Hot on His Heels (What Happens in Vegas) (3 page)

Despite a bemused expression, the publisher shook Sadie’s hand, then pulled her off to one side of the table. Amelia followed, listening avidly. “As I’m sure you know,” Stone said, “Jocelyn is deeply private. She is indeed here, though. Have you considered reaching out to her via email?”

Sadie’s heart sank, her expression falling to match. “I’ve tried,” she said, her voice glum. “She never responded.”

Stone gestured toward the man Sadie had been doing her very best to avoid—the gorgeous guy from the auditorium this morning.

“This is Jake, my PA,” Stone said. “He probably knows as much about Jocelyn as anyone.” She flicked an oddly sharp glance toward her assistant. “Jake,” she said in a saccharine tone. “Please make a note to tell Jocelyn that I would appreciate it if she would answer her emails more regularly.”

The look Jake shot toward his employer was equal parts amused and exasperated. “I really don’t think Jocelyn is here to socialize,” he said pointedly, aiming his remarks as much at Kamille Stone as Sadie.

“But she is supposed to have a presence at the conference.” Laughter danced in the publisher’s eyes.

Jake shook his head and sighed, but a smile hovered around his lips.

“It would be really good publicity,” Sadie assured him earnestly.

The comment drew his attention back to her, the full force of his gaze knocking her silent for a moment.

He really is beautiful
.

She waited for him to break the silence. Instead, he merely blinked at her, and Sadie realized how long his eyelashes were.

“Oh,” she whispered, “‘the fringed curtains of thine eye advance.’”

“Pardon me?” Jake’s brows drew down in puzzlement.

“It’s a line from Shakespeare.
The Tempest
,” Amelia said, as if that explained everything.

Get it together, Dr. Quinn
, Sadie admonished herself.
You’re here to interview Jocelyn Dellarivier, not rhapsodize over some man’s eyes. No matter how stunning he might be
.

Publicity. That’s where she had been.

“An interview with Jocelyn Dellarivier would be excellent publicity for Intertwined,” she finally managed to spit out.

Jake shook his head a little, as if coming back to himself. “I don’t really think she cares about the publicity.”

Kamille snorted. “But the company might.”

“She always says no to interviews.” His tone had lost the lightness it had before, and Kamille finally shrugged.

“Up to her, I guess,” the publisher said.

“But it would do more than offer advertising.” Sadie leaned in, warming to her subject. “My project is designed to bring an entire new generation of scholars to read romance novels.” She launched into a description of her monograph and its significance in legitimizing romance novels as objects worthy of feminist study within the academic community.

After only a minute or so, Amelia took Sadie by the elbow and pulled her away. “Come on, sweetie,” she said. “Your audience’s eyes are starting to glaze over.”

“Not at all,” Kamille Stone said, but she didn’t encourage Sadie to continue, either. “It was nice meeting you, Professor Quinn,” she said. “I will see what I can do to encourage Jocelyn to communicate with you.”

This time Jake was the one who snorted. “Not likely,” he said dryly. But he watched Sadie as she left, his eyes narrowed in a considering gaze.

“I don’t think they believe they can get Jocelyn to talk to me,” Sadie said to Amelia, craning her head back to watch the Intertwined publisher as they walked away. “It’s all crumbling around me. ‘Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’”

Amelia rolled her eyes as she continued to tug Sadie out of the room. “Percy Bysshe Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias,’ and it doesn’t really suit the situation, you know.”

“But it does. I am about to lose my shot at tenure. That was my last chance.”

“Come on,” Amelia said. “Time to take your mind off your troubles. Let’s go see if we can find out what those Scotsmen have under their kilts.” Placing one hand on her chest, she declaimed, “‘Wherever I wander, wherever I rove / The hills of the Highlands forever I love.’”

For the first time since they had arrived, Sadie’s laughter was completely unforced. “That’s from a Robert Burns poem. And it’s not the hills you love.”

“Maybe not.” Amelia grinned as she tucked her arm into her friend’s and headed back toward the models. “But it’s a start.”

Chapter Three

“I’m pretty sure you’re forgetting the vacation part of this working vacation.” Amelia peered in the mirror as she adjusted first the straps on her sundress and then the angle of her wide-brimmed straw hat.

Sadie didn’t even look up from her computer screen. “You’re insane. It’s burning up outside.”

“Of course it is. It’s a desert.” Amelia stopped at the door. “Sure you don’t want to take a break from finishing that chapter and come with me?”

“No. Maybe tonight, when it cools off a little.” Sadie erased a word and replaced it with a better one. “I’d rather stay here and work on my book.”

“You are such an old lady.” Offsetting the harsh words by blowing a kiss over her shoulder, Amelia checked herself in the mirror one last time, then pulled the door open.

“Drink lots of water,” Sadie called out as her friend stepped out into the hall.

“Yes, Granny.” The words echoed back from the hallway.

Sadie stared at the words on the computer screen in front of her.

Nope. It was no good. She wouldn’t be able to finish this chapter unless she had Jocelyn Dellarivier’s input.

Until
I have Jocelyn’s input
, she corrected herself silently.

In the meantime, though, she could try to track down other editors to get their takes on the issue of feminism in romance novels.

Even though she was convinced that no one would truly get it the way Jocelyn would.

In any case, she could go hang out in the bar and scan name tags until she saw an agent or editor. Or maybe an author Sadie used in her book.

Ugh. She really needed Amelia here to break the ice with people. Sadie knew that she came across as stiff and unfriendly, no matter how hard she tried. Her teaching evaluations almost always included some version of “once she warms up, Professor Quinn is wonderful.”

With a silent curse, she went into the bathroom to tug a brush through her hair, trying to tame it back into a sleek chignon.

More like a scraggly bun
. She stared at it critically.
Oh well
.

Straightening her shoulders, she began the usual pep talk that came with going out alone.

You are a professional adult. You stand up in front of classes to give talks all the time. This is no different. It’s simply discussing things one-on-one instead of in a large group.

How was it that she could be terrified of individual interactions, when giving public presentations topped the list of most people’s fears?

These authors are here to meet readers
, she reminded herself.
They don’t come to a conference to hide from readers.

So why did Jocelyn Dellarivier stay incognito at these things?

From where it was charging beside the computer, Sadie’s phone jingled—the tone she had set to alert her whenever Jocelyn posted something. She almost leaped over the chair to reach it and read the tweet:
Headed to the bar. Drinks with some of my favorite girls!

Well. That felt like karma. Or kismet. She always got those two confused.

Either way, it felt like the universe was giving her a shove to go down to the bar and see what she could figure out about getting interviews from some of these people.

Wrapping her soft gray sweater around her shoulders, Sadie slipped on her flats and headed out the door.

…

The instant he pressed send on his phone, Jake regretted the tweet.

Granted, he had agreed to participate in Kamille’s scheme to make Jocelyn more visible on social media, but he hadn’t planned to limit his own life in the process. He hadn’t actually meant to go to the hotel bar, but now that he had posted it to Twitter, he really did want a drink. Several drinks.

He’d skipped out of a set of panels to work on the book he needed to get back to an author as soon as possible. But now he had been staring at the manuscript for over an hour and hardly managed to make any useful comments at all.

Screw it. He could take a break—go down to the bar, have a drink, relax a little, then come back up and finish his work.

It’s not like anyone knows who I really am. I’m just Kamille’s assistant. No one suspects anything. Why would they?

Of course, if he continued to broadcast all his moves to the world at large, someone might actually figure out who he really was.

Like the professor with the amazing eyes and porcelain skin, whose hands fluttered around her face like delicate birds when the conversation turned to her own academic book.

Yeah. He definitely needed a drink.

Less than five minutes later, he stood in the hall, waiting for the elevator to arrive. When the door opened, he was checking his phone to see how many people had already retweeted Jocelyn’s post.

Over two hundred.

He definitely needed to be careful, or he would get caught. Ian would never forgive him if Jake’s slightly scandalous alter ego torpedoed his run for office. Jake had almost ruined Ian’s first, local campaign years ago by letting it slip in an interview that Ian’s wife had already been pregnant when they married. Jake hadn’t seen a problem with it, but apparently some of Ian’s more conservative constituents did. His brother’s latest campaign was already on the brink, and even the tiniest of scandals would be enough to push it over the edge.

It wasn’t until the elevator doors shut that he felt the change in the atmosphere and realized that someone else was in the elevator, too.

She was so small, so drab at first glance, that she almost blended into the background in the otherwise empty elevator. Until he made eye contact with her.

She might try to hide herself in shapeless dresses and sweaters and by pulling her hair back into a tight bun, but there was no escaping those eyes. They blazed with intelligence, and something more.

This was a woman who played shy, but underneath it all, she radiated a raw sensuality that he guessed few men bothered to discover.

“Hello again,” he said, keeping his voice low.

She nodded but otherwise didn’t respond. Her cheeks flamed a hot red, and he found himself smiling in an attempt to put her at ease.

Why was it suddenly so important to him to get to know this woman?

The one woman who could put everything in jeopardy.

He glanced over at the panel of buttons and realized they were headed to the same floor. “You going to the restaurant or the bar?” he asked, desperately trying to figure out how to get her to talk to him again, even though he knew he shouldn’t. She was on the hunt for Jocelyn Dellarivier and could easily discover Jake’s alter ego and expose him.

“Bar,” she replied shortly, looking away.

If he didn’t act soon, the elevator would reach its destination, and his chance to speak to her alone would be lost, possibly forever.

An image of a scene from the latest Janie Gooding book he was editing flashed through his mind. For the first time ever, he thought that maybe the heroes in the romance novels were more creative than ridiculous.

I can’t believe I’m even considering this. Getting stuck in an elevator is such a cliché. Maybe it works, though. It must be a trope for a reason.

“You meeting friends there?” he asked, sliding around to face her, keeping his back to the panel of buttons.

She frowned at him, but he thought maybe it was more about the question itself than about the way he was inching his way over until his back blocked her view of both the buttons and the hand he was using to feel around until he reached the stop button.

Here goes nothing.

When he pressed the button, he half expected an alarm to sound. Instead, when the car shuddered to a stop in between floors, the woman across from him stumbled, straight into his arms.

He caught her easily, but the unexpected feel of her pressed up against him called every part of him to immediate, almost painful attention.

Suddenly, talking was the last thing on his mind, and from the way her lips softened as she stared up at him with wide eyes, she wasn’t thinking about talking, either.

Slowly, still gazing into her eyes, he lowered his lips toward hers.

…

Right before the elevator threw her into his arms, Sadie had been thinking, “Oh, no. He expects me to talk to him.” For an instant, she was convinced that the dropping of her stomach was dismay at the thought—then she realized that the sensation was actually physical, not psychosomatic, as she slammed into the beautiful man across from her.

She couldn’t help but stare at the sculpted magnificence of his face, even as he leaned down toward her.

He has the most gorgeous bone structure. Classical, really.
It reminded her of some of the statues she’d seen while she was in Greece for a semester abroad.

The abrupt realization that she was staring again, exactly as she had when she landed in his lap in the auditorium, sent her ducking out of his arms and across the elevator.

“I’m…I’m so sorry,” she stammered, not even sure what she was apologizing for. “I didn’t mean to… I mean, I shouldn’t have…”

Blowing out a breath, he leaned back against the elevator wall. “No problem. Happy to catch falling women any time.” His voice had a sardonic edge to it, almost as if he were mocking himself.

He hadn’t really been about to kiss her, had he? They didn’t even know each other. For all he knew, she could be married, or a lesbian, or…

Or wondering what might have happened if I had let him kiss me…

With a shake of her head, she dispelled the thought.

“What happened?” she asked.

He shrugged, turning to examine the control panel. “Not entirely sure.”

It was his profile that finally caused the pieces to fall into place. She suddenly realized why he looked so familiar to her. “You’re
Ian Blaine
,” she said with a gasp, covering her mouth with the fingers of one hand.

He glanced up, but she didn’t let him respond. She saw the truth on his face. “Do you know how much trouble you’ve caused for educators in Louisiana? I picketed your campaign in Baton Rouge just last month.”

Her stomach heaved with horror. She had almost let Ian Blaine
kiss
her. The bane of every academic’s existence, Blaine was running on a campaign of, among other things, education reform that eliminated the tenure system in Louisiana state colleges, along with imposing a strict accounting of all research funds to make sure they were used for “appropriate” research.

Even if Sadie hadn’t been pretty sure that her examination of feminism in popular romance novels wouldn’t make the cut for funding under those kinds of rules, she would have opposed the various proposals Blaine was making on the grounds that it violated the basic principles of academic freedom.

And here she was, trapped in an elevator with him.

Once again, her cheeks flushed hot, but this time it was with anger, not embarrassment. How dare he even think about trying to kiss her? Glaring at him, she muttered, “‘…the dark folk who live in souls / Of passionate men, like bats in the dead trees.’”

His eyes narrowed in confusion, he said, “Pardon me?”

Sadie ignored him. “Let me see.” She reached around his tall, muscular form to see the buttons. “Have you tried this?” After she pushed the button to the bar’s floor again, the elevator vibrated once, then continued its downward motion. She leaned back against the wall and tried to ignore Blaine.

But she had some questions.

What was a Louisiana state political candidate doing at a romance conference in Las Vegas? And why was he going by the name Jake and helping Kamille Stone at the Intertwined table? The man was outspoken about his belief in proper education. Surely he didn’t approve of the kind of fiction Intertwined published.

The kind of fiction that any one of the many presses at this conference published, for that matter.

Sadie hadn’t intended to ask the question at all, but it popped out of her mouth without her conscious volition. “Why are you here, anyway?”

When he hadn’t said anything by the time the elevator stopped and the doors opened on the bar floor, Sadie was sure she wasn’t going to get any answer at all. But as he walked out, he put his hand back to block the door from closing long enough to turn around and speak.

“I’m Jake Blaine. Ian’s my twin brother.”