by Piper Lawson
Withdrawal symptoms.
My sympathy fades.
“I meant what I said about staying clean while you’re in my employ.” The sharpness in my tone makes Rae stiffen.
“Well, now that you’ve tossed my stash, I guess I’ll have to. What exactly did that look like to you? E? Cocaine? GHB?”
“The newest craze is 2CB—”
“Is that what was in my bag?”
My gaze narrows. “I don’t know,” I admit.
“It’s a headache. Not withdrawal.” She nods toward her notebook computer on the kitchen table before dumping the contents of her mug into the sink. “Been bent over that for twelve-plus-hour days since I was a teenager.”
“So, what, two years, then?”
The comment earns me side-eye as she puts a kettle on and fixes something else on the counter obscured behind her body. “I’m twenty-four. I’ve been doing this ten years.”
I cross to her, and she stiffens the moment she feels me at her back.
“What are you doing?”
I press a thumb into the muscle where her shoulder joins her neck inside the wide strap of her bra, and she sucks in a breath. “Ow!”
Rae tries to twist away, but I don’t let her. “It’s a trigger point. Breathe.”
“You are a sadist.”
“Give me thirty seconds. If it’s not better, you can call me whatever you want.”
For once, she does what I say.
I let my curiosity get the better of me. “So, you started at fourteen. High school dropout?”
The muscle starts to give under my hands, and I rub a small, deliberate circle that makes her hiss.
“Got my GED at sixteen and finished early so I could work on music.”
Determined.
“Plus, I don’t sleep much.“
I switch to the other side of her neck and dig in there. This time, she doesn’t jerk away.
“You looked as if you were sleeping fine this morning.”
She rips herself out of my hands, bracing against the sink and turning to level me with accusing eyes. “What the hell were you doing in my room?”
“I returned your sweater. You’re lucky it suffered a kinder fate than my jacket.”
“And you stuck around to watch me?”
“You talk in your sleep. Not my fault you were saying my name.”
I’m expecting her to snap back at me, maybe even hit me, but her expression is shocked.
As if she wants to tell me I’m lying but she’s not sure.
I wanted to catch her off guard, but it’s me who’s rocked when a bolt of attraction surges down my spine, has my abs clenching under my dress shirt.
“I didn’t.” The whisper drags along my skin, and fuck if I can’t help thinking how she’d sound whispering other things.
“You did,” I promise.
Her throat tightens as she swallows. Her eyes cloud.
A timer goes off, and she slips out from where I have her against the sink.
Dammit.
The knee-jerk disappointment makes me grimace.
I have no interest in her, not as a woman.
But the rejection is still refreshingly painful.
I turn to find her pouring coffee into a mug. She holds it out. “Real coffee. I bought it in town.”
“There isn’t real or fake coffee…” I take a sip, the flavors mingling pleasantly in my mouth. “It’s not terrible.”
Rae’s face lights with triumph, her lips curving. “I told you.”
Ash was right. She is really fucking pretty.
“La Mer,” she goes on. “It’s bigger than Coachella, than Vegas, than anywhere. Why don’t you own it?”
It takes a moment for me to catch up. “I’m working on it. The things most worth having take time to acquire.”
She reaches for the mug, and our fingers brush. Awareness runs through me.
She holds my gaze for a moment before heading toward the kitchen table.
“So, how are you going to fill my club?” I ask as she drops into the chair, setting her mug on the table.
“I have to give them a different experience every time. Plus, I’m figuring out how to get on the right people’s radar.”
I grab the wrapped sandwich Natalia made me knowing I’d come for it when I was ready before returning to perch on the edge of the table.
“Debajo isn’t going to be the ‘it’ place,” she goes on. “It’s a basement. The place for those who don’t want to go to the ‘it’ place.”
“People like you? The rebels and outcasts?”
I should be interested in what she can do for my club, and I am, but I’m interested in her too.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You should.”
Her gaze flicks to mine, surprised.
“You’re abrasive and petulant. But add a wig, a hundred thousand euros of sound equipment, and some strobe lights? A rebel girl can turn into a nightclub goddess.”
Her lips part. “Goddess.”
“I’m not referring to your looks,” I say evenly, though the more I stare at her, the more I want to. “Goddesses aren’t defined by their beauty. They’re defined by their power. You have that, yet you react to the world instead of commanding it.”
I don’t know why I’m telling her this, but it’s been weighing on me since the first night I saw her play.
Maybe I see something in her I recognize, the feeling she’s been wronged and is trying—futilely, desperately—to set things right.
“Easy for you to say,” she replies. “People wait for you to act. By the time I have a chance, they’ve already made up their mind about me. Already decided things that change my present and my future.”
I imagine it’s been a struggle for her. I can see it on her face.
The earnest way she’s watching me, like my words are sinking in, has my chest tightening.
“Learn to take your power and no one can tell you what to do.”
Her dark lashes blink as she cradles her chin between her palms, inhaling slowly before letting the breath out.
“Well, damn. Thanks for the career advice, Mr. King,” she says, deadpan.
Insolent. Instead of offering her the chance to play Debajo, I could’ve let her languish in the obscurity she brought on herself.
And she’s repaying me with insults.
When her lips twitch in a smirk, a jolt of lust snaps down my spine.
I said I wanted to bring her peace.
I take it back.
I want to shut up that mouth that delights in insulting me, my cock, and the empire I’ve built. To watch those dark eyes cloud when I shove her back on this table, drag the denim off her legs and make her explode on my tongue.
It’s the first I’ve wanted a woman this powerfully in months, the first I’ve pictured what it would feel like to take my pleasure alongside hers.
But it’s attraction.
Meaningless. Harmless.
It doesn’t need to control me.
I reach across her for the mug beside her computer. The next sip I take is better than the first. “No. Thank you.”
“For what?” Rae shifts back in her seat, wary.
“For the coffee.”
She growls at my back as I head for the stairs, sandwich in one hand and mug in the other.
This round goes to me.
But when her eyes linger in my mind long into the afternoon, I wonder if I’m wrong.
8
Harrison
Security at Debajo is surprised to see me twice in four days.
I make my way to the private balcony, waving off the offer of a drink. After the week I’ve had, though, I sorely want one. Between meetings and business dinners, plus an overnight to London, I’ve barely been home enough to confirm the villa still stands. But today I did my business, worked out, put on my suit, and here I am.
In fact, I have a plan to advance my business agenda that will happen this weekend.
<
br /> I told Rae to take her power.
It’s about damned time I did the same.
The man who’s been avoiding taking my calls about his club can’t avoid me any longer…
He’s hosting a charity gala at his home, and I’m invited.
On my way in, I checked the door with Leni—lower than Thursday. It’s still early and a Monday, but we’re not going to be up on last week.
I shouldn’t be disappointed. There was no earthly reason to believe a twenty-something woman could do what my PR team couldn’t.
I didn’t even book her for the biggest nights of the week, reserving those for more established talent.
I’m listening to the opening DJ and entertaining a group of visiting businessmen from Australia in my booth when my phone buzzes in my pocket.
The letters blur at the sides as my eyes adjust in the dark.
Ash: Where are you?
Harry: Debajo.
Ash: I’m worried about you. We both know what day it is.
I frown. Of course he’s thinking about it too. Not even the French-press coffee—which I’ve been having the past three days—could snap me out of my melancholy this morning.
I don’t respond, and another text comes moments later.
Ash: Speaking of problems, Christian’s gala this weekend. Will Mischa be there?
Harrison: He had better not be.
I need to get important business done with our host.
Mischa Ivanov’s presence would be more than a complication.
I’d rather eat glass than be in that room with my business rival—both because the business I want to do is more easily conducted without him and because of the woman who’s been publicly on his arm for months.
I shove the phone back in my pocket, feeling the change in energy in the club before I look up.
Rae is in the booth, and suddenly I get the “American Dream” theme Leni has been pushing all weekend on social.
Tonight my little American is wearing a platinum wig and a white halter-neck vest and trousers, like a girl-next-door Marilyn Monroe pinup. Except her hair is twisted and spiked.
Not a goddess. A monster.
An arrogant Medusa.
In a room full of people trying to attract one another, she’s practically daring anyone look too long.
I shift over the railing, entranced.
When I brought her here, I did my due diligence. I wouldn’t let just anyone play my club. But now, watching her play…
Her music lacks the echoing numbness of house tracks. It’s melodic. Intimate.
It’s impossible to recognize her as the girl making faces in my kitchen.
In fact, I’ve only seen her a few times since the run in that left me drinking her coffee and imagining how she tasted instead.
But all of my suits in my wardrobe are accounted for and the pool hasn’t acquired any new textiles to clog the filter, so I suppose that’s progress.
I stay for the set, half listening to the men I’m entertaining while inwardly hoping Rae can weave the same spell on me that she weaves on the crowd.
I want to forget the things Mischa Ivanov has done. The things I said to my mother before she died. The vows I made after, that they wouldn’t die in vain.
To give up every shred of my own expectations and lose myself in what this woman is creating.
After a few tracks, I look over to see her pressing a hand to her head like she did in the kitchen.
She said it wasn’t withdrawal.
Whatever it is, I’m not taking chances.
I motion to security upstairs, pointing at the stage. “Get her water.”
“Mr. King, I’m sure there’s water—”
“I want a fucking line of them. Enough to hydrate a platoon.”
He nods and speaks into his walkie. Moments later, one of the bartenders arrives at the stage with a champagne bucket full of waters on ice.
At the end of the next track, she glances at the waters, then back to her computer.
She transitions into a mashup, “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” mixed with something R&B.
Then she looks up toward the catwalk and flips both middle fingers in the air.
The crowd erupts. They have no idea what’s going on, who she’s calling out, but they get off on her defiance.
Perhaps I’d get off on it too, if I wasn’t the one she was defying.
Despite the fact that she refused to eat with me the one time I took dinner at home, and barely acknowledges me when we pass in the house, I notice things.
She’s terrible at taking care of herself. Lives on fumes. Doesn’t go to bed until four or five—I was up one night and saw her light on—even when she doesn’t have a show.
That might be fine for a group of college students on holiday, but for a professional who does this year-round? It’s unsustainable.
By the end of her set, I haven’t seen her touch the water. It’s concerning.
“Bring her to the VIP,” I tell security.
I’m waiting there, halfway through a poker game, when I feel the presence at my back.
But when I turn, it’s security, alone.
“Señor King, she did not want to come.”
I drop my cards and leave my chips where they are as I shift out of my chair with a nod to the other players—rich businessmen and VIPs all of them. I grab my jacket off my chair and shrug into it.
“Where is she?”
He doesn’t immediately answer, and I take off through the halls.
She’s still taking selfies with patrons.
Concern replaces my irritation when I see the fatigue on her face. Security shadows me, but I wave them off as I cut through the crowd to her.
“I told security to bring you back.”
She glances at me but poses with her fan. “I didn’t want to.”
Frustration clashes with the other emotions inside me today—loss, grief, sadness.
“You looked unwell.”
Her grin is as aggressive as her spiked hair. “Unwell? I tore the roof off your chic basement tonight, and you think I’m unwell?”
She shoves me out of the way and beckons for the next fan.
“Strange. A woman reamed me out recently—and publicly—for avoiding taking care of someone who was my business,” I bite out as the fan takes a selfie, Rae muttering an apology when her hair nearly pokes the man in the face before he heads on his way.
I dismiss the small line of eager fans waiting, ignoring their protests as I grab my DJ’s wrist and tug her after me toward the back door.
On the way, I snatch a water bottle off the bar and shove it at her chest.
When we’re outside, fresh air washing over us both, she rounds on me. “I can’t handle this tonight.”
“Because I give a shit whether you pass out on stage or in the middle of a crowd?”
“You don’t care about me. I saw you up there, hosting a dozen men exactly like you. All you care about is whether I’m making you money.”
My summer home has turned into a hostile place. I’m walking on eggshells in a house with my damned name on the deed.
If I’m going to keep her around, it would be easier if she didn’t think I was the devil.
“Follow me.” I walk to my Ferrari Roma, then ball up my jacket and throw it in the rear seat as I shift into the front.
The seat molds to my body as I lean back against the headrest and wait.
Seconds tick by.
Finally, the passenger door clicks open, and I feel her shift inside.
“Are you taking me somewhere to kill me?”
“Would’ve been far easier to do it in your sleep.”
“You don’t do things the easy way either.”
My lips press together as I start the car and shift into gear and pull out of the parking lot.
“My parents died of an overdose,” I say once we’re on the road. “Both of them, the same night. Fourteen years ago. That’s why I don’t tolerate d
rugs in my business.”
I grip the wheel tighter as I navigate the streets.
“I’m sorry.”
Her voice is low, the contrition genuine.
“You didn’t know?”
It was in endless media outlets at the time. They were senior executives at a massive international organization, plus visible contributors to a dozen charitable organizations in the UK and abroad.
“I would’ve been ten.”
Fair enough.
She leans an arm against the window. “The pills you found were prescription. For anxiety. I haven’t taken them regularly for months, but I like having them just in case.”
Relief blurs with guilt.
“Why were they in an unmarked bottle? And in your checked bag, for God’s sake?”
“Why not? I wasn’t expecting the airline to lose my suitcase.”
Fuck.
I navigate to a place I would know with my eyes closed, then I pull into the parking lot.
“Where are we?”
I shift out of the car and retrieve a bottle of Glen Scotia from the boot. “The first time we came to Ibiza, I was eleven. Ash was a baby. My parents bought a villa here when I was thirteen. I lost my virginity in that house.”
Rae shuts the passenger door. “I hope she was well paid.”
I glare as she shifts up onto the hood and turns to look out over the sand and surf. “They left it to you when they passed?”
I shake my head. “They would have. But their assets were tied up.”
I take a long swig of whisky, the warmth scorching my throat like a welcome friend. Rae waves me off when I hold the bottle out to her.
“My parents didn’t own nightclubs, but they managed real estate for a large Russian investor. When I was a teenager, they found out their employer was into… less than legal side businesses. They told him they wanted to go out on their own. Even purchased a venue under their own name.”
My chest tightens. They were optimistic about the possibility of working for themselves.
“Their employer wouldn’t let them. The project burned down, and the investigation ruled they had burned it down to collect the insurance. As a result, they collected no compensation. A few months later, my parents were dead of an overdose, but they didn’t use drugs.”