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“Yeah. I got these reservations for Bertesci’s. Great place, my dad knows the owner. What do you say? Seven o’clock?”

I’d promised myself that I wouldn’t go out on another date with him. He was a grade-A asshole, Hollywood’s finest. So full of himself that his ego was spilling out of his ears.

But hey, it was dinner, and I needed my grocery money for rent. I summoned up the ghosts of Stanislavski and Meisner. I’d need all of my acting chops to keep from smacking him across the face before the appetizers came.

“I’d love to!”

“Great,” he said. “Wear something tight. Not like that last dress you wore to our date, though. This place is classy.”

I wasn’t sure dinner was worth this. I gritted my teeth and put on my brightest, happiest voice.

“Sure, Blaise, can’t wait!”

Rien

I looked down into Bob’s chest. His heart was racing; it had overtaken the beat of the song already. I looked into his face and smiled.

“I’m sorry we can’t get to know each other better, Bob,” I said. “We haven’t even had a proper conversation yet. I would normally have a much better bedside manner, Bob. But I have another client coming in, so we really need to get this finished up quickly.”

The man’s eyes widened and his screams turned into one high-pitched whine behind the gag. His body twisted against the nylon straps, but they held tight. Good straps. They weren’t even that expensive.

I looked down at the heart. A tangle of thick veins and arteries surrounded the beating muscle.

“Which one should I cut?” I asked Gav, winking.

“Make it a show,” he said. “I haven’t seen blood in a while.”

“Sure,” I said, bending down and finding the main arterial vessel. I slipped the blade underneath and flicked it up, sending a spray of thick blood into the air above the operating room table. The man’s screams faded as his blood spurted in time to the end of the jazz tune, pumping the life out of him. “Like the motherfucking Bellagio fountains.”

“Beautiful,” Gav said. His face shone with pleasure. “Thanks for letting me sit in.”

“Anytime, quitter,” I said. “What else are friends for?”

CHAPTER THREE

Sara

“Hollywood is so fake, don’t you think?” Blaise leaned across the table and refilled my wine glass with whatever expensive Pinot Noir blend he’d bought to impress me this time. I was beginning to think that he just liked to flirt with sommeliers.

“Mmm,” I murmured in assent. I couldn’t tell a Versailles Merlot from two-buck Chuck, honestly. It all tasted the same to me.

Which was fine, because I couldn’t afford to drink anything on my own dime, two-buck Chuck or otherwise. So I smiled and nodded and let guys take me out to fancy places if they wanted to. And Blaise wanted to. I don’t think he would ever eat at a place where youcouldn’tget valet parking.

“All of these fake models and fake actresses thinking that they’re hot shit, strutting around like they’re hot shit. They’re not, not really,” he said, waving the wine bottle in the air for emphasis. “That’s why I like you, Sara.”

Really?

“Because I’m not hot shit?”

“Because you don’t pretend to be hot shit,” he said. “You don’t pretend to be this skinny beautiful perfect being.”

“That’s… pretty rude, Blaise. Insulting, really.” What was it about guys nowadays? They felt like they had to put a girl down so that she would drool over them. I hated it.

“You know what I mean,” he said. “I saw this girl on Santa Monica today in the tightest dress: bleached blond hair, legs like toothpicks, tits out to here!” He held his hands in front of him. “Who does she think she’s impressing?”

“She made an impression on you, didn’t she?”

“You know what I mean. What I’m saying is, there are too many fake people in this town.”

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