Star Crossed (6 page)

So go
, he told his reluctant feet.
Don’t waste time on lost causes
.

She’d just been so freaking hot. That body of hers . . . It was a racecar. He’d loved running his hands down her sleek lean curves, loved watching her tense and go over in orgasm. Her whiskey colored eyes knocked him out. Not just when she came either. The second he saw them at the bar, hot sensations had poured down his vertebrae. He was used to keeping things light with women. Fun. Friendly. Everybody a free agent.

A.J. made him want to get serious.

His shoulders twitched as he recalled something he’d said to her. He’d asked her to be the woman he’d been waiting for all his life. That was weird, right? He didn’t think he was waiting for anyone. Confining himself in a single relationship was the last thing he dreamed about. He was twenty-one, for crap’s sake. Way too young to settle down. Besides which, life was too uncertain not to revel in all its pleasures. Probably the impulse was gratitude, because she’d rescued him. Luke liked being a rolling stone.

He glanced at her apartment. The heavy door was still shut. Locked tight, for all he knew.

You can call her
, he thought. He’d poked around while she was sleeping, enough to know she liked Bruce Lee movies, worked out a
lot
, and didn’t password protect her phone. He had her number if he felt like being pathetic.

That idea finally jolted him into motion down her building’s three flights of steps. His aches weren’t as bad as he anticipated. The skull-lifting blowjob she’d given him must have helped heal his sore muscles. His prick stirred at the memory of her lips pushing and pulling along his engorged shaft. She’d been careful, but her mouth was as strong as the rest of her, her lips plush and satiny . . .

Realizing he was getting hard, he ordered himself not to dwell on that.

Luke Channing didn’t chase after tail. Luke Channing let tail chase him.

*

Three days later, the reason for Luke’s fixation struck him like a bolt from the blue.

He was hurrying up 34th Street on foot, on the way to a rescheduled go-see he was in serious danger of missing—or at the least, arriving at unfashionably sweaty. His phone buzzed, probably the agency texting a reminder. As he dug the cell from his pocket, his keys fell to the pavement.

He scooped them up and realization blazed through his synapses.

A.J. was the girl he’d asked for help when he was trapped. The girl who’d peeked in the cellar window. Who’d somehow found the key to his prison and pushed it in to him. All these years, he thought he’d imagined her. He’d only seen her once, and just for a few seconds.

Anyone in his position, at his age, might have made up a rescuer.

But her eyes had been the same color as A.J.’s: single malt in a frame of soot black lashes. Back then, she’d been wiry and tall and tomboyish. She might have grown into someone like the woman he’d slept with. Maybe her protector streak had already been active.

No
, he thought, continuing toward his appointment as if walking weren’t a voluntary act. No way was A.J. the same person. Coincidences that big didn’t happen.

Except . . . wasn’t his continued existence proof they did? He’d had more angels watching over him that day than her.

He stopped, letting himself go momentarily blind to his surroundings. The keys were still in his hand, his fingers clenched around the metal. He had her name. He could look into her background; see if his theory were possible.

That, he reasoned, wouldn’t cost anything.

New York, present day

HOYT-SANDS Security had come up in the world since starting in a low-rent, swing-a-cat shoebox nine years ago. Back then, Parker Hoyt and Martin Sands shared a single desk, zero parking spaces, and a client list they could number on one hand. Today they leased the fifteenth floor of a skyscraper in Manhattan, plus had a swanky second branch in LA. The New York office employed ten full-time bodyguards—mostly military buddies of the partners—six security experts, two receptionists, three IT nerds, and one kickass accountant.

Parker Hoyt’s twenty-seven-year-old daughter admitted to a partiality for that last employee.

“Hey, Pop-Pop,” A.J. said, setting his cream-and-sugared coffee between the mysteriously ordered stacks of paper on his desk. Though he knew the latest programs, digital alone was never enough for her grandfather.

“Hey, gorgeous.” The white-haired man in the bowtie tipped down thick-rimmed bifocals to look at her. “You ready to knock ’em dead?”

“My job is keeping ’em alive.”

It was a joke they shared regularly. As always, her maternal grandfather smiled. He was the reason she worked for her dad today. Five years earlier, not long after the police kicked her to the curb, Pop-Pop had broken his hip and been hospitalized. A.J.’s mother wanted him to live with her, but by then Valerie had moved to LA and had a live-in boyfriend. Pop-Pop hated Los Angeles with a passion. Knowing he’d never liked being retired and fearing he’d go downhill, A.J. had approached her estranged dad with a proposal. If Parker hired his ex-wife’s father, A.J. would sign on with him as well. She’d been unemployed, nearly broke, and in no position to bargain. Nonetheless, her father had agreed . . . and thanked her.

It was the first of many tests Parker Hoyt passed for her.

Not taking another drink was the one he passed every day.

Pop-Pop had his own office. Ditto for the IT nerds. The two receptionists graced a gleaming black granite counter in the lobby. Everyone else shared a wide-open windowed space.

Everybody ought to know each other’s business
was Parker Hoyt’s motto. You never knew when a colleague’s expertise would save your client’s neck.

A.J. might be reserved in private, but she followed that advice at work.

“Morning, Dad,” she said, placing his coffee at his elbow.

He grunted his thanks per usual. The sound wasn’t rude, just a sign he was engrossed in scanning reports on his computer. A.J. set the box with the rest of the morning orders on the central conference table, with a bag of bagels beside it. She extricated her cup before the vultures descended. Probably on purpose, the receptionists made terrible coffee. Because her sometimes too-PC dad thought making them get it was sexist, running to the deli operated on rotation. A.J. had drawn the short straw today.

Knowing her dad would want her to check in, she returned to his desk with her breakfast.

Ready now, he smiled and gave her his attention. “How’d the job go last night?”

A.J. had coordinated security for an indie band’s appearance at a New Jersey mall. “The band sucked, but everything else went fine. The new guy is shaping up. We could move him to full time.”

Parker nodded, leaning back in his swiveling chair. “We didn’t get the Channing job. They decided to bring in LA people the studio knew.”

“That’s too bad,” A.J. said, stiffening her face so it wouldn’t show her relief.

Somewhat to her dismay, Luke Channing had featured in her thoughts more than once since she’d given him the kiss off five years earlier. The Minnesota farm boy had made it big as a model . . . literally. The day she’d spotted his piercing green eyes—and naked abs—on a Time’s Square billboard had been a disconcerting one. Not long after that, he’d started dating a famous country singer, then an actress, then a female NASCAR driver—all of which somehow led to him being named the face of Alberto di Palazzi’s Desire for Men. Sales of the pricey male cologne quadrupled, probably because women bought it for their boyfriends. Every so often, Luke would pop up on her TV, murmuring to some gorgeous sylph that he “desired her impossibly.”

The last time she saw the weird-ass ad, the model Luke seduced was the exotic mixed-race Brit who’d abandoned him in favor of Michael Kors, leaving A.J. to transport him to the hospital.

The Brit—whose name was Naomi Davis—wasn’t the reason Luke needed bodyguards. The career ladder he scaled now was that of action star/producer. With the crazy luck that seemed to follow him everywhere, he’d used his earnings from the world of fashion to stake a friend’s bare bones independent film. Because his friend couldn’t afford real actors, Luke had agreed to star. Pronounced by critics as more energetic than logical,
Final Takedown
had done ridiculous box office—especially overseas. Since he and his friend owned the production company, they became overnight moguls.

Naturally, they followed up their first hit with the even more successful
Final Danger
.

Final Death
, the third entry in the franchise, premiered tonight at the Ziegfeld Theater in Manhattan. As in the other movies, Luke played a black ops CIA operative who’d gone rogue. This time he was raining vengeance on the abductors of his young wife, whom he’d acquired in a previous installment. The relatively measly seven-figure budget of the first film had swelled to nine, the action now taking place in New York and Hong Kong. Scuttlebutt claimed Luke was becoming a tolerable actor. The stunts, which he performed shirtless whenever possible, were reportedly as creative as ever.

Galaxy, the giant studio that handled distribution, projected the opening weekend might outdo the last Batman.

Not that she was monitoring Luke’s progress or anything.

“It is too bad we didn’t get the gig,” her father agreed. “I figured if we did, I’d find some way to bully you into an evening gown.”

“That I’d pay to see.”

This comment came from her father’s partner, Martin Sands. His mouth was full of bagel, his feet propped irreverently atop the conference table. “What?” he asked in response to her father’s look. “I know she’s your daughter, but she’s still a nice looking girl. All she ever wears are those black work trousers.”

Parker muttered beneath his breath as Martin winked at her. A.J. didn’t take the flirtation seriously. Her father’s partner was only kidding. Martin never could resist yanking her father’s chain.

*

Luke’s father used to say, “You take a job, son, you hammer it down to the last fence post.” In the case of
Final Death
, the job didn’t end when the movie wrapped. It didn’t end with the red carpet. It ended when the final frame faded from the last screen, whether that screen was big and silver or someone’s new iPhone.

Ever since he’d left the farm, Luke had understood the value of salesmanship. He’d sold his looks, his sex appeal, and now he was going to sell this film. Part of selling it tonight involved the beautiful supermodel riding in the limo’s rear with him.

Naomi Davis was aware of this. She had a career as well, one that wouldn’t be hurt by arriving on the arm of Hollywood’s brightest action star, Luke Channing.

All right, maybe Luke wasn’t the brightest star. Good at stuntwork, he’d barely hit journeyman level in acting. He consoled himself that being a competent producer made up for the shine he lacked as a thespian.

“There’s a massive crowd,” Naomi said, peering out the limo’s one-way glass. “The bleachers on 54th are full.”

Unable to keep his cool, Luke pressed his nose to the window beside her. The street in front of the theater was packed. Chances were, some fans were studio shills, but that didn’t account for all of them.

“I see
E!
” he said “And
Entertainment Weekly
.” A beehive of blue hair rose above the other heads, snagging his attention. “Miss Twittersphere is on the carpet too.”

“Damn,” Naomi swore. “That tucked-up drag queen has it in for me.”

“Uh,” Luke said. “I don’t think Miss Twittersphere is a guy. I think she’s just really tall and trowels on her contouring.”

Naomi flipped her glossy chestnut hair behind her shoulder. “Whatever. You flash that designer smile and keep his/her claws off me.”

“Deal. I’ll let you handle the kamikaze kissers.”

“I will crush them,” Naomi promised, punching one delicate fist into her palm.

Luke grinned at her thuggish delivery. He was glad he and the model had stayed friends. This business was too cutthroat not to have pals you could laugh with.

“You ready?” he asked as the limo slowed and the Ziegfeld came into view. From the outside, the theater was a fugly black and gray square. The interior was better, and the screen was huge. Most importantly, it was
the
venue for advance screenings in NYC.

Naomi slid her narrow feet into her five-inch heels and bared her teeth like a tigress.

The security suits the studio had sent got out of the limo first. Luke couldn’t tell one guard from the other. They sported slick Oakley sunglasses, white earpieces, and matching musclebound shoulders. They were LA from head-to-toe, like the central casting version of bodyguards. Whether they could move their giant arms well enough to draw their pieces, Luke didn’t have the least idea.

For a flicker of a second, the image of someone he knew could protect and serve whipped through his memory.

He shook the thought from his head. He ordered himself not to wonder if A.J. Hoyt were watching the telecast. She’d made it clear she wanted no part of him after rescuing him at the seedy bar. Once his research confirmed she could be who he believed, he’d called her easily a dozen times. She hadn’t answered once, not even to say bug off. So fuck it. Nobody got everything they wanted.

Sometimes coincidences, no matter how strange, didn’t equal a destiny.

The security guys helped Naomi from the car onto the red carpet. The way she swung her long legs out in her short crystal-spangled dress was as sexy as a striptease. She posed like the professional she was as her arrival was announced. Flashbulbs exploded like Fourth of July rockets.

Butterflies fluttered in Luke’s gut, but he ignored them. He smoothed his shirt, buttoned his black Ferragamo jacket, and grabbed the sides of the limo door. He heaved himself onto the curb with a little bounce and raised one arm to wave. Noise smashed into him like the sea.

They see you
, he thought out of old habit.
You’ll never be invisible again
.

“Luke!” cried the fans.