Zach. But that would be a bad idea. It would piss him off and he’d figure out that Abigale was with her. No, she hadn’t lied. They weren’t in LA. They were in Phoenix.
Marin felt more than a little guilty when she’d talked Abigale into meeting her. Not so she could tell her friend that . . . yeah . . . I knew. But . . . hell. Abigale said she had to figure out how to deal with this, and she had a plan, but she needed to make it better.
So . . . voilà.
They met at the airport and Marin had left her assistant scrambling to cover a few things. It wasn’t anything major and it wasn’t like she couldn’t take a few days off. And even if it was major, even if she had to walk out on something very major, her friend needed her.
She wanted to go a little closer and look at the tattoo, but she knew Zach would pick up on the familiar sounds so she kept her distance. “Look, sweetie, she’ll be home when she’s home. If she’s out blowing off steam . . . ? Then maybe it’s because she needs to.”
“Blowing off steam?” Zach muttered. “You realize this is Abby we’re talking about. Her idea of blowing off steam is to lock herself in her kitchen and cook up a couple dozen ancho-chocolate-chili cupcakes.”
“Hmmm. Maybe she felt a change of pace was in order and she decided to lock herself in a tattoo parlor and get a tattoo of your name on her ass or something,” Marin said, smirking a little as Abigale flipped her head around and glared at her.
Shut up! Abigale mouthed.
Marin smiled angelically.
“Marin . . . tell Abby to get her cute ass on the phone, or I’m going to call the damned paparazzi out on your butt,” Zach growled.
“Oh, man. You’re really pissed off.” She lowered the phone and glanced at it, thinking back over the past few hours. She hadn’t tweeted or posted anything to Facebook so there weren’t any of those stupid geotags and she’d never done that stupid Foursquare shit. And her assistant didn’t know exactly where she was. “Zach, one second, okay?” She muted the phone and looked up. “How much longer until we’re done?”
“Forty minutes.”
“If it’s possible to hurry it up without messing it up? Please do it.” Marin smiled at him and watched as a dull red flush crept up his neck. Hopefully it wouldn’t be necessary. But no point in taking chances. After she unmuted the phone, she lifted it back up to her ear. “Okay, sorry about that, Zach. Personal thing. Where were we?”
“We were at the point where you get Abby on the fucking phone!” he snarled.
“Oh.” She pursed her lips and studied her manicure. “I don’t remember that scene. I’ll tell you what. I’ll call her again and let her know you’re still looking for her. Zach . . . stop worrying so much. That’s her specialty, right? That and ancho-chocolate-chili cupcakes . . .”
She disconnected before he could say another word. Blowing out a breath, she put the phone away. Lifting her gaze, she focused on Abigale’s face. “Honey . . . I don’t know whether to pity you or be envious. That man is all but desperate to find you.”
Abigale closed her eyes.
“What are you going to do when you see him?”
“I’ll think about that then.”
Marin lifted a brow. “Maybe you should start thinking about it now,” she suggested. “Before he actually tracks you down.”
Abigale popped one eye open and focused on Marin’s face. “What?”
“He’s threatening to unleash paparazzi hell on my ass, sweetheart. He’s determined to find you and he’ll do it if you wait too long.” She tugged the phone out of her pocket as it started to ring again. It was her assistant Leo. She’d told him not to call unless it was urgent. “And he’s probably already on the move.”
* * *
It was mostly an empty threat.
Mostly.
Because Zach knew one thing, almost as well as he knew his own name. Marin was with Abby.
Marin didn’t give a damn if he set the beasts from Hollywood hell loose on her ass. But Abby would. So it was a mostly empty threat. He’d hold it in reserve in case he didn’t track her down soon, but damn it, he was getting desperate—
The doorbell rang.
Hope was a funny thing.
It could burn inside him and turn everything inside him into electricity and even though