt to check out the songbook,” she said, worry bubbling in her stomach. Then she reminded herself about the words on the screen. There was no way she could forget them.

“Go get ’em!” Nick said as she walked to the booth where Rusty Varney sat with the songbooks. He watched her as she flipped through the book, which had a startling 15,000 songs listed. Her breathing quickened with the awareness she was being watched.

“You look like a talented one,” he said, his voice traced with a Spanish accent.

“Why do you say that?” Savannah pushed her hair behind her ears. She still wasn’t used to her extensions.

“I do this every night.” He winked. “Trust me, I can tell this sort of thing.”

Savannah found the song she was searching for, and her hands continued to shake as she wrote it and her name on the slip of paper. She couldn’t believe she was going through with this. DJ Rusty took it from her and smiled.

“Good choice,” he told her. Then he looked at the couple onstage, who were reaching the end of their song. “You wanna go next? I don’t normally bump people in line, but we’re desperately in need of some talent right now.”

Savannah froze. Was he serious? But she apparently didn’t have a choice, because he hopped onstage and announced, “Next we’ve got the one and only Savannah Diamond singing ‘I Love Rock and Roll’! Get on up here, Savannah, and show them what you’ve got!”

Everyone looked at her expectantly, and Savannah heard clapping from a table in the middle. Nick. She groaned inwardly, took the microphone, and watched the television screen for the words.

The music started, and Savannah focused on holding the microphone steady. Then she took a deep breath and started to sing, her eyes glued to the screen. But she knew the song by heart—it was on the “getting ready” playlist on her iPod to listen to when she was preparing to go out. She always danced around her room when it came on, posing in front of her mirror and using her hairbrush as a microphone.

The crowd quieted after the first line, and then the cheering began. Savannah was too wrapped up in the music to catch what people shouted, but she knew it was positive. But what showed her that the crowd loved her was that no one sang along. Instead they listened to her, like she was a real performer. She absorbed the encouraging cheers, unable to believe it. Even the “Sweet Caroline” frat boys danced along, waving their arms in the air during the chorus. For the first time, the anxiety Savannah had felt when she’d stepped onstage was replaced by the rush of performing.

When the song finished, she thanked everyone and rejoined Nick at the table, where he was waiting with a huge smile. Two older boys and a girl had joined him while she was onstage. Savannah assumed one of them was Nick’s brother.

“You were awesome!” Nick said, giving her a high five. “Your sisters and friends weren’t giving you enough credit if they only said that you’re ‘good.’ You’re a star.”

“Nick’s right,” said the guy sitting next to him, holding out a hand to introduce himself. “I’m Ben, Nick’s brother. You were great up there.”

The family resemblance between the brothers was obvious. Ben had the same athletic build as Nick, but unlike most jocks Savannah knew, he wore a T-shirt with the name of a band Savannah hadn’t heard of on it. He introduced the two people with him—his girlfriend, Lexie, and his best friend, Xander. They didn’t seem to mind hanging out with high-schoolers, but Savannah still felt young when they talked about college.

Xander went to the bar and brought back two pitchers of beer, filling up glasses and passing them around. Savannah tried not to look grossed out. She didn’t like the taste of beer, but it was generous of Xander to buy it for everyone. She drank hers slowly, hoping they didn’t notice.

She mostly listened to the conversation, but they were friendly, which was more relaxing than talking with Damien, Madison and the rest of that crew. Savannah deflated at the thought of Damien, but while the memory of him kissing Madison still hurt, she didn’t feel as terrible as she had an hour ago. She was having fun listening to drunk people butcher karaoke songs as she and everyone around her danced and sang along.

After Nick had a few beers, he agreed to do a duet with her—“Summer Nights” from
Grease.
He wasn’t good enough to take up singing as a career, but he was energetic onstage, and the crowd loved him. He grabbed Savannah’s hand when they finished, holding it up in the air and thanking the crowd, repeating her name to make sure they didn’t forget it.

“You’re kind of awesome, Savannah Diamond,” he whispered in her ear.

Savannah didn’t know what to think. Was he interested in her as more than a friend? When they were talking about Madison earlier it hadn’t sounded like he was over her, but it was impossible to tell. And more important—was Savannah interested in Nick? He was a great guy, but while the hurt from Damien’s actions had waned over the course of the night, it was still there. It would probably return full force the next time she saw him.

She wouldn’t be able to avoid him forever.

chapter 22:

The charity dinner with Oliver didn’t go as poorly as Courtney had anticipated. The coral cocktail dress that Savannah had insisted she buy received loads of compliments—even Ellen Prescott liked it. Many people offered her glasses of champagne throughout the night, but Courtney stuck to soda. Oliver ordered soda as well, since his parents were watching him, but he spiked it using the flask hidden in his jacket. He’d asked Courtney if she wanted some, and she’d declined.

In the beginning of the night everyone was mingling, and Courtney felt out of place, since she didn’t know anyone. But Rebecca spent a lot of time with her, introducing her to so many people there was no way Courtney would be able to keep their names straight. It was a pleasant break when Ellen and some other women who had planned the event spoke after dinner, and Courtney was proud to support a good cause. But while she felt good being there, she also wanted a more hands-on way to contribute to the community. She would have to ask Rebecca about that later.

Oliver spent the night drinking and giving her the dirty details on everyone at the event. Half the women there were cheating on their husbands, and there were two politicians in attendance accused of accepting bribes from a strip club owner. Now they were both on the brink of impeachment. Courtney did her best to listen, but she didn’t have much to add, and she found the gossip slightly mind-numbing.

Now she and Oliver were getting into the town car that would drop her back off at the Diamond, and she wondered how he could stand after all the drinks he’d had throughout the night. He had to be wasted, but she got the impression he drank so much that he either had a liver of steel or was a master at hiding it.

“You’re not planning on going back to your condo, right?” Oliver asked.

“Where else would I go?” Courtney checked her watch. It was 11:00 p.m.—the time she started getting ready for bed at home.

“The rooftop club at the Palms.” He looked at her like she should have already known this.

Courtney was exhausted—meeting so many people and listening to Oliver gossip about the scandals of the Vegas elite had tired her out more than she’d realized. “I’m just going to go back and get some sleep,” she said, not caring if Oliver thought it sounded lame.

“Come on.” He slung his arm around her shoulders, his brown eyes softening.

He must have taken her silence as a yes, because the next thing she knew he had smashed his lips to hers and was trying to force his tongue into her mouth. Courtney pulled back immediately. She didn’t want her first kiss to be with Oliver, a guy she had nothing in common with and who reeked of alcohol. She’d thought he wasn’t interested in her and had only invited her because his mom made him. Apparently she was wrong.

“What are you doing?” She wiped her mouth and leaned as far away from him as possible.

He looked distraught at her rejection, but he pulled himself together. “Sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have moved so fast. That was stupid of me. I thought you liked me...but I guess I was wrong. I promise it won’t happen again.”

Courtney scooted closer to the door. She had never had a guy come on to her so strongly before. At least he was apologetic, and he seemed genuinely sorry. He’d probably misread her signals because of how much he’d had to drink. “I really am tired,” she said, praying he would get the point. “It’s not that I don’t like you... I’m just interested in someone else. Someone I can’t be with.”

Oliver’s eyes flashed with understanding. “Someone from California?”

She nodded, feeling bad about the lie. But it seemed the safest route. She couldn’t exactly admit to Oliver that she had feelings for Brett.

“Well, that sucks,” he said.

“Yeah.” Courtney agreed. “But thanks for inviting me to the dinner tonight.”

“I had a great time with you,” he said. “And I’ve been waiting to ask you... Do you want to go to the grand opening of the Diamond with me? Just as friends, of course. Our dads will be announcing their new hotel in Macau, so it will look good for the two of us to be there together. Plus, it would make our parents happy. I wasn’t
that
bad of company tonight, right?”

Courtney hadn’t seen that one coming. If Oliver hadn’t apologized for making moves on her... But he had, and he did sound sorry. Plus, he had promised her it would only be as friends. Being seen with him would ensure that no one suspected her feelings for Brett. It was the perfect cover.

“Okay,” she said tentatively. “That would be nice.”

“I think so, too,” he said as the chauffeur pulled the town car up to the Diamond Residences. “I’ll see you tomorrow night?”

“See you then.” Courtney stepped out of the car, shooting Oliver one last forced smile.

All she could think about was how she felt like she was betraying Brett. Which was silly, since nothing was going on between them. He had said so himself.

She walked toward the elevators, and then she saw him.

Brett was in the Lobby Bar, a bottle of beer on the table in front of him. It was in her best interest to avoid spending time with him—her feelings for him would grow if she did—but it would be rude if she didn’t say hi.

Perhaps this was fate’s way of intervening.

She pushed the thought from her mind. If fate wanted to be kind to her, she and Brett wouldn’t be step-siblings in a matter of months.

“Hi,” she said when she approached his table, playing with her hands in front of her. She didn’t sit down—he was probably meeting someone there, and she didn’t want to intrude.

She hoped it wasn’t a girl.

“You look nice,” he said. “Did you have fun with Oliver Prescott?” His bitterness took Courtney by surprise.

“It was okay.” She shrugged and bit her lip.

He studied her as he took another swig of his beer. “You don’t sound so sure about that.”

“Oliver’s nice,” she said. “But I’m not interested in him as more than a friend.”

Brett motioned her to sit in the chair next to him. She did. “It’s rare that girls say that about Oliver,” he said. “What kind of guys
are
you interested in, then?”

“Well...” Courtney crossed her legs, trying to figure out how to say this politely without insulting Oliver to Brett. “Oliver likes going to clubs and other places involving crowds of people and drinking. I prefer activities that are one-on-one, when I can have fun without being drunk.” Brett chuckled, and she blushed. “Not that I’ve ever been drunk,” she said. “But I like going to dinner and on walks and to the movies and things like that.”

“And to shows?” he asked, watching her closer. “Like
Phantom of the Opera?
”

“Like that,” she said. “I like people who I can talk to—people who have similar interests to mine.”

“And Oliver doesn’t,” Brett concluded.

“Not from what I’ve seen of him so far.”

He was quiet for a few seconds. “Do you want to get out of here?” he finally asked.

The change of conversation caught Courtney by surprise. “And go where?”

“Hmm. Have you ever been to Paris?”

“No.” Courtney was confused. “But I’ve always wanted to go there.”

“Well, we have a mini-Paris on the Strip,” he said. “Are you ready to continue our world traveling?”

He sounded so excited—was she wrong that he wasn’t interested in her? Because he was watching her like it would crush him if she said no. The thought that he might see her as more of a friend sent her heart racing, and the tiredness she’d felt in the car with Oliver evaporated. “Do you mind if I go upstairs and change first?” she asked. “These heels aren’t meant to be worn for more than a few hours.”

He told her he would wait there for her, and she headed to the elevators, stealing one last glance at Brett as she turned the corner.

This night was about to get way better than she’d anticipated.

* * *

Courtney was glad Peyton had her door closed and Savannah wasn’t in the condo, so she could change as quickly as possible. She wouldn’t want her sisters to ask where she was going, or worse, invite themselves along. Kicking the heels off, she happily changed into skinny jeans, a deep pink spaghetti-strap top and, of course, her flip-flops. Then she applied clear lip gloss and headed out the door.

She couldn’t believe she’d said yes to Brett’s invitation. It would have made more sense to tell him she was tired and wanted to go to sleep so she wasn’t exhausted for the grand opening tomorrow night. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She would regret it too much if she didn’t go with him tonight.

Of course, going to Paris together didn’t mean anything romantic would happen between her and Brett—even though it
was
the city of love. Still, there was no denying that she wanted something to happen. She couldn’t ignore it for much longer.

But she would have to try.

She stepped out of the elevator and found Brett waiting for her.

“You couldn’t wait to change out of that dress,” he said when he saw her. “You look more comfortable now.”

“I am,” she said. “I’ve never been a big dress wearer. That’s more Savannah. You should see how many she bought when we went to the mall.... She’ll have a lifetime supply.” She had also spent enough money to pay their rent in California for months, but Courtney didn’t feel comfortable sharing that information.

“You act like the mall is torture.” Brett laughed. “I’m sure your dad will be happy that Savannah’s enjoying herself. Besides, I thought every girl liked buying new dresses.”

“Trust me, no one needs as many as Savannah bought,” Courtney said. “I gave in to a few because I didn’t want to be underdressed for seeing
Phantom
and going to fancy dinners, but I would be happy wearing jeans and flip-flops everywhere.”

“For the record, I think you look great in anything you wear.” Brett held the door open, and she walked through, smiling at his comment.

The drive to Paris was short, and the hotel was hard to miss, with its blue chateau roof and replica Eiffel Tower in front. Courtney pressed her hand against the window and admired the tower. Bright lights glowed from the inside, and she craned her neck to look to the top.

“Is it an exact replica?” she asked Brett.

“It’s smaller,” he said. “And the real one looks bigger since it’s not surrounded by huge hotels. They made a rule in Paris that no building is allowed to be taller than the Tower. You’ll love it when you go.”

“
When
I go,” Courtney said in disbelief. She’d imagined days spent in the Louvre admiring timeless masterpieces, venturing inside the Paris Opera House that inspired
Phantom of the Opera
and going to the top of the Eiffel Tower, but it had always been a dream.

“What are you doing in August?” Brett asked as they drove under a replica of the Arc de Triomphe. It looked more beautiful than in pictures, and this was only a copy. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to see the real one.

“I guess I’ll be here,” she said. She liked having an organized schedule, but she didn’t plan
that
far in advance. “There are a few books I want to read this summer before I’m bogged down by homework in the fall. I also have to get in SAT practice. I’ve got the reading and vocab sections down pretty well, but I need to work on math. And I want to volunteer somewhere, since Adrian won’t let me get a job, but I still need to figure out where. Why?”

“Set aside a week,” he said, stopping the car in front of the hotel. “Because we’re going to Paris.”

“What do you mean, we’re going to Paris?”

“You want to see Paris, so we should go to Paris. Bring your sisters, too.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that,” he said. “But for now, we should enjoy the Paris we have here.”

As in most of the hotels in Vegas, the main entrance of Paris led straight into the casino. This was the most original one Courtney had seen yet. Two of the legs of the Eiffel Tower sprawled from outside and into the center of the lobby, and wrought-iron street lamps displayed signs directing tourists around the hotel. The blue-cushioned chairs in front of the slot machines and game tables were in the traditional French style, the ceiling was painted like the daytime sky and a huge white stone bridge that Courtney recognized as Le Pont Alexandre III hung from the ceiling.

“You like it?” Brett asked.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, looking around in admiration. “Before coming to Vegas, I never knew hotels could be like this. Each one is like its own city.”

“Vegas is different from any other place in the world,” he agreed. “So are you up for going to the top of the Eiffel Tower?”

“We can do that?” Courtney asked. “It’s not only for decoration?”

“Of course we can,” he said with a laugh. “Come on. It’s this way.”

Brett purchased their tickets from the counter, and they took the elevator ride up the Eiffel Tower.

“Wow.” Courtney stepped up to the railing and admired the Las Vegas Strip. The hotels were all lit up, the screens blinking, the cars like organized fireflies as they drove down the street. The city was always in motion. “This is beautiful.”

“The Bellagio fountain show is about to start,” Brett said, leading her to the front of the observation room. “Let’s watch.”