Infamous (17 page)

Kit pulled them both into the dressing room. “Come on in. It’s a bit cramped, but I’m sure we’ll manage. Mason, look who’s here. Entertain Jessica and Kinsey for a bit while I finish getting my makeup off and nab a quick wash.”

Jessica raised her eyebrows at Mason, half-reclining on the room’s tiny loveseat with an open paper. This was interesting, but she could hardly grill him in front of Kinsey. Instead she bent over him for a quick kiss on each cheek. “Kinsey, come and meet an old friend of mine.” She stepped aside and Kinsey got her first look at Mason.

Her mouth dropped open. “Oh-my-god-it’s-Mason-Knight.” Kinsey stared adoringly at him, then closed her mouth and flushed bright red when she realized what she had said.

“Cute kid.” Mason laughed. “Hullo, you’re Morgan Riley’s daughter.”

Kinsey gaped. “You know my dad, too?”

“We’ve met. I’m not sure he’s a fan.”

“I’ve seen
all
your movies,” Kinsey babbled, “even the R rated ones.” She blushed again.

“Well, well.” Mason swung his feet onto the floor and patted the seat next to him. “Come sit over here, Kinsey Riley, and give Uncle Mason all the scoop on what it’s like to have Jessica as a stepmother.” He lowered his voice to a mock whisper. “Is she an
evil
stepmother?”

Kinsey giggled and perched next to him on the couch. Jessica wandered around the room, looking at the framed pictures on the wall.

“You didn’t tell me you were going to be in New York this weekend, Mason. We could have made plans for lunch or something.”

“You haven’t been interested in talking about anything but exploiting me for your auction in weeks.” He managed to sound hurt and offended. “Anyway, this was a spur of the moment thing, decided to pop over and see how Kit’s show was doing.”

“Oh?” She put a wealth of meaning into the word. “I didn’t think you were a fan of musical theatre.”

Kit was just coming back into the room, rubbing a towel over his wet hair. He clutched his heart theatrically and staggered, “What’s this, not a fan?”

Kinsey goggled at the display, but Mason sulked. “I never said that.”

Kit sat at his dressing table, scrunching gel through his short hair and then finger combing it into place. “Mason and I were just going to head out for a late supper. I can never eat before a performance.” He swiveled around, “Why don’t the two of you join us and we can catch up?”

Jessica shook her head, “I don’t know. It’s late and Kinsey and I have a full day tomorrow. We’re going to finish up our shopping and hit some of the museums. We still haven’t been to the Met.”

“We ate really early,” Kinsey said. “I’m a little hungry.”

“I don’t know … .” Jessica wavered. She was pretty sure Morgan would want her to take Kinsey back to the hotel, not out on the town with Mason and Kit. On the other hand, she couldn’t see any harm in it and it
would
be nice to spend a little time with Kit.

“Please, Jessica,” Kinsey pleaded. “I have all the clothes I need; we could skip shopping and just do the museums.”

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to come for a quick bite,” Jessica relented.

“Excellent,” Kit beamed. “Thank goodness we have the Escalade. We’ll all fit.”

She started to say they would follow in their own car until she caught sight of Kinsey’s eager face. Okay, in for a penny, in for a pound. Minutes later, they were out the stage door and all piling into the waiting SUV. Kit stopped to sign a few autographs for fans and then they were on their way. In the car, Kinsey was e-mailing her own pics to her entire mailing list.

“No one is going to believe I went to dinner with Kit Masterson and Mason Knight. This is so awesome!”

Jessica pushed aside her misgivings. The men were treating Kinsey like a favorite niece. Kit had asked her to sit next to him. He was a gadget junkie and he and Kinsey were comparing cell phone features while Mason made laconic comments from the seat next to Jessica. Kinsey hadn’t mentioned Andrea’s party once.

She wanted to talk to Mason and Kit alone, but that would have to wait. Mason had made it obvious he wasn’t going to allow her to interrogate him in the car, turning aside each of her whispered questions with a loud comment to the two in the seat in front of them. Fine. Maybe she could pin him down tomorrow.

At the restaurant the driver jumped out to open both doors. Mason slid across the seat to follow her out. As the door opened and she stepped onto the sidewalk, there was the strobe of high-speed flashes. She looked up, almost blinded, into a storm of paparazzi. Blinking, she tried to backtrack into the car, but Mason was already on the curb behind her. He put a hand at her back and pushed through the mob.

Where was Kinsey? She couldn’t find her in the crush of bodies, and panic set in. Then Kit was there, his arm around Kinsey, shielding her from the cameras as he steered her through the doors of the restaurant.

“Jessica, Jessica, did you see? They took my picture with Kit.”

Mason laughed and gave Kinsey a one-armed hug, “Hey, you handled them like a pro.”

Jessica managed a smile, but she exchanged a look with Kit. Mason wouldn’t care that Morgan might be upset about the publicity, but Kit would understand the ramifications. So far, they had managed to fly under the radar. No one knew she was coming to New York and she wasn’t big enough news on her own to have the paparazzi following her every move. Being seen with Mason and Kit was different, though.

She bit her lip. No one knew who Kinsey was. If she was lucky, it would stay that way. Hopefully they would just end up as a footnote on Page Six, “Hollywood Pals Party in the Big Apple.” If they couldn’t identify her, Kinsey might even be cropped from the shot. If they were
really
lucky, somebody even more famous would do something a lot more newsworthy than go out to dinner and they wouldn’t even merit a mention.

It was useless to worry over it. At this point, there was very little that could be done so she might as well relax and enjoy the rest of the evening. At worst, the photos couldn’t do that much damage. A late supper after the theatre was perfectly respectable. Still, she couldn’t completely suppress a feeling of dread.

• • •

Morgan settled into his seat in first class and frowned as he flipped off his cell phone. His speaking commitment was finished, and he had made a last minute decision not to stay for the rest of the conference. Young entrepreneurs — it was the type of event he usually enjoyed. A chance to steer young minds in the right direction. He was well aware that for every company he could help save, there were a dozen more that failed or succumbed to corporate raiders.

He tried to tell himself he was leaving because he didn’t have anything scheduled for the last day, but the truth was he missed Jessica and Kinsey. Jessica’s plan for the three of them to spend some time sightseeing and doing normal family things had started to sound better and better. Spending another night in a sterile hotel room without Jessica to warm his bed didn’t measure up.

He had managed to book an early-morning flight. He hadn’t been able to reach Jessica on her cell phone last night, but he wasn’t particularly worried; they had been going to the theatre, after all. It would be a surprise, he decided. He had called the hotel to extend their stay by a few days. No sense in flying all the way across the country just to turn around and come back.

As soon as the seatbelt light went off, the flight attendant was back with the newspaper he had requested before takeoff. As she handed it to Morgan, the plane hit some turbulence and the paper slipped out of both of their hands.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Riley,” the attendant began picking up the paper, trying to organize the sections back into a whole.

“No problem,” Morgan waved her away. “I can find what I need.” It was only after she walked away that he realized the woman had brought him the
Post
instead of the
Times
. One of the sections had slipped all the way onto the floor and he bent down to pick it up. He was only half focused on the task, his mind still on plans for sightseeing with Kinsey and Jessica.

He retrieved the final section and started to place it with the stack of others to be organized. Then the picture on the front caught his eye and everything changed. The plane and everything around him receded. With agonizing slowness, he watched his hand move out to pick up the paper. It was the society section, and Jessica and Kinsey were on the cover. Knight leaned possessively near Jessica as they both stepped out of a black SUV. In the background, a handsome young man had his arm around Kinsey.

The caption read “Together Again?” The accompanying article was brief and devastating.

Naughty, naughty! Jessica Sinclair, Hollywood’s mistress of gossip has been keeping her own little secret. The bestselling author failed to inform her adoring public of her marriage to multimillionaire Morgan Riley. Jessica and über-hip stepdaughter, Kinsey, were spotted in the Big Apple this weekend with the hottest leading men from each coast, Mason Knight and Kit Masterson. Celebrity spouses Morgan Riley and Susan Knight were nowhere to be found. Anything you want to tell us, Jessica? Or should we just wait for the book?

The paper was shaking. His hands were trembling. He folded the section carefully and put it on the seat next to him. He clasped his hands in his lap to stop the shaking and turned his face to the window. He didn’t give a damn about the view, but he didn’t want anyone to see whatever was on his face.

At first there was just shock, an absolute refusal of the consciousness to accept the new input. He was in a plane on the way to New York City to spend some quality time with Jessica and Kinsey. Only now it was glaringly apparent that Jessica didn’t have any interest in spending that time with him.

Slowly, the shock wore away and anger came rushing in to replace it. “I was sort of hoping you might be free to join us … we could take Kinsey together.” Jessica’s words rang in his head. She had played him. When would he learn?

He picked the paper back up, taking in every detail of the damning picture — Knight’s proprietary hand at her waist, the way Jessica seemed to turn in toward him for support. The biggest betrayal of all was Kinsey. Morgan had been so sure that Kinsey was his trump card, the one person that Jessica would protect above her own desires. But there was Kinsey, right on the front page with Jessica, and with a guy who looked almost his own age.

His fingers clenched, crumpling the edges of the paper. He should never have trusted Jessica to take Kinsey to New York. It was a mistake he wouldn’t make again.

He leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. It was important that he be calm for Kinsey’s sake. He tamped down the anger and began making the necessary plans for when the plane landed.

• • •

Jessica groaned and rolled over at the incessant beeping of her cell phone. The room phone had rung a couple of times, but she had ignored it and let voicemail pick up. No one who knew her would call at this time of the morning. The cell phone was a different matter. Very few people had the number. If they were calling this early, it had better be important.

She squinted at the display, then gave up and just hit the answer button.

“Hello?”

“Jessica, have you seen the papers this morning?”

“Tiffany?” Why was her agent calling her? Then the words sank in.
The papers
!

She jumped out of bed and almost ran through the suite to find the papers left outside the door each morning.

“Talk to me Tif, what’s going on?”

“Well, my dear, you do know how to get a buzz started, but I’m not sure I like the direction this one is going.”

She managed to get the door open and leaned out into the hall to snag the papers. She glared at the two businessmen in the hall who were ogling her in her silk pajama short set.

Back in the room, she sank to the floor with her back against the door and began rifling through the pages.

“I’ve got the
Times
and the
Post
.”

“Well, there’s a blip in the
Times
, too, but the
Post
is the one you’ll want to see.” Tiffany rattled off the section and page number.

“I’ll call you back.” She dropped the phone and stared at the photo and caption. The blood ran out of her head, leaving her dizzy and a little nauseous. It was worse than she had expected. They mentioned Kinsey by name. Not only that, the picture and the article made it look as though Kinsey and Kit were an item. That was so wrong. Jessica closed her eyes. Morgan was going to kill her. She would be lucky if she was ever allowed to talk to Kinsey again.

“Jessica, I heard the phone. What are you doing with the paper?” Speak of the devil. Before Jessica could formulate an adequate response, Kinsey made her way across the room and peered down at the page that was lying on Jessica’s lap.

“Totally cool! That’s us with Kit and Mason!” Kinsey snatched up the paper for a better look.

“Jessica, they called me über-hip! The
New York Post
called me über-hip! I’ve got to call Rachel.”

“No!” Jessica shouted.

“Jeez, why not?”

Good question; it wasn’t like this was something she could hide. Better if she was the one to tell Morgan, though. From her own experience, she knew there was nothing worse than hearing about this type of thing second-hand.

“Ummm, don’t forget that it’s a lot earlier in California. Why don’t you wait a few hours instead of waking Rachel up?”

That would buy her a little time, at least.

Jessica picked up her cell phone and selected Morgan from her speed dial. Nothing to do but blurt it out. She would do it right now, before she lost her nerve.

Morgan’s crisp voice came on the line, informing her she had reached his voicemail and could leave a message. She disconnected instead. It was a little tempting to just leave the message, but that was cowardly. Anyway, what would she say? “Hi, Morgan, just thought you might like to pick up a copy of the
Post
. Kinsey and I made the cover of Page Six.”