“I’m an influencer.”
“Oh, no.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Don’t tell me. You’re not from Los Angeles?”
“Yes.”
“Here with your daddy? While he has meetings?”
“Everybody knows that. It’s on my channel.”
His face turns gray as stone. “Lily Franconi?”
My stomach drops through the floor. “Oh, no.” I say, “I do know who you are. You’re…”
He takes hold of the back of my head. Pulls my face to his. Says into my ear. “You need to learn discretion. You were about to say my name out loud.” His voice buzzes low in my ear. More an electric charge than a sound.
I nod. My voice skips, like a juddered sample. “You said mine.”
“As you said,” he glowers. “You’re an influencer.”
He makes it sound like a disease.
Chapter Four
Giovani
I hold her phone out for her. “I don’t have to take the card out of this, do I?”
She pouts.
Funny thing is, before I realized who she was, I was so getting into her. Her eyes pulled me like magnets. When I felt a connection, I really thought about how to make it happen.
Pale green eyes framed by perfectly messed up black hair, with fine red and orange tips. Silver streaks. A black dress, tight at the waist with a flared skirt and small, vivid, red, orange, gold, and purple print. I looked longer than I should to see the pattern, but I kept getting distracted. The top hugged and emphasized her breathtaking curves.
A rebel couture dress and shiny Doc Martens boots.
Seeing how she moved, fluid and sinuous, sin portrayed in flesh, I imagined how soft and warm she would feel. How the spark in her eyes would melt into lewd and wanton motion.
The hot, wet gleam in her eye signaled an eager, weeping pussy, yearning to grip on my hot, hard rod that had straightened out, fattened and filled, all ready for her. A wild, filthy beast, hidden under her beautiful clothes and her perfect poise.
That was when I thought she was probably one of the smart, sexy lawyers. Or a video games exec. Maybe an entrepreneur. I definitely have a soft spot for a strong woman.
I thought, After I get done sheep-dogging Franconi’s brat, I can give this gorgeous minx a call. Then maybe things won’t seem so bad.
And I even asked her to give me her number. The first woman I’ve done that for, the first woman I felt a strong connection with in living memory, and she turns out to be the last person in the world I wanted to see.
An influencer. And I’m practically manacled to her for as long as she’s here in Sin City.
FML.
She says, “You’re not going to stop me videoing for my feed.”
“Do what you like. Just don’t point your camera near me.”
Her pinched face darkens. “To think I mistook you for somebody famous.”
“No, you got me all wrong. In my line of work, famous the last thing you want to be.”
Her chin juts. Pretty chin. “Exposure is always good. Doesn’t matter what you do.”
I let out a hollow laugh, “Oh, it really does.”
“Tell me what jobs you can do, where exposure won’t do you good.”
“Assassin. Kidnapper. Bank robber.”
“Oh, Like my family.”
“Right. Your family are some big-time crooks out west. I know.”
“You could say that. We are one of the top five families in Los Angeles.”
“Number five, then.”
Her eyes narrow. “What makes you say that?”
“Well, let me see. How about if I put it this way; here in Las Vegas, my family is one of the top two.”
“I see. So, like, as in; my daddy is here meeting with the top one family in Vegas. And he’s going to eat them for breakfast.”
“You think?”
“And then we will be one of the top five families in Los Angeles, as well as one of the top one families in this mess of broken glass in the desert.” She smiles. “There. Did I apply the rule correctly, teacher?”
“Are you serious?”
“Aren’t you going to mark my work?”
“Do you want me to mark you?”
“You could be taking a big risk, big boy.”
“I know about your family. I know about you, too.”
Her eyes blaze as she straightens up. “You really do not, desert boy. I promise you, whatever you think you know, you don’t know anything about me.”
“You put your whole life in feeds on the internet.” I say, “You hang out with ‘reality’ ‘stars.’ What is there to know that I can’t see on TikToob?”
Her eyes blaze. I hit a nerve. I try not to enjoy her firm head shake and the clench of her jaw.
“I put a whole life on the internet. That’s entertainment. Showbiz. Infotainment, strictly. But that’s not who I am. My whole life is something I can tell you for sure, that you know nothing at all about.”
My eyebrows lift and I try to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. “The InstaTokker who lives in absolute privacy.”