The It Girls

That’s right, debutante, quit and run away.

Isn’t that what everyone expects you to do? So what if Jeremy dies on your watch? You couldn’t be expected to try and save him, could you? You’re just a poor little rich girl!

Okay, so I’ll quit in the morning.

I crawl forward on my hands and knees, behind the pool pump housing, between the latticework and the bushes that rim the pool. A rustle of leaves a short distance away startles me and I bite back a scream. I see him, ten feet away, slowly rising to peer up over the edge of the pool deck.

I hold my breath, wondering what I’ll do when he raises the gun and takes aim, wondering how I’ll keep him from shooting Jeremy, or me, or both of us….

Dear Reader,

Porsche Rothschild may be a tad high maintenance, but she’s got a heart of gold and perhaps that’s why I needed to tell her story. I guess when I start a book I’m just like you, wondering who these new characters are and where their adventures will lead them. I was surprised to find the many hidden mysteries and secrets Porsche’s pretty little rich-girl exterior hid. Deep down inside, Porsche needed to find love; she needed to feel that she was making a contribution to the world; and she needed someone and something to believe in. I loved everyone I met as Porsche and I traveled to L.A. Jeremy reminded me of Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean, and Sam, well…What can I say about a man as darkly attractive as that hunk of burning cowboy love? I only hope you have as much fun with my new friends as I had writing about them! Oh, and let’s not forget Marlena, the little show-off who just might upstage her mistress now and then!

Please log on to my Web site, www.nancybartholomew.com, and let me know what you think. I love hearing from my readers!

Sincerely,

Nancy Bartholomew

Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Nancy Bartholomew for her contribution to THE IT GIRLS series.

ISBN: 9781408946145

Lethally Blonde

© Nancy Bartholomew 2005

First Published in Great Britain in 2005

Harlequin (UK) Limited

Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, including without limitation xerography, photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

This ebook is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated, without the prior consent of the publisher, in any form or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this work have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II B.V./S.á.r.l.

® and TM are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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NANCY BARTHOLOMEW

didn’t seem like the Bombshell type at first. Sure, she grew up in Philadelphia, but she was a gentle minister’s daughter. Sometimes, though, true wildness simmers just below the surface. Nancy started singing country music in biker bars before she graduated from high school. And, yes, Dad was there, sitting in the front row, watching over his little girl!

Nancy graduated from college with a degree in psychology and promptly moved into the inner city, where she found work dragging addicted inner-city teenagers into drug and alcohol rehabilitation. She then moved south to Atlanta and worked as the director of a substance-abuse treatment program for court-ordered offenders. Her patients were bikers and strippers and they taught her well…lock picking, exotic dancing, gunplay for beginners and hot-wiring cars.

When the criminal life became less of a challenge, Nancy turned to the final frontier…parenthood. This drove her to writing. While her boys were toddlers, Nancy spent their nap times creating alternate realities. Nancy lives in North Carolina, rides with the police on a regular basis, raises two hooligan teenage boys and tries to keep up with her writing, her psychotherapy practice and her garden. She thanks you from the bottom of her heart for reading this book!

For the “It” Boys! Where would I be without you?

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

COMING NEXT MONTH

Chapter 1

Emma Bosworth is a manipulative, lying bitch and therefore, my absolute best friend in all the universe, even if she has turned her evil powers against me and Marlena. I can fend for myself, but Marlena’s too little to put up much of a fight. I wouldn’t be in this complete and total crisis if Emma hadn’t convinced me to let Marlena have her nails done all by herself, while Emma and I have just the teensiest Cosmopolitan at Bemelmans.

“Now, honey,” Emma says, “Marlena will be fine. It’s best if her momma doesn’t watch and besides, you know how long silk wraps take!” Emma shakes her head slowly, making her long auburn hair shimmer in the shop’s light, and smoothes her immaculate Chanel suit impatiently. Emma is not big on public displays of emotion.

I look at my poor, dear sweetie and shudder. Her first silk wraps.

“Are you sure Lisa’s good?” I ask.

Emma’s already huge green eyes widen and she gives me this look like, “Oh my God, sometimes you are just so blonde!”

“Bug,” she says. “La Chien is the only salon Vera Wang uses for her babies!”

Emma has called me Bug from the first day we met. She said she couldn’t stand the name Porsche, even if it is really pronounced like Portia. “It’s so nouveau riche,” she’d said. “At least be original. Be a red VW convertible with a black leather interior. It’s so you—all dark on the inside and flashy on the outside. That’s what I’m going to call you, Lady Bug.” Only it got shortened to Bug and soon all the girls we hung out with were calling me Bug.

Emma brings me back to reality by taking my arm and pulling me out the salon door. I look back at Marlena and see she is already licking Lisa’s fingers; my little ferret, alone for the first time in the big wide world without her mommy!

I am so beside myself that I let Emma drag me away. I drink the first two Cosmos without even realizing what I’m doing and that’s saying something because Bemelmans’ Cosmos are just so completely memorable. The third round arrives and I realize an absolutely sweet man at the bar is smiling at me.

“Oh, dear God,” Emma breathes. “I can’t believe it. Why now? Damn!” Then, as if she hadn’t said any of that, she says, “Bug, don’t you know who that is?”

I’m telling you, all I can see is his black Jack Spade man-bag. I can spot one of those even without my glasses, so if the details of his overall appearance are a little fuzzy, well excuse me. He looks tall, dark and rich. What more do I need to know?

“I have no idea who he is,” I tell Emma. “But he fits the profile for ‘You Can Smile At Me Anytime.’”

She rolls her eyes. “That’s Aldo Huffman,” she says, sounding not a little bit impatient.

I squint in his direction and wish I’d put in my contacts, but really, Emma was in such a hurry that I just ran to the limo without putting them in.

“Aldo Huffman? He like, grew up into that? He looks so…European. Oh. My. God! He was, like, such a little swine when we debuted! You know he was the kid voted most likely to grow up and face a federal grand jury for embezzling from his own company!” I narrow my eyes into slits and try to make out the details, but it really doesn’t matter because he is on his way over to our table.

Five minutes after Aldo joins us, I send a car to pick up my ferret and take her home. Mother love is one thing, but lust is essential to a woman’s survival, you know? We have a lovely dinner at La Petit Ennui and decide to hit the Canal Room where Aldo says he’s meeting a friend. He smiles at Emma and winks, so I figure it’s a fix-up.

When Aldo’s friend joins us, I have to pinch myself because the man is exquisite. Dark black hair, ultra-Latino, dressed in Armani, with bedroom eyes that make me forget handsome Aldo entirely. Tomorrow the New York Reporter will have our faces plastered all over it with “Who’s Porsche’s New Boy Toy?” captions running below them. Am I lucky or what?

Emma and I hit the ladies’ room to freshen up, and I tell her that I think I’m falling in love.

“Don’t,” she says and the trouble starts.

Something in her voice sends a chill straight through my alcohol-numbed body, sobering me instantly. I mean, don’t get me wrong; Emma and I are not fools. We both know I’m not the least bit serious about falling in love. Falling in love, when you’re saddled with more money than God, only happens after a thorough investigation of assets, skeletons and criminal backgrounds. So, for Emma to take The Tone with me, well, there has to be something seriously wrong.

“Oh, I see, you want him.”

“Don’t be silly, Bug! It’s not that. Besides, you’re more his type. He likes leggy blondes with big blue eyes, not short, little redheads.”

I’m confused. “What then, is he married?”

Emma smiles. “I doubt it.” Her face gets that look again though, and she turns away to inspect her lipstick in the mirror. “I know him, not well, but our paths cross now and then and well, I just don’t think he’s trustworthy, that’s all.”

I shrug and join her at the mirror. “Oh, well, if that’s all…”

Emma won’t let it go. “No, Bug, I don’t think that’s all. God, you and your weakness for the bad boys! I’m serious, Buggie, I don’t like him.”

I tuck my lipstick back into my beaded Gucci evening bag and turn to stare gravely at my friend.

“Do you want to leave?”

Emma is really getting wiggy on me now. “No, no, not at all! Let’s stay. Let’s dance. But let’s not play favorites, all right? We’ll just keep it a group thing, shall we?”

Well, she is my best friend but she is also a very skillful manipulator—this I remember from boarding school. She’s not the only one with tricks up her sleeve. I decide right then and there that Emma’s not giving me the entire story, so it’s up to me to figure it all out on my own.

We walk back out into the club and find Aldo and his friend already have the best table in the house, right by the dance floor. An ice bucket has materialized by our table. A bottle of Cristal champagne is being opened by a waitress and four champagne flutes sit in the center of the tiny wooden circle.

At least I know the drinks aren’t drugged. I slip into the vacant seat next to Aldo’s friend and smile as a photographer snaps my picture from the edge of the dance floor. The bouncers rush up to remove him but I wave them away. I’m enjoying this evening too much to waste negative energy on the press.

“Ray, this is Porsche,” Aldo says over the noise of the music.

Ray takes my hand, looks deep into my eyes and I feel every nerve ending in my body wanting him. Emma kicks me and I yelp, drop his hand like a hot rock and glower at her. When Aldo introduces Ray to Emma, she smiles knowingly, rises and pulls him up out of his seat and out onto the dance floor.

The scheming bitch! This was her plan all along. She throws me off balance and then runs off with the prize. I remember the way her face changed as she warned me about him. Emma has never been able to lie to me. She doesn’t like Ray and yet, there she is, dancing with him.

Aldo slides over, taking Emma’s seat, and begins talking about his recent trip to Greece. I listen to him, but the attraction I felt for him is gone. I am distracted, watching Emma and Ray, wondering what in the hell is going on?

When they come back to the table, Aldo stays in Emma’s seat and so she takes his and begins laughing and flirting with Ray. I try to kick her and miss. She is too far away. I glare at her when the men are not looking. She ignores me. Many people come up and talk to us, more for Aldo than anyone, but still, I know people here, too, so for a while I bide my time and pretend to be fascinated by the acquaintances who drop by to chat.

At last, I see an opportunity. I pretend to reach for a napkin in the center of the table, let my arm “accidentally” knock against Ray’s almost-full champagne glass and then gasp as it tips over, falling to spill icy liquid into his lap. He jumps up, I lean forward as if to help, and with one smooth movement, slip his billfold out of his suit coat pocket and slide it down my thigh and into the inside pocket of my faux chinchilla shrug.

I am so-o-o apologetic! The waitresses come running. Emma shoots me the evil eye and Aldo misses most of the moment because he is temporarily distracted by the arrival of a new bevy of women at the door.

Ray is the only member of our party who is not flustered. He is polite, and affects a very unconcerned manner, but for one brief slice of a second his eyes meet mine and look straight through to my soul. It is a bone-chilling search of my intent—at least, this is how it feels—and for a moment I am worried that he somehow knows what I’m up to, but then, how could he? I force myself to sit still for a minute before I excuse myself and wander off toward the ladies’ room again. I am surprised when Emma doesn’t join me.

I dart into a stall, bolt the door and sit down on the toilet. I reach for Ray’s wallet, feel the smooth soft, leather and smile as I pull it from my pocket.

“Thank you, Papa,” I whisper.

I have one or two very vague memories of my real father. In one, he is a large man, but then, I was but a small child, and he is laughing as he pulls a quarter from my ear and a flower from my sleeve. My mother and Victor are watching and they are not happy, but Papa is very, very happy. Now I think, perhaps he was drunk, but then, he just seemed happy.

“Leave us alone,” I hear my mother say, and she is crying. One day, my father leaves and never returns. When I am older, I buy a magic kit with my own money. I get very, very good at it, but Papa never returns. But when I have magic, he is never very far away.

I open the thin, flat billfold and begin to examine it. There are the usual credit cards. Ray’s full name is Octavio Reymundo Estanza and while he lives in Manhattan, I do not recognize the address. His business card is printed on heavy, ivory stock and reads simply “Octagon Enterprises, Inc.,” with addresses and phone numbers in New York, Los Angeles and Madrid. I probe further, pulling out a picture of a beautiful dark-haired woman when the door to the ladies’ room bursts open. A female voice is speaking in harsh, rapid-fire Spanish.

“Watch the door. If someone wants in, tell them it’s broken and they must use the other restrooms.”

A second voice, also female, agrees as the door closes behind her. What I hear next turns my stomach and I pull my feet up onto the seat so I won’t be seen. It is Emma.

“I don’t understand,” she says. “What is going on?”

The other woman switches from Spanish to flawless English. “Whore! You know why we are here.”

I peek through the crack in the door and see a flash of silver. I think maybe it is a gun. I look at the floor and see three sets of high heels. Shit!

“Listen, if that’s your husband,” Emma begins again. She is cut off by the sound of a slap that echoes through the tiled bathroom.

“Shut up, bitch!” the other woman cries. “There is no more time for lies. Tell me who you work for or I’ll kill you.”

Emma says nothing. She cries out as the woman hits her again, only this time I don’t think she has used her hand. What am I going to do? I don’t have a weapon. If I try and call for help, they’ll shoot us both.

“Who are you working for?” the woman demands. “Who is she? Tell me now and you die quickly—delay and your death will be very painful.”

Shit! Victor and Mother were always insisting I hire bodyguards and I was always giving them the slip. Why didn’t I listen to them? I draw in a deep, silent breath and think, well, at least it will be an honorable death. I place my feet down onto the floor, flush the commode and slowly open the door.

I can’t tell who is more shocked, the two women holding Emma, Emma herself, or me. I step out, just as if nothing whatsoever is happening and smile brightly at them all.

“Hello!” I say. I let my eyes come to rest on the gun and then look at the woman holding the gun. She is the same woman as the one whose picture is in Ray’s wallet. Great, the irate spouse.

“Oh, dear me!” I say. “I know you! I just saw your picture! Here, look!”

I shove the small wallet-size picture at her. For a moment she is distracted, and this is all the time it takes. Emma darts around me and does the most amazing kick-thing with her right leg. The gun goes flying in one direction and Emma’s attacker is suddenly on the floor staring up at a very irate Emma.

Emma doesn’t see the other woman coming for her, but I do. I don’t really have any time to think. I just reach out, grab her long, black hair in one hand and yank her backward, hard, into the frame of the metal bathroom stall. Emma springs forward, retrieves the gun from its resting place under a sink and stands up, covering both women with the weapon.

Emma Bosworth has never held a gun in her life, at least as far as I know. Her family is Quaker. They don’t believe in it. Yet here’s my Emma holding the little silver gun and looking positively violent!

She reaches her free hand into her pocket, pulls out a tiny cell phone, hands it to me and says, “Hit one on the speed dial.”

So of course I do. A woman answers and says, “Emma?” in a voice I don’t recognize.

I look at Emma who says, “Tell her that I need a pickup in the ladies’ room.”

Now I know the world has turned upside down because Emma Bosworth would never be doing these sorts of things. But I do as I’m told and the woman on the other end says, “Right.” But she never asks where we are or what’s going on. She just hangs up.

“What about the one guarding the door?” I ask Emma.

Emma looks a little uncertain and appears to be mulling over her options. While I, on the other hand, am completely undone and wish like hell for another Bemelmans Cosmo to settle my nerves. Of course the bathroom door just has to open then, and as I’m standing right by it, I am the one who must deal with the problem.

I grab her arm and pull her forward into the room before she can say or do anything. Emma lifts the gun just slightly so the newcomer can see that someone will surely die if she doesn’t behave and says, “Search her.”

“Emma,” I say, starting to do just as I’m told. “Are you a cop?”

Before she can answer me the door to the ladies’ room opens again and the room fills with three very burly men in black camou outfits. The music outside stops and a voice says, “Ladies and Gentlemen, please remain exactly where you are. The Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms people are only here to perform a routine check for underage patrons. I’m sure no one has a thing to worry about.”

Mass panic ensues as nine out of ten patrons begin emptying their pockets of illegal substances and I realize that this is far more than the ATF riding to the rescue. Emma is handing over her prisoners and quietly issuing orders. When she turns to me again, she smiles and takes my arm.

“There’s a car waiting for us in the alley,” she says.

She reaches for my elbow, but I step back out of her reach. “Emma, who are you and what exactly is going on?”

Emma’s lips compress into a flat obstinate line, no longer smiling. “I’ll tell you in the car.”

“No,” I say and shake my head. “Tell me now.”

Emma shakes her head. “I can’t explain it here, Bug. Come on.”

I take another step backward. “I don’t think I know you, Emma. Guns? Men in black? ATF? What is all this?”

Emma’s features soften. “Bug, honey, I’m still me. I’m just helping with something very important and I’m not allowed to say, at least not here. Trust me, Bug. I’m not a bad guy. I’ll take you to meet my boss. You’ll see. You’ll love her.”

It is the pleading look in her eyes that makes me relent and follow her out the back exit of the Canal Room and into the waiting limo, but I promise myself that I’ll never again agree to let my poor baby, Marlena, have a silk wrap without mommy.

“You’ll love Renee,” Emma says as the car pulls out of the alley and accelerates. “But do me a favor, Bug, don’t ask any questions. When Renee’s ready, she’ll tell you about us, but until she is, it’s just better if you let it go.”

Let it go? Forget women holding guns on Emma and people in black camou outfits swarming the Canal Room like ninjas? Let it go? But Emma has that look in her eyes again, and so I figure I’ll let it go, for now.

“Oh,” I say, digging into the pocket of my shrug again, “here.” I hand Emma Ray’s wallet. “I don’t know if this’ll help or not, but I can’t keep it.”

Emma’s eyes widen. “How did you…”

I grin. “You tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine,” I say, and lean back into the soft cushions of the limousine.

Emma chuckles. “All right, Bug, have it your way!”

We are silent for the rest of the ride, silent as the limo pulls into an underground garage and silent as Emma leads me into an elevator to meet her friend, Renee.

“You’re just going to love Renee,” Emma gushes again. “We all do.”

When I first meet Renee I think she must’ve watched one too many action-adventure movies. I mean, I know she commands troops of people in black who swoop down to rescue her friends from terrible trouble just in the knick of time, but does she really have to be so incredibly rigid? Don’t get me wrong. When I get old like her I want to be powerful enough to have two of my friends saved with just one tiny phone call, but I will not lose sight of my femininity.

Renee doesn’t look like a man or anything but she’s just so formal. I meet her at 3:00 a.m. and she’s wearing a Chanel suit and three-inch Ferragamo pumps. Not one auburn hair is out of place. Her makeup is understated and flawless. To make matters worse, she greets me like I’m in a receiving line at the British embassy or something. She’s cold, stern and impossibly remote. You’d think she was the Queen of England greeting a commoner.