Page 1 of Hard Rock Heat

Chapter One

"The centerpieces are too tall."

I turned to find a sour-faced woman in a pink pantsuit scowling atme.

"Excuse me?" Iasked.

I only vaguely recognized the woman who had tapped on my shoulder. She wasn't one of the speakers for that night's event, and she wasn't one of the award recipients. She must have been a regularguest.

"The flower vases you're using as centerpieces." She could barely conceal her look of disdain. "They're tootall."

"I'm sorry,what?"

My mind was preoccupied with the one hundred logistical details I was in charge of. I had to make sure the caterers knew when to bring out each course, had to make sure the certificates were correctly organized for the award ceremony portion of the evening and I had to make sure every invitee was being treated as if they wereVIPs.

"The centerpieces, dear." She pursed her lips, as if she'd been sucking on a lemon. "The guests won't be able to see over them. It'll obscure their view of thestage."

I knew for a fact the vasesweren'ttoo tall, because I'd made it a point to measure the height. I clenched my jaw, trying as hard as I could to resist giving her an equally sour look. My face contorted despite my best efforts. I whirled around before the woman could see, pretending to look at the tables and consider herwords.

Deep breath in. And out. Calm and serene. I turned backaround.

"I'm sorry, but the dinner starts in less than twenty minutes. I really don't think we have the timeto—"

"Faith will get on that right away." My boss Martha interrupted smoothly as she came up behind the woman. "Right,Faith?"

Martha gave me a pleading look over the woman's shoulder. She must have been someone important for my boss to give in likethat.

I forced a widesmile.

"Of course. I'll figure somethingout."

I stood in the middle of the elaborately, painstakingly decorated dining hall, trying not to melt down. We couldn't remove the centerpieces. They'd been provided by one of our event sponsors. The flowers had been arranged to look like their logo. We'd set up that agreement ages ago. I couldn't change things now. This was going to ruineverything.

I ran my hands through my hair, smoothing down the dark strands to steady my hands. I thoughtquickly.

Okay, so we couldn't use the vases, but the flowers didn't have any stems. The whole arrangement was vaguely bowl shaped. We could remove the vases and place the flowers directly on the table. It pained me to make the change, but it needed to bedone.

I grabbed my sister Hope from where she'd been setting up name tags in their correct placesettings.

"We need to get rid of these vases," I hissed in herear.

She blinked her wide brown eyes atme.

"What?Why?"

"Because some very important blowhard saidso."

She frowned in confusion, butnodded.

"I'll do that as soon as I've finished with these nametags."

I really did have the best twin sister. I pulled in her for a quickhug.

"Thanks for helping out, Hope. I can't believethreeout of my four new junior interns didn't show uptonight."

"Someone's getting fired, I takeit?"

"Fired out of a cannon," Imuttered.