Riptide (Renegades 6)

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“They look identical to me. I’ve asked…” She glanced toward the crowd, “the, um, the—”

“Casting-couch wannabes?”

Her gaze cut back to him. She was beginning to think these people spoke a different language. “Sure, let’s go with that. Unfortunately, they weren’t much help.”

He surprised her by laughing. His face brightened, his shoulders eased, and he shook his head. “Surprise, surprise.” He surveyed her again. “You’re not a reporter?”

“No.” She considered telling him she was an attorney but was pretty sure that would only get her shunned.

His brows shot up. “You a cop?”

“What?”

“A cop. You know.” He lifted a finger to point in her general direction, but his gaze wandered over her suit. “A detective or something?”

Tessa had a flash of looking at herself in the mirror before she’d left the condo—perfectly professional in her best navy suit. She’d left the house confident and secure. But now her self-esteem took a hit. She might not care that she wasn’t a bombshell casting-couch wannabe, but… “You think I look like a cop?”

“Or a teacher, maybe.” He smiled. “A librarian, even.”

“A teach— Librar—” She caught the disbelief before it colored her tone. “No. None of the above. I’m just a friend of a friend who knows Mr. Ellis, and I happened to be in town.”

“Uh-huh. Well, Zach came out of the water from his last run with a nasty cut on his forehead. That’s the best I can do.”

Not exactly a smoking gun she could spot a mile away. “Well, thank you.”

The man nodded and started toward the ocean, where more cameras, lights, and equipment littered the sand. Tessa relaxed a little. Now she had a reliable way of telling the two men apart, she just had to figure out how to get close enough to determine who was who.

She took a cleansing breath, steeled herself, and turned toward her last source of information—the casting-couch wannabes.

2

Zach plucked the Sharpie from the fingers of another bubbly babe and scribbled Ian’s name on her arm. “There you go.”

The girl—or woman; Zach could only guess her age at somewhere between sixteen and twenty-six—had a breathy Marilyn Monroe giggle. “Thank you so much, Ian.” She held her arm to her breasts, barely contained in little more than a bikini top. “I’m such a fan. I’ll treasure it.” Then she pulled a piece of paper from inside her left bikini triangle and laid it on the table in front of him. “My room number at the Hilton and my cell. I’m available. Anytime.”

Zach smiled and nodded the same way he had with all the other women.

“You’re so much nicer than everyone says,” she said before she bopped away.

Zach caught Malo’s gaze. A local hired by the studio as a member of Ian’s security team, Malo read Zach’s silent message and stepped in front of the table, steering the girls away. “We’re taking a break, ladies.”

“Who said you could have a break?” Tucker jibed from beside him. Tucker, Josh, and Grace had spent the last three hours either making fun of him for agreeing to this or chatting about everything from their childhoods to travel.

Zach lifted his beer and finished it off, then looked at his watch. “I’ve got just under an hour to take a permanent break from this bullshit.”

“You’re giving Ian his money’s worth,” Grace told him. She and Josh had only been married a few months, and she’d come on the trip so they could squeeze in a quasi-honeymoon. “His reputation is going to skyrocket. He’s such an ass.”

Malo steered a few women away from the booth. When he stepped aside, Zach’s gaze fell on the bar, and the barstool where Miss Prim and Proper had been planted since before he’d arrived. She hadn’t moved when all the other women in the VIP bar had clustered around his booth for the shower of champagne. She hadn’t danced to the music ripping through the club beyond the VIP lounge. She hadn’t come forward for an autograph. And even on the occasions she’d been approached by others, she hadn’t given any man—or woman, for that matter—more than a few seconds of her attention.

Now, she ran the tip of her finger around the rim of her wineglass and scanned the club with a look that screamed bored to tears. When her gaze reached Zach’s table, she met his eyes for an extended second before averting her gaze with a sigh. Then she picked up her drink and sipped.

That had been happening for hours. Their gazes had met so often, he felt like they had a silent conversation going, though he had no idea what they were talking about. She wasn’t showing any sign of interest, which was both refreshing and odd considering the situation and present company.

“Yo, dude,” Tucker said. “Why are you looking at her when you’ve got babes willing to fight for your attention?”

“These aren’t babes,” Zach said, looking around. “They’re fuckin’ groupies.” And they were all so damn young. “He picked up the paper the last girl had offered and handed her phone number to Tucker. “Here’s another one for your collection.”