Palm Springs Heat by Dc Thome Page B

Lara’s direction. Taking it as a show of
dominance, Lara countered by tilting her head, narrowing her eyes and staring
back at Sushma.
    You may have been here first but
I’m here now.
    “Now’s as good a time for a
business meeting as any, I guess.” Clay shrugged and gave Lara a peck on the
cheek.
    Chartre exhaled after Sushma and
Clay were gone. “That was awkward,” he said. “Where were we?” The blond
assistant named Gina brought him a knee-length dress.
    “Don’t worry, my dear.” Chartre
held the dress up to Lara. “I’m sure you’re going to love being a part of The
Rotation. All the girls do.”
    He shook his head and tossed the
dress aside.
     
    * * *
     
     Sushma followed Clay into the
living room and shut the door behind her.
    “Whatever happened to work/life
balance?” Clay quipped.
    “Do you think the paparazzi have
heard of work/life balance?”
    She pressed a button on her phone
and handed it to Clay. He watched a video of his and Lara’s bungling attempts
to hook up on the salt flat.
    “Not exactly triple-X material,” he
said.
    “No, but it is material that we
cannot control—and your ill-considered escapade at Rev already has people
asking whether this woman is Sun’s replacement.”
    “I guess we know the answer to that
question. So she checks out?”
    “I have not been able to have her
fully vetted.”
    Clay chewed on his lower lip.
“Okay, you got me. No one gets into The Rotation without being fully vetted,
but you just stuck Lara into The Rotation because she’s not fully vetted?”
    “You and your public antics with
her gave me no choice.”
    “Now I get it. It’s easier to keep
an eye on her if she’s on the inside.”
    Sushma just looked at him with
gunslinger eyes.
    Clay tightened the towel around his
waist. “What if she doesn’t check out? What if she was arrested for
prostitution when she was fifteen, like Miriamne?”
     “You do not know what goes on
right before your very eyes!” Sushma waved her hands in Clay’s face. “The
arrest was not the only issue with Miriamne. It was the fact that she turned
out to be only seventeen. And even though we found out before she was
officially announced, it took a supreme effort to prevent her from becoming a
serious problem.”
    Clay studied Sushma’s face. There’s
something fishy about this. “I know what’s really going on,” he said.
“You’re scared.”
    “Scared of what?” Anger flashed in
Sushma’s eyes.
    “You’re worried things are going to
change around here.”
    “Change I can contend with.” She
jabbed Clay’s chest. “But she is a cipher, and that is a very bad sign. It is
as if she has taken pains to cover her tracks.”
    Clay rubbed the red mark Sushma’s
fingernail made on his chest. “She was married to a movie producer! You know
all about that.”
    “A B-movie producer, which is
another thing I do not like about her. Her husband made tawdry films, and she
was surprised to discover him cavorting with bimbos in a hot tub?”
    “She’s, I don’t know…sweet.”
    “‘Sweet’? Oh, my fucking god, can
you even hear yourself speaking?”
    “What’s wrong with sweet?”
    “‘Sweet’ is just one more reason to
be suspicious. I have never met anyone ‘sweet’ whom I could trust.”
    Clay laughed and plopped into a
big, soft chair.
    “So you think—what? That Lara’s
some devious she-devil who’s putting on an act to lull me into complacency? A
Trojan horse bent on destroying me? Why?”
    “I can think of one-point-two
billion reasons.”
     “You are a piece of work,
Shush. So hard-boiled and cynical.”
    “Cynical, worldly wise—call it what
you will, Clayton Albert Creighton. My eyes are open.”
    “Everyone around me is so ‘worldly
wise.’ That’s what’s so fascinating about Lara. She’s naïve.”
    “A resounding endorsement.”
    “It’s not an endorsement. It’s
refreshing.” Beat that .
    Sushma calmly checked her phone. “A
pool of water can appear