Page 53 of Gluttony
Then again, maybe she imagined all these things because she now knew what he was capable of. He could level the entire room if he lost control of his power.Go nuclearwas Parker’s exact term.
Everything had happened so quickly yesterday. She’d gone from wanting to date Tony, to being slapped in the face by his devastating secret, to learning how integral she was to his wellbeing. Not just integral, but intrinsic, biological... inescapable.
And Bailey Haze decided long ago never to be pushed into a decision she wasn’t ready to make. Peer pressure had a lot to answer for, and it had taken a beat-up car, and a dead drunk friend to realize that. It took her years of scraping her life back together to become one of the top students in her school to know that she made her own choices.
The problem was, the moment she’d finished getting dressed that morning, she’d found herself rushing to pick up Tony. Not because of her job, but because the emptiness of her home had been too loud, and the memory of his presence had been magnetic, drawing her back to him with inescapable power.
Looking at the rest of the room, she wasn’t the only one who felt this way around him. The charismatic lady’s man and everyone’s friend was dressed in a sports coat rolled up at the forearms. The baseball cap he’d worn in the car to hide his identity must have been stowed in his back pocket. When he climbed the stage, the bulge at his left ass confirmed her suspicion. And it was a fine ass indeed. One she felt perfectly wicked perving from behind the safety of her mirrored Aviators. Oh wait. She was indoors and wasn’t wearing any.
She snapped her gaze to the tall brunette assistant who called for attention at the stage and proceeded to filter questions to the cast. Bailey recognized her as the woman Tony spoke with outside Hell last night. Being here, she must be more than a mere set assistant. She might have more access to places around set than Bailey thought.
She could be a potential suspect.
Except, the suspect on the CCTV footage could be anyone. She’d had dark hair, but that didn’t mean it was the set assistant. The studio had wigs by the truckload in the wardrobe department. Anyone could have pilfered one and used it as they broke into Tony’s trailer to set up the dolls. All this left Bailey no closer than she was the first day she’d started. If it were up to her, she’d have interviewed the entire cast and staff.
But it wasn’t up to her, and Max had already reminded her this morning to stick to her job. No investigating. No drawing attention. Leave it to the normal police. And since the studio didn’t want them involved, frustratingly, she was left guarding Tony’s body, which was ridiculous in itself. He didn’t need guarding, and she was a trained CIA operative. She could do more.
Her mind wandered back to which of Tony’s peers or acquaintances could be stalking him. There was only one other female she’d noticed; the buxom redheaded costar sitting next to him, Maggie O. More than once she leaned in close to Tony, brushed her bulging chest on his arm, and then whispered into his ear. Every time, Tony tried to avoid her touch by moving to pick up his water bottle, but then she did the same.
Then Bailey looked harder and noticed more. Tony’s flinching was in direct correlation to when someone took a guzzle of water, or when the snack cart came out and people dove in. A surge of empathy shot through her. That man would never be able to feel normal around people doing anything in excess.
Unless you help him.
He glanced over at her, and their eyes met. She smiled tentatively. He didn’t smile back, but she saw the relief in his posture. His shoulders lowered. His eyes turned soft. Then he went back to answering questions.
After a while, all the questions blended into white noise until Bailey’s ears pricked up when someone said, “Tony, is there someone special in your life?”
Her armpits prickled and her heartbeat accelerated. They’d not had a chance to discuss where they stood. She wasn’t ready for this.
Tony’s lips hovered near his microphone. “Yes.”
“Is she here?” A woman with a bow in her hair asked.
He paused, looked a little uncomfortable, then his lips stretched into a winning smile. His spine straightened. “How about I tell you about this great group of kids I’ve been helping at a sobriety house?”
“Tell us more about your lady!”
“What do you mean by special?”
“Why has it taken you so long to date?”
A barrage of responding quick-fire questions came at him from multiple sources, but he refused to comment further, or give Bailey away by looking in her direction. His jaw clenched and she could tell he was pissed off at the direction of topic. Her heart went out to him. The people only wanted one side of Tony Lazarus, and it wasn’t the philanthropic man.
Something eased in Bailey’s chest. He could have singled her out, pointed the cameras in her face, but he’d not hesitated to hold that secret close to his heart. It would get out eventually, but for now, Tony had demonstrated he wasn’t just thinking of himself. The man respected her privacy. And he’d tried to use his celebrity to promote the Hudson House. She watched him with a new light feeling floating through her body, and this time, she didn’t try to block the emotion rising, she accepted it. She enjoyed it.
* * *
It wasclose to five p.m. when Bailey was finally able to get Tony to herself. After the group Q and A, he’d spent another few hours being interviewed one-on-one by a succession of entertainment journalists. Like a piece of meat, he’d been paraded before them, asked stupid questions repeatedly, and then stood up and did it again with the next journalist.
The man never sighed or rolled his eyes. He smiled, nodded and politely answered questions.
When it was all done, and Tony was eying the food cart with longing, she went up to him and touched his wrist gently. He’d mentioned that morning that the action would reset some sort of internal sin gauge in his body. She could help his discomfort. It was hard enough to sit through this thing for hours without sustenance, but wondering how many bites it would take to affect his sin was a burden he didn’t need.
“You done?” she asked.
“I am. Shall we go?”
“You don’t want to nab a bite first?” She’d had a few herself.
