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“Why don’t we have a private plane?”
Lucille looked up from her tablet as Noah’s question broke their icy silence. They had successfully borrowed JP’s company jet with the promise they wouldn’t get it blown up and would return it the following day. It’d taken some convincing to secure the plane. Normally, it was JP who protested the use of his company property for their spin doctor-related exploits, but JP had an empathy loophole wherein, if one of his friends was in trouble, he would do whatever he could to help. Simon, however, was not thrilled about them taking the jet. His argument was, “Is saving Brett really worth it?”
At which point, Lucille reminded him Michel was also on the island and potentially in danger, and did Simon want to risk his most profitable client? Again? Simon grumbled but, in the end, agreed to fly commercial on the way home.
Lucille texted Brett to let him know they were coming and to stay put. He wouldn’t listen, but she had to try. She hoped they arrived before Lauren Cunningham, or whatever she was calling herself now, put her final plan into action. He didn’t reply.
“They’re too conspicuous,” Lucille said in response to Noah’s question.
Noah nodded and looked out the window at the fluffy clouds and brilliant afternoon sun. Sometime in between fighting with her and their quick departure, Noah had had time to do his hair and change into a gray suit and bright yellow shirt. He looked completely put-together—professional, stylish, and, although Lucille would never tell him this, she was impressed with how he perfectly matched her in both boldness of clothing choice and composure. She didn’t need his head getting more inflated than it was. Besides, she was mad at him.
She tore her eyes away from him and returned to her email. She hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d woken him up a few hours ago and said they had an enormous amount of work waiting. Her inbox was bursting, and it didn’t seem like Noah was going to be much help, obsessed as he was with ogling the private jet.
It was a nice jet. Not as large as Michel’s, but there was enough space for eight people to fly in complete comfort. The décor was less ostentatious than Michel’s plane. Instead of velvet and black leather, everything in the LT Tech jet was a sleek silver, designed like one of their devices to be a piece of utter technological beauty. Lucille could understand Noah’s distraction. She herself considered running off with the thing and sending JP an IOU in the mail.
The first ten emails were from Christy-Anne, who hadn’t contacted her in months. Lucille skipped over those, undecided if she’d even read them, and moved on to the eleventh, one from Sylvia. Odd how much difference a day and a really good lunch meeting could make. She opened the email, excited to hear from the heiress for the first time ever.
Luce,
The producer called me already. This reality show is happening and it’s happening now. I, of course, have a completely incompetent production team and already had to fire my stylist for suggesting leopard print. Can you even?
Send me the name of that stylist you know, would you? I need someone who wouldn’t be caught dead in animal print. Obviously, this show is going to be a complete shit fest. That’s what people want to see. But I should be able to look good while doing it. Is that too much to ask? Apparently for some of these fuckers, it is.
How are things with Noah the hottie? He may be a complete tool, but he’s gotta be good for some fun.
Lunch next week? Not brunch. Brunch is for losers.
Sylvia
Lucille grinned as she read the email and shot back a reply with her stylist’s number and a suggested lunch date. It was rare to find someone who shared her opinion on brunch and further proof that, whatever else came out of this mess, Sylvia was a keeper.
“What are you smiling about?”
Her grin disappeared and she gave Noah a slowly simmering look of annoyance. “Are you going to do any work or are you going to sit and stare at me?”
He returned her glare with a suggestive waggle of his eyebrows. “I don’t know. Depends on what you’re up for. A quickie in the bathroom? Some heavy petting right out here in the main cabin?”
Lucille’s body, still upset their second round had been interrupted that morning, perked up. “Neither,” she said. “I, unlike some people, am working tirelessly to provide the best service to our clients.”
“Is that why you’re ignoring Christy-Anne’s emails and emailing Sylvia Stanton about lunch?”
This really annoyed her. “How the hell can you see my screen? You’re on the other side of the aisle.”
Noah had tried to sit across from her when they’d first gotten on the plane, but she’d given him a death glare and he’d, wisely for once, taken a seat diagonally from her.
“The angle you’re holding your tablet to keep the screen from me means it’s perfectly reflected in the window,” he said, his voice smug.
God, he was annoying. A deeply sexy, competent type of annoying.
“So, you took it as an invitation to read my emails?” she asked, inflecting her tone with haughtiness.
“I assumed, since you’ve made such a big deal about working, your work-related emails wouldn’t be private from your coworker.” He crossed one leg over the other knee and stretched back into his seat, his whole demeanor a picture of innocent bullshit.
Don’t play that game with me. I invented that game. “You want to see what my work emails are like? Do you?”
He flashed her a brief frown. He didn’t seem sure what she was up to. It was how she liked him best. “Okay. Yes. Sure.”
Lucille cleared her throat dramatically and tapped on the first of Christy-Anne’s messages, the subject line reading Did you fucking block me. “L. Did you change your number and not fucking tell me? I hate email. I fucking pay you to answer your phone. What the shit,” Lucille read aloud. “Message number two says ‘Seriously L? It’s been ten fucking minutes. Call me back. My agent won’t answer my calls. I tried to make a goddamn friend, but it didn’t work and I need you to do some cover up. My so-called fucking friend filmed a video of me and now is threatening to leak it and did I mention my agent won’t take my calls? What the hell am I supposed to do with that?’”
“Jesus,” Noah said in a low whistle.
“The rest are just a lot of swearing and increasingly personal insults,” Lucille said, scrolling through the other eight messages. “No wait, in the last one she decides it’s not worth talking to me after all and fires me. I guess I’ll have to call her when we get back.”
“I take it she’s profitable?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe. Although I distinctly remember telling her to lose my number for her own good. I guess it didn’t take,” Lucille said with a shrug. Some of her clients were like that. The same cycle over and over again. Personally, if she were stuck in something so self-destructive, she hoped someone in her life would force her to break out of it. Simon? Not likely. Brett? Maybe, if he could get out of his own destruction. Possible JP or Michel. Noah? He didn’t seem like a guy who would stand silently by while she spiraled out of control. As mad as she was at him, she had to admit he’d been the only one to question her about once again rushing off to rescue Brett and Michel.
“I could do it.”
Lucille pulled herself out of her reverie. Just in time too, since those thoughts were making her feel things. Things that were warm and fuzzy and not at all the fiery rage and cold exterior she was trying to maintain. “You could do what?”
“Call Christy-Anne back. Take her on as a client.” He shrugged and typed something into his laptop.
Lucille considered it. On one hand, she didn’t want to seem like she needed the help. She didn’t. She’d been dealing with Christy-Anne for years and could handle her. On the other hand, not dealing with Christy-Anne anymore would be a dream come true. It would free up her time to take on the less profitable but far more interesting clients. “Think you’re up to it?”
Noah laughed. “I’ve been hanging around you, haven’t I? How hard can managing one nutty celebrity be?”
She bristled. “Don’t you dare compare me to Christy-Anne.”
He stopped laughing and looked surprised. “I wasn’t. I meant you are the queen, no, the empress of delivering crushing blows without a word. Working with someone like Christy-Anne will be a walk in the park.”
She narrowed her eyes. Noah’s words were causing the warmth to spread. He thought she was the master of the crushing look. Which meant he’d been crushed by her. Which meant he had some feelings for her, some emotions to be crushed. Interesting. No one had ever paid her such a high compliment.
She didn’t tell him that. “Since you seem determined to have a productivity comparison, what have you been working on besides staring around wide-eyed?”
She was prepared for Noah to look chastised. She was prepared for him to argue or try to explain himself. She wasn’t prepared for him to cross the aisle in a quick step and slide into the seat next to her. She didn’t even have time to reflexively move away from him, leaving their arms pressed together on the shared armrest.
Noah looked down at his laptop, his face turned from hers, not appearing to notice how much touching they were doing. “I’ve been doing some research on Lauren Cunningham, which is the name she’s still going by, if the hotel registry is correct.”
“You hacked into the hotel registry?” Lucille asked, impressed.
He shook his head. “No, JP did. Have you noticed the man’s moral code basically goes out the window when his friends are in trouble?”
“Yes, it’s one of the great things about JP.”
Noah smiled. “I found an article about Stanton Enterprises dropping Brett and the cancelation of the second movie in the series, but it doesn’t mention his agent. Then there’s this other article that includes a statement from Lauren Fontile, but it’s a generic spin, nothing there. The embezzlement scandal was buried and buried deep.”
Lucille found herself examining Noah’s profile. He had a great profile, his features smooth and beautifully proportioned, all the way down to the dark scruffiness of his unshaven chin. He wouldn’t have forgotten to shave, not when his hair was swooped to perfection. So, he’d left the scruff there intentionally, perhaps to add a little roguishness to his appearance?
Whatever his reason, it was working, damn him.
“After Brett’s contract ended, she mostly disappeared. She popped up here and there in society pages, always as an unknown engaged to someone rich and famous. She seems to have gone through a few husbands before the late Lord Cunningham.”
“Nothing about what happened to her husbands?” Lucille asked. She had to admit, she was intrigued. Not so much about Lauren Cunningham going after Brett, but about the woman herself.
“Nothing.”
Before she could stop herself, she said, “You’re good at this.”
He turned his head, frowning, his face close to hers. “At researching? I hope so. I was a PI for years and both my parents are teachers.”
“I meant the whole celebrity spin doctor job. You’re good at it.”
A smile replaced his frown. “Was that a compliment?”
Lucille rolled her eyes. Then she pressed her lips together, not to keep herself from kissing him, but to keep herself from asking more questions, from showing interest in his life. But...she wanted to know. She wanted to be interested. “How did you go from a house full of teachers to being a private investigator?”
He chuckled. “Kinda weird, huh? I’d like to say it’s a long story, but it’s not. I didn’t want to teach, dropped out of college, ran into this PI on a case, and convinced him to teach me the ropes. That’s about it. As it turned out, I was good at finding dirt on people.”
She wanted to tell him how shitty his storytelling was and how his casual recitation had raised so many more questions than it answered. But she didn’t get the chance to say anything as the plane chose that moment to land on Reef Island.
****
A few minutes later, Lucille strolled into the resort lobby, wearing huge white sunglasses and a large hat, followed by Noah. Another thing JP had found for them was Michel and Brett’s room number. They also knew Lauren Cunningham’s room, but Lucille wanted to assure herself her friends were safe before taking on Brett’s nemesis.
A decidedly dejected Michel in a hotel bathrobe opened the door when they knocked. “Lucille? Noah? What are you doing here?”
“I texted Brett to tell you we were coming,” Lucille said, impatient to get on with the more pressing questions—where was the former Lady Cunningham at that moment and what was she up to.
Michel stepped back from the door and let them in. “Brett doesn’t tell me anything anymore,” Michel said, his voice heartbreakingly sad. His appearance, normally so groomed, was disheveled in a gorgeous way. It was the thing about Michel. Even when he was trying not to care how he looked, he looked amazing.
“What do you mean Brett doesn’t tell you anything?” Noah asked, going on to ask the question Lucille didn’t know if she could bring herself to say aloud. “He’s not...dead, is he?”
This snapped Michel out of his melancholic state. “What? No, Brett’s not dead. Why would he be dead?”
“Because there’s someone on this island, his former agent actually, who wants revenge on him. She brought his sisters here and we have no idea what she’ll do next,” Lucille said, her voice as clear and steady as she could make it.
Michel’s face constricted even more. “Another thing Brett kept from me.”
Lucille wanted to roll her eyes. Beside her, she heard Noah let out a long, exasperated sigh. She understood the sentiment. When Michel got going, he gave it his all. A juvenile part of her brain made a sex joke out of it. She ignored it. “And you can tell him that later. Right now, we need calm and collected Michel, okay? Not sad-bathrobe-wearing Michel. You do care about Brett, don’t you? Even though you seem to be on the outs?”
“Of course, I do. I love Brett,” said Michel with all the passion of an award acceptance speech.
“Good. Now get dressed. We have to find him before she does.”
Two minutes later, they were out the door, jogging down the hallway, with no idea where Brett might be.