Chapter Three
Adam sat on stage, his eyes wide and the audience forgotten as he attempted to process what the guy in the blue LunarCon tee was saying to him.
“What do you mean Miss Long’s not here?”
She had to be here. He’d made plans, dammit. Plans that’d involved him making calls instead of getting his agent to take care of it. He twisted his wrist to glance at his watch. Shit, Jacob would land any minute, if he hadn’t already. Jenna needed to be here.
“No, seriously.” He growled before he remembered his mic was live and yanked it away from his chin as if it shocked him, dropping it across his thigh. The thud and squeal of feedback echoed through the entire audio system. Both Adam and the audience winced. But he couldn’t think about them right then.
“Please tell me you’re kidding.” His voice creaked like an old wooden porch as he pleaded with the guy who leaned against the stage, four feet below where Adam sat perched on a director’s chair.
His mind shied away from having to tell his friend not only had he spent a small fortune on a private investigator to track down the woman of Jacob’s wet dreams - based solely on the basic info he’d flirted out of LunarCon New Zealand’s attendee coordinator - but that he’d found her, only to lose her again. Adam shuddered and ran a palm over his face. It’d take a braver man than him to be the bearer of that news.
No, Jenna needed to be here.
The guy shifted from foot to foot, giving Adam the I’m about to piss off the star but I can’t tell him what he wants to hear look. He’d seen it too many times not to recognize it for what it was.
Fuck, she really wasn’t here. And the thought of Jacob’s face when he saw Jenna in front of him was all that’d been making this panel survivable. So what if he was a big red squishy-hearted romantic. There were worse things in life to be.
Adam held the guy’s gaze for a beat longer than necessary. Not out of sadistic amusement or anger, but because it paid to have at least one staff member who’d spread the word that Adam Chase wasn’t to be messed with. It’d given him a rep as a diva early on in his career but it was a status quo with advantages.
At his sharp nod, the guy scurried away, up the blue-flecked carpeted aisle to the double doors in the back of the auditorium. The natives, though patient while the obviously-important message was delivered, were getting restless. Murmurs and shuffling had become a din of discontent which reminded Adam he still had to offer it up for another forty minutes. He genuinely loved his fans, but how many times did he have to say who’s up for an adventure before they stopped asking? Some days he wished he’d never ad-libbed the damn phrase into Dante’s dialogue.
Adam waited with gentlemanly-patience for the latest gushing fan to find her voice and ask her question, when a flicker of movement tugged at his peripheral vision. The hard knot of disappointment lodged low in his gut unfurled in relief as two women stepped from the hallway, into the deep shadows below the overhang at the back of the auditorium. One was a blond with curves to make a pro-racer salivate; the other was a leggy redhead in a rock tee and painted-on jeans.
He should’ve known she wouldn’t stand Jacob up, even if she wasn’t aware of the plan. She must have been late registering, which explained why the staff guy had no record of her arrival. Melbourne traffic was abysmal on a good day, but with the convention in town, crazy wasn’t the word for it.
Adam gave his watch a surreptitious glance as the two women moved with hurried grace down the aisle toward their VIP seats, before returning his attention to the thousand-strong crowd. Somehow, finishing out the panel didn’t seem as arduous a mission as it had a moment ago.
“Umm, hi Adam, I’m Bailey, from Perth.”
“Hi, Bailey from Perth.”
A titter of amusement rippled through the audience and Bailey blushed tomato-red. “I was wondering if you would…?”
Adam resisted the urge to roll his eyes. There were a thousand cameras on him after all. Instead he smirked; knowing the reaction he’d get as he deepened his voice and murmured huskily into the mic. “Hey, Bailey, you up for an adventure?”
Bailey squealed into the mic as a staffer tried to pass it to the next woman in line. “Yes, oh god yes, time and place Adam, you name it, I’ll be there!”
The audience gave a collective swoon amid applause and wolf-whistles. Adam struck a pose and lapped up the attention as he always did. He might make their day by coming to see them, but the reverse was also true. There was nothing better for a guy’s ego than having it stroked by a thousand women over the course of a four-day weekend.
♥♥♥
The auditorium started to clear out the moment Adam Chase ambled off stage with a half-empty water bottle tucked under his arm; but Cait stayed in her seat, hands cradling her digital camera as she browsed the hundred-image slideshow from the panel.
She could feel Jenna at her side, relaxed, patient and not a little exhausted. It was only a two-hour time difference between Auckland and Melbourne, but it was enough to mess you up for the first twelve hours.
“Who’s next?” She asked with a passing curiosity. A close up of Adam’s true-blue eyes, fanned by the sweep of black lashes any woman would sell her soul to possess, filled the view screen of her camera and captured the bulk of her attention.
Jenna adjusted her position in the cramped space, knocked her boot against the chair in front as she crossed her legs, right over left, and scanned the brightly-colored program.
“Savannah Westbrook’s one hour panel.” Cait wasn’t all that keen on Savannah or her rainbow-haired alter ego Raylen Maize – love interest slash nemesis of one Dante Jones. She was about to ask what time the autographs opened, when Jenna said. “Signing’s at two.”
Cait nodded, an amused smirk playing on her lips. It seemed they could anticipate each other’s thoughts outside the world of email too.
“Do you want to get something to eat?” Cait looked up from the reluctant task of packing her camera into its case.
Jenna sipped from the water bottle left over from her flight and shook her head, “I’m good. Shall we stay for Savannah? She was fun in Wellington, although she and Jacob shared the panel.”
Cait laughed and Jenna’s cheeks developed an interesting shade of rose. “Well, if she sucks we can always leave.”
Jenna clutched her jacket to her chest, her blush beginning to fade, even if the memory of seeing Jacob live and in person for the first time still surged hot and thrilling through every inch of her body. “Sure, if you’re brave enough to risk her noticing us, then yeah, we could leave halfway through.”
Cait considered the idea of being hackled at over the sound system in front of a thousand-strong audience and hid her face while she laughed. “Not quite the attention I was hoping to receive.”
“Nor me.” Jenna covered her mouth with one hand in an attempt to stifle her laughter. While Cait, caught in the grip of her own helpless giggles, patted Jenna’s forearm in lieu of actual speech.