Page 35 of How NOT to Seduce a Rockstar
Better not risk it.
Up until that point, Tess had acted around me with total abandon. As if I were a cactus in the corner—present, but not interesting enough to affect her behavior. That’s how it had to stay. I needed to remain neutral, passive, camouflaged.
A Discovery Channel camerawoman.
Observing the lioness in her mating dance. Documenting without interfering.
Letting nature take its course, free of artificial contamination.
Girls from all over the world poured toward the gates like noisy, colorful waves—an army of teenage dreams armed with posters and permanent markers. They flashed their phones with barcodes printed on them like passports to bliss, got patted down by weary, underpaid staff, shuffled through metal detectors, and pushed past the squealingturnstiles that seemed to groan under the weight of all those romantic expectations.
“Holy hell,” I muttered, watching the scene with equal parts awe and claustrophobia. “It’s worse than getting into Fort Knox.”
Tess didn’t flinch. She just shifted her weight from one hip to the other, the way a queen sizes up the castle she’s about to conquer.
“Not for someone like me,” she said, with the calm confidence of a woman who already knew the camera placements and the guards’ nap schedule.
Her sniper’s gaze swept the stadium perimeter as we drifted along like undercover agents whose skirts were about six inches too short for the mission. Then we saw it: a side emergency exit, recessed into the wall. No crowd. No barriers. Just one massive human obstacle guarding it.
He was bald, square-jawed, the kind of guy who’d seen more than his share of parking lot brawls. Staff cap on his head, ID badge swinging around his neck like a medal for “Successfully Keeping Doors Shut.” Every so often, someone with a matching badge would flash it, he’d crack the door open just enough to let them slip inside, not a word exchanged.
It wasn’t many people going in that way. Clearly VIP access—maybe staff, maybe family of Zane Ryder, maybe just the chosen few who always seem to know the secret way in without a ticket.
But it was an entrance.
And it bypassed everything: turnstiles, pat-downs, metal detectors… and dignity.
Tess studied him with the same intensity an art thief uses to time the guards at the Louvre.
“Bingo,” she whispered.
“Hold on a sec,” I said, grabbing the hem of her dress before she could launch her attack. “Didn’t you say yesterday you were designed to seduce visionaries, not… the peasants?”
Tess didn’t even blink. She turned toward me with the inspired look of someone about to explain Einstein’s theory of relativity—except with words likecharmand undertones of French leather.
“This time I’ll dial it down. Yesterday my laser cannon was set to Full Power. Tonight it’s on Gentle Glow. A true countess must glide seamlessly across the social ladder—whether from the gilded balcony or the back of the hot-dog truck.”
She locked her gaze on the bouncer. A full minute. Motionless.
Maybe she realized there wouldn’t be a second chance. However modest, this guard wasn’t warm-up material. He wasn’t practice. He was the one man standing between her and Zane Ryder’s kingdom. The final gatekeeper.
“Well?” I nudged her gently, worried she’d slip into some catatonic state from strategy overload.
She didn’t even look at me. “One second, Bea. Jesus… Ifeel like Mike Tyson in his prime, staring down a rookie. I just have to figure out how to knock him out without killing him.”
“Ah. Got it…”
I watched as she plotted at a level so complex that, if we’d been in a cartoon, there’d have been floating equations and battle diagrams above her head. Then, without warning, she pivoted and marched off in the opposite direction, away from the guard.
“Where are you going?” I hurried after her.
“I won’t take him head-on,” she said, without slowing. “I’ll pass to the side. Make it look like I’m headed elsewhere. He won’t perceive me as a threat.”
She said it with the same casual tone people use when explaining how not to spook a stray dog. She slid along the stadium’s perimeter, moving like a spy in heels. Luckily, the man’s back was turned.
Personally, I figured we had a better chance whacking him with a fire extinguisher and sprinting inside. But Tess didn’t need brute force. She had technique. And honestly, I was curious to see what she’d pull out of her hat.
She glided past him in a slow, calculated step. Then she stopped, as if something had just caught her eye. Without turning fully, she tilted her head—just slightly, like an aristocrat mildly inconvenienced by a noisy waiter—and said, in avoice of distracted authority:
