Page 114 of Slumming It

"Oh, yeah?" Vivian said. "Well you should've seen it a few weeks ago."

His eyebrows lifted. "Was it better or worse?"

She gave him a stiff smile. "Worse."

"Hard to imaginethat," he said.

Her smile vanished. "What?"

He grinned. "What, you didn't hear me the first time?"

Vivian was silent for a long, tense moment before she extended an arm and pointed toward the door. "Get out."

The guy looked surprised. "Hey, no need to get mad about it."

He wasn't theonlyone who was surprised. Vivian had always been the calm and collected one – the voice of reason and moderation. But there wasn't anything moderate about her now. She looked ready to kill the guy and eat his carcass for dinner.

"Mad?" she sputtered. "How'sthisfor mad?" Reaching out with both hands, she picked up both hundred-dollar bills andcrumpled them, one in each hand. One by one, she flung the bills at his chest as she hollered out, "My sister's not for sale!"

The guy didn't even flinch as the bills bounced off his leather jacket and landed on the floor at his feet. Looking more amused than concerned, he asked, "Who said I was buying?"

Vivian made a sound suspiciously like a growl. "Isaid, get out!"

The guy glanced down at the money before looking to me and saying, "Good thing that wasn't a tiara."

Vivian glanced wildly around as if searching for something else to throw. Finding nothing, she told him, "Don't make me get the broom!"

At this, the guy actually laughed. "Hell, I'm surprised you're not riding it." And with that, he turned and sauntered toward the door. Over his shoulder he called back, "Hey Emily. When you see Reese, tell him I’m looking for him."

I blinked in surprise.So he'd known who I was all along?

But of course he did. Unless he was living under a rock, hehadto know that I was the infamous trailer waitress – or whatever godawful nickname was trending at the moment.

The real surprise was that he thought my odds of seeing Reese were higher than his own.

Maybe I should have told him where Reese was. And I swear I would have, if only he'd been nicer to my sister. I glanced down at the crumpled bills just lying there on the floor. And then I turned to watch his departure. "He forgot his money."

Vivian gave a snort of derision. "He didn't forget." Outside, Cameron Slade got back into his Ferrari and pulled slowly out of the turnaround as Vivian grumbled, "He left it to make a point."

Both of us watched as the Ferrari eased out of the parking lot nice and slow, as if to prove that Vivian's outburst hadn't rattled the driver in the least. When the car disappeared down the road, I turned back to my sister and asked, "And what point is that?"

"I don't know," she said. "But whatever it was, I'm sure we wouldn't like it."

Now this, I believed.

And of course, I felt slightly responsible for Vivian's surprising behavior. She was under an enormous amount of pressure – not just with the hotel, but with all of her side gigs. She wrote marketing materials on a freelance basis, which meant that she was constantly doing double-duty while manning the front desk.

She never complained, but I knew all too well what it was like to be burning the candle at both ends while dealing with unrelated stress. In a soft voice, I asked, "Vivan, are you okay?"

She gave me a weak smile. "I should be askingyouthat. You're the one who's had the rough week."

"It wasn'tallrough," I reminded her. "Some of it was really nice." As I spoke, I pulled out my cellphone and started tapping out a text.

Vivian eyed my phone. "What are you doing?"

"I'm letting Reese know that Cameron Slade's looking for him."

"But wait…I thought you didn't have his number."