dragging her gaze away from the most erotic sight she’d seen in a long time. Upon deeper thought, it would have been a very long time since she’d even experienced something so erotic.
“I stand corrected.” He tilted his head in the direction of the couple, who were about five minutes from getting it on right there at the table. “This really bothers you.” It was a statement, not a question.
“No, it doesn’t,” she lied, and felt her face flush. “I’m not opposed to PDA, per se,” she added, hating the primness in her voice.
“Just in my presence?”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
A waitress arrived just in time to save her from his response. Trent asked the waitress to surprise them with their meals, which shocked the hell out of Dakota.
“Adventure,” she noted dryly.
“I embrace it whenever it presents itself,” he shot back smartly. Then his brow furrowed a bit. “Although maybe I should stop short of ordering red wine with the meal?”
She knew at once what he was referring to: her wine-pouring escapade at the cocktail party seven months ago. He’d deserved it, she reminded herself, for his behavior. Rather than be embarrassed, she felt a grin break out. “I think your odds are good tonight.”
“They’d better be. Don’t want to lose another shirt.”
“I sent you a replacement. Didn’t it fit?”
“Perfectly,” he conceded. “You have a very good eye.”
A clear implication that she’d been looking at him long and hard enough to correctly guess his size. She debunked that at once. “It was a wild guess.”
He gracefully let the matter drop, and they settled on cashew wine. The waitress floated away, promising them she’d be back with their dinner “just now.” At that, Trent’s lip twitched.
“What?”
“Nothing, but maybe you ought to fill in the cracks with a few breadsticks while we wait.”
She’d heard enough about island service to think that was a good idea. As she broke off a crumbly piece of bread and slipped it into her mouth, she hoped they’d be too busy nibbling to make much small talk. No such luck.
“What’re your plans for tomorrow?” he asked.
“Find a hotel,” popped out of her before she could restrain it.
“I’m sure that’ll be a priority,” he agreed. “I meant, apart from that.”
“Oh,” she said with deliberate casualness. “I think I’ll go down to the festival site and get started on my interviews.”
He tautened visibly, but his voice was steady. “Do you already have appointments booked?”
“Of course, a few,” she said noncommittally, and couldn’t stop herself from adding, “but none with your people.”
He smiled like a wolf. “Did they all turn you down? Even Mango Mojo? Those youngsters would grant an interview with a supermarket rag if they thought it would give them more exposure.”
The comparison between her nationally syndicated column and a write-up in a tabloid stung like blazes. She worked hard on her craft and was well respected in many entertainment circles for her writing. The fact that Trent seemed stubbornly intent on not acknowledging her successes rankled. But instead of defending her work, she retorted, “Yeah, they all turned down my requests. And why wouldn’t they? You obviously told them to avoid me like I’ve got leprosy.”
His face didn’t even twitch. “I gave no such instruction.”
“Oh, don’t ask me to believe—”
“I’m their producer, not their publicist. I don’t decide who they talk to and who they don’t—”
“But you must have let on how you feel about me,” she argued.
He shrugged. “I’ve never made my feelings a secret. Anyone who knows anything about the industry knows what went down last year, and what happened after your column hit the newsstands.”
What went down last year…as if she needed a reminder. Shanique was enjoying a meteoric rise up music’s A-list, was on the second album of a four-disc deal with Trent’s Outlandish Music and had celebrity endorsements piled up to her impressively sculpted butt. Those who’d noted a few cracks appearing in her stunning facade had chosen to overlook the growing problems. There was talk of her losing her voice, her edge. She’d denied it, claiming that her album and concert sales were proof enough that she was still on top of her game. Until Dakota’s story broke that instead of singing live at her sold-out concerts, Shanique, due to her overindulgent drug use, had been lip-synching to the voice of another singer, hidden backstage.
Dakota’s solid connection with the right person… She stopped midthought. Truth be told, she could hardly call her source the right person, considering how much pain he’d caused her. Deliberately, carefully, she rephrased, even if it was only inside her head. Her solid, well-connected source had gotten her the exclusive and all the proof the doubters needed. It was the exposé of Dakota’s career. Shanique had denied it until she was purple, sobbing to anyone who would listen that she’d been set up, and the whole thing was a ruse to make her look bad. While some of her fans took it in stride—stuff like that did happen in the music business, after all—others were outraged at spending their hard-earned money on tickets to hear someone else sing. Websites and Facebook pages sprang up overnight, boycotting her concerts and demanding their ticket money back. Parodies of her fraudulent performance went viral on YouTube. The sponsors took notice. Endorsement deals dried up like a creek in Death Valley.
Trent’s reputation also took a hit. Questions rolled in. As Shanique’s producer—and rumored lover—had he known about her subterfuge? Did he willfully aid and abet? Had it been his idea all along? His publicist had released a statement expressing concern for Shanique’s well-being, while stopping short of admitting any involvement in the lip-synching debacle. Nonetheless, the damage was done.
Their waitress arrived with steaming bowls of dark green soup, just in time to stop Dakota from getting further sucked into the depths of Trent’s accusing gaze. He seemed glad for the distraction. “Callaloo soup,” he informed her, reading off a small card that came with the meal. “It’s like spinach.”
She’d have eaten warmed-up tar if it meant they could change the subject. She sipped experimentally and discovered it was pretty good.
That could have put an end to the conversation, but the man had a one-track mind. “I never banned them from giving you an interview, Dakota.”
There: he was using her name again. She swallowed a mouthful of hot liquid. “But they won’t.”
He shrugged eloquently.
“And neither will you,” she couldn’t resist pointing out.
“Did you expect me to?” The thought seemed to amuse him.
“Not since…my story, sure. I understand that. But you turned me down
