Star stepped back, creating space between them. “If we run into anyone else, I may kiss you, so try not to freak out or cry or anything,” she said.

“Sure,” Archie said, wondering what it was about him that made her think he’d cry if he was kissed. She took his hand and they continued along the hedge maze away from the light of the torch and back into the darkness.

Her hand was cold, and as it warmed in his, Archie searched for something to say. He barely knew this woman, but they had shared an intimate moment. He had seen her barely clothed. He’d been turned on by her. But then, it probably hadn’t seemed intimate to her at all. She’d just been working. She’d figured him for a prude. If only she knew. “So is Star your real name?” he asked, the question sounding stupid even as it left his mouth.

“Star’s my stripper name,” she said. The dark side yard opened up to a brightly lit gravel driveway filled with catering vehicles. Across the driveway was a vine-covered Tudor cottage straight out of a fairy tale.

“My real name is Destiny.”

Archie thought he saw Star wink when she said it, but he couldn’t be sure.

Chapter 13

CHAPTER

13

The door to the guesthouse was unlocked. But Archie noticed that Star opened it slowly, peering cautiously inside before she quickly stepped over the threshold, and pulled him in behind her, past the stone gargoyles that stood sentry on either side of the front door. No one had questioned them. Two men in catering uniforms with masks around their necks were leaning against a van smoking cigarettes, but they had barely glanced up as Star and Archie had walked by. Archie didn’t spot any of Jack’s security detail stationed at the back of the house, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.

“There are cameras,” Star said, closing the door. “All over the island.”

Archie didn’t know if she knew that for a fact, or if she was just being paranoid. But if she was being paranoid, it was contagious, and he found himself scanning the corners for telltale red lights.

Inside, the house looked bigger than it did on the outside. The Tudor architecture carried over, with dark exposed wood beams and arched doorways, and stucco walls that had been expensively and laboriously distressed for authenticity. The lights in the room were on a dimmer switch and had been dialed down to the perfectly calibrated ambient glow of a high-end restaurant—barely light enough to see your food, but not light enough to read the menu.