The sun peeked through the windowed doors that opened into the courtyard. Across the yard, he noticed movement through the rooms on the other side. The u shape broke the home up into two sections. He assumed that either his brother or Karen was up and preparing for their day.

He pushed out of bed and walked naked into the adjoining bathroom. As he’d discovered the night before, the lights came on with movement. He wondered what that little trick cost Michael to put in place. No one in Hilton wanted those kinds of touches. No, Hilton wanted functional and cheap. The hardware store that provided them food and clothes growing up would have to special order nearly every fixture in the bathroom, every hinge on the doors.

“You did good, kid,” Zach whispered to himself as he ran his hand over the marble countertop.

Zach showered and dressed before leaving his room in search of coffee. He rounded the corner and spotted Karen struggling with the front door with her hands full of catering trays.

“Let me get that.” He relieved her arms of the load.

“Oh, thanks.” She opened the door and led him out to the drive, where several cars were still sitting from the night before. “I should have had Michael load the car before we went to bed last night.”

“No problem.”

Today Karen was dressed in tight-fitting jeans and a simple pullover shirt she’d tucked in. Her face was free of makeup and her hair was pulled into a ponytail. There wasn’t one ounce of polish on her like he’d seen the night before, no silk, no shiny jewelry dangling from her ears or her neck. Without heels, the top of her head barely made it to his chin. She wasn’t at all what he’d assumed she’d be from the pictures he’d seen.

Karen opened the hatch of the SUV and moved around to the second set of doors to lower the back seats. “Just pile those up. I have a few more to bring out.”

“What’s all this for?” He set the trays down and shoved them up toward the seats to make room for more.

“The kids at the club.”

“You feed them?”

Karen walked around him back to the house. “Not all the time. But they know after we’ve had a party to expect something special.”

He followed her into a huge pantry off the kitchen, which housed another refrigerator. Inside were several more trays of food. “All of this is leftovers?”

“No. We have the chef make extra, more kid-friendly food. The kids will eat the fancy desserts but skip the caviar.”

“I’d skip the caviar.”

Karen laughed and the sound splashed over him with warmth. “Yeah, me, too. I find more fish eggs in crumbled up napkins after these parties than I can count.” She started pulling the oversize trays out one at a time and loaded him up. When he kept nodding for more, she continued to pile until they met his chin.

She pulled the last one and walked with him back to the car. “If no one eats the caviar, why do you serve it?”

“Some things are expected. Have you met Tony?”

“No.”

“Tony is Michael’s manager. He takes great pains in knowing the personal tastes of many of Michael’s co-workers, the producers, so that everyone feels taken care of when they visit.”

“Do you know their tastes?”

“I have a hard time with their names. Knowing if they’re a vegetarian, or Jewish to the point of only eating Kosher…not a clue. Tony, on the other hand, has it all down.”

Interesting. “But you know what the kids at the club eat?”

She helped him with his load until the back of the car was stacked full. She pressed a button and the hatch closed. “They’re kids. They haven’t been told what to like yet. I just try to keep it healthy without being obvious. Dip the strawberries in chocolate and leave fresh ones alongside them, and they all disappear.”

Zach leaned against the car since she wasn’t working her way back into the house. “My mom smothered broccoli in cheese sauce.”

“Exactly.”

“It sounds like you take good care of the kids.”

“They’re good kids. We can afford to spoil them.”

“So you like kids?”

“Yeah.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “But you don’t want any of your own?”

She blinked a couple of times. The answer stuck somewhere between her brain and her lips. “I’d like kids…someday.” She narrowed her blue eyes on him. “Well, I should go.”

Zach pushed away from the car, giving her room.

She opened the driver’s door and said, “Can you remind Michael that he promised to stop by at three today? He said something about taking you out to shop for your sister’s birthday present.”

He’d forgotten. “Shopping. Yeah.” There was no joy in his voice.

“I’ll ask the girls what’s on the top of a seventeen-year-old’s wish list. Maybe they can help.”

“If it cuts out hours, I’m all ears.”

“You sound like Michael.”

Zach shook his head. “No, he sounds like me. I’m older.”

Karen slid on a pair of sunglasses and dropped behind the wheel, a smile played on her lips. “I’ll see you later then.”

He watched her drive away and hated how much he would enjoy seeing her later.

Karen brought the food early so kids could jump in before school and grab a bite. Much like Pavlov’s dogs, which salivated with the sound of a bell, every kid in the club knew when Karen and Michael threw a party, and whenever Michael himself was going to make an appearance. She had to admit, making Michael her temporary husband had been a complete windfall for the kids.

Last year the club had been struggling with finances, and she was dipping into her income to help. It wasn’t as if she had a big account or anything. Oh, she could hit up Samantha, and didn’t feel guilty about doing so once in a while. But this was her passion, and she didn’t want to mooch off her friends, even if her friends had serious money.

Long after lunch when the rest of the party food was gone, Karen stood in the kitchen doing dishes. Her mind drifted to her handful of friends and she couldn’t help but smile. How the hell did a girl like her end up with such an influential guest list of her own to add to Michael’s at these parties? It was insane.

She’d barely made it through college because of funds, she’d only just managed to pay off her student loans before signing up with Alliance. The only reason she was driving around in new cars was because Michael insisted they lease her something new. As he put it, no one would believe that his wife would be driving around in a seven-year-old Mazda with a broken air conditioner. The car wasn’t that bad, but she knew he was right. She did nix anything over the top. It had taken the kids a few months to settle down after her marriage, and if she’d parked some hundred-thousand-dollar sports car in the drive, it would be near impossible to get the attention of the boys. On days like today, she brought the Escalade, which wasn’t an unlikely car to be parked in the lot. She usually knew when Michael showed up before he walked in the door. He had no problem bringing something flashy for the kids to drool over. It brought joy to the kids, and to Michael.