TWENTY-FIVE
MOST EVERYONE HAD been transported to the club.
Two thirds of people at least, she’d guess.
Jane and Knox went on ahead to settle their guests at Crimson while she and Zairn stayed behind to balance out festivities.
After checking with them, staff shut three of the quadrants to begin cleaning up. A task she didn’t envy them.
Zairn was somewhere, could be at the club already, or upstairs sleeping it off, no idea. Okay, he wouldn’t be sleeping it off because this was Zairn Lomond. He could be upstairs taking the edge off, but if that was the case why was she down there?
She smiled. Nodded at this person and that.
Maybe she should go upstairs and text her guy to follow.
Wouldn’t be the first time they’d ditched a party at their club being thrown in their honor…
with a free bar, however that worked out.
Shame this was a no phone day. Could end up being a no phone month because she had no idea where hers had landed.
Mieux emerged from the guests, making a beeline for her. Ah, a friend.
“Hey, honey,” she said, raising an arm as Mieux rushed over. “I haven’t seen you yet. I haven’t seen anyone, I don’t even know if Zairn’s still here. Do you know if Zairn’s still here?”
Hmm, losing her husband so soon after the ceremony was sort of careless.
“We have a problem,” Mieux said, ignoring the invitation to hug.
“Okay.” In the subtle, sexy cocktail dress, Mieux was positively delicious. Something she’d always known about the beauty. It wasn’t much like the usually work focused Mieux to let loose and she liked it. “You know you’re not working, right? You shouldn’t be working.”
A lot of people were working. What fabulous employers they were turning out to be. “Please come to our wedding and work for no pay.” They wouldn’t get away with doing this more than once. No one would show up a second time.
“Uh huh.” Mieux took her arm to pull her through people to the side of the room. “We have a problem. Tripp is trying to contain that problem but…”
“A problem?”
One that required her and not her husband? Many preferred coming to her about non-businessy things. Because she was more approachable? Because Zairn had better things to do? Because she wasn’t a defer kind of woman?
More than likely it was because Zairn didn’t always care that much about “problems.” They never raised his blood pressure. Some of that nonchalance rubbed off on her too, but she at least let people be heard.
“Definitely a problem.”
“Where are we—”
In a shadowy corner, behind the pillar that had been Sam’s, Mieux put her back to the wall and held up a device. A video or live feed of the woman who’d stunk out press not so long ago claiming to be Zairn’s mistress: Anjelica.
“It’s only right I be allowed in there,” the beauty claimed on-screen. “Crimson is as much mine as it is hers.”
Crimson… There were so many people crowded around in the background, there wasn’t much view of the street.
“Where is she?”
“Outside the club. Crimson, LA,” Mieux murmured. “Right now. This is happening as we speak.”
Oh, brother.
Drama. There would need to be a lot of sex if they ever wanted to level this seesaw.
Anjelica wasn’t done. “If I was there, at the hotel, in there, he would’ve seen me and—she’s jealous. She knows he’d pick me over her.”
Huh, maybe this wasn’t what she’d thought it was after all.
“I’m the bad guy?” she asked Mieux, not mad or offended, just clarifying she had it straight. “I’m the bad guy. Okay.”
Shining from the screen, the woman at the center of her view was beautiful and people were interested, crowding up close, maybe trying to listen.
Either Anjelica had fans or the cohort wanted to be on camera.
There were usually at least a few of those folk as soon as the lens rose.
Not that she could judge, she had her own damn lens, many of them, and didn’t shy from glittering in front of them.
“What do you want to do?” Mieux asked. “Security? Salad?”
“No! God, no,” she said. “That gives her words so much more weight. We ignore it.”
“Ignore it?”
“Ignored it the first time.”
“Didn’t Zairn want to say something the first time? It’s horrible. I can’t believe he would—”
“We don’t dignify it.” Their reaction would get more press than one woman making unsubstantiated claims. “Where’s Tripp?”
“At the club.”
“Tell him to keep his ass there, and to stay out of the fire. Just because there’s a beautiful woman in the mix does not mean he has to mobilize,” Roxie said, taking the tablet as Mieux retrieved her phone from a pocket.
A pocket! On a dress like that? She should be buying custom.
“He’s your friend.”
“I know he means well…” Didn’t people always? Intentions. Path. That kind of thing. “But she could be his future wife for all we know. It’s better that we don’t acknowledge it, don’t give it our airtime.”
Especially on that day of all days.
“We don’t dignify it?”
“Exactly.”
With that clarification, Mieux put the phone to her ear, going a little away to talk to Tripp.
The device grabbed her attention again.
“All these people out here…” Anjelica spoke louder, over the din of the masses. No one was shouting, as such, the noise just came with the volume of the interested community. Maybe hosting their après reception in a city club hadn’t been the best idea. “They’re here because they love him.”
“If he wanted you in there, why weren’t you invited?” someone asked off-screen.
From behind the camera? Was the speaker the one holding the lens or just some random in the crowd?
“She would never let that happen,” Anjelica said, raising her chin. “She controls him. Everything about him.”
“‘Cept where he sticks his dick if we’re to believe you.” High score to the heckler. “Which is it?”
Raising the screen, she increased the volume. “Wait…”
Did she recognize that voice?
“She manipulates him,” Anjelica continued. “He’s sweet and passionate, she takes advantage of his kind heart.”
“And you would never do that?” the cynic asked. “Take advantage of Zairn Lomond or the media, to increase your own visibility?”
As much as Anjelica faltered, she didn’t lose her confidence. “This isn’t about my visibility, it’s about supporting the man I love.”
“You can claim to love him, that’s your feelings. You can’t speak to his though. The Zairn Lomond I know is tough, assertive, fair. If he loved you, why would he marry Roxie?”
“Because she knows things. She blackmails him.”
“Into marrying her?” The scoff of laughter was—she did know that voice! “Must be some serious dirt.”
Her posture righted. “Reeve Crosby.”
Why would he…?
“Zairn loves me,” Anjelica asserted. “It’s complicated. I should be allowed to speak to him, to see him, to be with him.”
“Because you claim something you can’t substantiate? When did you meet? How long was your affair? When was the last time you spent the night with him? Or is it just sex and he leaves money on the nightstand?”
Oh, ouch, that was vicious. At least he didn’t reserve his question volley technique specifically for her.
And it worked too. Without any need for Anjelica’s retort, Reeve had put doubt in the listeners’ mind.
She’d like to think that doubt was already there, but few knew Zairn the way his inner circle did.
“I am not—I don’t care about his money! I love him!”
“When was the last time you talked?” Reeve asked. “If this wedding is happening against his will, he must’ve called you today.”
“He did! He did call me.”
“That’s funny because he specifically told his assistant that he wasn’t taking any calls today.”
“It was before—”
“From the moment he woke up.”
“He would never—”
“Because he wasn’t allowed to talk to Roxie before the wedding, he said he wouldn’t be speaking to anyone.”
How did Reeve Crosby know that? She hadn’t even known that, but it was something her guy would be likely to do. If he couldn’t have her, he wouldn’t have anyone.
“He has a phone just for me.”
“That his assistant has never seen?”
“How do you—this isn’t about you!” Anjelica was getting riled. “You don’t understand our relationship.”
“Because you’ve yet to give details. Where did you meet?”
One beat. Another. Was Anjelica trying to decide whether to answer or pondering which lie to tell?
“We met at his club.”
“Which one?” Reeve asked.
“In… here. This one.”
“LA? And when was the last time you saw him, in person?”
“Last night.”
“He had a bachelor party last night.”
“After,” Anjelica said. “We met after his party.”
Wow, so Zairn squeezed Anjelica in between leaving his party and screwing his wife in the Platinum Suite?
Must’ve been one helluvan elevator ride.
Casanova would get a talking to for that.
She’d suggested Grand Hotel elevator sex the night they got married.
He hadn’t followed through with her, but instead used her idea with his hussy?
Zairn hadn’t seen this. Who would show it to him?
A brave soul. It would only frustrate him.
He didn’t like it when their love was brought into question, when his dedication to her was doubted.
Not in such a specific, explicit way. Wasn’t one of her most loved moments either, but it had to be left in perspective.
“Who is this guy? Your director?” Reeve asked and the camera moved. “Did you come out to film yourself here? The world won’t feel sorry for you. Some think you were setup, that you’re being taken advantage of to paint Zairn or Roxie in a bad light.”
“I am here because I want to be, because I have to be.”
“It wasn’t some impulse or a deep-seated drive. You took the time to do hair, makeup—and why didn’t you go to the hotel?”
“I tried!” Anjelica called, dampness rimming her eyes. “I went there and they wouldn’t let me in.”
“They wouldn’t let you in at the hotel, so you thought they’d let you in here? Look around you, plenty of crazies had the same idea.”
“I am not crazy! He loves me!”
“He loves Lola!” someone in the crowd called out.
“Everyone loves Lola!” came another voice.
Well, that was nice. Who didn’t like love? At least one, rather two, particular people liked her. Was it only them who—
The crowd chanted. It started slow and… She tipped her head to hear the name in two sure syllables.
“Lo-la, Lo-la.”
Curling her lips around her teeth, the flattery wanted her to laugh, though it was absurd, but it was… Those people…
Anjelica seemed to be talking, her lips were moving, but the crowd drowned her out.
“Rox…” Mieux approached again. “Do you hear—”
“I hear it.”
Maybe if they went to the street, they’d hear it vibrate through the city.
Mieux was just as astounded. “I’ve never…”
“When we get to the club,” Roxie said, “bring him upstairs.”
“Him?”
“Reeve Crosby. I want to speak to him alone in our pod.”
The chant grew in volume and ferocity. Yet another reason she and Zairn didn’t need to involve themselves. The people had their backs. Their people. As much as anyone in their employ, those people on the street were theirs too.
They’d gathered without invitation, knowing the club was closed, just on the chance of catching a glimpse. These were their people and they answered Anjelica’s accusations themselves. Zairn loved her, only her, and none of those incredible individuals would hear any different.