Hot and Bothered. Serena Bell
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the door of Charme, the see-and-be-seen Manhattan restaurant. Her newest client was late, but that didn’t surprise her. Mark Webster had a reputation for being all kinds of unpredictable. Compared to some of the reasons his name had been splashed in the press, late to lunch was a minor sin.
She surveyed the restaurant again to make sure she hadn’t missed him. She loved this place, with its half-circle booths like enormous club chairs and high ceilings baffled with great swoops of black and white. Light flooded the room through big front windows and from a million tiny halogens. She knew the restaurant’s owner and its interior designer. And the publicist who had made it a sensation was a friend of Haven’s—she made venues the way Haven made people.
Speaking of people Haven had made, Amanda Gile was dining with a well-known fashion writer two booths over, her adorable short haircut drawing attention to her high cheekbones and long neck. Haven smiled. A year ago, Amanda had opened a small boutique on Amsterdam. The New York fashion retail world had been ready to chew her up and spit her out, but Haven had transformed her into a celebutante—invited everywhere, fussed over, photographed. Haven had enjoyed every minute of the process—the shopping, the makeovers, the parties in the Hamptons where she’d draped her client over actors, producers, musicians and news makers. Amanda’s success had boosted Haven’s stock, too.
Mark Webster was going to be a lot more challenging than adorable, innocent Amanda Gile, but Haven had no doubt she could resuscitate his image. His pop group, Sliding Up, had taken high school girls by storm nine years ago, but now he was a has-been guitarist with a bad reputation. He boozed, he womanized, he brawled and he partied—and not in a slick, arm-around-an-it-girl way. He favored dark, sketchy clubs that he often managed to get himself tossed out of. And the sin that overrode all sins was that he put his foot in his mouth ninety percent of the time.
But as one of New York’s premier image rehabilitators, Haven knew better than anyone that bad publicity was still publicity, and a star’s light never went out.
The sound of a commotion at the door told Haven that Mark Webster had arrived. She’d done her homework, of course. She’d searched a million pictures of the guy online and couldn’t help her tingle of interest at the fascinating contrast between his clean-cut boy-band self and the disaster he appeared to have become. As a band member, he’d been golden and dimpled and damn cute. These days, his hair was too long to be sexy, his beard was a fungus trying to colonize his face, his eyes were often puffy and bloodshot, and he looked drunk in every photo.
Just like the guy who was leaning on the hostess stand now, an expression on his scruffy face that—on a less permanently pissed-off man—might have been pleading. But Mark looked sullen and faintly threatening. He was much bigger than Haven had guessed from the photos—tall, broad, built, undiminished by whatever hard living had taken the shine of youth off his features.
“I don’t own a tie. Or a jacket. I’m meeting someone here, okay? She’s over there.” His voice was loud enough for Haven to hear now, his jaw thrust forward, his eyes narrow. He wore torn jeans, a gray T-shirt and a leather bomber jacket that looked as if it had been through a thresher. He was a sharp contrast to the polished perfection of Charme and its diners, a collection of people confident about where they belonged in New York City and life.
She felt a little pang of sympathy for him, even if she knew he’d brought this on himself. In her email to him, she’d noted that dress was business casual. And yet... Somehow she knew he would have felt even more out of place if he’d dressed the part. The clothes he was wearing were a shield. Against the restaurant, against what was being demanded of him, against what she was about to put him through.
Mark’s rough baritone cut clear through the murmur of cultured lunchtime conversation. “It’s not like I’m trying to come in here without a shirt or shoes.”
Diners were turning to look now, pausing in their midday negotiations and machinations to watch the entertainment.
The hostess responded quietly, probably asking Mark to leave, or warning him that she’d get the manager. She was just a kid, nineteen or twenty at most, and she looked panicky.
“Where does it say I can’t wear whatever the hell I want?”
Haven could see the hostess’s agitation. She pushed her seat back, moving slowly without drawing attention to herself. She wanted to cut this off before he got physical or threatening, before he got himself kicked out. She knew bar brawls were among his specialties, and though she’d never read about him hurting or even yelling at a woman, she didn’t want this to be his test case.
Nearly tripping where the wide gray floor gave way to the carpeted entryway, she caught herself and stepped behind Mark with her dignity intact. “He’s with me.”
Mark and the hostess both turned to look at Haven. The hostess’s eyes were hostile, Mark’s dark and dangerous.
“We’ve met,” Haven told the hostess. “I was here a week ago Friday, too. You seated me.”
“Yes,” said the hostess. “I remember you. Nevertheless, we ask that our patrons observe our—”
“I missed Ryan when I was here Friday. Is he in today? I’d love to say hi to him.”
Ryan Freehey was Charme’s owner, and everything about the hostess’s stance shifted from aggressive to submissive at the mention of his name. “He’s not in today, but I’d be happy to tell him you were here and asking for him.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that. Tell him Haven Hoyt says hi.”
Haven turned to Mark. Why hadn’t she insisted on meeting him in her office? Well, she’d have to make the best of it. She stuck out her hand. “Haven Hoyt.”
His eyes narrowed.
She guessed if you were Mark Webster, dressed in beatup clothes and girded for battle, she might not be a sight for sore eyes, but she was pretty damn proud of today’s outfit—high-waisted wrap skirt with skinny belt, cute cropped sweater, print blouse and beige espadrille-style shoes stacked so high she felt downright precarious. Her hair was piled up on her head, and she’d checked her makeup before she left the office. She looked good.
Plus she’d just saved his butt.
So why was he staring at her as though she was a bug on his dinner plate?
She dropped her hand, because he obviously wasn’t going to shake it.
“Wait,” said the hostess. “You’re—” Her gaze journeyed over Mark, assessing him. Her sour expression summed up how far Mark had fallen from his prettier days, but the hostess gamely said, “I love ‘Twice As Nice’!”
“You weren’t even born when—”
Haven intervened swiftly. “It’s a great song, isn’t it?” she gushed. “A huge hit!”
She used his arm to swivel him away from the hostess stand and led the way to their table.
Haven was conscious, as she walked, of his eyes fixed on her back, boring into her. Her heart beat fast with nerves from the near confrontation.
She didn’t bother to wait for him to pull out her chair for her—she knew that wasn’t going to happen. She sat, and he dropped into his chair with a masculine nonchalance that made her breath catch. He shrugged the mangled bomber jacket off his shoulders and let it drop down the back of his chair. His fitted gray T-shirt revealed sculpted biceps and well-defined pecs. He’d apparently been working out, between bouts of hiding in dingy bars and getting himself photographed staggering drunk. She could do a lot with a body like that.
In the purely professional sense, that was.
She’d been at this restaurant Friday night with a very nice, painfully boring hedge-fund manager. All of her recent blind dates had been as stimulating as a trip to the grocery store. Haven had to admit that, as messy as Mark was making this lunch, it was a hell of a lot more interesting than any of those dates. He was a lot better looking, too. Gruff, badly dressed,