I dropped down to my knees, ready to beg. “I’ll tell them I love Chloe and Cara, too.”

  She nodded sagely. “You do that.”

  “I will. Love ya. Gotta go. Thanks for the makeup cases.”

  “Have fun playing spy,” she said.

  I crouched down to pet Jennifer on the snout before I left.

  Several minutes later, as I walked up the steps to my apartment, I scrolled through my email, laughing out loud at my brother’s latest picture of a dog lawyer making a joke about leashing the witness. Bryan went on to mention that the package I needed for the wedding would arrive tomorrow. I sent off a quick thanks, then clicked open the alert I’d set up for the Bowman-Belle wedding. There was a short item in On the Surface.

  As the two-day countdown until the fabled Bowman-Belle wedding begins, a well-placed source at a party rental store confirms to On the Surface that an order for a tent large enough for two hundred guests, along with folding white chairs and a white runner, is being prepared for a Saturday morning delivery to a well-known Hollywood residence in Malibu.

  I smiled as I read the item. Flash worked for On the Surface. She’d probably be scouting this well-known residence in Malibu all day Saturday, along with the rest of my paparazzi brethren. But they didn’t know where the wedding really was. Let them all run around Malibu empty-handed.

  Inside the apartment, Anaka was gathering her materials for class, scooping up papers from the table. They’d been tucked under a makeshift paperweight—her coconut hand lotion.

  She stopped to say hi. “Hey! I have the purse you asked for for the wedding. Hold on.”

  She scurried to her room and returned with a light-beige purse. I inspected the inside of the tan shoulder bag.

  “Perfect. Let’s see how it looks,” she said.

  I draped it on my shoulder. It fell to my ribs, which was the perfect length. I didn’t want a purse that dangled against my hip. I needed one that I could keep a tight grip on.

  “Looks awesome,” she said, darting into the kitchen to grab a pair of long-handled scissors. She handed them to me, then shielded her eyes. “Just don’t deface it till I leave.”

  “Your purse had a good life,” I said solemnly.

  She pretended to sob as she zipped up her messenger bag for class. “The purse is willing to lay down its life in the service of duty. Besides, you fed Karina the Rain photo and I’ve been watching my blog traffic go way up tonight. Karina’s people love pictures of Rain and his silly little vests.”

  “Speaking of photos, I still haven’t seen one turn up yet of the pictures I took of Riley the night before.”

  “I bet they’re waiting to run them in the morning or something. The best time for a site is always in the morning. The only reason I post my entries at night is I lack something known as patience.”

  My phone rang, and I looked at the screen on my phone. “Says private.”

  Anaka squealed. “That means it’s Riley. Answer it and tell me everything later. I need to run.”

  “Doubtful,” I said as she walked out the door, and I answered the call.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, I’m looking for Jess, and I can’t believe I never got your last name.”

  Anaka’s radar was 100 percent accurate. I’d recognize Riley Belle’s voice anywhere. I’d seen all her movies.

  “Hey. This is Jess. Jess Leighton,” I added.

  “It’s Riley Belle. And you can’t see him, but little Mr. Sparky McDoodle is here with me in my lap. He says hello. He says thank you again. He says I love you,” she said, and then laughed, her laughter sounding like the tinkle of a pretty church bell.

  “How is Mr. Sparky McDoodle? All good, I assume?”

  “He’s perfect. I bought him a new sweater last night after the incident. He was so rattled, and he always settles down when he has new clothes,” she said, then laughed. “I’m just kidding. He’s not that kind of dog. He doesn’t care about clothes.”

  I laughed, too, though I felt uneven. I wasn’t sure how to behave with her. She wasn’t what I had pictured. She liked to poke fun at herself. It was strangely refreshing, even as it was unexpected.

  “So, Jess. I totally want to take you out, like I promised. I have to tell you that I can’t stop thinking about what you did for my dog yesterday, and I am so grateful. There’s this amazing place along the beach,” she said, and then named the hottest new eatery in town, and I didn’t bother to ask how we’d get in when it was well known the waiting list was months—long after being declared the best brunch on the West Coast in a fancy food magazine. We’d get in because she was Riley Belle.

  “It sounds awesome.” Obviously, I wasn’t going to say no. “When?”

  “Let’s see. Tomorrow’s Friday, and my lawyer’s in town from New York, so we’re meeting in the morning to review possible projects for my production company. You have no idea how hard it is to find a good script these days,” she said, and she reminded me of my chat with Anaka kvetching about the same problem last night. “And speaking of problems with scripts, then I’m going to be at the studio in the afternoon for a final read-through of The Weekenders because the director made another last-minute change to the script after last night’s run-through.” I cringed a bit inside when she mentioned last night, because twenty-four hours ago I was snapping her face lip-locked with Avery Brock and figuring she’d never call, so I’d never have to feel guilty. Now she’d called, and now I felt mighty guilty. “But that’s neither here nor there, so Friday’s a no-go. And Saturday is out because I have this wedding thing to be at on Saturday and it’s going to last all night.”

  “Right. Your sister’s getting married. You must be so excited,” I said, then wanted to kick myself. I sounded like a starstruck sycophant.

  “I’m so excited for her, too. I’m going to be a bridesmaid, and it’s going to be amazing. I guess we should make it a Sunday brunch, since I have a thing on Sunday night.”

  A thing probably meant a second tryst with Avery Brock.

  “Let me just check my calendar and see if I’m free on Sunday,” I said in a playful voice, pretending to thumb through a calendar. I needed to recover and return to the funny girl Riley thought I was yesterday. Because that’s the girl I wanted to be, not a yes woman. “Okay, turns out I’m available.”

  She laughed briefly. “Perfect. Can we do eleven? Is that too late? I’m just worried about getting to the restaurant on time after Saturday’s festivities.”

  “Not a problem. I’ll see you and Sparky McDoodle at eleven on Sunday.”

  “Yay. Can’t wait, Jess.”

  The call ended, and I studied the phone as if it would emit a report verifying that I really did have a phone conversation with Riley Belle. Was I becoming friends with an actress? It was an odd notion, but then I was becoming friends, too, with a private detective who’d been following me, and now was my partner-in-sort-of-crime as well as my oh-so-hot-date in an hour, so odd notions were not unfamiliar this week.

  I flopped down on my bed, resting my head on my pillow, flashing back to today in the diner, and in the wig shop, and on the street with William. We’d had fun, I’d felt carefree with him, as if I didn’t have the weight of the world on my shoulders. I’d even confessed something I rarely told anyone. But I wanted him to know the real me, not just the me I presented.

  Why did I want him to know me?

  Because I liked him. I more than liked him. I also liked who I could be with him. With him I wasn’t merely the Jess who wanted to be a doctor, who earned top grades, who kept all her emotions in check. That Jess was restrained. She always had the proper handle on any situation.

  But there was another Jess, the one who planned disguises, the one who was daring enough to chase down pictures, the one who let insults and invectives from stars who didn’t want their photos taken slide off her.

  The one I was with him.

  5

  William

  * * *

  I had an address for tomorrow, some Web research for tonight, and a shopping bag full of the ingredients for chicken stir-fry.

  The one item I didn’t have? Time to tail the boy poets. I had yet to bend the time-space continuum of Los Angeles traffic far enough to track the brothers in the three hours I had free in between saying goodbye to Jess and knocking on the door of her apartment. But I was armed with other information, and intel was yet another way to her heart, so I’d take that route for now. I wanted to win her over.

  More of her.

  When she opened the door, my eyes nearly popped out of my head. Words rattled around in my brain but I could barely gather them in a coherent fashion.

  “Skirt,” I mumbled, as proper construction of sentences and little details like verbs fled my mind. I was unable to take my eyes off her legs. Her strong, toned, bare legs were on display for the first time. I’d only ever seen her in jeans, and now she was wearing a jean skirt that hit her mid-thigh—God bless short skirts—and a light blue tank top. Her blond hair was swept up in a ponytail that showed off her neck and shoulders. But the skirt, that was all I could think of…well, all I could think of was what was underneath the skirt. How her thighs would feel in my hands. How soft her skin might be.

  “Skirt,” she said, making a rolling gesture with her hands as if she was supplying me with the missing word.

  I shook my head, like a dog shaking off water. “You’re wearing a skirt,” I said. My jaw was possibly still scraping the floor.

  “Very good, William. You have excellent sartorial identification skills.” She gestured to me. “You’re wearing jeans and a T-shirt,” she said, as if speaking to a young child. “Now, can you try naming this?” She tugged on the fabric of her tank top.

  Recovering the power of speech and the use of brain cells, I stepped inside, shut the door, and set my bag down on the floor. I reached for the shirt, taking the fabric in my hand as I pulled her in close, brushed my lips along her neck, and whispered in her ear. “Something I want to take off.”

  She breathed in sharply, and shivered against me. “Tables turned,” she said in a low, sexy purr.

  I nibbled on her earlobe then dropped my mouth to her lips, covering her in a kiss that I had no choice but to give. Kissing her was not optional. It was mandatory, and as necessary as air or breath. She tilted her face to me, and I deepened the kiss, my tongue meeting hers, tasting, licking, and touching her with the kind of recklessness that some kisses demand. That’s how I felt—beholden to this kiss as her apartment faded away, as the music from her iPod drifted out the window, because all my senses narrowed to the press of her lips against mine.

  Eventually, we came up for air.

  “So, I brought bell peppers, chicken, and the most fantastic dessert,” I said quickly, segueing playfully into dinner as if that kiss hadn’t just nailed me right in the heart.

  She ran a hand through her bangs, as if she was clearing her head. “Sounds perfect.”

  She showed me to the kitchen and I told her I had good news.

  “You already started tailing the brothers?” she asked, her eyes lighting up.

  I laughed and roped my arms around her waist, kissing her hair as I moved behind her to start emptying the shopping bag. “I know the way to your heart. Rabbit food and clues.”

  “I’m easy like that. So tell me stuff,” she said, handing me a skillet, spray oil, a knife, and a cutting board.

  “I did some prelim research online. I found where Keats and Wordsworth live, so I’m going to scope them out tomorrow. I also tracked down one vital piece of information already. You know that website for Keats’s agency?”

  “Yes.”

  “He registered the domain name about three days ago. The site just went up this week, Jess.”

  She shivered as if a chill ran through her. “So…”

  “I don’t know what to make of it yet, but I think it’s safe to say he’s probably not a legit agency,” I said as I began chopping peppers.

  “Crap,” she said, blowing a frustrated stream of air through her lips. “I should have looked into that. I never thought to look into it.”

  “Of course not. It all seemed real. He seemed real,” I said, as I pushed the orange bell peppers to the side of the cutting board, moving on to the yellow ones. “The money was real, and he paid you in cash. You’re not the one he’s setting up. As much as it might seem like he’s setting you up, I don’t think you’re who he’s trying to frame.”

  “Who are Keats and Wordsworth setting up, then? Riley? That would make me feel so guilty,” she said, dropping her forehead into her palm. “Riley was sweet, and she was happy, and she seemed genuinely eager to have brunch.”

  “I don’t know. But listen, I only have one class tomorrow, so I’ll be out bright and early and I’ll follow them and see if I can figure out something.”

  As I set aside the chopped peppers and began working on carrots and broccoli, she nodded. “Okay. But I think you should follow Jenner. If they were both having lunch with Jenner, he’s probably the one setting her up.”

  “That’s what I was thinking, too. See, great minds think alike,” I said, then scooped up the peppers, carrots, and broccoli onto a separate plate before I tackled sautéing the pre-cut cubes of diced chicken.

  We chatted for a bit more about the threesome of sneaky Hollywood players as I cooked.

  She lifted her nose in the air and sniffed. “Smells yummy.”

  “Why, thank you. I hope you love it,” I said, choosing for once not to make a joke. I truly did want her to be happy with what I served. Not only because food was challenging for her, but because I wanted to impress her. I wanted to impress her in the kitchen, with my conversation, and with my hands, lips, and tongue. As well as other instruments.

  “What were you doing before I came over?” I asked, as I finished the dish and turned down the heat on the stove. “Doing curls or crunches or studying for your first bio exam next fall, right? Wait, you were making a spreadsheet of celebrity sightings and likelihood of whereabouts.”

  She smiled brightly at me. “You think I’m hyper prepared?” she asked, but she wasn’t bothered that I’d figured out that she was.

  “Well, you do have flash cards, don’t you?”

  “That reminds me—I need to add publicists’ faces to my cards.”

  “Oh, well, don’t let me keep you,” I said as I began plating the food.

  “It’s okay. I can do it when you leave,” she said with a sexy little wink, as if it was some naughty secret that she was a workaholic.

  “What if I keep you busy all night, though?” I asked as I ran a hand along the waistband of her skirt on my way to the table.

  “You’ve got a lot of stamina, then,” she replied.

  “I do, Jess. I absolutely do.”

  “Maybe I’ll find out how much someday,” she said, lowering her voice to a flirty whisper, the words heating me up.

  “Maybe you will. For now, this is your one and only chance to eat this fantastic dinner because after that I’m going to have a hard time keeping my hands off of you.”

  She opened her fridge, waggled a beer bottle at me in offering, raising her eyebrows to ask if I wanted it.

  “Of course.”

  Then she took one for herself, which surprised me, but made me happy, too, because it meant she wasn’t depriving herself of something worth having due to calories. Even though she only drank one-quarter of it while we ate dinner.

  6

  Jess

  * * *

  The pans were washed, the dishes were dried, and the meal was officially delicious. The conversation was great, too. William and I had talked the whole time at dinner—I told him more about my favorite movies and how I got into photography, and I even told him about the pictures I still felt guilty about. The ones I took of Nick Ballast.

  He shook his head. “Don’t feel guilty, Jess. It shows you’re a good person that you feel that way, but truly, everyone is responsible for what they do and their own choices. Just like you. You’ve taken control of things, and you live your life the way you want now, and Nick is doing the same.”

  “Thank you for saying that,” I said, and hearing that from him made another small layer of guilt shear off.

  Then it was his turn to share, and he told me about the summer he spent in Italy learning the language, and about how frustrated he felt at times for not having a job yet.

  “It’s like I keep trying with James, and in all these other places, too, and it’s not happening yet. It makes me feel like I’m not good enough,” he admitted in a quiet voice as we put the final dishes away.

  William was usually so confident, so sure of himself. But the frustration in his tone was tangible and I would have felt it, too, in his situation.

  “You are good enough,” I said firmly. “You just haven’t met the right job yet.”

  That made him laugh. “Like when you say to your unmarried spinster aunt, you haven’t met the right guy yet?”

  “Exactly. But I believe it. There’s a job for you. You just have to keep looking. And besides, it seems like you’re good at everything. Let me get this straight. You speak twenty languages, ride a bike, have a six-pack, a hot accent, and you can cook?” I arched an eyebrow.

  “Oh please. You’re embarrassing me,” he said, holding up his hands in mock humility, as we settled down on the couch. He lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “I only speak five languages.”

  “Somewhere, there are a bunch of guys who got the short end of the stick. They’re sitting around at some sorry dudes meeting, moping about how there was a completely uneven distribution of assets when you were born,” I said, and William simply smiled at the compliment.

  “See? That’s another thing. Great smile. It’s like you took everything and left the rest of the guys with nothing,” I said as I reached for the dessert bowl on the table that was filled with blueberries. I popped one into my mouth.

  “My, my. Haven’t you taken a one-eighty,” he said, scooping a handful of blueberries for himself.