Kiss & Makeup. Alison Kent

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ laughed. “Sounds good. Besides, I’m sure I’ll be stressed from the Daddy-Trevor-Stefan triangle and need to unload.”

      April rang off then, and Shandi hung up the phone, glancing briefly at the bulletin board and the huge pink pushpin tacking up a scrawled note that said:

      Mrs. Mulholland told Mrs. Delancey her doctor says her BP is up, up, up!

      Go light salting her margaritas!

      Hopefully Shandi would be better at watching Mrs. M’s salt than she’d been thus far at watching the words that came out of her own mouth. Honesty being the best policy had never before seemed like such a bad idea.

      And when she stepped out of the back room and into the bar, into the conversations and the laughter and the music with the low throbbing beat, she really had to remind herself how much trouble she’d generated already today simply by speaking her mind.

      Especially because right now her mind wanted to rip the arms off the painted Bambi draped all over Quentin.

      “Scotch neat to the gentleman at the far end,” Armand said, lightly salting the margarita glasses for the aforementioned duo of Mulholland and Delancey. He glanced at Shandi, then back at the salted rims. “Too much?”

      She reached for an old-fashioned glass and the scotch. “Any less and she’ll know we’re onto her.”

      Armand screwed the top from the silver shaker and finished off the drinks while Shandi poured hers and served the customer per her coworker’s instructions. She listened to Armand flirting with the two older women, grinning to herself as the teasing between the three grew boldly risqué.

      She tried to remember why they were here sans husbands and wedding bands, certain she’d stored the gossip in a tiny part of her mind not overloaded with school, work, friends, family and the resulting guilt trips she took.

      But right now she couldn’t access any slot in her memory banks because she’d looked up and caught Quentin’s eye.

      Gone was the man she’d chatted up and flirted with two nights in a row. The man who’d managed to get her to talk about herself when she never talked about herself.

      The man who had been about as mellow as anyone in the entertainment industry with whom she’d crossed paths.

      He wasn’t mellow now.

      He was holding on to his temper with a politely woven thread that was unraveling in direct proportion to Bambi’s aggressive thrust of her exposed cleavage. And even Shandi, standing where she was, felt the heat of his simmering irritation.

      She ignored a smugly satisfied thrill. Or at least she tried. Round one to the long-legged filly. Bambi was on her way down.

      Time for an intervention. A fire alarm. A police action in the lobby. Janice, Hush’s general manager, wouldn’t be supportive should Shandi instigate either.

      That left a phone call.

      She stepped into the back room, reached for the phone’s portable handset and punched in all but the last in the sequence of numbers for her cell. Then she took a deep breath and headed for the end of the bar where Quentin sat.

      “Mr. Marks?”

      His gaze snagged hers sharply. “Yes?”

      “I’m sorry to interrupt—” she gave Bambi a soft smile “—but you have a phone call.”

      “Thanks,” he said, and when he reached for the handset, she surreptitiously hit the last number and whispered, “Excuse me,” to the Bambi as Quentin stepped from the bar chair to take the call.

      On her way to the back room, she walked by Armand and begged him to cover her for five more minutes. In her pants pocket, her cell was already vibrating; Armand simply rolled his eyes and mouthed, “You owe me.”

      She answered what felt like seconds before the call rolled to voice mail. “Shandi Fossey. Bartender extraordinaire and interventionist.”

      In her ear Quentin laughed, a sexy throaty sound. “Where are you?”

      “In the back room,” she said, leaning against the same wall she’d rested on while talking to April, enjoying his voice a whole lot more than her girlfriend’s.

      “How do I get back there?”

      “You don’t. Employees only.”

      “You want me to just keep your phone?”

      Crud. “Uh, no. The wall around the corner from the end of the bar? There’s a panel door. It’s hidden, but if you find and hit the button, it’ll swing open.”

      “You’re going to make me work for it then?”

      It? Oh…my. “Lesson number one.” Anticipation lent a sultry breathlessness to her voice. “I’ve never been one to make it easy on a man.”

      A beat of silence, then he said, “Now that I can’t wait to see. Stay there.”

      No problem, since she couldn’t move to save her soul. She listened to the phone disconnect, her heart pounding in her ears along with the lost signal’s beep.

      And then despite standing frozen in place, Shandi began to sweat.

      3

      QUENTIN FOUND THE DOOR, found the button and seconds later found himself on the opposite end of the room from where Shandi stood.

      She held her cell phone pressed close between her breasts, her chest rising and falling at a rapid pace visible even from here.

      Her eyes sparkled. He could see the starry flash in the flickering light cast by the one and only fixture running the length of the ceiling. He let the door close behind him slowly, let the latch click, let the echo fade away before he took his first step.

      She wore a pin-tucked tuxedo shirt in a dark rosy-pink, a black satin cummerbund, bow tie and tuxedo pants, and leaned against the wall beside the main doorway leading from the back room into the bar.

      She looked as if she couldn’t wait for him to reach her. As if the phone’s empty wall unit next to her head was just an excuse to get him alone. He held the handset tightly, his palm sweating as he approached her.

      Sweating even more when the look in her eyes grew bold and warm in ways that surprised him.

      He wondered what it would’ve been like to meet her later. Meet her in Austin. To get to know her on his own turf, his own terms, instead of in an environment where he’d long ago quit trusting anything to be real.

      He wanted her to be real. He so wanted her to be real.

      Shandi held out her hand. “I don’t take kindly to blackmail, you know.”

      He didn’t know. He didn’t know her at all. And since he’d be leaving the city in a matter of days, he’d never have the full pleasure—a thought that caused quite the uncomfortable hitch in his chest.

      “Got СКАЧАТЬ