The Perfect Homecoming (Pine River #3)

Cayley gasped. “You can’t talk to me like that!”


“I just did,” Emma said, and folded her arms. “So here’s how this goes, Cayley. Your overdone bat mitzvah is two days away. You’re going to go with everything we’ve planned, with no more changes, or CEM walks. You don’t want CEM to walk, because you know what that means, right?”

Cayley hesitantly shook her head.

“It means no party.” Emma leaned closer. “It means no photo booths. All the crap you’ve been telling your friends about this party? Who’s going to be there, who will get photos with who? Not happening. The adults get TV, and you get photo booths. Another no out of you, and your friends will be talking about you next week, but not in the way you planned.”

Emma didn’t give the brat an opportunity for rebuttal. In her mind, the obvious had been stated, and that was that. She turned around and left a gaping little girl behind.

“Well?” Tallulah asked when Emma stepped inside.

“Ask her,” Emma said, looking at Cayley as she shuffled in behind her.

“Okay, you can have your stupid TVs,” Cayley muttered.

The next day, Melissa asked Emma to attend that damn bat mitzvah in case there was trouble. Emma sighed heavily. “You realize I may very well kill that little twerp.”

“Try not to,” Melissa said as she fit a gold-and-diamond-encrusted bangle around her teeny wrist. “Paul and Francine have their hands full as it is.”

“I suck in situations like this,” Emma reminded her.

Melissa smiled. She was a size zero, and in a bright orange sheath, she looked a little like a plastic straw. She patted her tiny hand against Emma’s cheek. “Just don’t talk,” she suggested.




Emma arrived at the Beverly Hilton a few minutes late because of traffic, and found the party already in full swing. The teen lounge looked like the inside of a Pepto-Bismol bottle, with disco balls scattering the pink light around the room while the DJ played an endless loop of One Direction. Emma had to agree with Cayley—the party motivators roaming around did look kind of old.

In the adult lounge, the adult party motivators, otherwise known as cocktail waitresses, wore identical tight black skirts and white blouses and sleek ponytails.

The party was packed. No one was going to miss Reggie Applebaum’s event; the guest list was a who’s who of Hollywood film-industry royalty. Emma knew some of them personally, knew others by name. Some knew her, too, but kept their distance. Emma was used to that. It wasn’t as if she was part of their circle. And she had a reputation around town for being cool and distant and a bit of a slut.

All true.

Emma didn’t mix well with others, a truth that had plagued her all her life. Neither did she trust easily. And she preferred quick sex to relationships. None of these traits lent themselves to having lots of friends.

Emma also had a reputation for being beautiful, at least by Hollywood standards. Which meant that she was thin and blond. She had no qualms about admitting she was pretty—she had never understood women who demurred if anyone mentioned their good looks, or women who said things like, No, I’m not pretty, my nose is too big, or my mouth is too wide, or the worst, you’re much prettier than me.

Emma knew what exactly she was, inside and out, ugly and beautiful. And had she been reluctant to recognize the surface good looks, there had been plenty of studio reps who had tried to convince her to take up acting, knowing that her face would trump any concerns about acting skills at the box office. But she had no desire to act or to be part of the film industry. She knew too many of the players and what they were like. She didn’t really care about the star wattage at this party, either—she’d never been overly impressed by stardom . . . except for the time she’d met Steven Spielberg.

Anyway, tonight her job was to make sure everything was running smoothly. Reggie Applebaum was an important client for CEM. He’d hired them for a couple of studio events, and CEM wanted bigger gigs. The only way to get bigger gigs was to make sure that Princess Brat’s party went off without a hitch. Whatever it took.

A long afternoon moved into evening, and the stilettos Emma wore were beginning to make her feet ache. Francine, holding a plate laden with food, found Emma watching the little kids bowl. “Have you eaten?” Francine asked as she chomped on a carrot.

Emma looked at the carrot and briefly pondered the improbability that root would become a desired food source. “No.”

“Go eat,” Francine urged her. “Things are calm. Paul and I have this.”