by Megyn Ward
Even though he doesn’t say her name I know who he’s talking about.
Everyone does.
Delilah.
As soon as they disappear down the stairs leading to the main floor, I reach up and press my mic. “There’s a pasty-face asshole and six of his clones coming down from VIP. Make sure they find the exit.”
Angel answers almost immediately. “You got it, Boss.”
Dropping my hand, I finally look at Shanen. She’s shaken. Having your livelihood threatened by someone who actually has the juice to follow through can do that to you. “I can’t…” She shakes her head at me, arms wrapped around the bottle of vodka I handed her like she’s holding on to it for dear life. “I need this job. I can’t go back to Wisconsin. I—”
“You’re not getting fired.” I say it firmly, tipping my head slightly so she can see my face and its expression clearly. “Look at me, Shanen—” When her wide-eyed gaze locks onto mine, I give her a smile. “Trust me, okay? You’re going to be just fine.”
Like I knew it would, the smile calms her. Loosens the tension in her arms and shoulders. “Okay.” She nods. “Okay.”
Straightening my frame, I catch movement and look past her to find Delilah standing a few feet away, watching the exchange. I don’t even think her guests have realized she’s here. They’ve been too busy watching me threaten her boyfriend to watch the door for her grand entrance. To be fair, they probably don’t even recognize her. She’s traded her usual flashy club fare—leather mini-skirts and sequin bra tops—for a dress that, while still too short to be considered decent, comparatively is better suited for a church service than a night out on the dance floor.
Either way, she looks amazing.
She always does.
Ignoring her, I refocus my attention on Shanen while I dig my keys out of my pocket. “Go sit in my office for a while. Relax. Decompress. We’ll give it an hour and then I’ll have one of the guys take you home.”
“No—that’s okay.” She instantly shakes her head at me and the keys I’m offering her. “I can walk. I only live a—”
“Not tonight, you can’t,” I tell her, making a mental note to find out exactly how many of our female employees walk home after a shift. “Tonight, you’re going to let me take care of you.” I give her another compliance-inducing smile. “Okay?”
Her shoulders loosen even more and she smiles back. “Okay.” She nods again. “Thanks, Boss.”
Pressing my keys into Shanen’s hand, I trade them for the bottle of vodka she’s still holding. “I’ll send someone to come get you in a while,” I tell her, turning her toward the elevator that will take her up to the third-floor where Jase and I keep our offices. As soon as she’s gone, I start to move in the opposite direction. Toward the exit that leads toward the main floor because Delilah is here and here is suddenly somewhere I can’t stand to be.
ELEVEN
Delilah
I DIDN’T MEAN TO BE LATE.
If anything, I wanted to get here early because the earlier I got here, the earlier I’d be able to leave.
But Liz has different ideas.
She always has different ideas and they seem to coincide with mine less and less these days.
“Where have you been?” she asks irritably as she slips into the back of my limo, Rivers shutting the door behind her. “I texted you ages ago.”
It wasn’t ages ago.
Instead of arguing with her over it, I just give her a bored shrug and keep staring out my window, pretending to be interested in the rush of Midtown traffic. “I had stuff to do.”
Stuff—like strip my bed. Throw the sheets into a trash bag and down the laundry chute. Stuff like burning those pictures. Like scrubbing his message off my bathroom mirror.
WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN, DELILAH?
“Whatever.” I didn’t even have to look at her to know she rolled her eyes at me. “Let’s just go.”
Instead of arguing with her, I let it go because to be honest, letting it go is easier than fighting with Liz. She can be nasty and vindictive when she wants to be and I don’t have the stomach for it right now.
So instead of fighting, we shop.
No less than a dozen stores in the space four hours and there’s been press in front of every one of them like they’ve been waiting for me to arrive.
“How do they know where I am?” I grumble softly, gaze aimed out the window again, this time to stare at the paparazzi camped out on the sidewalk in front of the salon we booked for the afternoon. Trying to find him in the sea of photographers who are already shouting and pointing their camera at the limo’s closed door. I don’t know who I’m looking for. I don’t know what he looks like. But I know he’s there.
The pictures he took of me this morning proves it.
“I called them,” Liz says like I just asked the dumbest question she ever heard. “You’ve been MIA for a month, Delilah—” She says it like she’s talking to a small child. “you need the exposure.”
Exposure.
Like this is a game.
Like my feelings don’t matter.
I remind myself that she doesn’t know what’s going on. That I’m being stalked. Harassed. I haven’t told anyone—mainly because there isn’t anyone to tell. Went will just flip out on me, right before he lectures me about how stupidly I live my life. My mother will tell me that I brought this on myself with my nonsense and shuffle me off to the country house in London or the villa on Lake Como until I can learn to behave myself. And if I told Liz, she’d probably think the whole thing is some sort of publicity stunt. That I’m making it up to get attention while she secretly wishes she’d thought of it first.
Silver is about the only person who’d take this seriously and I can’t bother her with any of it because she’s getting ready to have a baby and she doesn’t need to deal with my bullshit.
That means I don’t have anyone.
As usual, I’m alone.
I want to scream at Liz that I know. I know that this isn’t about me or what I need. This is about her. She told them where I’d be because no one would even think about pointing a camera in her direction unless I was standing beside her.
I want to tell her that I know the truth.
That she isn’t my friend.
She never has been.
Instead of letting it out, I swallow it. Push it down. Ignore it. Pretend it’s not real. “Come on,” I tell her, throwing my door open and stepping on to the sidewalk.
After the salon, it was more shopping. Pre-dinner drinks in Tribeca. Dinner in the Lower East Side. After dinner drinks at Henry’s on Lexington. Back to the LES for after after dinner drinks. I knew what she was doing. She was trotting me around like a show pony. Soaking up the camera flashes. The attention that being Delilah Fiorella’s BFF got her—she’s been without it for an entire month and she needs her fix.
Ten o’clock came and went and every time I said we needed to get to the event, that people were waiting, Liz just laughed and said gawd, you’re so boring. Have another drink. I’m not drinking anything but club soda, not that she noticed. I’m sure she thinks I’m just as smashed as she is. A part of me wishes I were. That it was six months ago. That I could let go and have fun the way I used to. That I wasn’t nervous and jumpy and looking over my shoulder every thirty seconds. Wondering if the guy looking at me is him. If he’s the one who’s stalking me.
Finally, around midnight, I’d had enough.
“I’m going to Level,” I told Liz, setting my empty glass on the table before standing. “Stay here, if you want.”
“Boooo,” Liz groans at me with one of her eyerolls, setting off a round of drunken laughter from the bodies crammed into one of the bar’s huge, bright yellow booths. “What’s wrong with you? Why are you so uptight all of a sudden?”
“People are counting on me to show up,” I remind her.
People? Please—you don’t care about those people. You don’t even know who was on the guestlist you gave t
o Jase. Liz is the one who put the event together—not you. This whole thing was her idea, not yours. The only reason you agreed to it was because of Gray.
Because you wanted to see him.
You don’t want to get to Level for them.
You want to get there for him.
“Since when do you care about people?” She laughs but this time no one laughs with her because they can feel the tension between us and they don’t want to land on the wrong side of things if they blow up.
“Since now.” I take a quick look around, taking a mental inventory of who’s here. “Seriously, Liz—you should stay here,” I tell her, my implication clear. I don’t want her to come with me. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
I won’t call her and we both know it.
I’m halfway to the door when I feel someone grab my arm.
“Hey.”
Heart jammed in my throat, I whip around to find Jordy, Liz’s twin brother behind me, his hand wrapped around my arm. If he realizes he almost gave me a heart attack, he doesn’t show it. As soon as I look at him, he drops his hand away from my arm and gives me a broad, friendly smile. “This place is lame. Can I catch a ride?”
I like Jordy. He’s nice. Not that anyone knows it because he’s the frontman when it comes to the Liz & Jordy Cramer show. According to the tabloids, Jordy Cramer is public enemy #1 but anyone who cares to pay attention knows that it’s Liz who stirs up the trouble and when it all comes back around, it’s Jordy who takes the wrap. I’m ashamed to admit that he’s taken the blame for more than a few of my fuck-ups too.
“Sure.” I smile at him, secretly relived to have the company. “Let’s get out of here.”
I don’t take an easy breath until I walk through the doors at Level. It makes me realize just how on edge I’ve been all day. How exposed I’ve felt. How vulnerable I’ve been. It all goes away as soon as I get here.
Because Gray is here and no matter what he thinks of me, he’ll do his job and keep me safe.
“I’m gonna grab a drink,” Jordy loud talks in my ear while hooking a thumb at the bar. “You want something?”
“I’m good.” I give him a vague smile and shake my head no as I scan the crowded VIP area—and it is crowded. Jam-packed with every brand of celebrity you can think of. I don’t know half of them and they don’t know me. Are only here because I’ve been MIA for a month and they want a front row seat to the end of my self-imposed exile.
Liz is right.
I don’t care about any of these people.
And they don’t care about me.
Thankfully, none of them are even paying attention to me. Instead, they’re all focused on something happening in one of the conversation areas. I catch the low rumble of male voices—one snide and insolent. The other rough and self-assured.
I recognize both.
Slipping and weaving myself further into the room, I watch Gray pull the bottle of vodka from Nik’s table, holding it by its neck like he’s thinking about taking a swing with it. Seeing him, slouched insolently into the couch cushions is enough to send my heart racing in my chest.
How did he get in here?
I almost say something.
Almost intervene. Not because I’m worried for Nik—I’m sure whatever violent urge Gray is fighting, Nik deserves it. No—I almost intervene because if Gray gives in, life as he knows it will be over. Jase might’ve let his insubordination this morning slide but assaulting a member of a royal family is something else altogether. Gray won’t just lose his job—he’ll go to prison.
Before I can step in, Gray hands the bottle to the pretty brunette next to him and tells Nik that if he can’t find his way out on his own, he’ll be happy to toss him down the stairs.
She knows you’ve got the hots for her, you know. She loves messing with you. Gets off on it. Thinks it’s funny. Me—I just think it’s fucking sad that someone like you thinks he’d actually have a chance with someone like her.
People laugh when Nik says it.
The people standing closest to me who’ve realized that I finally decided to show up look at me. Think about all the ways they’ve seen me screw with Gray over the years. The headaches I’ve given him. The trouble I’ve caused. The shit he’s eaten because of me and they smirk because they think it’s funny.
They think I think it’s funny too.
I don’t.
Maybe I did once, a long time ago.
But I don’t anymore.
As soon as Nik leaves, I feel my shoulders loosen as tension bleeds away from my muscles and bones. I watch quietly as Gray reassures the woman next to him that she doesn’t have to worry about his threats. That she isn’t going to be fired. That he’ll take care of her. Protect her.
Something ugly and completely foreign twists itself tight inside my gut. Because even though I have no idea how someone like Gray could keep his promise to protect her from someone like Niklaus Vanderhoff—I believe him. He’ll move heaven and earth to keep her safe and I’m jealous.
That’s what this is.
I’m jealous.
Gray gives the woman a set of keys and sends her away. As soon as she’s gone, he starts to move in the opposite direction.
Away from me.
He knows I’m here. I know he does. He looked right at me. Knows I heard what Nik said to him about me—why I seem to make it my life’s mission to make his miserable. For my own personal amusement.
Because I think it’s funny.
And he believes it.
“You finally decided to show up, huh?”
I don’t know who says it. I don’t care. Don’t even bother to look or answer.
Because Gray is leaving.
He’s walking away from me and I’m not going to let that happen. Not again.
Not this time.
TWELVE
Grayson
DELILAH’S FOLLOWING ME.
I don’t even have to look. I know she’s back there, less than a dozen steps behind me because I can hear her, the heels of her fuck me pumps clicking behind me, fast enough to tell me that she’s not going to give up. Not until she gets to chew me out for giving her boyfriend the boot. I reach up and yank the wire from my mic in anticipation because the last thing I need right now is my employees hearing Delilah Fiorella chew me out or the fact that I’m probably going to chew right back.
Because the Dutch Douchebag is right.
I probably will regret tossing him and his buddies out on their asses—but only because it means I’ll have to listen to one of Jase’s insufferable lectures about how these rich assholes are our livelihood and I need to work out whatever bullshit baggage I have where money and the people who have it are concerned and start playing things smart.
You don’t have to like them to smile, Mijo.
It’s something my father used to say to me when he took me to work with him at the carwash. He never let me help polish the mirrors. Never let me help scrub the tires. I used to think it was because he was afraid I’d mess up—scratch the paint. Leave spots on the windows. Instead, he’d sit me in a folding lawn chair in the shade next to an old dumpster and make me watch while he worked.
While he worked, he talked.
I used to have a Mercedes just like this in Mexico. There I was somebody—here, I’m nobody. Barely good enough to wash their cars but that’s okay. You’re going to be somebody here, Mijo. Someday you’re going to be rich. Successful—that’s enough for me.
It took me a while to figure out why he never let me help wash the cars. It wasn’t because he was afraid I’d mess up. It was because to him, I was already too good to work beside him. Too good to get my hands dirty. Too good to bend my back to earn a dollar.
He believed it and he wanted me to believe it too.
You’re going to wear a suit to work every day, Mijo, just like I did. You’ll have a big office and a secretary who brings you coffee and makes your phone calls. You’ll drive a car just like this one day and be able to buy your wi
fe beautiful things and take her to beautiful places…
As far as he was concerned, the things he told me were true. He wasn’t just predicting my future. He was speaking it into existence. I was going to have everything that he lost. I was going to be what he could never be again. I was going to be better than him.
As far as he was concerned, I already was.
Every time I think about it, I get sick to my stomach.
Fuck this.
Fuck Jase and his long con analogies.
Fuck this place and every rich, entitled asshole in it.
And Fuck Delilah Fiorella too while we’re at it.
Fuck her and the hoops I have to jump through, every time she snaps her goddamned fingers.
I’m done.
Finally reaching the door, I press my thumb against the keypad next to it. The heavy-duty autolock clangs open and I give the door a shove on my way through it and into the stairwell behind it, genuinely hoping it slams shut in Delilah’s face before she can catch me.
No such luck.
“Gray—wait.” The clicking sound behind me intensifies as she races to catch the door. Just as I’m through it, I feel her cool, slim fingers wrap around my elbow and pull in an effort to stop me. I keep walking, dragging her behind me because I’m too stubborn to stop and she’s too stubborn to let go. As soon as the door slams shut behind her, I stop and turn, so fast she nearly plows into me—not because she actually managed to stop me on her own. No, I finally stop because I’m pissed and I turn on her because I have every intention of taking it out on her.
“What’s the matter, Countess,” I growl at her while I wrap my fingers around her wrist so I can pull her hand off my arm. Instead of pulling her off me and maybe even pushing her away, I end up holding on to her like I’m suddenly afraid she’s going to try to run from me. “Champagne not cold enough for you?”
“What?” She stares up at me with those big, blue eyes of hers. Soft, full lips slightly parted like she’s having a hard time catching her breath. Cheeks flushed rosy—either with embarrassment or indignation.
Right now, I don’t care which.