Nightingale (20 page)

I stared at him. “You seem to be taking it in stride.”

He shrugged. “I’ve made and lost half a dozen fortunes. Another company always comes along. I just like to upset Octavia whenever I can.”

“Why?”

“We dated for a few months a couple years ago. But we weren’t a good fit, and things didn’t end well. Ever since then, Octavia’s gone out of her way to meddle in my business affairs, I suppose as payback for my breaking things off. Trying to buy Polish was a bit of revenge on my part.”

Wesley had dated Octavia? My heart quit pounding in my chest. It quit beating—period—and whatever foolish hope I’d harbored in the deepest, darkest corner of my soul crumbled to ash and blew away. Because Octavia was everything I was not—wealthy, sophisticated, gorgeous, and elegant. Why would Wesley ever look twice at me when he’d been with someone like her?

“Abby?” he asked, cutting into my thoughts. “I thought you wanted me to look at your proposal.”

I’d twisted the folder into a tight cylinder in my hands. “Of course.”

I smoothed out the plastic and handed it to him. Wesley opened the folder and looked through the papers. To my surprise, he actually read my proposal, every single page, instead of just flipping through the sheets the way most of my clients did. While he read, I glanced over my shoulder at Rascal. The puppy had wandered over to the waterfall. He sat at the edge of the pool and stared at it, fascinated by the gurgling water.
 

After about ten minutes of reading, Wesley glanced up at me. “You put all this together in less than twenty-four hours?”
 

I shrugged. “It’s my job. I don’t call my business
A+ Events
for nothing.”

“Well, the name fits.” Wesley studied me. “This is exactly what I was looking for. The rock theme is brilliant. It will really get the local papers and TV stations buzzing.”

More than a little pride pulsed through me. This heady sensation, this warm feeling, was the reason I put up with the problems, hassles, and outright crises. The perfectionist in me enjoyed doing a good job for my clients. It gave me a sense of satisfaction as much as it pleased them when everything went off beautifully.

“I thought you might like it.”

“Really? Why?” he asked, drawing his brows together.

“Because—” I clamped my mouth shut.

Because you told me how much you liked music in my apartment
. That was the real reason. But I couldn’t tell him that. Wesley would realize in an instant I was Wren—and that I knew his secret identity as Talon.

“You just seem a little hipper than some of my other business clients,” I finished lamely. “I wouldn’t exactly present this to somebody like Milton Moore.”

He laughed. “I don’t know. Old Milton might get into the swing of things.”

“If his ninety-year-old hips would let him.”
 

Wesley laughed again. The bass sound rumbled over me, low, deep, and even more soothing than the splash of the waterfall.

“Well, I think these are marvelous ideas,” he said. “Run with them, and remember, whatever you need, I’m more than happy to pay for.”

He stretched forward and started to hand the folder to me.

“Oh no,” I said, gently pushing it back to him. “That’s your copy to keep.”

Our fingers brushed. Tingles, tingles everywhere. This time, Wesley seemed to feel something too. He frowned and stared at me, like I’d static shocked him or something. I snatched my hand away from his. After a moment, he pulled back and put the folder on his desk.

“Okay,” he said. “Thanks for the hard copy.”
 

“Great. You’re welcome,” I said, nervous once again. “If you’re okay with the theme, I should get going so I can spend some time at the convention center, prepping it for the dinner. Do you need anything else?”

“Of course not,” Wesley said. “I think our business is concluded. I’m sure you’ll do a marvelous job.”

Well, he’d certainly been enthusiastic when he’d called out my name a few nights ago. I suppose that counted as one marvelous job.

“I’m looking forward to seeing how everything turns out,” he said. “Please feel free to call if you run into any trouble.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but his golden eyes had flicked back to his desk, and he started pulling out photos and papers once more.
 

Business concluded; I was promptly forgotten once again. I was surprised it had taken him this long to start ignoring me. It was time for Wren to fade into the background—just like always.

I collected Rascal from his perch by the waterfall and said goodbye to Wesley. The businessman gave me an absent wave before he picked up a magnifying glass, flipped over the papers on his desk, and returned to examining them. Whatever he was looking at, it must have interested him because he scribbled down notes on a pad.

I sighed and walked over to the elevator. It arrived with a particularly loud
ping!
, fueling the migraine flaring to life in my brain. I stepped inside and turned around, staring back across the vast space at Wesley, but he was totally absorbed in whatever he was doing. He didn’t even glance in my direction as the doors slid shut.

Pain pierced my heart. I’d thought Wesley was different, that Talon was different, but he was the same as the other rich people in Bigtime. Just like Ryan. Wesley didn’t see the people who made his life easier. Didn’t see the people who worked so hard for him. Didn’t see the people who wanted to please him so badly. Who wanted him so desperately.

Wesley “Talon” Weston didn’t see me—and he never, ever would.

Chapter Fourteen

I let myself mope until the elevator opened on the ground floor. Then, I straightened my spine and stormed out because I had a job to do—and a party to plan.

I dug my cell phone and headset out of my vest, plugged them together, and slipped the device in my right ear. While I walked to the convention center, I called my usual suppliers, finalizing the orders I’d dumped on them yesterday. It was tough, but I managed to browbeat and badger everyone into meeting my deadlines—at significantly higher prices. Kyle was positively giddy when I got off the phone with him, mainly because I’d agreed to triple his usual catering fee due to the short notice. But Wesley said money was no object, and I was in a mood to spend some of his right now. Maybe he’d finally pay some attention to me when he got the bill. I barked out a short, humorless laugh and kept walking.

By the time I reached the convention center, I’d nailed down just about everything, from the decorations to the food to the music. Melody Masters, in particular, was more than happy to play the Weston shindig. She wanted the exposure for her band—not to mention the hefty fee.

A couple of men wearing gray coveralls, black boots, and gloves blocked the main entrance to the convention center, standing in front of one of the revolving doors. An open toolbox sat against the smooth stone of the building. Hammers, screwdrivers, and tape measures perched in plastic containers inside. As I walked past, the sun glinted on the head of one of the hammers. I grunted in pain as the light stabbed into my eyes, blinding me.

“Sorry, ma’am,” one of the men said, mistaking my grunt for some sort of inquiry. “This door is closed. If you need to get into the center, you’ll have to use the entrance farther down the block.”

I peered around the guy and realized he and his buddy were measuring the empty frame for a new pane of glass. I winced. I’d forgotten about the door I’d broken on my dash out of the convention center when I’d left Talon here. I made a mental note to give an anonymous donation to the Bigtime Symphony Orchestra. I owed Morris Muzicale that much for wrecking a piece of his convention center.

I walked half a block to the other entrance. Instead of revolving, these doors had handles. I opened one of them, stepped into the massive lobby, and headed for my destination.

Eddie Edgars, the regular guard, sat at his perch behind the security desk. At the scuffle of my shoes on the slick floor, Eddie looked up from his comic book, the latest edition created by Confidante. The cover featured a perfect replica of the mock snowball fight between Wynter and Swifte that SNN aired earlier in the week. Wynter laughed as she pitched a snowball at Swifte. Confidante could sure churn out her comic books quick. Then again, the superhero’s ability to draw at the speed of light certainly helped.

“Hey, Abby.” Eddie waved at me. “What’s shaking?”

“Not much. Just here to look over a few things for my next event.”

Normally, I would have breezed past Eddie, but Rascal started yipping and squirming. So, I decided to let someone else watch the puppy for a while. Unlike the snotty guard at Wesley’s building, I trusted Eddie to take care of Rascal. Besides, Eddie owed me for getting him tickets to the upcoming Fiona Fine fashion show. Like most guys, he had a thing for supermodels.
 

I opened my coat, plucked Rascal out of my vest pocket, and sat him on top of the counter in front of Eddie.

“A dog? When did you get a dog?” Eddie asked, holding his finger out so Rascal could sniff it.

I grunted again. Why did people keep asking me that? It wasn’t like I was Frost, the ubervillain who liked to experiment on animals before the Fearless Five put the deep freeze on him.
 

“Do me a favor. Watch him for me for a few minutes.”

“Sure,” Eddie said. “No problem. I love dogs.”

I left Rascal with Eddie, turned the corner, and strode down the carpeted hallway. I yanked open the door to the stairwell and climbed to the second floor. A minute later, I walked out onto the balcony, staring at the vast space below. It wasn’t quite noon, but the Bigtime Symphony Orchestra was hard at work. Musicians sat on stage, instruments dangling from their hands, as they chatted and gossiped. A short, thin man with a bald head stood in front of them, rapping on a metal podium with a baton and trying to get their attention.
 

“People! People! How many times have I said you should always conduct yourselves professionally whenever you’re on stage?” Morris Muzicale bellowed at his musicians. “Even when you don’t have an audience.”
 

“But we do have an audience,” one of the cellists contradicted. “Abby’s here. Hi, Abby.”

The cellist and his cohorts waved to me. Cellists. Always so damn cheeky.

I lifted my hand in salute. Most of the musicians knew me because I came by at least once a week to check on arrangements for my latest event. I’d done more than a few of their weddings, anniversaries, and birthday parties, too.

Morris, the esteemed director of the orchestra, looked over his shoulder. Even though several hundred feet separated us, I could feel his glare—and see it in remarkable detail thanks to my enhanced eyesight.

“Yes, well, Miss Appleby
hardly
qualifies as an audience.”

“So you’re saying we don’t have to act professionally then?” the same cellist piped up.

A few of his colleagues snickered. I could hear Morris’s sigh loud and clear, even up here in the nosebleed section. I’d once suggested to Morris that the orchestra should mix up its repertoire, play some rock operas or something a little livelier than Bach, Beethoven, and other songs by old, dead white guys. His face had turned purple, his eyes bulged and twitched, and a vein beat like a tambourine in his temple. Morris had been so insulted I’d thought he was going to have a heart attack on the spot.

Morris gave me another hard stare, then turned back to the orchestra. He tapped his long baton on top of the stand. “From the top, ladies and gentlemen …”

While the orchestra played Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,” I pulled a notepad and pen out of my vest and paced from one side of the balcony to the other, making crude drawings of where everything would go. I did the same thing for every event, visualizing the decorations, the flowers, the food, the placement of each and every little thing. The rough sketches helped pinpoint potential trouble spots. I had enough crises pop up by themselves. I tried to do everything I could to limit the avoidable ones.

We’d have to pull the auditorium seats out and bring up the hidden parquet floor for the dancing. Standard operating procedure. The long, narrow orchestra pit would be converted into the bar as usual. That was where I’d put the ice sculptures, and let the bartenders use it to cool some of their supplies. It would be fun and functional. Wesley might be free and easy with his money, but I liked to give my clients plenty of bang for their buck.
 

Water sloshed in a bucket, and the scent of bleach mixed with cigarette smoke drifted over me—a harsh but familiar smell.

I looked over my shoulder. Colt Colton used a long-handled mop to push a yellow bucket along the balcony toward me.
 

“Hey, Abby. Party planning again already?” Colt asked, yanking his mop out of the water and slapping it against the floor.

“Don’t you know it. Big shindig set for Friday night.”

There wasn’t really anything else to say, and we both quieted. Colt mopped away the sticky film of spilled soda that always seemed to cover the floor, while I continued to plan. After a few minutes, I tuned out the
splash
of his waterlogged mop. I didn’t even notice that he’d finished until I felt him staring at me.