Kissed Blind (A Hot Pursuit Novel Book 2) (23 page)

Twenty-Six

Nothing happened. Vance had shown enough restraint and stormed out of the room. I wasn’t going to waste any more time thinking about him and what could have been. Vance and I were going to escort the legendary Oliver and Camille Pierce to an award’s ceremony the next day, and I needed rest if I was going to be at the top of my game. Gabe was gone, and Vance was probably never going to talk to me again. At this point, my job was all I had. I was going to finish this assignment perfectly. I set my alarm for five and fell between the sheets frustrated and hot.

My mind raced, but somehow I fell asleep. I awoke to the sound of my alarm beeping next to my head and dressed for the gym.

Downstairs, I entered the fitness center and found Vance already sitting on a weight bench doing chest presses. We saw each other but said nothing. I hopped on the elliptical machine and ignored him. After forty-five minutes, and a drenching sweat, I found myself alone in the room. I hadn’t heard Vance leave. I still hated him.

In my room, I showered and got into my outfit. The blue iridescent flowers on my jacket had gotten smashed a little in transit but still looked fabulous, even over my gun holster. I zipped into my pants, slipped on my black heels, and headed down for breakfast. I felt like a million bucks. I’d grabbed my schedule for reading material while I ate. A car was supposed to pick us up in an hour.

I was seated at a table by myself and ordered the French toast, a chocolate croissant, and a café mocha. No Cheetos were hanging around, so I decided to put myself in a sugar coma. I reviewed the scheduled line by line and page by page. I repeated the process until I had it memorized. I squared up my bill and walked out front to meet the car.

Vance was already there waiting. I walked up to him and extended my olive branch. “Good morning,” I said, slipping the itinerary into my bag.

“Morning,” he grunted.

If tension had a physical entity, it existed around us.

“Look,” I shouted over the humming exhaust from the tour bus firing up next to us. “We need to put our differences aside for the day.”

He glanced at me first out of the corner of his eye and then turned his head. “I won’t have a problem with that, will you?”

I was glad to see Vance had brought Mr. Passive Aggressive with him, but I wasn’t going to take the bait. “Nope, I was just looking over the schedule at breakfast and have it down. Do you have any last minute things you want to discuss?”

“I think we already covered it. I’ll take the lead on the red carpet and you bring up the ass end—I’m sorry, I mean tail end. The rest we’ll figure out as we walk through the event.”

Great. It was going to be a banner day. I could feel it in my fingers and toes.

A black Mercedes pulled up to the curb, and I recognized the driver from the day prior.

“Miss Cain and Mr. DeLuca,” the tall, slender driver said, rounding the car. “I’ll be taking you to the Pierce residence.” He pulled open the back door. “Shall we?”

“After you, princess,” Vance said, and by the tone in his voice, he wasn’t calling me a princess in his head.

I slid across the seat and soon we were off and driving through the busy streets of Los Angeles. I wasn’t going to pay him any mind. He was as stubborn as I was, if not more. Neither of us would apologize. This was probably going to be the one and only time in my life I’d get to be in the middle of Tinsel Town, and I wasn’t going to miss it because of a sour attitude.

Even though it was early, the streets were already lined with people. We pulled onto a freeway and headed into the hills. I suspected we were going to see some fantastic houses and I couldn’t wait. I’d dream of what life was like on the inside of them. They had to be better than mine.

We pulled up to a gated community and were cleared to enter. We drove into a suburb of wide streets and mansion after mansion. Each house was more fantastic than the next. Some were protected behind giant walls, but I tried to peek at them anyway, and others were smack dab in the center of the most manicured lawns imaginable. Bushes, trees, lights, landscaping—the houses were worthy of awe.

At the end of a windy road, we stopped in front of a set of stone walls separated by a large wooden gate. The driver rolled down his window, pushed a button, and we were buzzed in. A long driveway twisted to the top of a steep hill.

The white stucco house had one large main blue tiled roof in the middle and two smaller sections branching off on either side. The entrance to the house was tucked inside a canopied walkway held up by two large columns. A set of hedges were pruned to look like soft serve ice cream cones. Next to those were beautiful, newly bloomed bright orange and purple lilies. It was a stunning display.

The driver let us out, and we walked across a bricked driveway toward a set of towering frosted glass doors. As we approached them, they opened, and Cici came walking out.

“Hey! Welcome to the Pierce estate! How are you guys?” She stepped in between me and Vance and wrapped her arm around his waist, giving him a side hug, and led us inside.

“Good,” Vance answered. “Looks like it’s going to be a great day as far as the weather goes.”

Vance talking about the weather? Um, okay.
I rolled my eyes.

Cici crossed her hands over her chest. “I know! Mid-seventies and no rain. We couldn’t have asked for better. Sometimes it’s so ungodly hot I practically melt under my gown, but the rain is the absolute worst. It’s going to be perfect.” She shut the door behind us after we stepped inside.

A grand white and black lacquered staircase stood at the center of the space, and the ceiling must have been fifty feet high. I could hear the chatter of several voices coming from above. A spectacular twinkling crystal chandelier was suspended over our heads. The floor was white marble and had a large black crest set into the middle near where we stood. At the center of the crest was an elaborate tiled letter “P.”

A breeze blew through the house, and sheer, white silk curtains blew into the hallway next to us carrying the scent of freshly cut clover. This house was the epitome of what I would imagine the fanciest and most glamorous house in Hollywood to look like.

“Camille is going to be in hair and makeup for a while longer. Lunch is being catered and should arrive around eleven thirty. Oliver might need to step out briefly, but I’m sure you both can handle that. He doesn’t have much more he needs to take care of.”

“I assume he’ll go with more natural makeup for tonight.” I snorted.

“Actually, men wear makeup for the red carpet too. You’d be surprised how hard it is to make him look like he has a natural glow without being made up. I’ve seen some actors walk the carpet almost looking like drag queens. Having a quality team doing you up is worth every penny, so don’t poke fun at him.”

The tips of my ears grew hot, and I tried to shake it off. “Oh, I guess with what happened they’ll try to cover up the bruise under his eye.”

She waved off the thought. “No, no. He’s already prepared a statement that he was injured on set during the filming of his movie. It’ll work in his favor.”

“And what about you? Are you going to disappear soon to get all done up?” Vance asked.

“Me? Well, this Cinderella will be getting herself together shortly. I have this beautiful dress, but not too beautiful. Can’t show up Camille.”

“I can’t wait to see you all dolled up.” He grinned.

I wanted to punch him square in the throat and couldn’t control the gag that left my mouth, but I covered it by following it up with a cough.

“You all right? Sounds like you almost choked on something.” He flashed me a cold smile.

I almost choked on something all right. “Probably just some pollen. You know how sensitive I can be this time of year.”

“Do I?” He guffawed.

My eyes narrowed to tiny slits, and I slapped a smile on my face.

“Um, so, anyway,” Cici interjected. “I’m going to head up and get changed. I’ll be down in a few. Hopefully Camille will be ready on time. Being late to these things is a major hassle and looks bad, you know?” She only looked to Vance for understanding.

“Totally. I can see how that could make your job more stressful. Go and do what you need to do. We’ll be here when you’re ready.”

“Great!” Cici ran up the stairs. “You guys make yourselves at home, please. Have a look around and get comfortable.”

I walked down the hallway of blowing curtains toward a living room. A very practical white sectional couch sat in front of three black framed, glass French doors that looked out onto a beautiful courtyard with an Olympic-sized pool off in the distance. The walls were a deep cornflower blue that coordinated with the scroll tile rug the couch rested on.

I took a seat and picked up a magazine off the table. The featured image on the cover was of Camille in a gorgeous pale jade strapless dress. It was her at the Academy Awards, and she’d made the best dressed list with that number; the Henry Winston diamond choker hadn’t hurt either. No one could have denied she’d looked her best that night. Her platinum locks were pinned back above her ears and showed off her features. Her lips were painted the most perfect shade of fuchsia. The look had been talked about for weeks.

I flipped through the pages while Vance stood at one of the windows behind me. I’d become absorbed in an article about the latest trend in textured nail polish when Oliver entered the room.

“Good morning, all.” He paused and looked at the chunky round faced watch on his wrist. “I need to run out for a second. Diana would you accompany me, and Vance would you mind staying here and watching over things?”

“Sure,” I said, closing the magazine and tossing it back on the table. I stood and smoothed the creases from my pants.

“Maybe I should go, sir, and Diana can stay here,” Vance offered.

I hoped my stare would scald his skin.

“No, I’d rather have you here,” Oliver answered. “Diana, you look even better than I’d imagined.”

I glared back at Vance with a cynical smile as I stepped around the table toward Oliver. “Thank you.”

“Vance, Camille should be upstairs for a while. I’m going to try to be back before she knows I’m gone.”

Vance nodded.

“Diana,” Oliver said. He led me through another wing of the house, through a series of doors, and out into a six car garage. “Which one?”

“What?” I looked at him, confused. At least one of every type of car was parked in a neat row: a Mercedes Jeep, some kind of SUV, a long sedan of some kind, and a few sports cars. “You want me to pick what we’re going to go out in?”

“Absolutely. What would you like?”

I smiled and immediately knew the one I wanted. “That one.” I pointed to an antique-looking silver sportster. It had a diamond finish, and the interior was a rich toffee colored leather. It was like something you’d only see in a movie, so it was an easy choice.

“Great. She’s one of my favorites. Hop in.”

I walked over to the convertible, noticed the steering wheel was on the wrong side of the car, and then went over to what would normally be the driver’s side. Oliver got in and reached across my lap to get into the glove box.

“Here, you’ll want to put this on so your hair doesn’t get messed up.” He handed me a thin scarf. I placed it over my head and tied it under my chin. “There now,” he said with a smile. “You look like you fit right in.”

The garage door opened at the push of a button, and we backed out.

“Where are we headed?” I peeked in the side view mirror and almost didn’t recognize myself.

“My lawyer’s office. I need to pick up some papers.” He turned the radio up, and we pulled through the gates to his house.

As soon as we left his community, a car pulled in behind us. Nothing about it struck me as odd other than it was following too closely.

“We have a tail.” Oliver adjusted his rear view mirror while looking behind us.

“A tail?” I unzipped my jacket and reached for my gun.

He stopped me. “That’s not necessary. It’s just the paparazzi. I knew they’d be on us like glue with the event going on today. I was just hoping I’d at least be able to do this without attention.”

I dropped my hand to my lap but didn’t zip my jacket back up. Pictures of Princess Diana’s crumpled car flashed in my head. That crash that had been caused by an aggressive photographer. I may not have been seasoned in the ways of Hollywood, but I wouldn’t let something like that happen to Oliver when I was at his side.

We drove through a few more residential streets and approached the freeway.

“Hang on,” Oliver said, shifting the car into a higher gear and slamming on the gas.

I was thrust back in my seat, and we zoomed down the road, leaving the car tailing us in our dust. I watched them in my mirror. They tried to keep up for a short time, but Oliver lost them.

“Wow, well done.” I shouted for him to hear me over the wind. My scarf flapped in the breeze, and I tied it in a tighter knot under my chin. “You’ve done that once or twice.”

“Yeah,” he shouted at an equal volume. “I’ve taken a few stunt driving courses for some of my movies. It’s paid off a time or two.”