observed, seemed happy with their jobs. The pay was good, they got decent benefits, and none of them were expected to do lap dances to sell bottles, but maybe Taylor wasn’t as happy as the rest. She set the drinks the bartender handed her on a black lacquer tray. “Sure. They’d do anything to make Coop happy.”
Was there a slight edge to her answer? “They? But not you?”
“Oh, yeah. Me, too. It’s a great job.”
Her enthusiasm didn’t quite ring true, and Piper made a mental note to keep a sharper eye on her.
Coop was being pressed for autographs, and none of the bouncers was stepping in to give him some room. She appreciated the wisdom of keeping the bouncers from looking like prison guards, but these guys had taken it too far. Everyone wanted to be Graham’s friend, and even though tonight’s crowd was benevolent, that could change. Still, it wasn’t her job to watch out for him, and she stayed on the move, hanging out at the bar, drifting toward the dance floor, and making frequent checks of the ladies’ room.
As midnight approached, she headed toward VIP. The odious Jonah stopped her at the bottom of the stairs. “You can’t go up there.”
She’d met these grown-up bullies before. He knew she was part of the staff, but he wanted to make sure she understood he was top dog here. Her heels gave her an extra couple of inches of height, and she utilized every bit of it. “I go where I want. If you have a problem with that, take it up with Mr. Graham. But don’t cry when you talk to him. You’ll only embarrass yourself.”
She pushed past him and headed up to VIP. Her first night on the job, and she’d already made an enemy.
This lounge was decorated in bronze and black like the rest of the club, but with lacquered lattice screens separating conversation areas and a golden jewel of a bar at one end. The female servers’ uniforms were identical to the ones on the main floor—suggestive but not trashy. Black slip dresses with twin spaghetti straps that crisscrossed at the back and a midthigh hem edged with an inch of black lingerie lace. Some of the women wore calf-hugging leather stiletto boots, others, gladiator sandals that laced up their calves but still looked more comfortable than the shoes Piper was wearing.
A man she recognized as the Stars’ new running back sat with a couple of Bears players and a predictably gorgeous quartet of swishy-haired twenty-somethings. She wandered over to the bar and chatted with the bartenders while she observed her surroundings. Here, most of the guests tended to keep their attention on the people at their own tables instead of letting their eyes wander from group to group like the main floor clientele. The VIPs apparently assumed they were the most important people in the room.
She made her way to the small ladies’ lounge at the back. As she stepped inside, she saw a dramatic-looking brunette she dimly recognized as an actress on one of the Chicago-based cop shows. The actress sat on a padded cube in front of an oval mirror, staring at her reflection as muddy mascara tears rolled down her cheeks.
Piper stopped inside the door. “Are you okay?”
“My life is shit,” the actress said in a slurred voice, not taking her gaze from her own reflection.
Judging from the size of the diamonds in her ears, and her exquisite royal-blue one-shoulder dress, it couldn’t be too shitty.
“Men are shit. It’s all shit.” The inky tears kept rolling.
Piper debated making a quick exit, but she’d been on her feet for hours, and her heels were killing her. She sat on the next cube and slipped them off. “Sounds like you’re having a bad night.”
“A bad life. It’s shit.”
“Kick him out. Just a suggestion.”
The actress turned a pair of startled blue eyes at her. “But I love him.”
Oh, lord . . . How many stupid women could one planet hold? Piper tried to sound compassionate. “Not to get all Zen on you, but maybe you should love yourself more.”
The actress grabbed a tissue and dabbed at her mascara tears. “You don’t understand. He can be so sweet. And he needs me. He has problems.”
“Everybody has problems. Let him fix his own.”
The actress’s perfect nostrils flared with hostility. “You obviously have no idea what it’s like to love from the very bottom of your soul.”
“You’re right. Unless you’re talking about taco-flavored Doritos.”
The actress was not