TWENTY-SIX
THE ANSWER TO THAT was a resounding no.
Anyone could be on the other side, but she wasn’t worried, not about anything except how her sister would scream if Mrs. Kyst-Lomond answered.
One guest behind, she opened the door, and, yep, this time it was Alessia. Time ticked down to the inevitable… She braced. The moment Alessia passed the bathroom to take in the whole room, she stopped, her chin dropped and… she screamed. There was something to be said for consistency.
“Right, Alessia, be calm,” she said, pressing her ear. “Alessia, this is Roxie, Roxie, Alessia.”
Usually, she’d include someone’s last name. Wasn’t so easy to do this time, she wasn’t sure where her new friend landed on the hyphenate.
Roxie set one hand on the bed behind her and offered the other to Alessia. “Charmed.”
“Your guy’s a biscuit.”
“And I eat him every night,” Roxie said, non-plussed.
“And you’re beautiful, super beautiful…” Alessia went around to stand in front of Roxie. “The way you guys met, and the engagement announcement… I watch your stream all the time. Like all the time. I couldn’t believe it when Jane and Knox got married so fast.” Alessia plopped herself on the bed next to Roxie. “Does Toria hate him?”
“Knox? Depends on the day of the week.”
“We never hear of them together. Like you and Jane are all over, you’re best buds, but Toria… We weren’t sure if she didn’t like Zairn, but no, that’s crazy, she’s been in love with him forever.”
“Alessia!”
“What?” her sister asked. “It’s true.”
“It is true,” Roxie agreed. “Her and half the planet. If it wasn’t for Jane and Toria, I wouldn’t even know who he is.”
“Does Knox get jealous? When Jane spends time with Zairn?”
“You know, I’ve never asked him.”
Leaving her sister to the interrogation, because Roxie seemed completely at ease with it, she went into the bathroom to do her hair. Her makeup was flawless, Roxie was a woman with many talents.
When she got out again, dressed and ready, her sister was still talking.
“…it couldn’t have been just normal, you know, like, there had to be something. Wasn’t there something?”
“Okay, if you’re done,” she spoke over her sister. “We’re due downstairs.”
Alessia jumped up. “Oh my God, I was supposed to be in Lark’s room like twenty minutes ago.”
She ran a couple of steps, then stopped, her head going left to right between Roxie and the door.
“Same rules as the other night.” She read her sister’s mind. “You can eat with us if you want, but only you. I do not want Roxie mobbed.”
“Are we going to ‘Ula ‘Ula after dinner?”
“Sure are.”
So everyone else knew where they were going, how did her sister know? Okay, so she hadn’t asked, maybe that would be an obvious first step to achieving that goal.
“Will we be in the VIP area?”
“God, yes,” Roxie said. “Z banned me from the main floor of every club on the planet.”
Alessia laughed. “That’s funny. You can get into like the most exclusive level of every club, bar, and hotel in the world, but you can’t go where the regular folks go.”
“Hmm,” Roxie said, pondering. “When you put it like that…” She inhaled. “It’s not that I can’t go, I would, I can, it just gets…”
“Dangerous,” she said, channeling Zairn.
It was obvious why Zairn wouldn’t want the woman he loved in the crush of a thousand bodies, in a hot, dark, wet cavern drowned in heavy bass and deafening tunes.
“My birthday party was on the main floor in Crimson, LA.”
“Where you got arrested?” Alessia asked.
No big deal to them, but, uh, a big deal to her.
Shit. “You got arrested?” Now the little back and forth with Zairn about jail had some context. “Why were you arrested?”
Roxie did another of her dismissive waves. “It was nothing. A million years ago. The first time anyway. The second time was…” She made a strained sound. “Yeah, that was a little more dicey. At least I was alone that time.”
“You weren’t alone the first time?”
“Oh my God,” Alessia droned. “Sometimes you are so embarrassing! I bet even Mom knows more about Roxie’s relationship than you do.”
And that was a good thing? She didn’t go around taking notes on other people’s relationships. Apparently, though, she lived in a cave, had to if this was such common knowledge.
“It’s okay.” Roxie wasn’t that bothered. “I don’t know that much about her relationship either.”
“No one does, she won’t even talk about him.” Her sister wasn’t impressed, but quickly perked up again. “How did you have your party on the main floor? Were there like tickets? Did you do a contest? How did I miss that?”
“No, it was just people we knew. Z closed the club.”
And her sister swooned. “Aww, that’s so romantic.”
“He’s good like that. Does his best work with an audience.”
“You are so lucky. He’s so hot and rich and—”
“Alessia,” she said, linking their hands. “You might want to stop drooling on her fiancé.” Roxie just smiled. “We have dinner to get to.”
Her sister was too excitable. “Is he here? In the hotel? Can I meet him?”
“No! You can’t meet him,” she answered before Roxie could. “He’s not here, and what do you plan to say to him? ‘Hi, you’re so hot and rich.’ How’s he supposed to respond to that?”
“He gets it a lot actually,” Roxie said with a slow head bob. “It’s the first thing I say to him every morning.”
Alessia laughed. “You’re so funny! I love how fun you are!” She growled. “I don’t want to leave my girls alone—”
“I’d be the same,” Roxie said. “Go be with your friends. We’ll have a bunch of chances to catch up.”
Alessia gasped in excitement. “Oh my God, we will?”
“Sure! Your sister’s with one of my guy’s best friends. We’ll be in each other’s lives a long time.”
Now Alessia squealed. Even children at Christmas weren’t so excited. “Can I hug you?”
“Yes!” Roxie opened her arms to gesture her over. “Bring it in.”
At least her sister asked, unlike Lark with Zane. Roxie smiled through. Her sister scurried out of the room fizzing with adrenaline. When she closed the door and dropped against it, she was exhausted like it was the end of the night, not the beginning.
“Do you get that everywhere?”
Roxie shrugged. “You get used to it and I’d never trade it for the alternative.” Of being without Zairn. “I’m better at it than Casanova. Believe it or not, I have more patience for these things, and it’s something I don’t mind taking off his plate.”
“You’re his fixer too.”
“Hopefully no one will have to be anyone’s fixer tonight,” Roxie said. “And on the one serious moment of the night I’ll allow, remember this…”
“What?”
“Someone’s always watching. Even when you think there’s no one watching. Someone’s always watching.”
Whatever that meant. “Okay.”
“Some people, not me, of course, but some people might have suggested in the past that I’m a magnet for these things, that I’m a…”
Roxie cleared her throat.
She laughed. “A crisis event?”
Wasn’t that what Zairn called her?
The narrowing of Roxie’s eyes was almost a growl. “Just be aware tonight. I don’t want you sucked into the vortex. I don’t know how patient Zane is.”
Given how he was with Roman, the man deserved a medal.
“I’ll be aware.”
“Alessia’s got a point,” Roxie said, going to sweep up her purse as she put hers together. “You don’t speak much about your relationship.”
“Will I need a jacket?”
“Are you deflecting?”
“No,” she said, slipping her feet in her shoes. She double checked her keycard was in her wallet and went to open the door. “What do you want to know?”
“Oh, now there’s a dangerous question.” Roxie paused on the threshold. “You won’t need a jacket; you don’t even need your wallet.”
“I don’t need my wallet?”
Closing the door, they went a few steps down the hallway, then Roxie twined their arms together. “Zane has taken care of everything. If he hadn’t Zairn would’ve. It’s a learning curve, this kind of relationship, but you’ll get there.” They hit the elevator button and waited. “Unless you won’t.”
She didn’t understand. “Unless I won’t, what?”
“You and Zane,” Roxie said, coming around in front of her. “Is it serious? Permanent or a holiday fling?” She held up both hands. “No judgment.”
“We don’t know what it is yet. We’ve agreed we want to make a go of it, see what comes out in the wash.”
“So you’ll stay in touch? When the island is in your rearview?”
She exhaled a laugh. “Alessia wants me to marry him and have babies so she can come to the island any time she wants.”
“What other reason is there to tie yourself to a guy?”
Even with the deadpan delivery, the humor was obvious. Roxie was quite the woman. Somehow completely shocking, and completely expected at the same time. Her new friend could pull off anything.
When the elevator doors pinged, Roxie turned. They opened to three guys inside. Tripp was the one in the middle. She expected the other two to go their own way, but when Tripp opened his arms, the guys only stepped back.
Roxie went in first and kissed each of Tripp’s cheeks. “You’re very dashing tonight.”
“I’m always very dashing, Rox Out,” Tripp said and laid a hand on her waist to lean in and kiss her cheeks too.
She hadn’t quite got the hang of the mwah, mwah thing, but Roxie distracted her awkwardness.
“As I live and breathe,” Roxie exclaimed, the elevator doors closing behind them. She immediately threw herself into the arms of the big guy in the corner. “You did say you wanted island detail.”
“Wrong island, but I’m not complaining.”
“Do you have guys down the stairs?” Roxie asked in a moment of seriousness that vanished as she turned to introduce them. “Thea Florin, this is Trevor… just Trevor. He’s my head of security in Chicago. And that guy…” Roxie pointed past Tripp. “Is Schmidt, he’s Tripp’s security detail.”
“My driver,” Tripp corrected to be greeted with a few snickers. “Anyone’s ass needs kicked, I kick it myself.”
His bravado was false and totally hilarious. Whether he did kick asses or not, he’d make believe, in front of an audience at least, that he got his own hands dirty.
“I don’t know Schmidt well enough to kiss him,” Roxie said and tilted her head. “I could kiss you, Schmidt, do you want me to kiss you?” She frowned at Tripp. “What are the rules on that these days? Is it an abuse of my power?”
“To go making out with limo drivers? Do whatever you want, Rox Out, my parents will settle if he makes a claim.”
Trevor laid a hand on Roxie’s shoulder to murmur above her ear. “There are probably cameras in here.”
That might’ve been meant as a warning, but a slow, sly smile piqued the corners of Roxie’s lips as she prodded Tripp’s ribs.
“Want to hit the emergency stop and have a fivesome, Priest?”
“You know I’m up for anything, but paying off your guy won’t be so easy.”
“Pfft! I’ll just tell him Roman traumatized me and let him off his leash. Z’s desperate to knock his teeth out. We’ll make it all his fault.”
“All for the drama?”
“You know it.”
“Imagine the scandal,” Tripp said. “Mom will forgive me providing one of you bring her a baby. Doesn’t even have to be mine, just a kid she can spoil.”
“Oh, well, way to ruin the party,” Roxie grumped. “My guy will never forgive you if you ruin my figure before he can.”
“Guess I can’t argue with that.” Tripp hooked his arms around each of the women when the doors opened. Their security guys stayed close and other men encircled them as they walked through the lobby. “What happens in Honolulu stays in Honolulu, ladies.”
“What does that mean? What exactly is going to happen?”
“Nobody knows,” he said, all ease. “But I invited a few friends.”
Roxie laughed. “Cue another caper. You know we needed you in LA. I always said I didn’t need an entourage, but I might start taking you everywhere I go. I love a man who can’t say no.”
“Any time you call, I’ll be there, Rox Out.”
“These friends you invited,” Roxie said like she knew the answer. “Are they all female?”
Tripp’s already smug expression gained swagger when they hit the sidewalk and a limo door was opened for them. “Could be, Little Rox.” They got in the limo and he immediately poured champagne. “Doesn’t mean you can’t have fun with them too because—”
“What happens in Honolulu stays in Honolulu?” both she and Roxie said together.
He handed each of them a flute. “See how in sync we all are? No cameras in here if you want to get frisky.” Settling back, he pushed out his lower lip. “I can just watch, I don’t even need to be an active participant.”
She shared a smile with Roxie before their three glasses met in a toast. Honolulu. Exotic. Beautiful. Rich. Vibrant… and, she was finding out, maybe a little wild too.