Lucky Break (2 page)

Mona opened her mouth, but I heard Teddie’s voice.

“He got a better offer.”
 
Teddie strolled in from the kitchen looking like a million bucks before taxes.
 
Spiky blond hair, blue eyes rimmed with lashes most women would sacrifice body parts for, broad where he should be, trim where he shouldn’t, a tight ass, and a voice like honey, the guy was a walking, talking, singing pheromone.

I whirled on my mother.
 
“You asked Teddie down?
 
So you two could gang up on me?
 
Tonight?”
 
Teddie’s apartment connected to mine through a back staircase, which used to be convenient.
 
Now it was a violation … and a betrayal.
 
I narrowed my eyes at my mother and wondered what the punishment for matricide was these days.
 
If everyone’s mother was like Mona, it couldn’t be that bad.
 
But everyone couldn’t be so lucky.

Mona didn’t look sorry.
 
“A stacked deck is the best kind,” she said, parroting her husband.

“In business.”
 

She met me glare-to-glare. “This
is
business.”

“My business, I should think,” Teddie said.
 
“Look, if it’s any consolation, I didn’t want to mention this at all.
 
My presence here is as much a part of Mona’s set-up as your help is.
 
But, here it is, short and sweet.
 
Your father cancelled my contract because Holt Box said he’d do thirty weeks a year for five years, coup of epic proportions getting him to come out of retirement.
 
He’ll be a huge draw for the Babylon, much more than I would.”
 
Although Teddie adopted a casual air, he was angry.
 
It boiled just below the surface.
 
His smile was taut with the effort to cover it.
   

I was blindsided. Ten years ago Holt had left country music at the peak of his career, devastating his legions of female fans and making himself into the stuff of legend.

And now the Babylon was hosting his coming-out-of-retirement tour?
 
How could the Big Boss have inked such a deal without me being in on it?
 
Considering my parents made me and my life their business, I didn’t have to think on it too hard.
 
In a way, Mona had been right.
 
It was my fault, of a sort.
 
Business and pleasure, almost impossible to separate, and my father didn’t have enough confidence in me to do so.
 

Grudgingly I admitted, in this case, he was probably right.
 
If I’d been left to negotiate the Holt Box deal, I would’ve been hard-pressed to do so.
 
But that wouldn’t stop me from letting my father know how I felt … about all of it.

Promises were promises.

And when it came to love, I didn’t need him riding in on his white horse to vanquish the unworthy.
 
Or to save me from my own mistakes.

Teddie.

Teddie had a lot riding on his new show; he’d put his heart and soul into it.
 
And he’d given up his spot on his newly rejuvenated tour.
 
Finally, the rage burbled to the surface, coloring his face and hardening his voice.
 
Holding up his hand, he stopped the platitudes I was going to offer—I didn’t have anything else, and he knew me well enough to know it.

“Don’t fret, not that you would.
 
Your father had the legal right to do what he did.”

“Being legal doesn’t make it right.”

Teddie’s anger cooled.
 
“You always tilt at windmills, don’t you?
 
One of the things I love about you.
 
In a gray world you see black and white.”

“Principles.”

I left it to the Harvard boy to fill in all the rest.
 
Principles applied to life and love.

Hiking up the flaps of his tux jacket, he stuffed his hands in his pockets.
 
“This whole thing is my own damned fault.
 
In such a hurry to get back here, back to—” He gave me an open, vulnerable look that tore at my heart.
 
“But that was a pipe dream.
 
In my haste, I agreed to stuff Rudy went apoplectic over.”
 
Rudy Gillespie was his entertainment lawyer, one of my good friends, and married to an even better friend, Jordan Marsh—the Hollywood heartthrob who had finally come out, dashing hopes of young women worldwide.

I knew what Teddie had left out, what he wanted to say:
 
He’d been in a hurry to get back to me.
 
Back to us.
 
After having thrown me over for a line-up of groupies.

Trust, an emotional Humpty-Dumpty.

“Don’t forget Holt Box had a hand in all of this,” added Mona.

Teddie’s anger sizzled as it flared anew.
 
His shoulders rose toward his ears, as his face closed.
 
“Yeah, that dude is on the top of my hit list.”

“If you want to kill him, don’t do it tonight.
 
Murder has such a chilling effect on fun and frivolity.” I spied my gold pashmina on the couch.
 
Grabbing it in one swoop, I headed for the elevator.
 
One advantage of having one of the top floors was a private elevator that fetched me from the middle of my great room.
 
“I’m late.
 
And, Teddie, I’m sorry. I really am.
 
I’ll see what I can find out.
 
But right now I need to go.
 
You two have a fine time.
 
It’s well past pumpkin time and I’ve got to hurry.”

“Holt Box will be there tonight?”
 
Teddie’s voice lost any hint of nice.

“What rock have you been living under?”
 
I wrapped the pashmina around my shoulders—Decembers could be cool in Vegas.
 
“He’s cooking with Jean-Charles.
 
Apparently he loves to cook, has a cookbook out or something, I don’t know.”
 
In my world of late nights and early mornings finding a meal involved finding the time to grab something quick and convenient.
 
“Holt asked to assist.
 
Jean-Charles said yes.”

“And you went along with it?”
 

“Not my purview.
 
And, trust me, having him in the kitchen during the opening might sound like a great media play, but it’s been a nightmare of epic proportions.
 
For weeks, gaggles of female predators looking for their hunk of country music flesh have been stalking the well-guarded perimeter of the Cielo property.”

Too late, I realized I’d added fuel, igniting Teddie’s slow burn into a raging inferno.
 
Hate flushed his face, a new look.
 
I didn’t like it, but I got it.

Mona chose that moment to wade back in.
 
“I have Paolo waiting downstairs.”
 
She studiously analyzed her fingernails as she dropped that little bombshell.

“But, I have Paolo waiting downstairs,” I said as the realization that my mother could now overrule me at the hotel hit me like a bucket of ice water.
 
I jabbed at the elevator button.
 
Thankfully, the thing was waiting.
 

The doors opened and I stepped inside, followed by Mona and Teddie, rounding out our awkward trio.

When the doors closed, Teddie’s reflection half-smiled at mine, an appreciated effort to cut through the ugliness.
 
Still, I felt he was contemplating burying a knife in my back.
 
How fun to have all of the blame and none of the authority.
 

In the closed space, the subtle aroma of very good Scotch, or very bad bourbon, competed with his Old Spice cologne.
 
Apparently he’d gotten a head start—some joy juice to deaden the downside.
 

From the look on his face, I could tell he wanted to change the subject as much as I did.
   

“Now,
that
is a dress,” he said, a hint of warmth melting the ice in his tone.

While he looked appreciative of the wrapping, I knew he liked the package as well.
 
A bit of sad longing brushed over my heart.
 
We’d been so good together.
 
Until we weren’t.
 
His smile dimmed when he caught the flash of my ring.
 
He reached around my shoulder, pulling me close, shoulder-to-shoulder in a one-arm embrace.
 
Catching me off guard, I fell into him.
 
My hand braced against his chest; the other grabbed his waist as I struggled to get my feet back underneath myself.
 

“Sorry,” Teddie said, not sounding the least bit as he helped me right myself.

Mona, looking a bit uncomfortable, had put as much space as possible between her and me, which wasn’t much given we were in an elevator.
 
Teddie stood close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off of him.
 
Anger?
 
Passion?
 
Didn’t know and didn’t care.
 
Straightening my gown and my thoughts, ordering the outside to cover the muddle inside, I focused on the party ahead and ignored both of them as the elevator whisked us downstairs.
 
As we pushed into the night, Paolo was indeed waiting by one of the Babylon’s limos wringing his hands.

He snapped to attention when he caught sight of me.
 
A small man with jet-black hair slicked back, an always-impeccable uniform, a normally ready smile, and enough energy to light Vegas for a year, tonight Paolo looked uneasy.
 
Another hapless male fallen prey to Mona’s charms, and I’m sure her veiled threats.
 
He rushed to open the back door for me.
 
“Oh, Miss Lucky, Paolo is so very sorry.
 
Mrs. Rothstein …”

“I know, threatened to boil you in oil or something.
 
Don’t worry.
 
It’s fine.” I stopped before I disappeared into the dark confines of the car.
 
“Just ignore them,” I whispered.
 
“Maybe they’ll go away.”

Paolo nodded, his smile forced, terror in his eyes.
 

He situated Mona next to me and Teddie in front, then slid behind the wheel, I checked the clock.
 
Ten minutes until a press conference my father had arranged.
 
If I wasn’t there, heads would roll.
 

I toggled the switch that would allow Paolo to hear despite the glass window raised to cocoon the back. “Paolo, the time.”

“Yes, Miss.”
 
Paolo pressed his cap on tight as he gripped the wheel, his knuckles white.
 
“Hold on.”

I reached for the looped strap near my left ear and held on.

Mona tapped me on the leg to get my attention, like we’d been having a nice conversation and I’d gotten distracted.
 
She recoiled when I looked at her with my not-so-happy face.

“This is my night, Mother.
 
How dare you?”

She looked crestfallen, her best gambit.
 
I didn’t cave.

Teddie lowered the window separating the front seat from the rear compartment.
 
“Lucky, I’m sorry.
 
Mona said—”

I held up my hand, cutting him off.
 
“Playing the hapless stooge in a game run by women is getting old, and it is not attractive.
 
You know Mona.
 
And you know our rules.
 
We are friends, but you are not allowed in my apartment unless you have a specific invitation from me.”
 

“At least you’re talking,” Mona said with more than a little gloat.
 
“This is wonderful,” she said with bright eyes.

A bit late to wise-up, Teddie ignored her. “Mona said you’d be okay with it.”

“Mona lies,” I said, transfixing my mother with a stare.
 
But Teddie knew that already.
 
“Paolo, step on it before I kill somebody.”
 

Tires squealed as he did as I asked, fishtailing the big car onto Koval, then accelerating south.
 
The forward momentum of the large car pressed me back in my seat and scared Mona into quiet.

In less than five minutes, with several tourists terrified but still breathing, Paolo turned up the grand drive to Cielo.
 
Huge trees lined the curved entrance, giving the hotel a secretive feel, as if one had to be in the know to find the place.
 
Like The Mansion at MGM, Cielo was a decadent hideaway for those who valued their privacy or just needed a respite from the constant pulsing energy of the Strip.
 
The front entrance, normally protected by large gates and armed security, stood open, ready to receive all tonight.
 
Protected under a copper porte cochere, and softened with pots of riotous flowering plants, the entrance was welcoming and warm with understated elegance.
 
The architects had bent under my supervision and used rock, wood and other natural building materials where possible.
 
The effect was stunning, warm and welcoming like a Japanese sanctuary.
 
Frosted glass with images of reeds etched into them separated the large space into smaller vestibules.
 
When the hotel officially opened, hosts would greet each guest, escorting them to a desk where the registration process would be handled with a glass of Champagne.
 
The waterfall on the far wall lent a comforting sound as well as humidity, to the parched desert air.
 
Yes, the place had turned out exactly as I’d hoped.