Roxy gave another satisfied smile, happy that she’d gotten a rise out of me. I shoved back my chair and stood. I was about to tell her to go fuck herself, but the sudden gasps and murmurs around the room forestalled me. In the reception area, one of the men had grabbed Jack by his jacket lapels and pulled him in close, so they were nose to nose, staring each other down.
“Better go save Loverboy,” Roxy told me with a smirk.
I didn’t spare her a backward glance. There had been a reason Roxy got on so well with my sister, and I’d been a fool to forget it.
“The fuck you doin’ here, Jacopo?” I heard the man demanding as I hurried over.
For perhaps the first time, I saw his darker side. Jack had told me himself that he wasn’t a good guy. I could see it now, the intent to do harm shining through his eyes.
“Hey,” I said sharply, coming to a halt next to them. I glanced around for help, but the manager and receptionist were nowhere to be seen. No other staff members were around, either.
Jack’s eyes slid sideways toward me for a second, and he made a sharp hand movement, shooing me away.
I ignored it. “Let him go,” I snapped at the man, who hadn’t even bothered glancing at me.
To my surprise, he did, but it wasn’t because of my demands. The chatter in the room had risen audibly, along with a sense of anticipation.
Something was happening. Something…big. Something even more interesting than a potential fistfight in the reception of Chateau de la Lune.
Behind Jack, from the doorway that led out to the pool area, Chris Booker appeared again. “Miller,” he called.
Fuck. This was just what Ididn’tneed. I liked Chris, but now was definitely not the time. I put up a hand to slow him down, but it had the opposite effect. He sped up. “Miller,” he repeated urgently.
And all around me, weirdly, I could hear my name being repeated. Whispered.
Miller Beaumont.
That’s Miller Beaumont, right over there.
Heads were turning toward me, and more than one person was doing the unthinkable in Chateau de la Lune: holding up their phones toward me, unmistakablyfilmingme.
When I was a kid actor and a big star, I’d had a regular nightmare. I was on set, but I’d forgotten my lines—and when I started to apologize, only then did I realize I’d forgotten my clothes, too. Everyone was staring at me. Everyone laughed. This situation was starting to feel a little like that, except that no one was laughing at me. They were just…
Staring. Staring and whispering.
I took a step toward Jack, who had just received a text and was reading it with a grim face. He looked at me and opened his mouth to speak, but Chris Booker had reached me and slung an arm around my shoulders.
“Hey, come with me,” Chris said, trying to lead me away. “Come on, now—”
I shrugged out of his embrace without even looking at him. I couldn’t take my eyes off Jack. “What’s going on?” I demanded. “JJ? What is it?”
“I’m so sorry, Miller,” called a woman nearby. When I turned toward her, her eyes were big and round, her hand over her mouth.
This timeJack’sarm went around my shoulders. “Come with me,” he said in my ear. He sounded tender, as tender as he had in the dark last night.
But I pushed him away. “What the fuck is going on?” The four men, whoever they were, had disappeared. So had Roxy. But everyone else in the foyer and in the lounge beyond was staring right at me, and the whispering had died away.
The only sound now was the inoffensive classical string covers of modern pop songs that they always had pumping through the overhead speakers here at the Chateau.
“JJ,” I demanded, pulling free again, “what the fuck is going on?”
“It’s your sister,” he murmured. “Miller, please, come with me, I’ll tell you—”
“Whataboutmy sister? What is it?” I turned to Chris, stabbing a finger at him. “You—tell me. What is it?”
Chris swallowed. “Oh, man. I’m so sorry. They’re saying…they found her body.”
There was no oxygen left in the world, or maybe my lungs had frozen in my chest. Or was I drowning? Whatever it was, I couldn’t breathe. Jack’s arms went around me just as my head started spinning.
