RICKI

“Ms. Hamilton. The car is ready.”

I turned toward Jamison, who was standing in the doorway with his usual impeccably bland demeanor, his hands folded. “Do I look all right?” I asked him.

“Stunning as always, Ms. Hamilton,” he said, his voice low and smooth.

“You didn’t even look,” I complained. I gave myself one last glance in the floor-to-ceiling mirror in the two-story foyer. If I’d had my way, I would have had one of Sakura’s designer friends make me something artsy and avant-garde to wear. But if image is everything, then an expensive, big-name designer’s dress was required wear. It was off-white, beaded, classic. If that wasn’t good enough for the paparazzi, then there wasn’t much else I could do. “Where’s Sakura?” Last time I checked, the stylist had been affixing some glass beads in her hair.

“She is already in the car,” Jamison said with a slight bow. That was as close to telling me to hurry as he would ever get. When he’d first taken the butler job with my grandfather he’d gone to finishing school. I wondered if that was where he learned to be so … polite-pushy? pushy-polite? Maybe it was a Cuban thing. He had come to the States when his family fled Castro and at first my grandfather had hired his older brother. Jamison wasn’t his real name: it was the name he’d picked for himself. It suited him. His wavy black hair was slicked close to his scalp and I felt he was a thousand times more polished than I was. He gestured toward the door.

“Fine, fine.” I hurried across the entryway toward the front door, reminding myself not to do anything to dislodge the dress or my coiffure. Members of the staff were bustling about, readying the mansion for tonight. We didn’t host this kind of soiree that often anymore, only a few times a year, not like in my grandfather’s heyday, when the “Governor’s Mansion” was host to a steady stream of Hollywood’s elite. Cy Hamilton, the man they called the “Governor of Hollywood,” had liked to party.

Sarah—Sakura, I mean—was waiting in the limo, looking as perfect as always. Somehow she managed to rock an Asian style without ever coming off like a parody of a geisha or kung-fu movie courtesan. She was half-Japanese and all business when it came to finding the right clothes. Mine just had to look expensive or people would talk. Sakura’s had to look unique and yet tasteful and powerful and creatively artistic all at the same time. I took the seat across from her in the stretch and off we went to pick up her date, then mine.

She grinned. “This is like prom night, only better.”

I shrugged. “The prom night I never had.” Being a Hamilton heiress, I didn’t exactly have the standard American upbringing. “It’s just an awards ceremony, Sarah.”

“Sakura,” she corrected.

“Don’t worry; I’ll get it right when it counts.”

“And don’t rain on my parade. Maybe this is dull and boring for you, but it’s my first time at the Grammy Awards.”

“You went to the Oscars last year,” I pointed out.

“As official arm candy to a total bore. And he wasn’t even a nominee. Axel’s band is up for Best New Artist.” She drummed her toes excitedly on the carpeted floor of the limousine. “Plus I really like him.”

“Like him-like him?” I asked pointedly. This wasn’t the first time Sakura had mentioned this guy. I admit I only knew him from the entertainment trade magazines where he was, admittedly, one of the only rock stars I thought was cute. It might be really good for Sakura’s career to date a rock star.

But she dashed that idea. “Not like that. As a friend, I mean.” She glanced out the window, not that she could see much through the tinting. “He’s really great. A really great guy.”

“Didn’t he start out a client of yours, though?” I was trying not to sound judgmental about it, really I was.

She sighed. “I’m not doing the professional dominatrix thing anymore, Ricki.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“I met him at a photo shoot if you must know,” she said with a sniff.

“The photo shoot where you’re in a latex catsuit with a whip and he’s in a cage?” Of course I’d seen it. After we learned the terms of the will, I found out that the staff regularly scanned all the tabloids looking for anything about BDSM to make sure our family wasn’t being implicated. They regularly showed me anything remotely having to do with kink and pop culture.

She sighed. “Yes, that one. But he is sooooo not a submissive.”

“No?”

“Definitely not. In fact, I’d say he’s a dom but you wouldn’t necessarily guess that from the vanilla supermodel arm candy he’s been seen with.”

“You don’t think he shows his kinky side to the press?”

She clucked her tongue. “You of all people should know most people don’t.”

“Yeah, yeah.” The whole reason my grandfather had built the secret dungeon in our basement had been to give A-list kinksters a private place to meet and spank. Well, and so he could spank them himself, honestly. These days the members were mostly A-list because of their money, though, not their celebrity. We had a lot of presidents and vice presidents of major film studios and entertainment corporations. I know Grandpa Cy had meant well, but I couldn’t help but think my main job was to ensure that these entitled executives could get their knobs polished in the most exotic fashion possible. “Hey, wait a second. Is this all a setup so I’ll consider him for membership?”

Sakura held up her perfectly manicured hands in surrender. “I swear, I didn’t plan it that way. He really has become a good friend, and he asked me to go to the awards, and since I knew you were going, too, I thought it would be a good idea to double date.”

“You haven’t said anything—?”

“Of course I haven’t. Ricki, your secrets are always safe with me. All he knows about you is you’re the Bitch Queen of Hollywood.”

“I am not!”

“You have the worst case of resting bitch face in the state of California.” Sakura framed me between her thumbs and index fingers. “Just sayin’.”

I resisted the urge to fold my arms across my chest, which I knew would only make me bitchier looking. Sakura really didn’t understand how important it was that I not come off as a frivolous airhead or a flirt. Unfortunately the only other stereotype left for women in the popular media seemed to be “ice queen.”

Ice queen had worked for me so far. I had secured a nice job in development at Blue Star that would be a good steppingstone to eventually running CTC. And other than a few “society” photos here and there I had mostly stayed out of the media, because ice queens weren’t actually all that interesting to them. They much preferred the party girls and the fuck-ups, the Paris Hiltons and Lindsay Lohans.

She tried to change the subject. “So tell me about your date. You never told me who you’re taking.”

“You know Milford Randolph?”

“The president of Blue Star Entertainment? Of course I know him! But he’s more than twice your age!”

“Not him. His nephew, Grant.”

“Oh,” she said, much less energetically. I guess she was less impressed with a mere executive at Blue Star Pictures. Or less upset. I had quit trying to figure out Sarah’s moods back when we were college roommates.

“Yes.” I decided not to try to describe him to her. She’d be meeting him in a few minutes, anyway. “He’s a nice enough guy.”

“If you say so,” she said, sounding skeptical, but she didn’t outright contradict me. The only real reason I was going with him was politics, but neither of us was going to say that out loud.

We pulled up to Axel’s hotel. I settled back into my seat and took my phone out of my clutch, expecting we’d be waiting for a while until he came downstairs. But to my surprise, Riggs, my chauffeur, opened the door right away.

Axel Hawke alighted on the seat across from me like a cat hopping onto his favorite perch—lithe, sleekly groomed, and self-possessed. He kissed Sakura on the cheek. He had a diamond-stud earring, a barely tamed coif of blond-streaked hair, and a tuxedo tailored to make it look like his arm and chest muscles were barely contained by the fabric. What looked cute on the magazine page was downright devastatingly good-looking up close. He even smelled good. I found myself suddenly wishing I had worn something more interesting, more of a statement, something that might seem worth his notice, instead of the classic-but-boring dress I was in.

Sakura smiled coyly, as if holding in a gleeful grin at seeing him. He took her hand and kissed the back of it. “Good to see you.”

“You, too, sweetie,” Sakura said. “So this is the ‘playboy’ makeover you were telling me your image consultant wanted?”

“Yeah. Bad boy isn’t good enough anymore, she says. So now I’m a good-bad boy. Or maybe that was a bad-good boy? I don’t know.”

She gave him an approving shrug. “Suits you, anyway. Axel, may I introduce my friend, Ms. Rickanna Hamilton?”

I held out my hand. Instead of looking at it as he took it, he held my gaze. His eyes were agate green. He grasped my fingers with a gentle surety, lifting my knuckles to his lips and saying, “May I call you Ms. Hamilton?” And then planting an intensely warm, suave kiss on the back of my hand. I hadn’t realized my hands had gotten so cold in the air-conditioning of the limo, and the warmth of his mouth seemed to send a wave of heat through me.

“You may,” I answered, a little taken aback by the intensity of his gaze and the fact that he surprised me, asking if he could call me Ms. Hamilton, not Ricki. He had been pointedly polite—and yet the force of his charisma was hitting me like a searchlight. It was too much, I had to push back, had to dim that light somehow and take him down a peg. “So are you really a good boy at heart?”

The light didn’t dim in the slightest. If anything the beam narrowed to point even more directly at me. “Oh no, I’m very definitely a bad boy,” he said, his voice quiet, but firm.

In spite of myself I felt a little shiver go through me at that sound, that tone. Parts of me very suddenly wanted to find out just how wicked he could be. Little fantasies flashed through my head like sunlight coming through patchy clouds: which part of him was the wickedest? His tongue or his fingers or something lower down …?

And then I thought about what Sarah had said. He was a closet dom?

Ugh. The last thing I needed was another spoiled-rotten man in my life bossing me around. And I definitely didn’t need any more BDSM in my life given how hard it was going to be to keep that damn club a secret.

But that didn’t mean I couldn’t have a little fun, did it? She was right. Tonight was for celebrating glitz and glamour, not for showing off resting bitch face. A little flirting would be polite and wouldn’t hurt anybody, as long as I kept my hormones in check. I gave him a little “cat-canary” smile of my own. “In that case, should I call you Axel? Or Mr. Hawke?”

I saw his eyes flick toward Sakura for a moment, as if wondering if she’d told me anything. The intensity in those gray-green eyes ramped up again and it almost felt like he was wrapping me in invisible velvet. “Definitely Mr. Hawke,” he said deliberately, and it was as if with each syllable the invisible velvet wrap grew tighter and tighter around me. Like I was being pulled into his spell.

No. We’re not going there, I reminded myself. Especially not with Sakura sitting right here and my actual date about to get into the car. Time to take things down a notch. I tried to bring the chitchat back to business. “So, Best New Artist nominee? Are we allowed to say ‘good luck’? Or is that bad luck?”

He laughed, a deep, unexpected and genuine laugh, and sat back, resting his hands on his knees. His artfully tousled hair was not as wild or full as a lion’s mane, but he still reminded me of a big cat sitting there, languid but alert. “I have no idea. It’s my first rodeo. The only ‘Superstition’ I know is that old song by Stevie Wonder.”

Sarah began to sing the song, then, and he clapped his hands and snapped his fingers along with her for a few bars, though she only knew a few of the words, and Axel didn’t really know much more. Then they punched each other in the shoulder like playful siblings.

“Oops, careful,” she said, reaching a hand up to make sure the glass beads strung in her hair hadn’t come loose. “Let’s not be rowdy, now.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said with another deep chuckle. I got the feeling when he said “yes, ma’am” he meant the opposite, though. I wondered if Axel Hawke had grown up a troublemaker or what.

We pulled up to the Blue Star building then. Under Randolph they’d swallowed up several of the major studios and record companies. I needed a score card to keep track of who owned who these days. Riggs got out and I expected the door to open, but it didn’t. I peered through the tinted glass: he was standing beside the car, waiting for our last passenger to come out. There was no sign of him just yet.

I turned my attention back to Axel. Let’s see. I was curious if Axel Hawke was a stage name or his real name, but it would be gauche to ask. What could we safely make small talk about?

I settled on, “So where are you from?”

“Everywhere, I guess.” He shrugged. “My dad was a weapons instructor in the Air Force so we moved around a lot when I was a kid. Japan, Texas, Germany, a couple of years in England. Then when I was a teenager my parents split and my mom and I settled in Boston, so I guess that’s the closest thing to an answer to the question. Kind of depends on what you meant by it.”

“Just making conversation,” I said. “Though I guess that explains why I can’t really place your accent.”

“Sometimes when I get really tired I forget to speak English,” he said. “But I only remember a little Japanese, a little German. My bandmates say I need subtitles at times like that.”

That made me chuckle. He sounded so down-to-earth now, so genuine and honest, it only added to his air of self-possession instead of detracting from it. I could see why Sarah liked him. I wondered if the reason they weren’t a couple was because they were both dominant in bed. Maybe he would be a fun addition to the “Governor’s Club.” I had a couple of women on the staff who’d probably enjoy him. He couldn’t have been much older or younger than me, and if I was tired of catering to the annoying, middle-aged and older men who were the majority of the club’s members, I’m sure the gals were even more so. I imagined him moving through the dungeon like a hungry tiger. A hungry, sexy, bad-boy tiger.

“You’re staring, Ms. Hamilton,” Axel said, startling me out of my reverie.

“Oh! Sorry. My thoughts were a million miles away.” Oh thank goodness, I thought. Here comes Grant to distract everyone from the fact I was just staring at a rock star while sort of fantasizing about him.

Riggs opened the door and Grant half-fell into the seat I had left for him. He pulled his legs in and shook himself, holding up a bottle of champagne. For half a second I wondered if he’d been drinking from it, but no, it was still corked, and he wasn’t drunk, merely a klutz. “Whoops, here we are. Hello, I’m Grant. Alex, is it?”

“Axel,” he corrected, shaking Grant’s hand. “Like the long thing that connects two wheels.”

“Sorry?” Grant seemed unprepared to hear an explanation.

“Or an ice skating move,” I added. “The one where you jump-spin in the air.”

“Yes, exactly,” Axel said, with a smile that was like warm sunshine. God, every time he looked at me I felt a thrill, like I was some kind of giddy teenager.

Grant stared at me for a moment, then back at Axel. “I seem to have arrived in the middle of a conversation?”

“Grant, let me introduce my friend Sakura—”

“Charmed, charmed.” He shook her hand vigorously.

“And Axel Hawke, the lead singer of The Rough.”

“Yes, yes, a prestigious award nominee! Well, let’s celebrate.” He opened the bar compartment and popped down the shelf, took out a few champagne flutes, handing them around to each of us before attempting to open the bottle. He wrapped his fist around the cork and pulled. Sakura shied away.

After he had strained at it for a minute or so, Axel said, “May I give it a try?”

“No, no, I’ve got it. It’s just stuck,” Grant insisted.

He strained at it for a while more, until sweat was clearly shining in the hollows of his eyes.

“Give it here, Grant,” I said. He handed the bottle to me.

I handed it to Axel, who took the handkerchief out of his pocket, wrapped it over the cork so it wouldn’t fly loose, and then, while holding the cork still in one fist, twisted the bottle. There was an immediate pop sound, and Axel looked me in the eye as he said wryly, “Happy New Year.”

He poured a glass and handed it to me. I found it hard not to let my fingers linger where they touched his. After handing around champagne to the others, he set the open bottle in the holder in the bar shelf that was intended for the purpose. We each took a sip.

Then Axel spoke to me as if continuing a conversation, which I guess he was. “We’re up against some stiff competition tonight. Jamie Goode is incredibly talented. Kaptain Krunk are so unique, totally original. I’m a big fan of Duwanna, too.”

“May the best band win, then,” I said, and clinked glasses with him. “Though I still hope it’s you who gets it.”

He bowed his head slightly, averting those moss-green eyes and then looking at me again. “Thank you. But why?”

Because you’re a sexy beast and I’d better content myself with rooting for you since I know I can never actually have you. “Because I know you, and I don’t know any of the others,” I said, drawing a circle around the four of us with my index finger. Was I that desperate to create some kind of a connection between him and me? Yes. But I wanted a safe connection. “You’re our Grammy nominee now.”

The look in his eyes said he wanted a connection with me, too, and not a “safe” one at all. My hormones were making me dizzy. But I patted Grant on the arm and felt Axel back off. He shifted his weight back slightly, and he looked at Sakura instead of at me.

“How’s the champagne? Is it good?” Grant asked, then continued on without waiting for an answer. “It should be. I stole it out of the caterers’ stash where they’re setting up for my uncle’s after-party. It’s not like he’ll miss it.”

Both Sakura and Axel murmured that it was good. All champagne tasted pretty much the same to me, more like bubbles than like wine.

“It’ll go flat, you know, so we better drink up,” Grant said, waving the bottle. He drained his own glass and then set to filling them again.

“I’ve got plenty, Grant,” I told him.

“Come on, it’ll go flat,” he insisted, as if I might not have heard him the first time. “Drink up.”

If there was one thing I had learned to do, it was to humor a man when he was in his cups. I was getting an inkling that Grant was not exactly Prince Charming, but better the devil you know than the one you don’t, right? I resolutely took a very small sip and Grant splashed a tiny splash into the top of my glass to replenish it.

We were in line with the other limos waiting to pull up to the red carpet for a good thirty minutes, maybe longer, which gave Grant plenty of time to harangue me to drink more. I continued to take tiny sips and he continued to drain his glass and then fill it all the way again.

By the time the door opened, the bottle was empty. Grant stuck it upside down into the bottle well in the shelf with great ceremony. “Ta-da,” he declared solemnly.

I caught Axel’s eye suddenly. His expression was half sympathy that my date was now this boorish drunk and half disdain for him. At least I hoped the sympathy was for me and the disdain for Grant—my heart sank. Even though I kept telling myself I should steer clear of Axel Hawke, the last thing I wanted was for him to think I was anything like Grant Randolph. Spoiled, drunk, pushy, and an idiot. Maybe Grant wasn’t the best choice to be photographed with after all, I thought, even if the Blue Star PR department would have liked that.

A moment later a greeter opened the back door of the limo so we could exit, and Grant sped out like a kid off the monorail, throwing his arms wide as he blew kisses to no one in particular, then tripping over his own feet and landing face-first.

The rest of us could not really keep from laughing at that. It was simply too comical. Sakura and I both hid our faces from the open doorway with our hands. “Omigod,” she said. I could hear some cameras clicking and when I dared to peek I could see Grant was still facedown.

“I think my image consultant would say wait a minute before we get out,” Axel said.

Riggs, good old Riggs, was helping Grant to get up, then. Riggs was not a small man, a former bouncer as well as a former college linebacker, so Grant really had no choice about the matter.

“Ugh. You guys go. I’ll stay in the car and come in the side entrance,” I said.

“Don’t be silly,” Sakura said. “Look, Riggs is dragging him off to the side now. There’s quite a distance to go before we hit the actual public area of the carpet, you know. Let’s just waltz along, the three of us, before anyone really notices we were supposed to be with him.”

“Won’t it look odd that I don’t have a date, though?” I asked.

“No, because you’re each going to take one of my arms,” Axel said. “That is, if you’re okay with helping me play the playboy, Ms. Hamilton.”

“Are you sure you want to do that?” I asked, though I was really asking myself whether I was ready to go through with that.

“It’ll be fun,” Sakura prodded.

Everyone wanted to be out of that limo by then; the handler was peering in trying to figure out what was taking so long, and I really wanted to be away from the cameras before Grant caught up with us. I had a sudden panic that the Blue Star PR department might blame me if the two of us—Blue Star’s favorite son and their newest hot hire—were photographed with Grant puking onto my off-white dress. “Oh, all right. Let’s go.”

We joined a queue of others in a staging area, while production assistants managed the line and took names and checked credentials.

Finally it was time to step out into the spotlight, though. An usher gave me a hand around the rope, while shutters snapped wildly. Axel followed, provoking shrieks from the spectators. He’d donned dark sunglasses, which made him look more like a killer in a Hong Kong film than a rock star to me, and he held his hand out for Sakura to take.

As she glued herself to his hip, he slipped his arm around my waist and pulled me snug against his other side. To keep my balance, my hand landed on his stomach. Wow. The tuxedo was hiding how muscled he was, how strong his arms were.

With the two of us attached, Axel made his way through the gauntlet of news cameras, pausing for a few quick interviews. The lights were very bright and I marveled at how he didn’t flinch when someone held a microphone right up to his mouth.

“Axel Hawke, so glad we could catch you. The Rough is the hottest new act.”

“Thank you,” he said with an all-teeth smile.

“We heard that ‘The Rough’ wasn’t the first name of the band?”

“Oh, definitely not. We tried a bunch of things before we agreed on that. I kind of liked Bandit, but there used to be a band called that. My next suggestion was Ass Bandit, but our manager didn’t think that one would fly.”

Sakura was trying hard not to laugh out loud.

“Is it true you were homeless as a teenager?”

Axel did laugh briefly, as he joked, “No, I just looked like a homeless teenager in our early photo shoots.” Then he spoke more seriously, almost vehemently. “Don’t disrespect the actual youth out there trying to survive by comparing it to my situation. Being a runaway is no joke and I’m grateful to everyone who has helped me get where I am today.”

A little farther down we were stopped by another one who asked, “‘Kidnap My Heart’ is at number one in three countries now. What will the follow-up single be?”

“Oh, you’d have to ask the record company but my guess is either ‘Razor Sharp’ or ‘Knockout.’ ”

I wondered if any of these sound bites were going to make it to air. I just smiled and appreciated how deftly he was able to handle so many different questions in such a short space of time. As soon as he had passed the last interviewer, he let go of Sakura for a moment, whipped off the sunglasses, and tossed them like a Frisbee into the delirious crowd. As we turned to go up the steps into the theater, though, I lost my footing and nearly fell.

That iron-strong arm around my waist kept me from going down and probably saved me a sprained ankle in the process. The heel had broken clear off one of my shoes, as we could all see when Sakura snatched it off my foot and held it up with distaste. “Oh for the love of … and these heels cost more than that bottle of champagne, I bet.”

Axel still had not let go of me. He glanced back the way we had come, where I could hear a raised voice I feared was Grant’s.

Axel cleared his throat. “If you’ll allow me, Ms. Hamilton?” He picked me up before I quite realized that was what he was asking for. He didn’t seem like that big a man, but I had already felt the steel strength of one arm—now it was two, one under my knees, one behind my back. With the whiteness of my dress and the blackness of his tuxedo contrasting, we looked almost like newlyweds crossing a threshold. I put my arms around his neck like I couldn’t help myself.

In fact, I couldn’t.

I laughed as he carried me the rest of the way, Sakura following behind twirling the dead shoe. “My hero,” I said.

He just made a hum of agreement, almost a purr, and I might have tightened my grip around his neck when he did. I wanted to bury my nose in his collar and just breathe his scent and imagine he was carrying me somewhere dark and private to do bad-boy things to me. Enjoy it while you can, I told myself.

Once we were well inside the lobby, where a massive pre-event reception was taking place, Sakura took my other shoe, too, and Axel set me gently onto my stocking feet. “Surely you can’t be the first person this has ever happened to,” he said, looking around, then waving to someone.

A woman of some Asian American extraction hurried over to us and gave him a quick hug. “Ah, you made it! Good.”

Axel introduced her to me and Sakura as his manager, Christina Pempengco, and she gushed at us for a few moments, then said, “What size shoe do you wear?”

“I’m a seven and a half, why?”

“Wait right here. I have shoes for you.”

“Wha—?”

Axel laughed as Christina rushed away into the crowd. He also waved off a caterer coming toward us with a tray of full champagne flutes before the guy even had a chance to get near. “Christina is a high-energy problem solver, which is why she’s a great manager,” he explained. “It doesn’t even have to be her problem and she’ll still solve it.”

We stayed where we were, my shoeless feet hidden by the fact that without my towering high heels, my dress now dragged on the floor. Axel eventually corralled some non-alcoholic drinks into our hands and ensured a steady stream of catered hors d’oeuvres flowed past us.

“I swear, it’s like he has magic eye contact,” Sakura whispered to me at one point.

I know what you mean, I thought.

“There’s Mal,” Axel said. “He’s the one over there who looks like he waltzed out of a vampire flick.”

I couldn’t see who he meant, since without heels I couldn’t see over most of the people in the crowd. But then a tall man with long black hair joined us. He and Axel hugged like brothers and the man gave Axel an up-and-down look. “What’s the expression? You cleaned up nice.”

“Mal, meet Ricki Hamilton, and of course you already know Sakura.”

“Charmed, I’m sure,” Mal said. He had a deep voice and a mildly British accent, and his tuxedo was subtly piped with silver and green. “Have you seen Chino? I seem to have lost both him and our dates.”

“No. You’re the tall one,” Axel chided. “What do you see from up there?”

“Ah. There he is.” Mal waved to someone else, and a moment later a shorter man with black spiky hair and a woman on each arm came up to us. He was grinning from ear to ear, but before I could be properly introduced to him or the women, Christina dashed back.

In her hands she had a pair of pumps miraculously almost the same color as my dress. “Here, try these.”

I slipped them on. They weren’t quite as tall as my previous shoes, and they were slightly too small, but they would do to get me to and from my seat. “Excellent. Thank you.”

“No problem. It’s so awesome to meet you, by the way. I’m the treasurer of AWESM, the Association of Women in Entertainment Studios and Media, and I wanted to thank you for your generous donation!”

“My pleasure,” I said. “It’s a valuable organization.”

“Have you heard about the fashion show we’re doing before Valentine’s Day? We’ll have VIP seating for our top donors! You probably have an invite in your mail!”

I smiled at her. “I’ll look for it, I’m sure.” Sakura had been mentioning the show, too: some of her designer pals were showing in it. Paul, my assistant, probably had the invitation in a file of low-priority things for me to look at.

“Now, Axel, I’m trying to find Errold Rothschild so you can make a good impression on him.”

“Remind me who that is?” Axel asked with a skeptical look on his face.

Christina rolled her eyes. “The head of the UK division? I want him to be impressed by how fantastic you all look.” She gave me a quick smile. I got the impression she was happy Axel might be seen with me. Interesting.

She dashed off again to find the record company executive but she hadn’t returned by the time the ushers were urging us to go into the auditorium.

By the time we reached our seats I was very ready to disappear into the audience. I’ve never particularly liked being in the spotlight and even though no one was really paying attention to us once we’d left the red carpet, I had felt like everyone was staring at me.

We were in the orchestra section, between twenty and thirty rows back, near the aisle in case Axel’s band won anything and he had to go on stage. There were three empty seats next to us, though, that made me wonder. Grant’s and who else?

I got my answer when two more guys hurried down the aisle together and were enthusiastically greeted by Chino and Axel. Axel introduced them to me and Sakura as “Samson, our keyboard player” and “Ford, bass.” Ford had his blond hair pulled back in a ponytail but shook it free before he sat down. Samson had brown hair, blue eyes, and a quiet smile. They both had firm handshakes even though they looked pretty overwhelmed by the whole setting.

Chino seemed to be the one having the most fun. “Who do you think sat in this seat last time, eh? Madonna? Beyoncé?” He wiggled in his chair. “I’m going to pretend my booty is long-distance time-traveling touching the seat that Beyoncé’s booty touched.”

Mal rolled his eyes. “Honestly.”

But Axel laughed. “How about you, Sakura? Who sat in your chair? You still have that fantasy about David Bowie?”

“Oh, please, he’s like three times my age,” Sakura said, but she blushed a little.

“Mal? How ’bout you?”

Mal gave his friend a dark glare. “Celebrities are the last people I’d want to fuck.”

I teased Axel, then. “What about you? Whose chair do you want?”

Axel drew himself up to his full height. “No, really the question is who wants to sit in my seat.” It felt like sex god vibes were pouring off him in waves.

Or maybe I was the only one who felt that way. The rest of them were used to being around him, I guess. They shrugged it off when a short while later he made everyone get up and change seats, supposedly to make it even easier for the band members to reach the aisle. But I did notice I ended up in the seat he had been in. It was as warm as if he had rested his hand on my back.

The lights went down then for the start of the show and I settled back as the intro music began to play. Fairly early in the ceremony a category came up that included one of the band’s songs and I noticed that Ford held Axel’s hand so tight I thought both of their fingers must be going numb. Alas, the song did not win. Axel patted Ford’s arm and told him that they’d have to hold out for Best New Artist.

And then a short while later the whole band was spirited away by a handler. I gave Sakura a questioning look.

“They’re performing a number,” she explained.

Well, I thought, at least something’ll be worth seeing at this show.