10:01 P.M., PST
“Two hours till midnight!” The Giraffes’ lead singer yelled into the microphone. “Lemme see you people par-tay!” The band went into another hard-pounding tune. From the rooftops of buildings surrounding the circus set, silver confetti rained down on the crowd.
“This is so awesome,” Adam told Anna over the cacophony. “I heard there’s going to be fireworks at midnight. So, would you like to dance again?”
Anna hesitated. Adam was a truly decent guy. But she had a date. A date she hadn’t seen in twenty minutes. Where was Ben?
“I think I’d like to just go find something to drink.”
“I’ll get it for you. What do you want?”
“Flat water with lime would be great.”
He laughed. “It’s New Year’s Eve and you’re not drinking?”
“Not at the moment.”
“Back in a jiff. Don’t move a muscle.” He took off like a man on a mission.
Anna edged her way to the outside of the center ring, still looking for Ben. The party was fun in an over-the-top kind of way, an appropriate follow-up to the over-the-top wedding. It certainly wasn’t the kind of party she’d normally go to. The problem, however, was that she wasn’t really having all that much fun. She and Ben had hardly spent any time alone the entire evening. Wildly attracted to him as she was, she still barely knew him.
She felt the vibration of the cell phone in her little evening purse and plucked it out, holding one finger in her ear to help her hear. “Hello?”
“Anitscyn!”
Anna couldn’t hear at all. “Hold on a minute!” she yelled into the phone, and backed into a small alleyway, partially shielding herself from the band. “Again, please?”
“Anna? It’s Cyn!”
“Cyn!” Hearing her best friend’s voice made her feel better instantly. “Happy New Year!”
“The stroke of midnight was a blast. I wanted to catch you before your witching hour. Are we having fun yet?”
“Well, I’m at a party at Warner Brothers,” Anna replied.
“Really? With?”
“His name is Ben. He goes to Princeton—I met him on the plane.”
“You shameless hussy!” Cyn exclaimed, laughing. “I am so proud of you.”
Anna smiled. “I’m wearing my mental WWCD bracelet. What Would Cyn Do?”
“Speaking of,” Cyn said. “I didn’t. With Scott.”
It took Anna a moment to understand, and then her heart leaped. “No? Maybe … you’re not ready.”
“Ha! Even as we speak, I’m locked in a bathroom at this off-the-hook loft party in SoHo that is showing zero signs of ending. I’m wearing this amazing Betsy Johnson dress and the world’s sexiest underwear. Think how great I’ll look when Scott undresses me by the dawn’s early light.”
To Anna’s dismay, that image still twisted her heart around. She heard a pounding noise over the phone.
“Take a hike, I’m sick in here!” she heard Cyn yell. “Anna? Some asshole is banging on the door. I’d better go.”
Anna held the phone tightly. “I’m so glad you called, Cyn. Have a great time tonight!”
“You too. I miss you insanely. Hey, I hope what’s-his-name turns out to be the guy of your dreams, Anna. You deserve it.”
They said their good-byes, and Anna slipped her phone back into her bag. Everything was so mixed up in her mind. How could she still care whether or not Cyn had sex with Scott? And why was it that when she was with Ben, she didn’t think about Scott at all?
And where the hell was Ben?
Suddenly she felt a tap on her shoulder. “Excuse me, but my friend and I were just saying that you are by far the best-looking woman at this party,” said a bald man with a salt-and-pepper goatee, which gave him the odd appearance of having his head on upside down. He waved toward the crowd to indicate where his “friend” was.
The Cyn-making-out-with-a-middle-aged-guy-whose-name-she-never-got moment flew into Anna’s head. Why couldn’t she do something like that? She damn well could, if she wanted to. She looked Middle-Aged Goatee Man in the eye. And the idea of kissing him made her want to puke.
“Thanks,” Anna said. “I’m flattered.”
“Gerard Maxwell. I’m a producer. Call me Jerry. I’m sure you’ve seen some of my films.”
“I don’t go to the movies all that much,” Anna said politely. She looked over the man’s head, hoping to see Ben in the crowd. No such luck.
“No bullshit,” Jerry said, stroking his goatee. “You got it going on.” His gin-soaked breath wafted in Anna’s direction. It was everything she could do not to wave her hand in front of her face to try to disperse the odor.
“Nice to meet you, Jerry. Excuse me, please.” Anna began to edge past him.
“Wait, wait, just a second. Seriously.”
Anna sighed and turned back to the man. “What?”
“I’m rich,” Jerry announced.
“How nice for you,” Anna said in her frostiest Jane Percy tone. “And now I really have to—”
“I just want to ask you one thing.”
Anna was trying to conjure up a What Would Cyn Do-type “fuck off” when the producer leaned close and asked, “How much?”
Anna had zero idea what he was talking about. “Sorry?”
“For the night. For me and a friend. Together.”
Suddenly Anna understood. And felt like a total idiot for not having caught on sooner. This boor thought she was a hooker.
“Name your price, baby,” Jerry went on, raising his voice. “It’s New Year’s Eve, and I got the money, honey!” He pulled a fistful of bills from his pocket and waved them in Anna’s face. People around them snickered.
For the first time Anna thought how slutty she must look in her ridiculous vinyl leopard pants and heels. What had been so funny and sexy with Ben was now just trashy and embarrassing.
“Come on, baby,” Jerry wheedled. “That other chick told us you were up for anything.”
Anna bristled. “What ‘other chick’?”
“Red curls, body that won’t quit?”
Anna knew instantly. Cammie Sheppard. Cammie had told this walking pond scum that she was a hooker. In the Hustler store outfit she was wearing, she could see how he’d believe it.
Did Cammie really think this would help her get Ben? Or was it personal now, and she just wanted to humiliate Anna one more time? It was all such a massive waste of time and energy. Maybe she should take up tae kwon do, or kickboxing, or something that would allow her to simply kick Cammie’s ass so that the girl would stop playing all these mind games.
Well, no time for that now. She’d have to kick her ass mentally. WWCD?
“Tell you what.” Anna dropped her voice confidentially. “You go tell the girl with the red curls and the body that won’t quit that if she’s in, I’m in. That is, if you can handle both of us.”
Jerry grinned widely. “Now you’re talking.”
“Give her the money. She and I are very … close. What’s mine is hers. If you know what I mean. So, we’ll meet you at”—she racked her brains for the name of a Los Angeles hotel—“the bar at the Century Plaza. At midnight.”
“Oh yeah, baby, I am down with that.” Jerry was practically drooling as he pushed into the crowd to get back to Cammie.
Asshole. Anna hoped some flying Wallenda on the trapeze would swan dive onto the idiot’s head. She took off in the opposite direction but didn’t get more than thirty feet before Sam grabbed her arm.
“Where’s Ben?” Sam demanded. Anna noticed that the charcoal she’d smudged around her eyes was gone.
They both heard Ben’s voice. “Right here.” He edged toward them, three drinks in his hands. “With refreshments.”
“You mean to tell me you left Anna alone all this time?” Sam asked, as if Anna were her very best friend in the world.
“I’m very sorry,” Ben said. “I plan to make up for it. Ready to call it a night?”
Anna snuck a look over her shoulder at Jerry, who’d been joined by a fat friend. They were now working their respective mojos on Cammie at the bar. Excellent. “I’d be happy to call it a night.”
“You’re leaving?” Sam asked, trying to cover her dismay. “It’s not even midnight yet.”
Ben kept his eyes on Anna. “There’s someone I need to see.”
“Funny,” Anna said, staring back at him. “There’s someone I need to see, too.”
“But it’s a party. It’s New Year’s Eve,” Sam insisted.
“Exactly,” Ben said softly. “Anna? There’s someplace I’d like to take you. Someplace special. Okay?”
She nodded. “More than.”
Ben gave Sam a good-night kiss on the cheek and then led Anna back toward the main entrance. Sam watched them depart, knowing there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it. By the time Adam returned with Anna’s flat water with a twist of lime, he found only forlorn-looking Sam.
But Sam rallied and asked Adam to go add whiskey to the water. If she couldn’t have Ben tonight, she might as well drown her sorrows with Adam. Because Sam Sharpe would be damned if she’d spend New Year’s Eve, and the night of her father’s wedding, without a boy to kiss at midnight.