nce Ric was in the kitchen, no one paid him any attention whatsoever.

It was the getting there that was the giant pain in the balls.

Every time Gordon Burns’s goons were distracted enough for Ric to attempt the dive down that hallway, a server with a tray of incredible-smelling food appeared and jauntily informed him that the men’s room was in a different direction.

Which had left him with nothing to do but sample the food. And watch Robin Chadwick flirt with Annie. Which was far more unpleasant than he would have believed possible, considering.

The food was delicious, but the hand Robin had on Annie’s back had drifted dangerously close to her ass, which pissed Ric off, regardless of the actor’s sexual orientation. Fortunately, his response fit with their plan. It was appropriate—his standing there glowering at the two of them as they laughed and talked.

About what? What were they talking about? Annie sure as hell seemed to have forgotten that mere minutes earlier she’d been kissing Ric.

She’d kissed him first. It had totally caught him off guard, but his reflexes were a little too well developed. He’d grabbed her and kissed her back before he even knew what he was doing.

They were a total train wreck ready to happen. He was lucky that she wasn’t coming home with him tonight.

At least that was what he kept trying to tell himself.

Right now his luck was holding as one of the white-clad kitchen staff—there were at least two dozen of them, presumably most hired only for this occasion—dropped a huge pan filled with what looked like seafood stew. It had a huge splash radius, and everyone scrambled to get it cleaned up as quickly as possible.

And that allowed Ric to waltz right through the kitchen and down the hall to the servants’ wing. All of the doors were closed, and he was prepared for them to be locked, so it was a surprise when he tried the knob of the room that Cassidy had specified as Peggy’s, and found that it turned.

It was dark inside, but the light from the hallway revealed that the room was unoccupied.

He went in, closing the door behind him. There weren’t any blinds on the window, so he didn’t want to turn on the overhead light. He got out his penlight, and as he flashed it around the room, his heart sank.

This room wasn’t just unoccupied, it was vacant. It had been stripped bare of furniture and draperies. Even the carpeting had been pulled up and was gone. From the smell, and the rollers, trays, and stepladder still in the room, it was obvious that the walls had been recently painted—the bathroom, too.

It was a classic sanitizing job. Everything cleanable had been scrubbed. Anything that had been stained—carpeting, drapes, mattress, and blinds—had been removed and no doubt destroyed. The fresh paint would cover up any forensic evidence that had remained.

Yeah, the news Ric was going to deliver to Jules wasn’t very good. If this was, indeed, Peggy Ryan’s room—and Jules had seemed convinced that it was—it seemed highly likely that the woman was dead, most likely murdered right here.

There was only one air-conditioning vent in the entire two rooms, and it was nowhere near the window. It had been removed for the paint job, leaving a rectangular hole, roughly twelve by five, in the wall up near the ceiling.

Ric moved the ladder over and climbed up to get a look inside. His penlight revealed only a paint-speckled standard gray air duct. It was solidly in place, no gap around it in which Peggy might have slipped even a piece of paper. He reached in as far as he could, feeling around in the darkness, but there was nothing taped to the inside, either.

If Peggy had left anything in there, it had already been discovered.

Ric put the ladder back, pocketed his penlight, and opened the door a crack to make sure the hall was still empty. It was, but shit, someone was coming.

It would be far worse to be caught inside Peggy’s room than out in the hall—that was a no-brainer. He slipped out of the door, closing it silently behind him, heading swiftly toward the door to the servants’ deck. With luck, he would make it outside before whoever was coming turned the corner. With luck, whoever was coming would be the gardener, not one of Burns’s thugs.

He didn’t have time to make it out the door—best he could do was turn so it looked as if he were coming in from the deck, instead of trying to escape.

“What the fuck are you doing down here?” It was Foley, of course—Gordon Burns’s right hand—the man who had slapped Annie in the limousine.

No doubt about it, Ric’s luck had run out.

Gordie Junior attended his father’s party dressed in a suit and tie. His collar didn’t succeed in completely covering the tattoos that went up his back and shoulders and onto his neck, and the effect was rather strange.

He’d cornered Robin, whose body language was completely at ease as the two men talked. Still, Jules drifted toward them, and sure enough, Robin waved him closer, introducing the two men. “Julian Young, Gordon Burns Junior.”

As Jules shook Junior’s hand, he tried not to think about the psychological profile that was part of Gordie Junior’s massive file. Subject is known for sociopathic behavior, including outbursts of intense violence… It was possible that the man whose hand he was shaking was responsible for Peggy Ryan’s disappearance. He made himself smile. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Junior here says he has a business proposition that he thinks we’ll find interesting,” Robin told Jules.

“Really?” Jules said. “Where’s Annie?” He’d been aware when Ric had left the party, close to ten minutes earlier, but he’d only just noticed that Annie seemed to have vanished as well.

“Ladies’ room,” Robin told Jules, but his eyes held an absolute don’t know. “Junior heard about the movie we pitched to his father—”

“The one about the homo FBI agent,” Junior interrupted. “It’s not my cup of tea, you know what I mean? But I understand there’s a viewership for that sort of thing. Plus it’s an Oscar role, almost as good as playing a retard.” He smacked Robin’s arm. “Didn’t you get nominated for playing a fag a few years back?”

Nice. Jules could smile through anything, but even without looking, he could feel Robin, beside him, getting tense.

“The accepted term is gay,” Robin said. “And yes, I did. It was for American Hero. ”

“Like I said, I don’t watch that shit.” Junior shrugged. “No offense.”

“None taken,” Robin lied, his smile tight.

“What I did see, however,” Junior said, “was all the front-page tabloid stories that popped up after that movie came out. There was enormous speculation that you really were, you know, a gay, which I know had to suck. And it still hasn’t completely gone away—I saw something just a month ago in the National Voice. They’re still trying to tie you to what’s-his-name, your co-star in that film—turns out that guy really was a fag, which must’ve been creepy as shit, you know, working with him?”

“His name’s Adam Wyndham,” Robin said. “He’s a brilliant actor.”

Adam was undeniably a good actor, but he’d also been part of the rift between Robin and Jules all those years ago.

Jules looked at Robin. “I didn’t realize you were still friends with him,” he said, and immediately kicked himself for saying anything at all, let alone something that sounded even remotely jealous. He’d been working hard all evening to keep everything neutral—everything he said, every look he gave the movie star.

Sure enough, now there was a glimmer of satisfaction in Robin’s eyes. “We, um, kind of got back in touch after American Hero ’s premiere, and…Well, it’s been a while since I’ve…seen him.” Robin admitted. “I kind of ended our…friendship. I think he was starting to think I might be a good candidate for, like, a boyfriend or something, and I definitely wasn’t into that, so…”

And okay. Jules wasn’t sure how to feel about the news that Robin had kept seeing—i.e. sleeping with—Adam. Or the news that Adam had wanted a real relationship—as in more than just occasional sex.

It was particularly screwy because part of Jules was jealous not just of Adam, but of Robin, too.

Once upon a time, Jules and Adam had lived together. In fact, it was Jules who’d gotten his ex that audition for American Hero, from which Adam had been cast in the biggest role of his career. He’d claimed he wanted to get back together with Jules, but Jules knew better. Of course, at the time, Jules had just met Robin…

So naturally, Adam had repaid Jules for his kindness by getting Robin drunk and seducing him.

Yeah, that had been a fun few weeks.

“See, that’s just it,” Junior pointed out. “You hang with the guy, the tabloids say you’re a couple, and what happens? The gay dude starts believing it, too. What’d’ya do, fucking break his face?” he asked Robin.

“Uh, no,” Robin said. “I told him we couldn’t…hang out anymore. I was afraid he might…get too attached and end up hurt.”

Jules couldn’t believe they were having this conversation at all, let alone having it in front of Gordon Burns Junior. Of course, maybe he could believe it. Having a spectator on hand certainly put Robin at an advantage, since Jules couldn’t simply come out and say, What were you doing, having an ongoing sexual relationship with someone you claimed to hate?

It was also kind of interesting that Robin hadn’t just tried to lie to Jules about the whole thing.

“He might end up hurt?” Junior was scornful and completely unaware of what this conversation really was about. “What about you? This is a story that will not die. National Voice had him visiting your hotel room in London last month. They run that kind of headline, with a movie still of the two of you sucking face from American Whatever? That’s a problem for you. He couldn’t give a rat’s ass. Everyone already knows he’s a…gay.”

“I’ve never been to London,” Robin told Jules. “I actually got an e-mail from Adam, about a month ago. He is over there, doing an indie. He’s doing okay. He says he misses me, but…I don’t miss him.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Jules said. “It was…good, then, that you ended your…friendship.”

“Like I said,” Robin told him. “I didn’t want to hurt him. He’s…okay. He’s kind of screwed up, but…Who’s not, to some degree?”

“In the National Voice,” Junior started, but Robin cut him off.

“No offense, but I don’t read that shit.”

“But someone in your organization does”—Junior was both earnest and intense—“because not a week after that London story, there’s an article out about a pregnancy scare with some bitch you’re banging. Coincidence? I don’t think so.”

“It’s all just fiction anyway,” Robin said. “They’re always hooking me up with someone—if it’s not Adam, it’s some TV starlet. Does anyone really believe any of it? I mean, one of these days they’re going to decide that a story about a movie star who’s been celibate for six months will sell more papers, and look out. I’ll be in that headline, too.”

Junior laughed and laughed at Robin’s big funny.

Except it wasn’t a joke.

Robin was standing there, holding a drink, leaning against a wall. His shirt matched the gorgeous blue of his eyes, and with his movie-star good looks, his hair artfully messed, his long, lean build, and broad shoulders, he looked like hot sex personified.

But he held Jules’s gaze and nodded. No, he wasn’t kidding.

Jules had to look away.

“Look,” Junior persisted, after he’d caught his breath. “Don’t you wish you could make it go away once and for all?”

“I probably could,” Robin said. “By coming out and living a life of total obscurity with the man of my dreams.”

Jules looked up again, right into Robin’s eyes, as Junior laughed his ass off all over again.

He didn’t dare say it aloud, but as he looked at Robin, he wanted to ask, As opposed to asking him to give up a career in which he has the ear of the President, to become an overpaid bodyguard, and live in the closet? He hadn’t missed Robin’s thinly veiled job offer back at Ric’s office.

Speaking of Ric…He still hadn’t reappeared. As interesting as this conversation was…“I’m sorry, you’re going to have to excuse me,” Jules said.

But Junior caught his arm. “No, wait. Seriously, dude, I got the answer Rob’s looking for.” He looked from Robin to Jules and back again. “Ready for this?” He paused dramatically. “A sex tape.”

Jules looked at Robin, who was clearly as clueless as he was.

“A sex tape,” Junior said again as if his meaning was obvious. “It leaks out onto the Internet in little bits and pieces and people are like, whoa, and the rumors are over once and for all.”

Robin started to laugh.

“I’m serious.” Junior was. “You know you’re not gay, and I know you’re not gay, but you make a sex tape and the entire world knows it, too. Case in point: Eddie Moss. There was lots of talk about him, right? Until his tape was released. And on top of the obvious answer to the gay thing, it’s bitchin’ PR—look what it did for Paris Hilton. Here’s what I’m thinking: GBJ Productions helps you make it.”

Robin had stopped laughing, his amusement mixed with some serious disbelief as he looked at Jules, his hand over his mouth. His pose came off as thoughtful, but Jules recognized it for what it really was—an attempt to stay quiet and even seem respectful in the face of Junior’s idiocy.

“It’s high quality, it’s tasteful, it’s well lit, it’s a single shot—no cuts, so no body doubles—it’s clearly you.” Junior continued his pitch. “Of course, this may not be something you necessarily want to do unless God gifted you, if you know what I mean.”

“I really don’t think,” Robin started to say, but Jules cut him off.

“Let’s assume there’s no issue there,” he said. “Go on.”

“Go on?” Robin repeated.

From the corner of his eyes, Jules could see him widening his eyes in a very clear what the hell? He forced himself to focus on their host’s son, taking on—hopefully—an air of interest very similar to Robin’s.

“Another issue is the bitch, you know, who’s in the film with you,” Gordie Junior went on. “You gotta take care of paying her off, although another option is that we can be careful about not showing her face.” He laughed. “Her face isn’t what’s important anyway, you know what I mean?”

It had taken Jules a second to decipher his words—bitch?—but he got it now. Nice.

“The girl you’re with tonight,” Junior turned to Robin to say. “She’d probably do it for the starfucker factor. I saw the way she was all over you.”

Somewhere Annie’s ears were ringing.

“So how much are you offering?” Jules said. “I’m assuming that GBJ would keep distribution rights—and you’d stand to make a fortune with a tape like that.”

“Well, that’s one way to do it,” Junior said. “But I was thinking we’d provide the service, so…you’d pay us.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Jules said.

Robin was looking at him as if he’d gone mad. Maybe he had, but this was an incredible opportunity both to get information on Junior’s fledgling company, and to establish a business relationship with the man.

Not that they were actually going to make a sex tape. No, the negotiations would provide enough of an opportunity.

“Robin’ll need a half a million dollars,” Jules continued. “Cash. Half on handshake—because this is not a deal that gets anywhere near paper—and half at taping. I’m assuming you’d use digital video?”

“Yeah,” Junior said. “That’s our format, but—”

“Second half is delivered in cash to the studio on the day of the shoot,” Jules said. “It goes home with Robin when he leaves that night.”

“That could work,” Junior said, “but I’d have to check with my business partners…”

“What’s to check?” Jules asked. “It’s yes or no. A half a million dollars is just a fraction of what you can make with a tape like this, and you know it.”

“The company’s still in its early stages,” Junior explained.

“So you’re saying you don’t have the capital,” Jules interpreted.

“No, I’m not.” Junior was offended. And lying.

“Because this deal can’t be discussed,” Jules said. “Not between you and your partners, or you and your father—”

Junior took umbrage. “My father has nothing to do with this.”

That was useful to know. “It’s between you and me and Robin,” Jules reiterated. “No one else knows. The entire deal is under-the-table. And when GBJ releases the tape, you announce it was sold to you through an anonymous source. You’ll have six months to sell the footage through Internet downloads, during which time Robin will file a lawsuit against you. There’ll be a settlement that will cost you nothing, but at the end of those six months, you will cease and desist your sale of the tape, so you better have a marketing plan in place right from the word go. ”

“I’m going to have to think about this,” Junior said.

“Think fast,” Jules said. “This is a terrific idea, and God knows Robin could use the PR ASAP.”

“It’s my fucking idea,” Junior bristled. “You’ll do it with GBJ, or you won’t do it at all.”

“I’m not saying we’ll go elsewhere,” Jules soothed him. “I never said that. It would just help to know how long it’ll be until you have the money for a project of this magnitude.”

Junior was silent.

Jules looked at his watch, not daring to glance at Robin, who still didn’t understand exactly what was going on. But he knew Jules well enough to stay quiet.

Come on, Junior. When will GBJ have access to a major chunk of cash?

There was a lot of conjecture here, but if Junior were, say, smuggling a terrorist into the United States, then he would surely be well paid for his treasonous efforts. Finding out when GBJ Productions was expecting a major increase in funds might clue the FBI in to the date of al-Hasan’s arrival. Maybe.

If, might, maybe…

Jules looked at his watch again.

And Junior cleared his throat. “I might have the cash in a week,” he said. “Maybe before that. I got another deal set to happen very soon, problem is the fuckers won’t commit to a closing date.”

“Another film?” Jules probed.

“It’s none of your fucking business, but no.”

Jules took out one of the business cards he’d made for Julian Young, and handed it to Junior. “When you know exactly when you’ll have the cash,” he told him, “you call me, and we’ll deal.”

As Gordie Junior walked away, Robin murmured, “Sometimes you frighten me.”

Jules laughed.

“A sex tape,” Robin mused. “With Annie, no less. Ric’s going to love that.”

What the fuck was Ric doing down here in the servants’ wing? was the question that had been asked.

Searching for the men’s room was an extremely lame-ass answer, but it was the excuse he’d been carrying around with him, and it popped out of his mouth. Unfortunately it sounded just as lame-ass when he said it aloud, especially since he’d made it look as if he were coming in from outside.

“And then I saw this deck,” Ric added, “and it seemed private, so I thought I’d use the opportunity to, you know. Check my meter.”

Checking one’s meter was street for taking a brief break from a party to indulge in illegal substances. Ric gave a sniff, his thumb against one nostril—a visual aid to make his words ring even more true.

But Foley’s expression was as lifeless as it had been the night Ric had saved Gordie Junior’s worthless ass. And Ric knew if he didn’t somehow sell this thing more convincingly, then he’d really screwed himself, because all Foley had to do to prove Ric was lying was give him a drug test. It would come back clean, and he’d be in deep shit. Or maybe even dead. And it would domino, since he was here with Annie and Jules and even Robin Chadwick.

“I had to get out of there, man,” Ric told him. “My girlfriend? She wants to hook up with the movie star, and I’m not okay with that. I mean, would you be? Some guys actually are, but I don’t know what they’re thinking.”

He was just warming up, ready to launch into a story about how he’d told Annie that they had to talk, and that she’d agreed to meet him in the kitchen, but then she didn’t show.

But Foley’s gaze shifted over Ric’s shoulder and the door opened behind him—the same door Ric was still holding. The one that led to the deck.

“Ric, I lost my panties.”

Jesus God, it was Annie. She looked from Foley to Ric and smiled sheepishly. “Oops. Busted, huh?”

Somehow she’d gotten onto the deck. She must’ve come around the side of the house and climbed up. Goddamn it, he’d told her not to go anywhere alone, yet she’d slipped away, probably shortly after he had.

She looked disheveled, her shoes in her hands, and he realized what she’d said as she’d come in.

She’d lost her panties.

“Do you have them?” she asked Ric as she slipped her shoes back on. She tucked her bra straps out of sight, adjusting her entire dress, making sure her skirt was straight, as if they’d knocked her clothing askew just minutes before on the deck. She was making it look—and convincingly, too—as if they’d sneaked away to grab a quickie.

“I don’t think so,” he managed to say, but she leaned close, reaching into the pocket of his jacket.

“Here they are,” she announced. It was classic sleight of hand—she’d had them scrunched up and hidden in her palm as she’d reached in, and now she pulled them out triumphantly, letting them dangle from one finger.

As far as visual aids went, they were extremely effective. They were black and lacy.

Especially when Annie added, “On second thought, maybe you should keep them. Next time you’re jealous of Robin Chadwick, just remember what’s in your pocket, hot stuff.”

She flicked them at him, as if she were shooting a giant rubber band. He caught them as, still fixing her hair, she breezed past Foley, heading back toward the kitchen, and ultimately the party.

Something actually flickered—amusement or maybe appreciation—in Foley’s eyes as he turned to watch her walk away.

Ric watched her, too. It was hard not to, considering her panties were in his hand, which meant, kind of obviously, that she wasn’t wearing them. He tucked them back into his pocket, and when Foley turned back to him, he shrugged.

“Busted,” Ric echoed Annie.

“Get outta here,” Foley ordered him.

He went.

Dinner was one of the most unpleasant meals of Jules’s life.

A buffet had been set up in Burns’s formal dining room, but Ric planted Annie at a table out on the patio, waited for Jules and Robin to get their dinners, and then went through the line for her.

Something had happened when Ric had gone searching for Peggy’s room. Jules had spotted Annie first, slipping out of the hallway that led down to the kitchen, which explained where she’d been all that time.

It also explained Ric’s elevated levels of pissed—what was Annie doing down there?—perceptible only to those who knew him, because he covered it with a wide smile when he, too, returned.

“Change of plans” was all he told Jules, after he gave Annie his jacket because suddenly she was cold, despite the eighty-degree heat. “Annie stays with me, at least for tonight. The breakup’s off.”

The drinks in the limo, plus the champagne, plus whatever was in Robin’s glass right now either made it hard for Robin to hear or to understand, because he was already making a beeline for Annie. “Hey, gorgeous, where you been?”

She whispered something in his ear, something that made him laugh—and he pulled her in for an embrace.

Which Ric was having none of. “Take your hands off her,” he told Robin, his voice low, his smile gone.

Someone else had come out of that well-traveled hallway to the kitchen—the hired goon that Ric had identified as Foley. Jules saw that he was watching Ric, watching as Robin got the hint and backed off, watching Annie as Ric put his arm possessively around her waist.

Something had definitely happened.

“Just go with it,” Jules murmured to Robin. “Continue the interest, but from a distance.”

Jules filled his plate from a buffet of the most amazing-smelling food, and with Robin right behind him, he sat down next to Annie at the dinner table. It was then that Ric leaned over and said, “Room’s been sanitized.”

And that was the end of any appetite Jules might’ve had.

Robin took the seat next to him, afraid to get too close to Annie, and he’d heard Ric, too. This time, he understood exactly the implications of what Ric had discovered—and that it meant Peggy was surely dead.

“I’m sorry,” Robin told Jules softly. “I know you didn’t like her, but that makes it even worse, huh?”

Jules had once vented to Robin about Peggy—about how she’d excluded him, time and time again. How she’d avoided him and, when she couldn’t, how she’d looked through him.

“You didn’t wish this for her,” Robin told him now.

“I should have done more.” That was what was making him feel sick.

“You followed orders,” Robin pointed out.

Jules nodded. “I wouldn’t have if it had been Alyssa.” Or you. He would have launched a full-scale attack the minute he knew something had gone wrong, kicking down the doors at Burns Point.

God help him.

“It’s okay to feel what you’re feeling,” Robin said gently. “It really is.”

He was sitting there, quiet for once, no ulterior motive at play. This wasn’t about convincing Jules to spend the night or even the next week with him. It was empathy and compassion. It was support, sturdy and wholehearted.

Robin was looking at him the same way Alyssa looked at her husband, Sam. The way Max looked at his beloved Gina. The way Jules had seen Annie looking at Ric.

What was it he’d said to Robin the other night? You are not what I want. How could something be true and yet also be the biggest lie Jules had ever told?

He knew he was revealing too much, knew it was right there on his face for Robin to see, but he couldn’t look away.

“God,” Robin breathed, “you look at me like that, babe, and I’m tempted to do it—just end my career.”

Robin with fire in his eyes was easier to turn away from than the Robin who had looked at him with such quiet understanding. “I don’t want you to do that,” Jules told him.

“Yeah, you do.”

“No, I really don’t,” Jules said, but he couldn’t expound because Ric was back, and unlike Robin, he was unwilling to make this a public discussion. It was bad enough whispering while Annie pretended to be preoccupied with getting a splinter out of her hand.

Besides, Ric had more info to share. He murmured it to Jules as he put Annie’s plate down in front of her.

“No furniture in the room, no carpet, fresh paint. The single a/c vent was empty. I checked it thoroughly.”

Crap.

“I don’t know about you guys,” Robin said loudly, addressing Ric and Annie, too. “But I’ve got an early day tomorrow. I’m thinking after dinner we should head back.” He turned to Jules. “We still have that…business to talk about. I figured we could drop Ric and Annie off—”

“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” Jules said. “You’ve had a lot to drink.”

“I’m fine,” Robin said.

“Yeah, well, I’m not,” Jules said. Before they left, he was going to have to figure out a way to get into the room Ric had found. He needed to see it for himself. And then he was going to have to report what they’d found, along with his conclusion regarding Peggy Ryan’s status—which was now officially presumed dead.

The last thing he wanted to do after that was fight off Robin.

Who, once again, seemed to know exactly what Jules was thinking.

“I really was just talking about talking,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry if I come on too strong sometimes.” He, too, had no appetite. He just pushed his food around his plate. “I’ll get you down to that room—I know you want to go there. When I head into the kitchen to meet the staff, it’s going to be extra noisy. I guarantee it. If you came with me, and your cell phone rang…”

Jules would have to find someplace quiet to take the call—such as down the hall to the servants’ wing.

“How can you guarantee…?”

“I’ve already talked to a lot of the servers,” Robin told him. “It’s the caterer’s fiftieth birthday. Jenny Milkovich. She’s well liked. She’s also a fan. They asked me to come to the kitchen to sing ‘Happy Birthday,’ but I’ll definitely make it louder than that. I was planning a diversion, remember?” He pulled a CD jewel case out of his pocket, and looked at the back. “You’ll have four minutes and twenty-eight seconds, plus however long they applaud.”

“Applaud?” Jules asked.

“Yup,” Robin said, adding “Thanks, Giselle” as a woman with a tray brought him just what he needed—another drink. “We’re going to give Jenny a birthday to remember.”

Robin had been right about the noise level in the kitchen. There was a built-in sound system, with speakers wired into the ceiling, and the music was up extremely loud. But louder still was the reaction of the crowd.

And it was a crowd that was growing larger every second, as Burns’s dinner guests came to investigate the noise and stayed for the entertainment.

If a man taking his clothes off to a Billy Preston song from the 1970s could be called entertainment.

Annie seemed to think so. “God, he’s hot.”

Ric looked at her. She was serious. He leaned in to speak directly into her ear. “He’s gay.” And ironically Jules, the one person who’d probably truly get off on this, had left the room.

“That doesn’t matter,” Annie told Ric. “It’s the fantasy.”

He looked back at Robin, who was taking forever just to get his shirt off, playing it humorously coy as he moved to the music. And okay, from the glimpses of his upper body that he’d given the crowd, it was obvious that the actor was ripped. He put his hands on the button to his pants and dozens of women shrieked their approval.

“So it’s a man-as-meat kind of thing,” Ric mused.

Annie laughed, genuinely amused, and it was hard as hell not to think about the black lace that was in his pants pocket, damn near burning a hole in his leg. It had been impossible, all evening, for him to look at her and not think about the fact that if her panties were in his pocket—and they certainly were—then she wasn’t wearing them. As in not wearing anything. At all.

She was wearing his jacket now, too, still claiming she was cold. And although that meant she was even more covered up, the effect was oddly the opposite. The jacket was almost as long as her skirt, and from behind, she looked as if she were wearing his jacket and nothing else.

Certainly not her panties. Which he knew were in his pocket.

His brilliant plan to get her to safety—as well as safely out of his apartment—had been seriously screwed by her blatant disregard of his instructions: Don’t go anywhere alone.

Of course her blatant disregard had saved his ass.

It had also aroused Foley’s suspicions. The man had been watching them ever since. And that was why Ric had nixed their plan to have Annie split up with him in a very public display at the party’s end. He didn’t think Foley would buy it.

Yeah, that was why Ric had nixed the plan. It had nothing to do with the fact that it also meant that Annie would have to come home with him.

“Well, I don’t know about the birthday lady,” she was telling him now, “but for me, it’s more of a fairy-tale fantasy. A hot guy, going to a lot of effort to attract a woman’s attention—”

“More like forty women.”

“The fantasy,” she told him patiently, “is a fantasy. Which means you’re allowed to pretend the thirty-nine other women aren’t there. It’s just you and the hot guy—which is the real fantasy, right? But the odds of ever actually being alone with a hot guy, let alone one who’s going to go to this kind of effort to turn you on…”

“So itis about sex,” Ric said, which was a mistake, because talking about sex wasn’t going to help him stop thinking about sex, about going back to his apartment with Annie, alone, about locking the door behind them and pulling her close and kissing her the way she’d kissed him just a few short hours ago. Only this time he wouldn’t stop. This time he’d just keep kissing her until he’d backed her up against the wall and pushed her skirt up and wrapped her legs around his waist as he pushed himself hard and deep inside of her.

“Hell, yeah,” Annie was saying, clearly oblivious to the fact that in his mind he was damn close to making them both come. “Because sex is an important part of any fairy-tale relationship.”

Robin Chadwick lowered his zipper another fraction of an inch, and the crowd nearly drowned out the music. Ric forced his gaze away from Annie and down at his watch. Jules had been gone just over three minutes now. It wasn’t quite time yet to get squirrelly. But it was getting close.

“But the fairy-tale hot guy isn’t just some handsome, princely stud,” Annie continued, after heartily applauding Robin’s efforts. “He’s sensitive and he’s funny and he’s willing to grocery-shop and do the laundry. And he always says I love you, too, and you live happily ever after.” She snorted. “Like I said, pure fantasy.”

“So why is that a fantasy?” Ric asked as Annie whooped when Robin revealed he was wearing sky-blue boxers. “I mean, okay, the idea of living happily ever after is simplistically optimistic, but my parents seem to have achieved something pretty close.”

“Yeah, well, most people don’t even try,” Annie told him.

“Ah,” he said. “Maybe that’s what makes it a fantasy. It comes without any of the hard work.”

His own fantasies were along those same lines. He’d spent a great deal of the evening imagining Annie sweet and tight around him, imagining the sounds of pleasure she’d make, the way her eyes would look filled with desire, the rush of his blood through his veins. But not once did he go beyond the immediate gratification to the conversation they’d surely share afterward.

“Remind me sometime to tell you about the first few years that my parents were married,” Ric told her, checking his watch again. “Right now, though, I need to…”

She nodded, understanding, her full attention on him, not on Robin nor his boxers. “I should go with you.”

“No, you shouldn’t.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I should. Just because Foley’s not in the room doesn’t mean he’s not in the room. Check behind me. At one o’clock.”

Sure enough, Foley’s extra-large co-worker was standing over there. He wasn’t watching them right that moment, but he’d surely noted their presence. And he’d therefore note if and when they were gone.

“Pretend that you’re jealous,” Annie instructed, turning back to watch Robin. “That I’m a little too into this whole Robin Chadwick stripping thing.”

“Like you’re not?”

She glanced at him, amused. “So convince me. Make me believe that if we go back to the scene of our previous tryst, you’ll entertain me just as thoroughly.”

Damn. He didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to put her in any more danger than she was already in just by being here. But she was right. If he went down that hallway by himself, he’d be putting them all into jeopardy…

Which is what they’d also be in if Jules didn’t get his ass back here in the next few minutes.

It was a lose/lose scenario, with both options sucking equally.

And Annie wanted him to convince her…

Ric gave up and grabbed her wrist. He pulled her back, into the entry of the hallway to the servants’ wing, and pushed her up against the wall a little bit harder than he should have.

“Sorry,” he said, because his back was to anyone who might be watching. What they could see was her face, and the placement of his hands. Her skirt was short enough for him to reach just beneath the edge, her thigh cool and deliciously smooth against his fingers.

She drew in her breath sharply, her eyes wide.

“I’m going to kiss you, okay?” Ric told her. “And we’re going to move back farther into the shadows. I’m going to need your help though, because every time I kiss you? I get kind of useless and…can’t seem to do much more than kiss you.”

Annie laughed and kissed him, and, God, she was so sweet, her body impossibly soft as she molded herself against him. He concentrated, though, and they moved back—more like staggered, really.

Ric kissed her, harder, more deeply and it seemed as if it took both forever and a fraction of a heartbeat, but they finally rounded the corner. They were in the part of the hallway where they could no longer be seen from the kitchen, and it was time to not kiss her anymore, but God damn if he could make himself stop. They were in danger. He knew they were in ever-growing danger. They had to find Jules. But his hand was now between her legs and he was mere inches from—

“Whoa, hey there, kids, sorry!”

Jesus God, it was Jules and he was practically standing next to them.

Ric and Annie sprang apart. Or rather, he sprang back from Annie—he’d nearly had her nailed to the wall.

“Ow!” she said as he pulled his hand away, which was never a good sound to hear from a lover’s lips—even if it was someone who was just pretending to be a lover.

“Are you okay?” Ric asked her. She nodded as she straightened her clothes, her face pink. He turned to Jules. “Are you?”

He nodded, too. He wasn’t happy—it was clear just from looking at him that he’d found what he was searching for.

“Sorry I took so long. I got an important phone call, so I came down here to get away from the noise,” Jules told them, just in case anyone was listening as they walked back toward the kitchen. The music had ended, but he still had to speak loudly to be heard over the babble of voices and laughter.

“Ric was having some issues with Robin and his blue silk boxers,” Annie told him.

“Robin and his…” Jules caught sight of the boxers in question and stopped short.

Robin Chadwick stood in the middle of the room, surrounded mostly by women, totally comfortable with the fact that he was shirtless and pants-free. He’d even taken off his socks and shoes. He was smiling and laughing, posing for pictures and signing autographs on cocktail napkins and even on the arms of the bolder of the women.

But then he looked over and caught sight of them.

Them? Try Jules.

In fact, Ric felt so invisible, he used the opportunity to pull Annie aside. “Are you really okay?”

She nodded, but it was clearly not a complete yes. “I got a little scraped up when…I’ll tell you later,” she said. But then she met his gaze. “Maybe after we get home you can, you know, kiss it and make it better.”

And no, the room didn’t actually tilt. And Annie didn’t actually soul-kiss him and drag him back with her onto her bed, opening her legs to him so he could lose himself in her sweetness and heat.

That was just him. They were in the kitchen at Burns Point. The only bed was in his head, in a room labeled WISHFUL THINKING.

“Yeah,” Ric said, quickly glancing over at Jules, who’d been waylaid by Gordon Burns himself, who’d pulled the FBI agent over to Robin. Everything seemed to be fine—the three men were laughing. “Wow. Right. About that. I’m…not sure if it’s the dress or the makeup or what, but I’ve apparently reached the end of my ability to resist. You. I’m kind of picking up the sense that you’re feeling something similar—”

“I’m not,” she said with such venom he had to take a step back. Everything warm and welcoming in her eyes had turned to a different kind of heat. “Oh God, I am, but I’m not. Shit, I don’t want to sleep with an asshole.”

What had happened to kiss it and make it better? “You don’t want to—”

“You,” she said, lowering her voice. “I don’t want to sleep with you, but at the same time, I really, really do, and if we’re alone tonight, we’re going to, aren’t we?”

She was staring at his mouth, as if, if they were the only ones in the room, she’d be kissing him.

“I’m pretty sure we are,” Ric said, because he knew if she kissed him again he’d be toast. “And you’re right. It would be a mistake.”

Across the room, Robin Chadwick had his pants back on but his shirt hung open. He and Gordon Burns shook hands.

“Ladies,” Robin announced, “it has been beyond fun, but it’s time now for me to go. Happy birthday, Jen.”

Jules caught Ric’s eye. Limo’s out front, he mouthed.

“We need to go,” Ric told Annie.

“Call Martell,” Annie ordered Ric as she marched past him. “Tell him we need him to babysit. At your place. Immediately.”