The Rolls-Royce limousine sighed open to reveal the slender blonde figure waiting outside.
Courtney stood beside the car like a composed stroke of pale gold beneath the moon, slim, luminous and exquisitely arranged, her beauty not loud enough to beg for worship but polished enough to receive it without apology.
The night caught in the pale champagne of her hair and lingered there, turning each strand into something silken and faintly celestial, while her posture remained relaxed in that careful way only truly professional women mastered after years of surviving cameras, celebrities and rich people who considered inconvenience a form of persecution.
She looked elegant, sharp and quietly expensive, not in the arrogant manner of heiresses born believing furniture should apologize before touching them, but in the purposeful manner of a woman who understood the world.
