“What’s in this for you?”
“I’d like to make an announcement on the show, nothing specific, just a quick mention that we’re getting you help.”
An attempt to control the unruly mess his show had turned into over the last few days. Maybe if she agreed to this, the fervor over Katy would die down and the entire city would stop talking about her life.
“Why don’t you just say that, anyway? We both know you don’t really want to do this.”
Silence echoed across the line. Karyn wondered where he was. At the station, in his home, naked in his own bed? Screwing her eyes tightly shut, she wiped that mental image right from her brain. At the station. Definitely. His show would start in an hour or so.
“Look, Katy, I have a reputation to uphold. I won’t go on air and lie to my listeners.”
“I won’t tell.”
“Yes, but I’ll know.”
Her mouth opened to tell him, not a snowball’s chance in hell, but she couldn’t force the words out. A few hours from her life. A chance to put the entire situation behind her and maybe get his listeners to do the same. One night had the potential to wipe the slate clean, almost turn back time.
“Fine. But no media. No publicity. I don’t want anyone to know who I am.”
“Agreed.”
Her heart sped up, not with concern, but excitement.
“I’ll meet you at Masquerade Saturday night at seven. Do you know where it is?”
“Sure.” She didn’t, but she’d figure it out.
“Well, then, I’ll see you in a couple days.”
Karyn shifted sideways, forgetting about the waist-high water she sat in.
He chuckled, the deep, light sound tickling her heightened senses. “Enjoy your bath.”
Unexpected heat melted through her. She cringed, but before she could make a snappy recovery, he hung up, leaving her dangling.
Flopping back into the water, Karyn closed her eyes and flung an arm across her flaming face. “I’m such an idiot.”
3
“EVERYTHING’S SET?” Michael met Chris at the door, pushing back a throng of women to let him into Oxygen, a downtown Birmingham hotspot. These personal appearances were part of the job, but he really wished the marketing department would find someplace other than local clubs and bars. The place reeked of smoke, and the pounding music and flashing lights made it difficult to carry on a conversation. Although, sometimes that worked in his favor.
“We’re meeting for dinner Saturday night. I reserved a private room at Masquerade.”
“Private, huh? Please tell me you aren’t considering making a move. I know you’ve been off your dating game lately, but that’s low.”
Chris frowned. He was not off his game; he was out of it entirely. But that was by choice. He was tired of pasting on a smile and playing someone else, someone he no longer wanted to be.
“Of course not. I’m trying to keep a low profile. Somewhere I can get in and out without anyone noticing me.”
“Dr. Desire! Dr. Desire!” Two women slipped past the bruiser holding back the crowd and raced toward him, yelling at the top of their lungs. Chris took a bracing step backward and held his breath. Before they could reach him, another security guard provided by the club intercepted them.
With a wry twist of lips Michael said, “I wouldn’t count on it.”
“Those women knew I’d be here.” Shaking his head, he moved across the room. “I promised Katy no publicity. No pictures, no interviews. And no using her real name on the air.”
His producer shrugged. “Fine. Legal wanted as much, anyway.”
“Great. Make sure everyone knows. The last thing I need is for this meeting to leak out. Then Katy really would have something to complain about.”
Chris settled into the uncomfortable chair set behind a table at one end of the dark room. Glancing down at the stack of glossy black-and-whites, he suppressed a cringe. He hated autographing these pictures, but they were part of the personal-appearance contract he’d signed.
The man staring back was familiar, but not someone he recognized as himself. The concealing layers were visible, at least to him. Slicked-back, styled hair. False, white smile. Tailored suit, a carbon copy of the straining shoulder seams he now shrugged uncomfortably against.
He’d worked hard to develop Dr. Desire’s public persona. The fact that it didn’t quite fit hadn’t always bothered him. But it was starting to more and more.
“Dr. Desire.” A middle-aged woman stepped up to the table and leaned across to squeeze his neck like they were old friends. It was time to go to work.
He spent the next hour talking and laughing with his fans. His cheek muscles hurt from the perpetual smiling, and his throat could have used about five gallons of water.
Of all the things that came along with being Dr. Desire, the public appearances had become his least favorite.
Finally, just at the point he was seriously beginning to think his wrist would fall off, Michael spoke to the crowd. “Sorry, folks. Dr. Desire has to get back to the station. But be sure to check out the Web site for his next local appearance.”
With a smile he could no longer feel, Chris waved as he slipped back out the door. Several feet down the block, his shoulders rose and fell on a sigh of relief.
“Remind me not to agree to another one of these for at least six months.”
“Sorry, you’re doing another in two weeks.”
Rolling his stiff neck, Chris let out a groan.
“Publicity means money, for you and the station. Wait here for me. I need to check on something inside, then you can give me a ride back to the station.”
When had he become a damn taxi? Whatever. It gave him a few minutes of solitude to unwind. These things always drained him. It was weird, the difference between speaking on air and speaking in person. The people were often the same; at least, they all wanted to talk about the same things. But at night, after the show ended and he left the studio behind, he was never as exhausted as he was after these in-your-face appearances.
Chris walked farther away, knowing that the bouncers who’d held the crowd back would soon let them go. Late-summer heat waved up from the pavement at his feet. Even an hour after sunset it still held every ounce of the August sun. But there was a nice, unusual breeze. It slipped past him, carrying the smells of the city.
Birmingham was nothing like the little Alabama town he’d come from. Back home the smell on the breeze would have been cow manure, freshly mown grass or a mixture of both. It would have held the mouthwatering scents of barbecuing meat and roasting corn, though neither of those would ever have been coming from his own trailer. Here he just smelled money, concrete and the Chinese place down the block. Not necessarily bad, just different.
“Chris.”
He turned instinctively, realizing too late that the smooth voice was not Michael’s.
Every muscle in his body froze. His skin flushed hot before going clammy cold. He hadn’t seen his father for fourteen years. In fact, he’d only laid eyes on the man once in his life.
As far as he was concerned, that was once too many.
“How are you, son?” With a blinding smile that reminded Chris a little too much of the pictures he’d just signed, Darrell Odom cuffed him on the shoulder in greeting.
Shock quickly