Not Wanted in Hollywood by Leonie Gant

window.
    “ I’m
going to work at the club,” I said
shortly.
    There was silence as Griffin obviously
digested that piece of information. “Excuse me.”
    “ I’m pretty
sure you heard me,” I said.
    “ Okay,” he
said. “We’ll try another tack. Are you nuts? Only this afternoon
you were attacked at the club by an unknown assailant who is still
at large. You possibly have a concussion and you want to walk
straight back into that place, and that isn’t even mentioning that
there is still a murderer on the loose.”
    “ The attacker
wasn’t there for me. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. As
for a concussion, I don’t even have a headache and just in case I
am totally wrong I will be surrounded by people, at least one of
them would call a paramedic. As to the murderer, I have nothing to
do with Hammy. Whoever killed him is not very likely to come after
me. If I really thought that I would be in any danger I would not
be going. I’ll be fine. I need you to trust me,” I said , hoping that for a change he was actually
listening to what I had to say.
    The silence
on the phone was beginning to become slightly painful, when Griffin
let out the breath he had obviously been holding while I was
putting forward my case.
    “ When should
I pick you up?” he asked and I smiled. He was trying and you know
something, that meant a lot.
    “ Whenever you
finish work would be great,” I said quietly. “Thank
you.”
    He grunted and I took that to mean that we
were going to be okay.

C hapter Thirteen
    After assuring Sean that I did not require him
to accompany me to work , I set about
trying to fix or at least minimize the obvious damage to my face.
Seeing Hugh’s expression when I opened the door did not fill me
with confidence that I had managed to hide the bruising.
    “Does it really look that bad?” I asked.
    Hugh ducked his head and I had to give the
man credit. I could see the cogs in his brain working as he tried
to decide on a diplomatic answer.
    I decided to
let him off the hook. “Don’t bother answering, I looked in a mirror
before opening the door.” The bruise itself was no longer so
obvious. It was the heavily caked on makeup that now drew attention
to the area. Short of hiding out in my apartment there didn’t seem
to be much that I could do about it. I had tried to make it look
natural, but there is a point where you need to admit that you are
fighting a losing battle and I had reached that point about ten
minutes earlier.
    “Does it hurt?” asked Hugh as we got in his
car.
    “ A little,” I
said. “I cannot believe that I walked into that. I didn’t even have
a chance to duck.”
    “Do they know what the guy wanted?” asked
Hugh.
    I shook my
head. “I must have walked in at the start because Denise said he
hadn’t had a chance to say anything yet.”
    “ Why didn’t
you tell Alistair to shove it when he called? If I looked like that
there is no way that I’d be going out in public,” Hugh said as he
maneuvered the car through the LA traffic.
    I would have been a lot more offended at that
statement if I wasn’t painfully aware of just how bad I looked at
the moment.
    I shrugged my shoulders. I knew my time with
Alistair was limited and knowing there was an expiration date made
it easier to accede to some of his more irrational demands. That
was the beauty of my job. I knew that no matter how lousy an
assignment was, it wasn’t going to last forever.
    Considering
the change in management, Hammys was still exactly the same as it
had been for the last several weeks. Same dancers, same acts, same
regular clients and I should have been more surprised but there was
Travis standing in a corner, his eyes sweeping the club. When they
alighted on me a combination of amusement and frustration crossed
over his face. After checking in with Alistair and discovering that
he didn’t have any actual work for me to do, that he just wanted me
there in case he needed me, I went to find