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when tears try to come. I stand there probably fifteen minutes before I make my way back around to the great room, and the first thing I do when I step into the room is scan for Hunter. I spot him surrounded by a flock of women, missing his jacket and his tie—or rather, cravat—sporting just his vest and shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
My body throbs, and Hunter's gaze flickers over mine—there, then gone without conveying anything.
Then Suri is in front of me, cheeks flushed, eyes bright from wine. "Woman, where were you? Cross almost ruined his cover!"
Cross lives at my mom's house, in my old room. It's a secret. His family disowned him, and Cross doesn't want them to know where he is. His father, Drake Carlson, the governor of California, actually said he didn't care if Cross turned up dead. I wouldn't have believed it, but Cross let me hear the voice mail.
My family has fallen off the social grid, and Mom's in rehab and I live with Suri, so we think he's well hidden. Just in case, Cross and I try to stay away from each other publicly.
“Yeah, I just ran into him.” My eyes widen warily.
"What happened?" she asks.
"Cross freaked out," I say. It's the only thing I can manage. "I guess I should go find him." He'll be at Mom's, alone. At least I think he will be. Cross isn't the type to hit the bars when he's upset, much as he'd like everyone to think the opposite.
Suri agrees to ride home with Adam and loans me Arnold for the night. A butler fetches Mom's worn, white mink and escorts me down the wide, brick walk, to the line of limousines where, years ago, our own driver, Wilson, would have been waiting. The door is opened, and I climb in, feeling weighted.
I lean forward and give Arnold instructions he doesn't really need.
"We’ll be there in forty minutes or less, ma’am," he says.
"Thank you, Arnold."
The divider wall locks into place, and I'm alone under the starry sky, staring out the sunroof, looking for constellations I can't find because we're moving too quickly down the little vineyard road.
A computerized refrigerator offers me a bottle of water and I take it, smirking at the green and blue label: DeVille. This is how my great-grandfather made his fortune. It's good water. Almost as good as West Bourbon, which I find in the liquor console. I take a deep swing, remembering the taste of Hunter West's mouth. I wrap the cravat around my wrist. Wrong or right, I'm keeping it.
I'm ashamed to say my mind is still on Hunter when the limousine slows. Arnold lowers the shield, his face taut as he says, "Miss DeVille, please remain inside the vehicle." The wall goes up, and I feel a weird energy. A kind of darkness.
I'm not sure what compels me to open my door, but as I step into the road, I think some part of me already knows, because my arms and legs weigh two tons each.
My good eye blinks and there is Cross, lying on his side in the damp grass just beside the road. At first glance, it looks like he is simply lying down. His arms are raised over his head in the position he adopts sometimes while sleeping. His legs are scissored, his pretty mouth parted just a little.
I see blood oozing from his lips. The dark spot on the road—that's Cross's blood. His bike, a renovated '73 Norton Commando Mark III Roadster he loves like a person, is smoking in the road beside him.

Chapter Three ~HUNTER~

I can't go back to Love Incorporated. I know I should, to try to jar my memory, but I can't. So we're at Batshit Ranch, a twenty-thousand-square-foot California red roof on my little patch of sand, just outside the Summerlin community. I own ten-thousand acres out here, and besides grazing some cattle, I don't do much with them. Not that I care. Some things should be for enjoyment only, and I enjoy staying at my country place. It's my Vegas home when I need to get away from the bustle of the Wynn.
March and I are in my study, and I'm behind my desk, cradling March's iPad as I scrutinize the chart that my friend and his