Chapter 245

• Peter had texted Jess to let her know that he would tag along, too, and that made her wickedly excited. She and Kat couldn't hide their anticipation. Jess had a magnetic attraction to Peter's mogul identity, which came with financial power and "juice." She liked how Peter treated her with a sense of entitlement, without asking permission. He read her so well, he knew she would be fine with what he did.
• Kat felt a similar pull to Stephen, which all of us could relate to. I could, in particular, given my couple encounters with the actress Juliet Lawson. It was an irresistible pull, feeling like you lived temporarily inside a fantasy. For virtually everyone that's all it ever would be. For us? We got to touch and taste it. It was a heady, powerful realization.
• That left Rita, of course, who was a bit quiet on the ride to the ranch. She did a lot of cocaine, snorting a half-dozen lines in the morning while we were packing and hitting her bullet every fifteen minutes as we rode. She drank her Champagne quickly, too, but didn't say much. I could sense what tugged at her. Kat, almost without discussion, operated under the assumption that Rita would join her in bed with Stephen at some point.