Page 85 of Angel In Armani

Though, as they got closer to the hotel, the thought of braving photographers without Lucas holding her hand was making her palms sweat.

She’d seen pictures of paparazzi crowding around people, pushing and shoving and cameras flashing. She was pretty good with crowds and noises most of the time, but that seemed almost a guaranteed way to trigger herself into a panic attack. Not how she wanted to start the evening.

Which meant she needed to change the environment. Control things if she could. At least that’s what her therapist would tell her.

“Mal, is there a back way into the hotel?” she asked. “I mean, if I’m not arriving with Lucas, do I need to go in the front?”

Mal tipped his head. “Something about photographers bother you?”

She swallowed. Mal had been in the army. He’d understand. “When I first got out, I wasn’t good with people getting too close. And loud noises. And flashing things.”

He nodded. “Combat stress. I know that one.”

Relief made her smile at him. “I’m mostly better but I’m not sure I’m ready to deal with packs of photographers.”

Mal nodded. “I don’t like them, either. I’ll call Gardner. He’ll get us in another way.”

“Don’t you need your picture taken?”

“Alex can play poster boy for the night. The papers can live without my ugly mug.”

She was doing the women of New York a disservice. There would be plenty of them perfectly happy to drool over a picture of Mal in the paper. But they’d just have to drool over Alex instead. “Thank you,” she said.

“Are you sure about this?” Mal said as the limo slid into the alley leading to the back of the hotel ten minutes later. “We can still go around the block and go in the front.”

Sara shook her head. Having seen the throng of photographers and cameras outside the front of the hotel, complete with a red carpet, of all things, she knew she wasn’t ready to walk that particular gauntlet. “Yes,” she said sounding more certain than she felt. “Sneaking in the back suits me just fine.”

“It takes a bit of getting used to,” he said. “All the attention.”

“So are you used to it yet?” she asked.

“Hell, no. If I could send all the paparazzi to a very deserted island somewhere in the Bering Sea, I would. Of course, that would still leave the actual legitimate press to deal with. And we need them.” He didn’t sound like he was happy with that situation.

That didn’t ease Sara’s stomach any. Malachi Coulter was taller than either Alex or Lucas and built on broader, more solid lines. He had shoulders that could probably cause a lunar eclipse. If he didn’t like the media circus, what hope did she have of getting used to it?

“Well, I’m not going to have to deal with it tonight, at least. Thank you,” she said.

Mal smiled, brown eyes warming. Which made him even nicer to look at. She could see why Maggie called them the terrible trio. Mal was easy enough to talk to and he’d been nothing but a perfect gentlemen since he’d climbed into the limo, but she had no trouble envisioning him kicking butt and taking no prisoners.

She wasn’t sure exactly what he’d done in the army—it seemed rude to ask when he hadn’t offered the intel—but she was guessing it had been something specialized and risky. And apparently he hadn’t lost whatever don’t-mess-with-me vibe it had instilled in him. Though, who knew, maybe he’d had that before he’d joined up.

“Gardener will be waiting at the door,” Mal said. “He’ll let us in and then we’ll get you upstairs and deliver you to Lucas.”

“Lucas isn’t here yet and I’m not a package,” she pointed out.

“No, but you’re very prettily wrapped.” Mal grinned. “Good dress choice.”

She felt her face go hot. Maggie had talked her into the dress, and it had been in her price range—the shopping gods apparently smiling on her for once. Maggie’s friend Shelly Finch, a player’s fiancée, had shopping mojo that probably involved sacrificing goats to dark gods or something. Shelly had whizzed them to about ten little up-stairs-and-down-alley showrooms stuffed full of gorgeous clothes at the sort of price that Sara could afford before Sara could blink. She’d had no idea such places existed.

Affordable or not, she still wasn’t sure she could pull the dress off. But she’d adored it too much to resist, particularly with Maggie and Shelly egging her on. It had a soft blue bodice, made sparkly with a thousand or more tiny glittering silver beads curling around her body in waves. No straps held it in place, just boning and what Maggie had called magic tape. She just hoped that it wasn’t going to do her any harm in sensitive areas when she had to take it off. Lucas might have been hoping for some action in a dark closet somewhere, but he was going to have to be very inventive to leave her looking respectable afterward. Not that she doubted his ingenuity in that department.

No, indeed. The man had skills. And very few inhibitions.

She wrenched her mind off that path and focused back on her dress. A far safer subject. The bodice, impenetrable or not, wasn’t the best part. No, the best bit was the skirt, which was made from miles and miles of soft tulle, falling around her like a long tutu in layers of blue and gray and white in a hundred soft shades. It stopped just below her ankles, which let her show off the silver heels that she’d had to buy as well. Because they were perfect for the dress.

The dress swished and swayed and made her feel like some sort of sea fairy. She hadn’t been able to resist it.

She’d curled her hair in loose waves and donned the pearl earrings her grandmother had left her and then decided to let the dress stand alone. She couldn’t compete with the sorts of jewels that anyone else here tonight would be likely wearing, but she did have a killer dress. One that would, hopefully, make Lucas crazy.

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