then motions to let me know that we’re a go. A moment later she opens the door and exits into the outer room. “Thank you, Eleana,” she sobs. “Please don’t tell him I got this upset. It makes me look bad.”
I join her outside the stall to find her actually crying, while two thirty-something women stand a few feet away, gaping at her, and now us. “You don’t look bad,” I tell Sasha. “But you need to tell him what you told me.” I glance at our audience. “And let’s not do this now.”
“Sorry.” She swipes at her eyes, wiping tears that I’m actually not sure really exist. She’s just so darn good at screwing up her face that I thought she was really crying. “I did say I’d stop this.”
“We’d better go find Kayden,” I say. “He’ll be missing me.”
“Of course,” she says, and we head for the door, exiting into the blessedly empty hallway. “Nosy wenches,” she murmurs as we start walking. “I should sleep with their husbands.”
I gape. “Sasha. Please say you—”
“I’m kidding. Sort of.” Her cell phone buzzes in her hand and she looks down at the screen, and the slight furrow to her brow has me asking, “What is it?”
“Hold on,” she says, punching in a reply to the message, and then linking her arm with mine. “Niccolo is standing near the stairs we need to take.”
“Can’t we go another way?”
“Not if we’re going to make them think I’m you, when I leave through the front with Kayden.”
“We can’t just walk right by him.”
“Kayden’s going to create a distraction right when we get into Niccolo’s line of sight. So here’s the plan.” She locks our arms. “I’m going to hang on to you, and we’re going to keep our heads low, like two new girlfriends chatting it up about pasta and coffee, and we’ll zip right past him.” We near the end of the hallway and she stops. “If you suddenly have a flashback that causes an urge to stop, shout, or shoot, just hold on to me and let me get you through it.”
Stunned that Kayden would tell her anything at all, I look over at her. “What do you know about me and Niccolo?”
“That you have amnesia, and think that he did something horrible to you or someone you love. And I get it. He did something horrible to someone I love.” Emotions knife through her eyes, and she cuts her gaze away. “Don’t ask for details.” She squeezes my arm. “Let’s get this over with.”
I nod, and as we reenter the party, I decide that death really is too good for Niccolo. Destruction. Disgrace. Jail. Those things sound good. “Head down,” Sasha warns as we pass the piano, then laughs as if I’ve said something funny. I laugh, too, and, needing a place to put my nerves, I say, “Pasta, pasta, coffee.”
She snickers and says, “Coffee, coffee, and pasta. We’re going up the center stairs and he’s to the left by the food displays.”
“Got it. How is he even here when he’s a criminal, and Donati is here?”
“We’re with politicians,” she says. “They’re all criminals.”
“Right,” I say, and we both fake laugh as some man stops in front of us, gazing down at her cleavage while she waves him off, and drags me around him. “Bastard,” she mutters. “Here we go. Niccolo on our left. Coffee. Coffee. Coffee. Assholes everywhere. Coffee. Your turn.”
“Pasta. Pasta. Pasta. Assholes everywhere and I swear my skin is tingling like he’s looking.”
“We’re gorgeous. Of course he’s looking. And one of us is Kayden’s woman. Someone will have told him, but there’s about to be a planned distraction. Don’t react.” We reach the steps and start our climb, and the sound of glasses crashing to the ground fills the air.
“That was a tray of champagne being dropped right next to Niccolo,” she tells me. “Kayden promised the waiter extra if Niccolo got wet.” The sound of an angry, familiar male voice rips through the air.
“And I’m betting the waiter is getting that tip,” Sasha quips.
Niccolo’s voice lifts in the air again, and his voice, his anger, is familiar, but not quite right for some reason. A niggling memory begins to come back to me. Images flicker and then take control. I am in “his” bedroom, and I’m holding the gun, pacing, certain of what I have to do. Decision made, I walk to the bathroom and grab my purse, then open a drawer and grab the cosmetic bag