“Did you know that your nostrils flare when you get really angry?”
It was too much. It had been a long day, and an even longer convention, and Leandro Mandalor had been a dark, disturbing presence throughout the whole damned thing. Giving in to base impulse, she hauled back her foot and kicked him, hard, in the shin.
“Yow!” he howled, skipping backward and bending to clutch at his calf.
“Cute my ass. And my nostrils are none of your business, flaring or otherwise,” she said before spinning on her heel and making for the elevator bank.
The sound of his laughter followed her across the marbled foyer.
She ground her teeth together and called him four-letter words all the way up to her floor. He thought she was a joke. A Kewpie doll he could poke a stick at and get some laughs out of. Her stride morphing into a stalk, she made her way to her hotel suite and swiped her key card.
Sadie and Grace looked up from where they were lounging in the living room when she entered.
“Uh-oh. Mandalor alert,” Sadie said as she saw Claudia’s face.
“The man is an arrogant ass. A patronizing pig. A…a…” Claudia spluttered, running out of appropriately vitriolic insults.
“Slippery snake? Jittery jerk? How about leprotic loser?” Grace suggested, poker-faced.
“It’s not funny,” Claudia wailed, throwing herself into an armchair and toeing her high heels off with a relieved sigh.
Sadie grimaced apologetically. “It is kind of funny. Sorry, sweetie,” she said. “Every day you’ve left the convention fuming at him. Even you have to admit that it’s a teensy, weensy bit amusing.”
Jumping to her feet again, Claudia crossed to the minibar and grabbed herself a bottle of mineral water.
“Have I been that bad?” she asked as she cracked the seal on the bottle.
Grace and Sadie made eye contact with each other, then nodded in unison.
“Yup.”
Taking a slug of mineral water, Claudia pushed her shoulder-length straight black hair away from her face.
“He reminds me of my brothers,” she admitted. “It’s not just that he’s Greek, either. Although that doesn’t help. There’s this whole macho man thing that Greek guys have—like they’re God’s gift to women. My brother Cosmo walks into a room and absolutely believes that all the women there want to have sex with him. Leandro is exactly the same.”
“Yeah, except that Leandro is probably not that far from the truth, whereas your brother is definitely on the deluded side,” Grace said wryly.
Claudia pulled a face and made a gagging noise. Sadie laughed.
“Come on, Claud, are you telling me you don’t find Leandro attractive?” Sadie asked.
“He’s a giant. And he’s got that big nose and those girly lips,” Claudia said, shaking her head dismissively.
Grace rolled her eyes. “You mean that sexy, masculine Greek nose and those lips that look like they could win Olympic gold in all the important oral events?”
“Sorry, can’t see it,” Claudia said firmly. It was true, too, she assured herself. She’d sat next to him for two hours today and felt nothing but irritation at being hemmed in and imposed upon. “He does absolutely nothing for me.”
“So, what did he say this time?” Sadie asked. She leaned forward, obviously eager for the latest installment in the Leandro Mandalor saga.
Claudia briskly filled in her two best friends and colleagues, feeling warmed when they gasped with outrage at the appropriate points and hooted their approval when Claudia reported her zingers.
“You’re definitely ahead on points,” Grace announced when Claudia had summed up the shin-kicking incident.
“Definitely. He’d have to do something really audacious to beat physical assault,” Sadie said.
Claudia winced. “Put like that, it sounds kind of…childish,” she admitted.
“Never say die, Claud,” Grace said. “And never, ever apologize.”
“Hmm. That’s so interesting, Gracie, because I swear when I picked you up from your place the other day, I heard you say sorry to Mac for using all the hot water in the shower…” Sadie said teasingly.
“Strategy. Mac thinks he’s got me where he wants me, but it’s so the other way around,” Grace said.
Claudia didn’t bother calling her friend on her faux feminist stance. Grace and Mac had long since ironed out the problems in their relationship and had been living with each other for nearly three months now. As for Mrs. Sadie Anderson…the content look behind her eyes was testament to how happy she was with Dylan.
“God, we’d better win tonight,” Claudia said. “If he walks away with that award, I am seriously going to need sedating for a few days.”
“We’ll win,” Grace said confidently.
“You don’t know that,” Claudia fretted.
“Yeah, I do. Mac made that episode look so perfect. And it rated through the roof. Of course it’s going to win,” Grace said.
“Really?” Claudia asked, her pulse surging with excitement as she thought about walking up on stage tonight and accepting a People’s Vote Award on behalf of the show. It would mean so much to her, both personally and professionally. The show hadn’t received a People’s Vote for nearly five years, and to win this year would put the seal on the success of their wedding feature. They already had another feature scheduled for next winter—with the story line very tightly under wraps—but the win would give them the cherry on top that Claudia craved.
The awards show wasn’t televised in prime time like the Emmys or the Oscars, but a cut-down version of the ceremony with highlights would be shown during the day. She wouldn’t be human if she didn’t want her mom and dad to see her on that podium accepting a crystal statuette. It would be a very public vindication of her battle to assert herself and her dreams.
The old sadness welled up inside her as she admitted to herself that she would probably never know if her parents had even seen the show, let alone if they had it in them to be proud of her still…
“We’re going to kick ass,” Sadie said, stretching out languorously.
“What are you going to wear?” Grace asked. “Please tell me it’s not black.”
Claudia threw one of the suite’s heavily tasseled cushions at her friend.
“It’s red, if you must know.” Sadie and Grace teased her a lot about always wearing black. Partly it was because she was too busy to shop, and black always went with black. But partly it was because she felt as though people took her seriously when she was dressed in dark colors. She was small and she was female—she wasn’t about to disadvantage herself further by dressing like a sex kitten
