Kiss the Girl (54 page)

She snagged
a
fresh glass of champagne from a passing waiter and arranged herself in the open doorway.  If
Nixie
was even remotely
on task
,
s
he’d
come
.  If
she wasn’t, well, Sloan
had a lovely view of the entire room
.  She’d find them.

But no.  Not necessary.  Here
t
he
y
came now,
James
scissoring through the crowd, Nixie bobbing in his wake like an unhappy little boat.  An ugly
flush
rode high on his sharp cheek bones
and that pretty
mouth
of his
was clamped into
a
tight, determined
line.  Sloan
smoothed her face into the customary almost-expression her public expected
, sipped her champagne and
let them come to her
.
  Supplicants to her queen.  A nasty little burble of self-disgust mingled in her stomach with the champagne, but it would settle.  It always did.
 

“Well, Nixie and
James
,” she said when they’d
stopped in front of her.  Completely off the mark, too.  No way to get everybody in the picture from there.  Christ. 
Maybe
James
was an amateur but she expected more from Nixie. 
She sighed and crossed to the other side of the doorframe, lounged there.  Better composition
for the photos.  “What a surprise.”
 

“
Sloan
.” 
James
bent a
dimpled smile on Sloan
, but s
omething
hard
and ugly burned in his eyes as he said,
“Good to see you again
.” 

She inclined her head then turned back to Nixie.  “Your dress is fabulous,” she said.  “
Bagdley
Mischka
?”

“Good eye.”  Nixie
gave her a tense smile, then
edged
in front of her date, as if by putting him behind her shoulder she could forget he was even there.
  She lowered her voice and leaned in.
  “Listen, Mom.  I’ve changed my mind, all right? 
We’re not doing this
.”

“
Doing
what, baby?”
  She spoke to Nixie, but let her eyes linger on
James
.  Let them sparkle with scorn and just a hint of sexual knowledge.  Of power.  He wanted her.  Men did.  Even when they hated her, they wanted her.  It photographed very well.

“
This
,” Nixie said, twirling a finger between the three of them.  Her face was very white, the freckles on her nose standing out like splattered ink.  “Selling our family for the greater good.  No good is this great, Mom.  It’s not worth it.”

“Not worth it?”  Sloan stared, nearly choking on the sudden rush of rage lodged in her throat.  She’d spent half her life now trying to pay off the cosmic debt she’d incurred when she’d
let Archer love her, let him give her a beautiful baby.  How could she have known that baby would grow into a woman who would judge her for paying the very debt responsible for her existence? 

Sloan forced a tinkling laugh.  “I’m sorry, I must have missed the part where
you
paid for anything.  But don’t mind me.  I have a particular gift for doing the, ah, dirty work.”

Nixie flinched like the words had been a slap.  “I never asked you to
--”

“Of course you didn’t.  You’re the messiah, Nixie.  The chosen one.  How does Karl always put it?  The Princess Diana to my Angelina Jolie?  You’re special and pure.  Other people were more than willing to ask on your behalf.”  Sloan felt nasty.  Ugly.  She didn’t know where the words were coming from, the venom.  But she was spilling it all over Nixie and for what?  For having the gall to point out that she herself had never sunk to the point of fucking other people’s boyfriends for the cause of the week? 

“That’s not fair.”  Nixie’s lips hardly moved, and her pupils
all but
eclipsed her irises. 

“Fair. 
Pah
.”  Sloan waved a dismissive hand, finished up with a
flick of one careless finger over
the curve of Nixie’s cheek.  “But don’t worry, baby.  Mama’s here.  I’ll take care of everything.”  She turned her attention to
James
, but Nixie’s hand landed on her arm, icy cold against her skin.  Sloan blinked at the shock of it. 

“No.”  Nixie’s fingers dug in, the first hin
t of genuine emotion heating that tattle-tale complexion they shared
.  “Mom, I’m begging you.  If you love me, don’t do this.  Please.”

It had never occurred to Nixie, not until those shocking, unplanned words hung in the air between them, that Sloan might not love her.  She’d always just assumed.  Under all the bad behavior
and righteous conviction
, surely her mother harbored some kernel of affection for the child she’d cradled in
her womb.
The child she’d pushed out into the world and taken the trouble to keep relatively close at hand for the next twenty-eight years. 

Sloan’s
face
flushed, then went bloodless as she turned
deliberately
away from Nixie.  She looked instead at
James
.  And in that endless moment,
Nixie
realized the truth. 

She
had assumed too much.

The
knowledge
thudded home, directly into the vacuum at her center.  It drove the breath from her lungs and everything in her vib
rated with the aftershock
.  Her brain clicked and chugged but simply
refused
to process this final insult. 

That’s three, she thought a bit wildly.  First Erik, then Karl, now Sloan.  Three chances to love me, three
no thank
yous
in varying shades of politeness.  Three strikes.  You’re out. 

But,
miracle of miracles, she was still standing.  Okay, her knees were locked and she couldn’t feel a damn thing, but standing was standing.  She wasn’t on her knees.  She wasn’t dissolved in pitiful tears.  Possibly it was because she couldn’t move, but whatever.  Maybe she was frozen but she wasn’t goddamn
broken
.  Not yet. 

And if the old wives tale about shitty things coming in threes held true--please
God
let it hold true--then she was safe.  She’d paid her cosmic tab and was, for the moment anyway, free and clear.

She pressed her palm to that urgent and expanding
pressure
behind her ribs--so strange--and turned
to watch
the farce about to play out between
James
and Sloan. 
       

“What are you doing here,
James
?”
Sloan
asked
, in full-on
,
sultry, never-
gonna
-get-this-back mode
.  “Daddy trying to rehab your image?”

“I suppose you of all people would recognize an image overhaul in progress.” 

Sloan
let that pass.  She
arranged a curl in front of her shoulder and sipped at the champagne in her hand. 

“
That being the case,
I’m willing to be guided,”
James
told her.

Sloan cut a look at Nixie, which she returned without expression.  Without curiosity. 

“
Nixie’s a bit shaky tonight,”
Sloan
said
.  “We’ll have to
take the lead
.  Are you up for a bit of high drama?”

His eyes glittered with
the same
bitter fatalism
as Sloan’s
.  “Ready when you are.”

Sloan didn’t
hesitate
.
 
“You ass,” she said, in a
calm, ringing tone that cut off the background chatter at the knees.
  A hush dropped over the crowd and every face
--and every camera--
turned toward the scene Sloan was staging.
 
“You unspeakably crude
ass
.
 
How dare you
show your face here?
”  She emptied her champagne glass onto his tuxedo shirt with a
careless
flip of the wrist.

James
jumped back
, dripping, but pitched his voice into the carrying range as well
.  “Jesus, Sloan.  Always with the drama.  Grow the fuck up, why don’t you?
”

Sloan
dismissed him with a
toss
of
her head and rounded on Nixie. 
“And you,” s
he said
.  “Why, you ungrateful little bitch.  You’re welcome to him.”

Nixie, her back to the room,
didn’t move.  Didn’t speak.  Certainly didn’t chime in with her lines.  She
simply watched Sloan with a
numb fascination.  She’d always known her mother was an actor, but she’d never realized the extent of her talent.
  Never realized before that she was in character every single minute of every single day.
  She was magnificent.

Sloan leaned in, put her mouth very close to Nixie’s ear and said, “
I’m lobbing you a softball here, Nixie.  I’m the slutty temptress who took advantage of a generally good man in a moment of weakness.
  Defend him.
”
  Her lips curved in her trademark smirk
as she leaned back
.  “
You’ll want to use your outside voice
.”
 

Nixie stared at her, bemused.  Sloan arched her brows
at the continued silence
.  “
Those
kids
need
th
e
money
, Nixie
. 
Now, as
James
would say, grow the fuck up and earn it.”