“Wait, what’s the problem?” She smiled invitingly. “You’re here with your boys; I’m here with my girls. Why don’t we leave with you and all party together?” She pointed to an attractive redhead seated at a table nearby. “That’s my friend, Eve. She and I love to party together.”

Jason sighed again. Ho-hum, another threesome. It was all so passé.

With an apologetic smile, he leaned down to give Shayna a polite kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, darling, I appreciate the offer. But not tonight.”

Suddenly, there was a voice from behind.

“Well, well, well . . . what do we have here?”

Jason closed his eyes. He knew he shouldn’t have come to this f**king club. It was like one big frat party for celebrities, the place they all came together to be misunderstood and put-upon by the exhausting demands of the outside world.

With great annoyance, Jason turned around.

Scott Casey stood before him, looking smugly at Jason and the long-legged Shayna. Jason checked out Scott’s entourage and immediately dismissed them all. The only one he even vaguely recognized was that Rob Who-Gives-a-Shit Jeremy had pointed out at the Lakers game several weeks ago.

“Hello, Scott. Funny seeing you here,” Jason said, keeping his voice calm.

Scott smiled magnanimously. “I’d just thought I’d say hello—I didn’t get a chance at your party. You may have heard, I was a little busy that night.”

Jason knew he was being baited. But he was hardly about to let some pretty-boy wanker think he cared one bit about anything that had happened last Saturday or any other day. So his smile remained as smooth and cool as ice.

“Did I hear you’re chasing after Marty Shepherd these days?” he asked, faux-politely.

Scott’s smug expression faded just a bit. Then he recovered. “I don’t chase anyone, my friend.” He held his arms out wide.

“I just wait for them to come to me. Speaking of which . . .”

Jason looked up at the ceiling, knowing what Scott was about to say before the words even came out.

“. . . I’m going out with someone you know this weekend,” he continued. “A lawyer. Taylor Donovan. She tells me you two are business associates.”

Jeremy, who had been standing next to Jason during this exchange, whistled low under his breath.

“Business associates? Ouch. That’s worse than friends.”

Jason threw him a look. Perhaps they could do without the commentary for a few minutes.

Overhearing Jeremy, Scott leaned over to Rob and whispered something under his breath. Then he turned back to Jason, eying Shayna, who unfortunately had moved her hand to Jason’s arm.

Scott smiled. “Well, I’ll be sure to tell Taylor I ran into you and your little friend here. I’m sure she’ll be very interested to hear all about it.”

Jason’s eyes narrowed at the threat. “Don’t bother, I’ll tell her myself. We’re having dinner this Thursday; didn’t she mention it?”

As the two men faced off, Jeremy apparently felt it was time to step in. He stood in front of Jason, blocking his view of Scott.

“Okay, okay,” he said to Jason. “Now that we’ve established that you have the bigger penis, I think we should leave.”

Since Jeremy had inserted himself into the fray, Scott’s friend Rob now needed to chime in as well. It was part of the sacred celebrity entourage code.

“Hey—buddy,” he jeered at Jeremy. “Who the hell are you? The comic sidekick?”

Jeremy turned around to face Rob and coolly looked him up and down.

“Sidekick? Fuck you, porky.”

Scott’s entourage gasped. For a sometimes-working Los Angeles actor, there was no greater insult.

Rob’s face turned bright red. “How many times do I have to tell you people? I’m on hiatus!” he shouted, just before taking a swing at Jeremy.

And just like that, all hell broke loose.

“YOU GOT INTO a fight with Scott Casey?”

The next morning, Jason was in the car the studio provided, being driven to the set. The minute his cell phone had rung and he saw Marty’s name, he knew what was coming.

“How do you know about that already?” Jason asked. “That only happened like”—he checked his watch—“six hours ago.”

“How do I know?” Marty shouted across the line. “I know because I know everyone, Jason. For chrissakes, you were at Hyde. I’ve got half the staff there on my payroll. You do realize those little coke parties you celebs like to throw in the bathrooms don’t actually go unnoticed, don’t you?”

Jason leaned back against the seat of the limo and closed his eyes. He had a hangover and was not at all in the mood for a lecture.

“Then you should check your sources, Marty, because I didn’t get into a fight with anyone last night. I was the one pulling my friend away from that portly D-lister with the serious stick up his ass.”

Jason could hear Marty barking orders to his secretary on the other end of the line. He could just picture his publicist, storming into the office while on his cell phone, all frantic and “Get me Us Weekly, stat!”-like.

“I’ve got four eyewitnesses who say that you and Scott Casey exchanged words, Jason.”

“Yes, well, ‘words’ are still the way human beings communicate, Marty,” Jason threw back at him.

“Just tell me this—did this alleged fight with Scott Casey have anything to do with Taylor Donovan?”