by Piper Lawson
But it’s none of those thoughts that has my body clenching in denial.
It’s the thought of another woman entirely.
One who sees what I am on the surface and insists I could be more.
One who wants me in spite of my money and power.
One I may never be with… but ruling that out entirely feels like a rip in my soul.
“I can’t be with your daughter, Christian,” I say at last. “She’s lovely and intelligent, and she’ll find someone well suited to her.” Without your help, I don’t add. “But that man isn’t me.”
He sighs. “That is indeed a disappointment. I was looking forward to the idea our empires might one day become one.”
He’s withdrawing. I feel it.
This can’t be over. I won’t lose La Mer this way.
Adrenaline pours through my veins.
“My parents were married in Ibiza,” I hear myself say. “A small ceremony.”
“I remember.”
“After, they danced on the beach in the place La Mer now stands. When it opened, they thought it the ideal place—not a club, but an altar. A slice of heaven where the sea meets the sky.”
Christian chuckles. “One you wish to possess.”
“One Mischa doesn’t deserve to.” There’s an edge of desperation to my voice. “He’s playing to your vanity.”
“And you to my morality? Surely there are better men for that.”
I circle the chair, shift onto the edge, and look the man dead in the eyes. “My father was your colleague. Your friend. You were business partners occasionally. Friends always.”
His gaze sharpens. “Friendship is easy to portray. A smile here. A handshake there. I’m sure there are moments you and Mischa could be mistaken for friends, in a polite room.”
The hairs on my neck rise. Was there bad blood between him and my father? If so, that’s news to me.
I regroup, vowing to get to the bottom of that later.
“Think about my recommendation. I stand behind her unreservedly.”
He rubs his chin, eyes altogether too knowing. “If you are certain she’s available, I will consider it.”
I nod. “I’ll make sure of it.”
Despite the unresolved nature of the La Mer deal, conviction surges through me.
Now, I have a reason to ask her to stay.
On my way out of the study, I nearly run into Mischa, who’s waiting in the hallway.
I don’t know how much he heard, but as I start down the hall, his dead eyes leave holes in my back.
20
Rae
“Impossible.” Leni drops onto a stool at the VIP room bar, putting a shot of tequila in front of me.
“What is?”
“We broke sixteen hundred on Monday,” she reminds me. “Tonight, we’re at eighteen hundred and you haven’t even taken the stage yet. There’s a line around the hotel.”
We clink glasses and toss them back.
“At least I can go out on a high note,” I say after I swallow, the alcohol burning down my throat. “Thank you for this.”
I’m a few minutes from my final performance at Debajo, and it’s bittersweet.
In a month, this place has become familiar in a way I never asked for. The leather seats of the VIP stools creak predictably. I know the names of all the security guards and most of the bartenders. Even Leni and I have become more acquainted through working on concepts for my nights here.
“You know that having you close on a Saturday was Harrison’s idea,” Leni says. Under my stare, she finally rolls her eyes. “Fine, I didn’t argue much. You’re going to be big. It’s clear to anyone who watches you. You’re not so Little, Little Queen.”
She nods to my outfit, a fitted, sleeveless gold dress with a raven black wig, plus eyeliner that makes my eyes look even darker than usual. It’s a subtle channeling of another queen.
“It wasn’t a snake bite,” Leni says. “Cleopatra, I mean. The artists tell whatever stories they want,” she waves a hand in the air, “but she poisoned herself. A tragic end.”
“A realistic one,” I correct. “The most powerful people spend their lives fighting external battles. It’s the internal ones that get them.”
Leni clunks the empty glass back on the bar. “You should stick around for the rest of the summer. We could find a couple nights a week for you here.”
Surprise sets me back. “I have some other gigs lined up in July and August, but nothing for a few weeks. I guess I’d have to talk with Harrison. I haven’t seen much of him in the last couple of days.”
He said he’s been working on persuading Christian to sell him La Mer.
“Since your birthday.” She rises with a wink, nodding toward the headphones around my neck.
I’ve barely taken them off because they’re precious in a way that has nothing to do with the diamonds I can’t begin to value.
But as she goes, I stare after her, wondering exactly how much Harrison told her.
I know he and Leni go back, that she’s the right hand of his business, but what happened on that yacht is personal. At least it was for me.
The birthday party was spectacular, but the part that left the biggest impression was the time I spent with him on the top deck that night.
I’m supposed to leave in two more days, and maybe that’s the last moment we’re meant to have together.
If it was, I should be grateful. When I arrived here and learned who I’d be playing for, I thought there was no way I’d make it through the month.
Now, I’ve turned around this club that deserves to be full, earned enough money to help my cousin keep the doors of her charity open, and met a man who makes me question everything.
That’s why I don’t want to think my birthday was our last night together. I’m not ready to let him go.
I shove it from my mind and put the finishing touches on my set.
When I get to the stage, I’m home. The crowd erupts, delight on the faces of hundreds of men and women.
The music is in me, around me, consuming me.
The countless hours I put in were worth it.
Tonight, in this club that’s as close to mine as anything ever was, pieces of that persona fall away.
I love this club.
The patrons love me.
It’s not enough.
When I look up toward the VIP section, Harrison’s leaning over the railing.
My heart kicks in my chest at the fact that he’s here.
I wanted to believe he wouldn’t miss this but couldn’t be sure.
He’s alone tonight, dressed in another impeccable suit. The bespoke armor clings to every inch of his hard body. Those shadowed eyes bore into mine as if he knows me.
I want to be known.
“Eighteen hundred!” I holler, my voice lost in the pulsing beat and driving bass and throbbing melody of the club.
There’s no way he can hear me, but he lifts a glass in my direction.
I never thought it would feel so damn good to have this moment and, more than that, to share it with someone.
When I flip both middle fingers in the air, his smirk fades.
He’s too far away to read what’s in his eyes, but he holds my gaze.
What passes between us is more than reciprocity. Connection, understanding, a tacit agreement that we built this together.
I want to celebrate with him. To tell him how fucking good it feels.
“You think you can teach me about sex?”
“No. I think I can teach you about yourself.”
Each song bleeds into the next, and I bleed with them. When the set wraps, I don’t know if it’s been an hour or a year.
I’m energized and exhausted, sweaty and exhilarated.
I need to take selfies with fans, but as I trip out of the booth, someone beats me there.
The man looms over me in a designer suit, a shock of red silk in his breast pocket resembling a wound. “You are a rare talent.”
He’s all muscle, his head buzzed, his eyes cold. As if there’s nothing behind them but emptiness.
I look over his shoulder at my waiting fans that security is holding at bay.
“I’m a friend of the owner,” he says, answering my unasked question of how he got back here.
“Which friend?” I don’t want to cause a scene, but I also don’t want this prick in my face.
“I’m sure you don’t know all Harrison King’s friends.”
“Try me.”
His grip tightens on my wrist, and I twist away. He grabs my other wrist too, and I bite down on a cry of pain.
“I’ve been asking myself a question all day. Why would he give this up for you?”
He must be talking about Harrison, but I have no idea what he means.
My breathing is off the rhythm of the afterparty song, but all I feel is my ribs expanding and contracting against the gold dress I chose at a boutique yesterday with Ash’s help.
He pins me in the curtains backstage, his cloying cologne drowning me.
Sweat rolls down my neck, my body already straining to run. I reach for the only weapon I have—the defiance I’ve clung to for weeks, months.
“If you have a thing for Harrison,” I manage, “you’re out of luck. I don’t think you’re his type.”
Fireworks explode behind my eye socket, impossible heat blossoming across my cheek. The physical impact stuns me.
On the other side of the stage, security is dealing with the crowd and giving me a minute to get ready.
I wish they weren’t.
“You think I don’t know what to do with bitches?” my attacker spits.
This isn’t happening.
Do something.
No one answers my silent plea.
The man hulks closer, his body looming large and threatening.
Do something!
This time, I’m screaming at myself.
When he comes at me, I dig my fingernails into his neck. He bellows, his hand flying to the wounds.
They’re not deep enough to keep him occupied long, and he’s about to land another blow when there’s motion at the curtains.
The next second, my attacker is gone.
Harrison drags the man out of the curtains, tossing him against the front row of the crowd. The patrons stare as the owner of the club pulls back a fist and looses it on the man before him.
The man lurches, listing as if he’s been drinking before straightening with a cruel grin. “Is that it?”
It’s his opponent’s turn to land a punch, leaving a streak of blood across Harrison’s cheek. My heart hammers until I realize it’s the other man’s. From where he was covering his neck.
Harrison barely stumbles before straightening. Even without the tic in his jaw, the heavy breathing, the icy fire in Harrison’s eyes would be terrifying.
He grabs the other man by the collar, dragging him close to whisper something I can’t make out. Then Harrison hits him again, hard enough the man topples.
Harrison shakes out his hand, his grim expression cast in the semidarkness of the club.
“Get him the fuck out of here, or you’ll never work again,” he bites out to security.
Across the crowd, Leni runs interference, trying to get things back to normal despite the fight that broke out.
My back hits a speaker, and I shift up onto it, my hands curling into my stomach. The sight of blood under my fingernails makes my stomach lurch.
I didn’t feel the full effects of fear when everything was happening so fast, but now I do.
I haven’t felt that fear in a decade, but it’s fresh. A forgotten record pulled out of a box and set beneath a needle to play as fully and crisply as the day it was inscribed.
There’s a bucket of waters in ice next to the speaker, and I force myself to reach for one as my cheek throbs.
Before I can press it to my face, the curtains move.
My head snaps up.
Harrison’s usual elegance is rumpled. His shirt has lost two buttons, his jacket hanging haphazardly from his shoulders as if it refuses to let go. His hair is sticking up as he rubs a hand across his jaw, each knuckle dark with blood.
He closes the distance between us, stopping when my shins brush the tailored fabric of his dress pants. He inspects my face, lingering on my cheekbone that feels as if it might explode.
He’s a king tonight, and for the first time, I see its weight on his face, his bones.
“You’re hurt.” The words are forceful, but strained. His eyes narrow on the unopened water bottle in my hands. “Where did he touch you?”
When I don’t answer, his hands go to work searching for damage.
I stiffen as his touch roams my bare arms first, then my torso, finding a rip in my dress I hadn’t noticed.
He shrugs out of his jacket and loops it around my shoulders, warming me before I realize I was shivering.
Then he presses between my thighs, lifts my skirt.
My mouth falls open as he runs his hands up my thighs. It’s confident, competent, not meant to arouse but to assess.
“Stop,” I whisper.
The backs of my eyes burn. Outside, I’m as frozen as the moment the man came at me. Not in fear, but in shock.
“Harrison, don’t touch me.” I want to scream the words but when they come out, they’re barely audible.
It takes everything in me to grab his face and force his attention up even as his hands linger under my skirt.
His jaw clenches as he leans his forehead against mine. “I need to know you’re all right.”
I’m not.
I don’t say it, but I might as well have.
The shaking starts somewhere in my chest and radiating out to reach my fingers, my toes, my lips.
Without warning, his arms are around me.
He lifts me, carrying me through the crowd before I can protest.
Leni grabs him on our way past. “Harrison, the police need to talk to you!”
“Tomorrow.”
Then we’re through the door and outside.
He settles me into the Ferrari, and I yank at the pins securing my wig with shaking hands.
Then I throw all of it on the floor and stare at the pile the entire way back.
“I can walk,” I murmur when Harrison opens my car door at the villa.
He loops an arm around my waist, unwilling to let me support myself.
We step inside and Barney trots sleepily to the door, whining when neither of us reaches down to pet him.
Harrison helps me out of my shoes and up the stairs, but when I try to turn toward my room, he pulls me gently the other way.
“I have first aid equipment in my bathroom.”
Of the ways I imagined seeing his space for the first time, this never entered my mind.
There’s dark wood furniture, a dresser and night tables without photos or adornment. A tufted area rug that’s soft beneath my bare feet.
My brainpower is limited, a highway reduced from four lanes to two for some unauthorized repair.
Harrison seats me on an enormous bed with navy covers. “Don’t move. Don’t think. Don’t… anything.”
He disappears, returning a moment later with ice from the kitchen. I shift over to let him on the bed, but instead he kneels on the floor, lifting the ice to my cheek.
The cold burns my bruised flesh.
I take the ice from him, and he gently slides the jacket off my shoulders, then reaches around me for the zipper on my dress. I suck in a breath but don’t argue as he drags it down.
Tonight was supposed to be my crowning achievement. A victory lap.
Now, it’s tainted.
He shifts my hips so he can lift the hem, work it up my body and over my head.
Another inspection begins, more thorough than the one he did at the club.
“So that was Mischa,” I guess, mostly to make sure I can still speak.
Harrison’s attention lingers on my side as he nods
. I didn’t think I could take his touch, but being here, safe in his home, every stroke of his hands helps to steady my breathing.
“No offense, but I hope he’s not the only friend you kept from school.”
Harrison huffs out a breath at my attempt at humor.
He takes my hand with the ice and lowers it, brushing his thumb over my half-stinging, half-numb cheek. “Did he speak to you?”
A memory scratches at my brain. “He said you gave something up for me. What did he mean?”
Harrison doesn’t answer. But when he lifts his clear, blue gaze, the anger’s gone. “I never should have brought you here, Raegan.”
He’s inches away, but it feels like he’s putting more distance between us with every breath.
The sudden ache in my chest eclipses the pain in my face.
Moments ago, I wanted to erase tonight. But he wants to erase the past month.
All of my time in Ibiza, my time with him.
His jacket in the pool. Our kiss at La Mer. My birthday on the yacht.
The tragedy of that hits me harder than anything else.
I don’t want to forget.
That thought has me straightening, lends me the strength I’ve been seeking for the last hour.
“You’re an asshole.”
The words land between us, raw and loaded.
“I know.”
He means because of what happened tonight.
“You think you decide everything? That you have all the answers?”
I shove him, hard enough he falls back on his elbows.
“You don’t get to decide what this month meant. You don’t sure as hell don’t get to take this away from me.”
I shove myself off the bed, ice burning my hand, and head for the door.
He beats me there, filling the doorway. “Take what away?”
I don’t want to talk, and I can’t stand the distance he’s putting between us as he tries to reason out what happened tonight.
There’s no reason to be found in violence.
I grab his neck and drag him down to me.
He stiffens when our lips collide, surprise evident in every inch of his taut body.
His breath mingles with mine, but he doesn’t kiss me back. He’s fighting his need, every bit as determinedly as he fought the man at the club.