Page 3 of Sapphire Storm

And maybe he’d been too hard on Donnie in general, butreliving the sting of BeachBoy24’s rejection had brought unwelcome bloodrushing to his face.

He was no stranger to the shallow cruelty queer men couldshow each other on the Internet. But the young man’s rebuff had beenstartlingly decisive and swift. A few days of messages followed by longer andmore intimate texts, all down the drain in an instant thanks to a singlephotograph that didn’t make the cut. A picture in which he hadn’t used clevertricks or computer-generated effects to hide new truths about his body.

There’d been a time in his life when he could stop a roomjust by entering it, when he’d had every muscle that might have sealed the dealwith BeachBoy24. He’d also been BeachBoy24’s age at the time. And considerablyless focused on the career that eventually brought him happiness andfulfillment.

He’d prepared to get older. He hadn’t been prepared to beerased. In certain circles, largely populated by adolescent nincompoops, theyseemed to go hand in hand, and so he preferred to stick to worlds where hisenduring talents and attributes were valued above all others—worlds like SapphireCove.

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A few minutes later, Ethan was knocking on the door ofthe special events director’s office, which sat in a little corridor of thehotel next to the conference center, separate from the other managementoffices.

“Come in,” Jonas Jacobs answered.

When he peered around the door, he saw his direct supervisorsitting behind the desk, staring wide-eyed at his laptop. Standing next to him,also riveted by whatever was on screen, was Connor Harcourt, the hotel’sgeneral manager. The two men made for a study in contrasts. Jonas was Ethan’sage, his head a dark bald dome, with wire-rimmed glasses that gave him astudious air. As always, his pocket square matched his tie; today they wereboth purple. The hotel’s GM, on the other hand, was about five foot four with ashock of bright blond hair and round blue eyes and Casper the Ghost skin. Itamused Ethan to no end that the most powerful person on the property was alsoone of the shortest on staff, asparkly little ass kicker, as Chloeoften referred to him with an admiring smile.

“Forgive me. I hope I didn’t interrupt,” Ethan asked.

Connor stood up like a gun had gone off. Jonas snapped thelaptop shut with one hand.

Had they been looking at porn? Doubtful given whatprofessionals both men were.

“No, please. Have a seat,” Connor said with a big, forcedsmile.

Ethan complied. To hear others tell it, Jonas’s officeresembled what most of the hotel looked like before its big renovation a fewyears back. Puddling drapes and Louis XIV furniture. None of the clean whitesurfaces and modern sculpture pieces that filled the corridors beyond.

“We know you already have areally busyday ahead. But wehave toadd something to yourschedule, I’m afraid.”

“About the Peyton wedding,” Ethan said. “Of course.”

Connor nodded and gestured for Jonas to fill in the rest.The event director’s voice was a bass counterpoint to Connor Harcourt’s high-pitchedone. “We’ve had some concerns from their team about the wedding cake,apparently. They’d like to try some new samples.”

Ethan nodded. He’d seen this coming, but it wasn’t his placeto object. One challenge of celebrity weddings was how detached the bride andgroom were from the actual planning, which meant they often brought things to ahalt—sometimes at the last minute—over choices their underlings had made weeksbefore. Thank God they still had a month to go.

“So is the tasting with Diana Peyton or her daughter?” Ethanasked.

He rarely got starstruck, but Diana Peyton was a householdname. When he was a little boy, his mother had never missed an episode ofSantaMonica, the trashy nighttime soap that had turned the woman into aworld-famous celebrity. For multiple seasons, she’d played the head of apowerful advertising firm whose workdays consisted of storming into conferencerooms in dazzling sequined dresses and firing people, a fact that had onceprompted young Ethan to ask his mother how the advertising firm could stay sosuccessful when a senior employee was dramatically shown the door every weekand for infractions like attempted murder or kidnapping babies out of theircradles. She’d been beautiful, for sure, the kind of TV star whose hairstylesinfluenced young women all over the country, but she’d never been very good.

Connor and Jonas exchanged a look. “Neither,I’m afraid,” Jonas finally said. “You’ll be meeting someone they’re calling…anutrition and diet expert.”

“Of course. Not to complicate this further,” Ethan said,“but if the issue is that the bride and groom aren’t happy with the selection,we should make every effort to get samples to them directly. Would you like meto conduct a tasting at their home? Or we could package something and have itsent over.”

“They’re pretty insistent on this meeting,” Jonas said, thenexchanged another look with their boss.

“And,” Ethan said after a tensesilence, “if I may say so myself, you both seem pretty uncomfortable about it.So, please, share your concerns.”

“He’s a trainer!” Connor blurted out. “Their big, fancynutrition expert was atrainerup until, like, five minutes ago.”

Smirking, Jonas added, “Now, he worked at Apex in West Hollywoodless than a year ago, which is apretty nicegym. Andprobably where he hooked up with the Peytons. But still, Connor’s point remainsthe same.”

Jonas’s guess sounded correct. Apex was one of the mostexclusive gym chains in the world. Ethan had pumped iron at a couple of itslocations in London and New York, but always as the guest of a friend who couldafford it. Over the years, he’d read a few magazine write-ups of the WestHollywood location, a two-story glass and chrome palace on the Sunset Strip,depicting the place as a see-and-be-seen magnet for A-list celebrities lookingto tone up before their next big role.

“Does he have any kind of background in nutrition?” Ethanasked. “Any degrees?”

Jonas said, “I did some digging and found a former websitehe had for personal training services. It mentioned some time studyingkinesiology at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. But there wasn’t even a degree forthatlisted.”

Ethan smiled. “I see. So you’re afraid I’m going to belectured on how to make a wedding cake by someone who might not know what he’stalking about and you’re concerned my response might be less thanprofessional.”

Connor nodded. “You’ve been an absolute prince since youstarted working here, Ethan. Truly. But the reason you got this job is becauseyour predecessor rammed a room service cart into a wall five times in a rowbecause someone told him his lemon meringue pie was too tart.”

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