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Chapter One


Every time that I cleaned a room at the hotel, I opened the night stand and pulled out the Bible and fluttered through the pages. Not because I'm a devoutly religious person but because my brother, who is one, once said he tucks hundred dollar bills into the pages to reward housekeepers who are more interested in learning about Jesus than cleaning other peoples' filth off the floor. Personally, I'm just interested in finding the cash tools like Jake leave behind in the Bibles.

There wasn't any luck. Apparently whoever last occupied room number 3234 wasn't a Jesus Freak like Jacob was. I shoved the book back into the drawer and ran my Swiffer duster over the alarm clock and lamp base, stood up, and straightened out the bed duvet. Once I'd collected the bags of trash from the bins beside the desk and teeny-tiny fridge, I pushed the vacuum cleaner back out into the hallway, and spritzed the room with citrus air freshner.

Home sweet home for the next person who came lumbering through.

I looked at my to-do list. Next room to clean tonight was 4563. I think. The blonde imbicile downstairs at the desk had used a pencil instead of a pen to make my list and she'd smudged the last number so it could've been an 8. But I was fairly certain it was a 3. Or maybe a zero? No, a three. I pushed my cart along the hallway to the elevator, pressed the button with my palm and waited, staring up at the light indicating which floor the car was on.

The doors opened and a tall woman with curly brown hair stepped into the hallway, pulling along a suitcase. I watched as she pushed around my cart and slid the credit-card-looking room key into the door of the room I'd just finished cleaning. I shoved the cart onto the elevator as Room 3234 closed.

As I rode the elevator up to the next floor, I wondered - and not for the first time - how in Hell I'd ended up here, working as an overnight housekeeper. I mean there was a certain level of Desperate that must be reached by a girl to become a housekeeper overnight on the outskirts of Los Angeles. But in a recession like the one that the country was going through, I was just thankful I had a job that kept me from losing my parents' house and kept meals - even if they were meager - on my table. And at least the position of overnight housekeeper didn't include getting naked in front of perverted old men three times my age, like the job my friend Addison had taken.

Of course she had a lot more money than I did.

I adjusted the glasses on my nose and pushed my cart off the elevator as it dinged. The wheels squeaked on the new carpet that they'd just put in on the fourth floor.

The carpet is actually an interesting story. See, a couple months ago, this nutjob took his children hostage after the wife wouldn't let him take them to Disneyland. He holed up in the hotel under a fake name and had every cop in the city searching high and low for him like he was the most wanted man in America or something. He kept Tweeting pictures of the kids to prove they were okay. All he wanted, he said, was to see his children for a few days, and was that too much to ask? Well the cops thought so. Then he made the mistake of tweeting a photo that had the carpet in it, and I recognized it because, hell, I clean that damn carpet every day, don't I? So I took the picture in to my boss at the hotel and he called the cops and the cops came down and they had me knock on the door. "Housekeeping!" I'd shouted and he'd opened the door and the cops had blown the poor son of a bitch to smithereens.

I'd felt like I was in a TV show or something.

I'd kind of expected a good sized bonus check or a reward from the kids' ritzy, glitzy mother who lived in West Hollywood, but I guess there's no price you can put on a couple kids' lives because I never saw either.

So much for playing the hero paying off.

I pulled out my master key and slid it into the lock on room 4563 and pushed the door open, leaving my cart out in the hallway. I looked around. The beds were made, the room looked spotless. I called moments like this a free fifteen minute break. I pulled open the drawer of the nightstand, removed the Bible from inside, and rifled through the pages for a moment, then pulled out a cigarette from the pack I had tucked away in my apron. I opened up the bathroom door and stepped inside, and opened the bathroom window. Leaning out and staring up at the stars, I lit my cigarette.

I was probably about halfway through this blissful stolen smoke when I heard the room door open, followed by the thick, deep-throated laughter of a drunk woman. "Oh God, we're going to get caught with you parading around like that," she trilled.

"So let'em catch us," came a man's voice. "I don't give a damn..." he laughed, too.

"You don't now, but you will if Hugh ever finds out," she said in a warning tone. Her voice sounded vaguely familiar, though I couldn't place where from. For that matter, so did his.

"Hugh ain't gonna find out..." he muttered, though he didn't sound quite as tough after that. I heard the hotel room door close. "Now to get down to business. I've been thinking about this all week, you know..." his voice lowered to a purr.

She laughed and I heard a zipper. "Oh have you?"

"Every waking moment of the day," he answered.

I put out my cigarette, pressing the tip of it against the brick outer wall of the hotel and pulled the window shut. I wasn't entirely sure what I was hearing, but I was entirely sure that I should not be hearing it. I reached for the door about to pull it open and reveal myself when his voice, throaty, said, "Oh Christ."

"Hmm?" she hummed.

"Cora, you look -- you look amazing in that."

"This old thing?"

Cora. That's why I recognized her voice, I realized. Cora was the biggest powerhouse voice on the pop music charts in years. Everything that woman sang turned golden, like the Archilles Heel of music. It was insane the level of fame that woman had acheived in like two years' time. She had this signature throaty voice that sounded like something hot off a vinyl from the 1940s. And she had a body to boot. Everyone from the top down was trying to look and act like Cora. There were friggin YouTube videos about how to imitate her eyeshadow for crying outloud.

I have to admit as I stood there in the bathroom, poised to reveal myself, that I was starstruck. I couldn't move. Hell, I couldn't breathe.

"C'mere," the mystery also-familiar voce crooned.

I sat back onto the closed toilet lid, my palms on my knees. This mystery man was definitely not Cora's husband, Hugh Walters. Hugh was a new-money businessman, he owned a huge ass record label that had managed to buy out several of the major labels on the market since its inception a couple months after Cora's first album made him the richest man alive. He was an ex-football player, a linebacker, and looked the part with hands so big he probably could pick Cora up with one of them like King Kong at the end of the movie climbing up the Empire State Building.

This voice was so not Hugh's. It was low only because the speaker was being quiet, but had an almost nasally tone to it. This guy was definitely white, and - judging by the way Cora warned him he didn't want Hugh "finding out" - probably not built like a linebacker.

It was quiet. I heard shuffling, and then the bed groaned under their combined weight, and I realized what was happening here. I bit my fist to keep from uttering a colorful phrase. I was witnessing Cora Walters having an affair with -- well God only knows who, but I knew I knew the voice. Someone else famous. Probably someone else signed to Hugh's label.

Oh God.

My thought was mimicked in the other room. "Oh God," Cora moaned.

I grabbed my cigarettes out of my pocket and pushed the window open again. I didn't know if I could handle this. I lit up and puffed, making sure the smoke went out the window as they started in. Hums and moans echoed through the wall. I covered my ear with one hand and smooshed the other ear against my shoulder, continuing to smoke.

They went for quite awhile. And by the sounds of it they were really enjoying themselves. Like a lot. I closed my eyes and tried to block it out, but it was hard not to hear them. Especially once Cora got going. I mean she's known for provocative noises on her records... She even released a song entitled Oh My that was banned in like five countries because it was rated like a million Xes or something like that.

My palms were sweaty by the time they were finished.

Finally, it got quiet out there, and the light flipped on. A small crack of it eeked under the door. "That was fucking incredible," I heard the guy mumble. He sounded content, half asleep, happy.

"Yeah," Cora agreed.

The bed squeaked. "Where are you going?" the man asked, his voice worried.

"I gotta pee," Cora replied. I looked down. I was still sitting on the closed toilet seat lid. I looked around in a panic. I needed some place to hide. The damn shower stall door was clear. I looked at the sink, at the cupboard underneath it. Oh merciful Lord... I launched for it and pulled the doors open.

"Hurry," the man said, "I know we don't have a lotta time and I really just wanna hold you awhile..."

Cora's footsteps came closer to the bathroom door just as I slid under the sink and pulled the doors shut. My knees were pulled up close to my chest, and I tried to breathe as low as I could. "I really can't stay," Cora said as the bathroom door opened. "We've spent a lot more time than I should've already."

"Are you sure?"

"Hugh's going to wonder why I'm not home."

"Tell him the after party went long."

"He'll know better. It's bad enough I haven't been seen there in over an hour."

"I guess," the man sighed. "I just miss being able to spend time with you. Like I did on the tour."

"Oh you," Cora said, her voice husky. She laughed, and pushed her way into the bathroom.

I stayed so still I think I'd become stone.

I heard her close the door behind her and the light in the bathroom turned on, glowing around the cupboard doors. The toilet lid banged open and then she was peeing. Cora fucking Walters was taking a pee just a couple feet from me. I was equally disgusted and excited. Not like in a perverted way but just in the ohmygaw I'm so close to Cora Walters right now way. I mean I'd be really pleased if she was doing something besides fucking a mystery man and taking a pee.

Suddenly the man's voice came through the door. "When can I see you again?" he called.

"I don't know. I'll text you."

"It's just really hard," he said. "I like knowing when I'm gonna see you next... It gives me something to look forward to..."

"It's impossible to plan around Hugh," she said, "You just never know when he's gonna up and fly off to Italy or Paris or Japan."

The man was quiet. Cora got up and I heard the toilet flush. She stood in front of the cupboards, her shadow darkened the cracks of light. She turned on the faucet and the water rushed through the piping that I was contorted around. I heard her wash her hands.

The door opened. "Don't look at me like that," Cora said in a tired tone.

"Please. Just... a timeframe at least. A week? A month?"

"I don't know."

"When are you going to tell him?" he asked, "When are we going to be together? Like for good? You still want that don't you?"

The water turned off. It gurgled its way down the drain. I held my breath. I could hear the desire in his voice. Jesus, what would it be like to be wanted by a man that much? I wondered... wanted so badly that the words rolled off the tip of this guy's tongue like a child's pleading. I'd never been that wanted before - by anybody in my entire life.

"Of course I do," Cora replied, and I heard her turn, heard the door open more so that this mystery man could come in, heard their flesh touch and his arms swish around her, their shadows moving across the cracks of light that was my limited view. My heart raced. I closed my eyes, I imagined this man's arms around me, imagined the passion that was bound in the energy between them. "I want it more than anthing. But we have to do this the right way, or else we're both going to lose our record deals... and you know that as well as I do."

"I know..." he muttered, his voice muffled - probably against her neck.

"It's time to say good night," she said thickly.

"It's always time to say good night," he mumbled, but I heard him take a step back, heard their bodies part.

They left the bathroom and the door closed. I stayed still. I couldn't make out any of the rest of the words they said, only heard the muffled tones. I didn't move from my hidey hole under the sink until I heard the hotel room door close with a heavy thump. I rolled out onto the tiled floor and stood up, reached for the lightswitch with a shaking hand. I pushed open the door to the bathroom and looked around the room.

One of the beds was messed up, the blankets were completely off it. I didn't even wanna think what an infraed light would pick up for body fluid on there. I shuddered to think of it and reached for the corner of the sheet and dismantled it from the bed, tossing it in the corner in a ball. Just as the sheets hit the floor, I noticed something on the carpet under it. I kicked them and found a wallet.

I picked it up and flipped it open.

"Holy shit," I muttered, staring down at it.

Nick Carter.