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irritated. "You're hitting my emergency channel to tell me where you are?"
    "You need to get your ass down here," Ricki said. "Now."

    Mac stalked into the booth--and froze. Both Ricki Varento and Zachary Marksman were standing across the room by the window, facing away from him, talking in low voices. Damn. He was going to look bad enough just with Ricki after his client pulled a no-show. He couldn't reach Craig; Mac had no idea if he was dead, alive, or too drunk to show up, but whatever the reason, Mac had to deal with the fallout.
    Ricki Varento, also known as the blond barracuda, hated anything that smacked of the amateur. Regardless of what he thought of her artistic integrity, or lack thereof, she was a power in the industry. He hadn't expected Zachary; clients had to pass Ricki first, before lions higher in the corporate food chain came to the feast.
    Bizarrely, neither Ricki nor Zachary realized he had come in. They should have noticed if they were impatient for him and Craig to arrive. They were standing in front of the window, staring down at the studio.
    "He didn't even bring a vid," Ricki was saying. "I don't know anything about his past experience."
    For one stellar moment Mac thought Craig had showed up after all. Relief swept over him; maybe they could salvage this.
    Then he noticed Del wasn't in the booth.
    Oh, hell.
    The booth had two exits. Del couldn't have gone out the way he had come in. Mac would have seen him. Nor could Del have left by the producer's entrance; it was keyed to the fingerprints, retinal scans, even brain waves of the top executives. Only one other way existed to leave the booth: the lift into the studio.
    Mac gulped as he inhaled. Ricki and Zachary both turned with a jerk--and went on guard. Not annoyed or impatient as if they had been left waiting, but careful.
    "Mac!" Ricki gave him a million-watt smile. Combined with her bodysculpted figure and the sweetest face she could buy, framed by gold curls, she was dynamite in her clingy dress. Dynamite, as in one of Prime-Nova's most powerful weapons.
    "It's so good to see you," she said. "Do come in."
    Mac felt as if he were facing a pair of tigers. Right now, a purring Ricki was even more terrifying than Ricki pissed off.
    "Nice to see you," Zachary said, coming forward as he extended his hand. "We should get together more often."
    Mac shook his hand, wondering what neural-meth concoction Zachary had zinged into his brain. They never "got together." They moved in completely different circles; Mac would probably asphyxiate in the rarefied atmosphere where Zachary existed.
    "It's good to see you," Mac said. What the blazes was Del doing? He heard nothing from the studio. His hope stirred. Maybe they had just kicked Del out of the booth. He walked past Ricki to the window and looked down--
    At his nightmare.
    Del was in the studio talking to Greg Tong. The prince had a mike, and his hair was tousled as if he had been wailing one of his songs. Mac wanted to drag Del out of there and tell Prime-Nova that absolutely, under no circumstances, would Del accept a contract. Of course he didn't dare do anything that would draw that much attention. He was in a diplomatic minefield, and if he took a misstep it could blow up in his face.
    He didn't believe Del had deliberately preempted Craig's spot; Del had his share of faults, but Mac had never doubted his integrity. He had probably assumed Ricki was doing what Mac had offered earlier, showing him a holo-vid studio. Zachary's presence no longer surprised Mac; the moment Ricki realized what she had in that studio, she would have called in Prime-Nova's tech-mech king.
    No wonder she and Zachary were so guarded behind their friendly veneers. They wanted Del under contract. It put Mac in an impossible position. If he turned them down without asking Del, he would alienate a Ruby prince, a man who could cripple relations between Earth and Skolia with just a few words to his brother, the Imperator.