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“Is that Ryder Prince?”
“Who let him in?”
“Is he here with Victoria Ashby?”
The waiter arrived, looking obviously self-conscious. “Sir?”
But as Ryder grabbed two glasses of wine, Vicky swooped in and took them away, depositing them back on the tray. “Thank you,” she said to the waiter, nodding for him to leave. He scurried away.
“Really, Vic”—he leaned in close again, his breath tickling her ear—“I’ve always liked you. But you have terrible taste in men.”
Okay. Enough was enough. “All right, Ryder. I think it’s time to go.” She hooked her arm through his and spun him toward the exit. The crowd parted for them, whispering frantically as they passed.
Ryder, of course, just chuckled, but at least he walked with her. “I agree. This place is full of stuffed shirts. And whatever the ladies here have been stuffing.”
He leered at a woman as they passed. Vicky seethed but said nothing.
“So whaddaya think, Vic? Where should we go?”
“You are going home.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. That sounds boring. Let’s go clubbing. Have you ever actually been clubbing? You’d be fantastic at it.”
They reached the lobby. She yanked him aside, studying him for a moment to assess him. He wasn’t drunk (a guy like Ryder would need a heck of a lot more than a couple of glasses of wine for that). No, he was just being his usual impulsive and impertinent self. He’d be fine if she stuck him in a cab and sent him home.
She turned and scanned the lobby for the kid who had been there earlier. He was still stationed at the door. Good. She caught his eye and motioned for him to come over.
As he did, she turned to Ryder, and said, “Now you be quiet.”
She thought he might put up a fight, but instead, he just said, “Yes, ma’am.”
Chapter Five
Ryder wasn’t really sure why he let Vicky drag him out of the ball. Well, that wasn’t true. As fun as it had been to crash the thing, it wasn’t all that much fun to stay there.
But now she had pulled that scrawny kid aside—the one who had tried to throw him out earlier. She hadn’t let go of Ryder—as if somehow her slender arm, toned though it was, would be enough to keep him there by brute force if necessary. He stayed put, though. She felt sort of nice pressed up against his side like this, and besides, watching her try to wrangle him in was sort of entertaining.
He waited patiently as she whispered to the hotel kid something about getting Ryder a cab and sending him on his way. Discreetly, of course, by way of the alley along the side of the hotel.
Because of course the press out front would be way too interested in him. The joke was on her because they’d already gotten plenty of shots of him arriving with his lady companions earlier in the evening. But here was Vic, trying to run damage control anyway. Trying to keep things as neat and nice as possible.
She was probably afraid he’d cause a big scene on the way out. He ought to too. She was only doing this to protect his parents from the sheer embarrassment of the gossip papers reminding everyone that he was their son. Screw that. What he should do was make a huge scene, just to stick it to them.
And yet, somehow, he couldn’t bring himself to. To his parents, he was an eternal disappointment. But for all her allegiance to them and his do-no-wrong brother, Vic was different. Yes, she was impatient with him. But now as always, she was treating him like he wasn’t the scourge of the earth. And some part of him didn’t want to disappoint her.
He really had always liked her. There was something about her. So strong and determined. Though holy hell did she need to loosen up.
“Thank you very much,” she was saying to the kid, who scurried down a hallway toward the side exit.
She turned back to Ryder, leveling her gaze at him. “So, are you going to go willingly, or do I have to call in reinforcements?”
He wondered what “reinforcements” would entail. A collection of octogenarians in formal attire? A band of chambermaids? But he could see that challenging her on this would only cause her stress at this point, and even if she wasn’t saying so, it was obvious she wasn’t having the easiest of evenings (even without a disruptive hooligan such as himself to contend with).
“For you, Vic, I’ll go willingly.”
He flashed her his trademark cockeyed smile, the one that usually charmed men and women alike into letting him get away with murder. Or at least behavior that was worthy of gossip headlines. But she just sighed and shook her head.
“Come on, Ryder.”
