Maria and Landon exchanged the briefest of looks. There was a warning in Maria's eyes, but Ariana could tell that Landon felt trapped
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214 by the offer. Ariana jumped at the chance to make herself useful-- even valuable--to Maria. To make her feel confident in her decision to let Ariana in.
"I thought you already told Christian he could be your PA," Ariana said, taking a sip of her coffee. "He was all excited about using his position as your right-hand man to impress the ladies."
Landon looked confused for a split second, but then jumped right onboard Ariana's lie. "That's right. Sorry, Soomie. Gotta help a brother out."
Soomie's disappointment was evident, but she lifted one shoulder and grabbed a donut from the tray. "No biggie. It'll give me more time to help Tahira with the tallies. I know you're going to make tons of cash," she said with a smile.
Ariana felt a surge of fear at the idea that Soomie might be keeping running tallies of the money that night, but she let it pass. It wouldn't change her plan. Because she had no backup.
"Whatever I can do to help the team," Landon said, lifting a palm.
As Soomie became consumed with her BlackBerry, Maria glanced up at Ariana and gave her a grateful look. Ariana smiled in response. This tete-a-tete couldn't have gone more perfectly if she'd written the script herself. She sat back with a contented sigh to savor her latest victory with a side of iced latte.
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LANDON MANIAThat night, Ariana fully understood why Soomie and the others had been so shocked that Ariana had never heard of Landon Jacobs. The scene at the Pop Culture Museum looked like something out of a big-budget Hollywood disaster movie where an entire city was trying to evacuate through one gate. But in this case, everyone was crowding into the museum and toward Landon. All the girls were screaming. Some of them were crying. Ariana saw at least three of them faint. One girl scratched another girl's face when she tried to cut in line, and someone was carried out on a stretcher, but there were so many bodies between Ariana and the door, she couldn't get a good look at who it was or what had happened to them.
Landon stood on a large stage at the front of the room for his photo ops, backed by about a hundred plasma screens suspended from the wall. Each screen played his latest video, which for some reason featured both cheerleaders and geisha girls. All the waitresses circulating
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at the event were dressed in the same way as the girls in the video, right down to their elaborate eye shadow and supersprayed hairstyles. They served free hors d'oeuvres and flavored sodas to the kids, and ten-dollars-and-up drinks to the adults, who, as Tahira had predicted, all seemed to be in serious need of a little something to take the edge off. On the screens half a dozen of the geishas and cheerleaders were fawning all over Landon, who was shirtless in the clip. Shirtless and, in Ariana's view, kind of scrawny and unsexy.
"This is ridiculous," Ariana said, shouting to be heard over the din of voices and cries and screams and applause, not to mention the insanely loud rock music that was being pumped through dozens of huge speakers. "I'm sorry, but what's so great about Landon? He seems like a totally average person to me."
"I know, right?" Lexa said, taking a twenty-dollar bill from one of the dozens of girls trying to crowd their table. She quickly made change and handed it over, then stamped the girl's hand. "I wonder if they would be so excited about him if they knew he can literally spend an hour picking his toenails."
"Ew," Ariana said. She glanced over at Landon as he slung his arm around a bawling redheaded girl and smirked for the camera, tilting his head so that his hair fell over his eye just so. "How do you know that?"
"We all hit Saint-Tropez together last year for Columbus Day weekend," Lexa said, leaning toward Ariana. "I saw him do it right there on the beach."
Ariana bit back a gag.
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"Here you go!" a tall, stocky girl with long brown hair appeared in front of the table with a plate full of food. "I got three of each of the passed hors d'oeuvres."
"Thanks, Melanie. I'm starved," Lexa said. "Ana, have you met Melanie?"
Melanie turned to Ariana with a smile. "No. Nice to meet you," Ariana said. "Snack duty, I assume?"
"That's me," Melanie replied. "Let me know if you guys need anything else!"
Then she quickly turned and made her way back into the fray. Lexa picked up the tiniest hamburger Ariana had ever seen and took a bite.
"Tahira outdid herself with the food," she said. "Tres smart going for finger foods that the masses could recognize instead of getting fancy. Try one!"
Ariana grabbed a teeny grilled cheese wedge and popped it in her mouth, where it melted on her tongue. "Not bad," she conceded.
"Okay! Okay! Get off!" Brigit shouted, elbowing some brace-faced girl aside as she returned from the bathroom. She shuddered, straightened the sparkly cardigan sweater she wore over her black dress, and stepped up to Ariana's side. Without a second thought she grabbed one of the grilled cheese triangles and ate it. "It's a good thing I offered up my security detail to watch the cash tonight. If Rudolpho had been out here with me, he would have flattened that girl!"
"Are you okay?" Lexa asked, checking Brigit over. The second her
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