"Any luck on your quest to find that girl? Evelyn's over by the bar if you want to enlist her help."
Wyatt clears his throat, then nods toward me. "Lyle, meet Kelsey."
"Kelsey," Lyle says. "Oh. Right." He points across the room. "Lovely to meet you, but I need to go over there now. I need privacy to extract my foot from my mouth."
I laugh, my star-induced nervousness dissolving. "It's okay," I assure him, but he's already heading off. I shift my attention to Wyatt. "Friend of yours?"
"My confessor," he says. "I told him I'd been an ass and needed to lure you back. I also told him I didn't know how to find you."
"And yet here I am."
"Yeah," he says softly. "Here you are. Have I managed to lure you?"
"I--I just can't. I need the money, you're right. But last night, when you . . ." I clear my throat. "Well, when I saw the photos of me, I realized I was crazy to think it would work. I'd get the money I need, but I'd be fired in a heartbeat."
"I'm not creating porn, Kelsey."
"No! Wyatt, please. I already told you. There's beauty and strength and . . . well, your work is amazing."
"Then what?"
I sigh, because I shouldn't have to explain this. "We both know there are people who won't see it that way. And as much as I need fifteen grand right now, I need a career for the rest of my life."
He nods thoughtfully, then turns away from the window. He glances over the guests in the room, and I see when his gaze lands on Griffin. "What's the money for, Kelsey?"
I have to swallow the lump in my throat. "I told you it's none of your business."
"I'm making it my business."
"Wyatt . . ."
"A treatment? Plastic surgery? What?"
"Fine. Whatever." I'm too tired and flustered to argue. "It's for a new protocol. His burns--" My voice cracks and I blink furiously, because I am not crying at this party.
"His burns go all the way to the bones, and he doesn't have much range of motion on his right side. The protocol is supposed to help ease some of that by repairing some of the skin and nerve damage. I don't know how. I just know that there's been success in lesser burns and now they're trying to adapt the protocol for fourth-degree survivors."
I shrug. "He needs it, Wyatt. You can't see how bad it is when he's dressed, but he really needs this. And I really need to help him."
"I saw his hand," Wyatt says. "His arm, too. And even though he keeps it well-hidd
en, I have a sense of how extensive the scarring is under his hair."
I glance at him curiously.
"It's what I'm trained to do, Kelsey. I look at people. Really look at them."
I nod. "Right. Well, anyway, I've already paid the initial fee, and he's been accepted into phase one. That's what I need the money for. Another few weeks is all I have. All he has."
He nods thoughtfully, then turns back to face the window and the rolling hills below. The sun sets quickly in Los Angeles, and the hills that had been tinted red in the sunset are now a series of contrasting grays, illuminated by the scattered lights of Hollywood's expensive homes.
Soon it will be completely dark, and all we'll see is the party reflected in the glass.
I glance between the lingering view and his face, wondering what he's thinking. But I don't expect it when he says, very softly, "I had no idea he was your brother."
"He uses a stage name. Griffin Blaize. It's his idea of a joke."
"How did it happen?"