by Meghan March
A few people pause and watch my spectacle, but I don’t care. I smile at all of them before practically skipping to the curb to hail a cab.
I text Amy to reschedule the designer and let her know I’m going off the schedule today, because I’m unstoppable and single.
Her reply is exactly what I need to read.
* * *
Amy: Praise Jesus!!! We’ll hold down the fort. Go have some you-time. Just don’t forget about self-defense at 4.
* * *
I tuck that reminder away as I give the cabbie the address of Legend. It’s time to scope out the scene of the comeback I’m staging in less than thirty-six hours.
And that wave of heat I feel? I’m not going to think about that . . . yet.
Twenty-One
Legend
“How much?” I ask from between gritted teeth, hating that I’m even entertaining the possibility of a fight with Bodhi Black.
And yet, my self-preservation instincts won’t let me stay silent.
I’ve never given up without a fight, and this won’t be the first time. There’s no fucking way I’m going to let my investors come in here and take everything I’ve worked for my entire life without doing every goddamned thing I can to dig myself out of this hole.
“You know I can’t give you exact numbers, man,” Rolo says with a hint of greed leaching into his tone. “Depends on the crowd. The venue.”
“Bullshit, Rolo. Give me a number, or I hang up.”
“Jeez, man. When’d you get so fucking serious? I miss my old buddy Legend who knew how to have a good time.”
“You mean the one who made us both tons of money? The same guy you’ve been begging to take this fight, and now you’re hesitating? What the fuck is going on?”
My fingers curl around the arm of my chair as I wait for Rolo to shoot straight with me, something he’s always done. But, now, for the first time ever, he’s giving me the runaround, and I think I know why.
Like any shark, he smells blood in the water.
If Rolo knows the fight is the last option to save my ass, then he’s going to use that leverage to take a bigger cut of the cash that should be going into my pocket. After all, I’m the one taking all the fucking risk on this deal. He doesn’t have to stand inside a cage and face a man who might as well have sledgehammers for fists. Oh, and a man who is determined to redeem himself from defeat, at the cost of my life, if necessary.
“You know how it goes. Business is business. Let me talk to Black’s people and a few venues and—”
I end the call without listening to the rest of whatever garbage Rolo is about to feed me. He’s not stupid. He knows I know what he’s doing. I also won’t let him fuck me over just because he thinks he’s got the upper hand.
Not fucking happening. I lean back in my chair and scrub my hands over my face and hair. This isn’t how things were supposed to be. But they never are.
I don’t plan to fail. But, fuck, I’ve done a bang-up job this time. I try to focus on my spreadsheet again—the one that shows a shit ton of numbers in red that our accountant sent over earlier attached to an email that read:
* * *
Make some fucking money this weekend or close the doors Sunday. For good.
* * *
The spreadsheet and the email pushed me into calling Rolo, because I can’t stand by and do nothing while this club dies a slow death, and takes me and everyone I care about down with it.
But my concentration only lasts for a few minutes before Bump comes bursting into my office, letting the door smack on the opposite wall.
“It’s her. Here.”
My first instinct is to reach for a gun because he’s flailing his arms and shouting shit I can’t understand, but then his wheezing words penetrate.
“She’s here.”
There’s only one she in my brain lately, as much as I wish I could deny the fact.
“Who?” I ask carefully, shutting my laptop. It’s fair to say I’m not in a good mood.
“The woman! The one you wanted! She’s here. And I didn’t bring her this time. I swear. I haven’t gone near her. I’ve been good, Gabe. I swear.”
Fucking Bump. I love the kid more than any other human on this planet, exactly the way he is, but I still wish he’d never gotten shot in the fucking head. And yeah, he was liking coke a little too much back in the day, but addiction I could have helped him fix. This injury is a regret I’ll take to my grave, not that it’ll do a damn bit of good to change things now.
But Scarlett Priest coming to the club a full day before she’s scheduled . . . what the hell does that mean?
Is she here to back out? To threaten me with calling the cops for forcing her into this? Shit. What if she’s here to lead the cops to where she was kidnapped? My brain goes crazy, spiraling into more and more ridiculous shit before I force it all to go quiet, and I rise.
“Where is she?”
“With Zoe, in the club. She wants to make sure we’re ready for tomorrow.”
Every fiber of my being wants to walk out of this office and onto the club floor so I can see the woman whose face I’ve been staring at altogether too fucking often on my phone. The woman whose lips I can’t stop thinking about. Fuck. I want to taste her so goddamned bad.
Which is exactly why I shouldn’t go anywhere near her. Self-preservation.
Then Bump adds, “Zoe is showing her the VIP areas so she can pick her favorites and have them set up for tomorrow.”
Favorites. That means she needs more than one. So she is planning on following through. Maybe I shouldn’t have doubted her, but social media queens don’t exactly inspire confidence in me.
“Can we go talk to her? Should I tell her I’m sorry? I mean, I’m not, but I can pretend.” Bump is practically bouncing off the walls, which is never good.
I snap my fingers and lock my gaze onto his. “No. You’re not going anywhere near her. Understand me, Bump? We need to stay away from her.”
His face crumples into a devastated expression, and you’d think I just told the kid he’s never allowed to have ice cream again. I hate that look, but I need him to understand that neither of us have any business going near Scarlett Priest.
She’s with Zoe. Zoe will put her at ease. Reassure her that she’ll have everything she needs. Zoe is incredibly capable and needs no help from me—and certainly not Bump—to do her job.
“Can we at least watch them?” Bump asks, hope budding in his tone.
Fucking kid. I should say no. But I can’t. I want to see her too goddamned bad. Fuck.
“Only if you stay quiet. Okay? If you start yelling at them, like you did when you came in here, then—”
Bump yanks his pinched fingers across his lips like he’s zipping them shut and tosses away the invisible key.
I let out a sigh and bow my head. This is a bad fucking idea, but all the best ones are. “Okay. Fine. Come on.”
Before renovations, the club was an old Masonic temple that was supposed to be torn down, but something happened and it ended up being sold. By the time I leased it for Legend, it had been rehabbed already, and we retrofitted it for a nightclub. One thing we found that we didn’t expect—hidden entrances and exits, likely used by the Freemasons who built the place.
I added my own touch—an entire wall of mirrors on the second-floor VIP area where we could watch the who’s who of New York without being seen. Everything else is covered by the state-of-the-art surveillance system that I spent a fortune on. A lot of good it did, though, since it didn’t even catch the face of the person who shot up the place, because he was wearing a mask.
I let Bump drag me silently out of my office by the arm and down the interior corridor that runs along the two-way mirrored wall.
As soon as we turn the corner, I see her.
Jesus. Christ.
Fuck. Me. Sideways.
She’s dressed like an image out of a fantasy. All innocent and sweet in this blue-and-white-checked dress that should r
emind me of a milkmaid, but instead makes me think of debauching her until there’s not a fucking innocent thought left in either of our heads. And the neckline shows off the curves of her perfect tits.
My dick jerks in my pants. Yeah. Bad fucking idea.
I shouldn’t be anywhere near this woman. It’s not safe. Or healthy. Or smart.
I can picture that pink-slicked mouth leaving lipstick prints—
“Can’t believe she fucking showed up.” The image leaves my head, evaporated by the sound of Q’s hushed voice.
“I know,” Bump says, but when I glare at him, he goes silent.
Without the music and bass beats filling the club, anything we say louder than a whisper is bound to be overheard, even if it’s muffled.
“And she’s actually prepping with Zoe for tomorrow. Gotta be a fucking miracle,” Q adds.
“What did you expect?” I whisper.
“Cops and handcuffs. Three hots and a cot for all of us.”
Bump is practically coming out of his skin with the need to talk, but I shake my head and press my finger to my lips. He nods in agreement.
“I told you not to worry, man,” I say to Q with newfound confidence I didn’t have twenty minutes ago. “Everything is going to work out.”
Before he can reply, Scarlett tilts her head and turns toward us like she can see straight through the mirrored glass.
Fuck.
Twenty-Two
Scarlett
The hair on my arms stands up in the middle of Zoe’s explanation of how the VIP lounges are run at Legend. I shift, glancing over my shoulder, searching for him, because I swear I can feel his eyes on me. But all I see is my reflection in the long mirrored wall that lines the back of the entire second-floor balcony area.
I return my attention to Zoe, a pretty woman about five years older than me, with straight dark brown hair, but the feeling of being watched doesn’t subside. I try to shake it off, with minimal success, and make mental notes about what she’s saying.
We’ll have three lounges stocked and ready to rock, but they’ll all be connected rather than separated, so we can mingle between all three and not feel cramped. We have a stairway down to the club floor, where we can go shake our shit in front of the DJ booth, or stay upstairs and dance.
All in all, it’s a really nice club, with what appears to be top-of-the-line everything, except patrons. That’s where I come in.
It’s still a little crazy that I’m doing this, but I can’t help it. Call me stupid, but I’m intrigued by this club. And maybe it’s arrogant, but I really think I can help.
Okay, so maybe I’m not just intrigued by the club. It might have everything to do with the mysterious and reclusive owner.
Zoe goes quiet, and I can tell she’s waiting for me to ask something, but I haven’t been paying attention to what she was saying for the last few minutes. Not since I got distracted by the thought of Gabriel Legend’s eyes on me.
I blurt out a question before I realize my intent. “Will Mr. Legend be joining us Saturday night to celebrate?”
Zoe’s kind brown eyes widen with shock. “Excuse me?”
Shoving down the urge to glance at the mirror again, I smile. “Yes, well, he’s the owner, isn’t he? I assume he’ll want to join us and celebrate the new start of the club.”
“Oh, Mr. Legend doesn’t really come out on the floor. He’s not one for crowds. My brother, however, will be here to assist in any way that you may need. His name is Marcus, but he goes by Q, for our last name, Quinterro.”
“I’m looking forward to meeting him,” I reply, but I’m not feeling very appeased. I’m sure Q is a perfectly nice guy, but I haven’t been moaning his name in my apartment.
No, I want to see Legend, and since I’m putting myself out to help him, the least the man can do is make an appearance.
“It’s good for PR, and I’d really like to see Mr. Legend tomorrow night as well. I have some things I’d like to tell him directly. Is that something you can arrange?”
Her earrings, geometric leather shapes hanging from thin chains, dangle beneath her earlobes as she tilts her head to the side, studying me. “Do you have a personal interest in Mr. Legend, Ms. Priest? You’d be surprised how many women come in here wanting to meet the man they’ve watched fight, and you know . . . they get a little overzealous about it.”
I’m actually impressed she’s calling me out, but I was raised by a woman who might as well have had a PhD in making things happen. I straighten and meet Zoe eye to eye.
“I can promise you that I’m not like those women. After all, Mr. Legend is the one who brought me to the club and enlisted my help. The least he can do is give me a few minutes of his time after I make good on my commitments. And showing his face after a scandal—or in Legend’s case, a victimless shooting—will send a message that things are under control. Maybe if he showed his face at the grand opening, whoever did it would have thought twice.”
Something that looks a lot like respect flickers in Zoe’s dark eyes. “I’ll make sure to let him know you need to speak to him. Anything else?”
“Not off the top of my head,” I say with a self-satisfied smile.
But silently, I add, Unless he’s available to see me right now . . . I’d like to introduce him to Bad Scarlett. I think they’d get along just fine.
Twenty-Three
Legend
“She wants to see you.” This comes from Bump, and if he weren’t speaking so softly that I could barely hear him from two feet away, I’d have shut him up quick.
But I don’t have to. He’s already rezipping his lips and tossing away the key while he bounces from one foot to the other.
Q turns to me with a raised brow and murmurs, “Why the hell does she want to see you?”
I don’t have an answer for him. All I know is that I want to walk right through this glass, wrap my hands around her waist, and carry her off to somewhere we won’t be interrupted for a long, long time. I would trade burning in hell for a single night with her.
Fucking shit, this is a problem. A real one.
I don’t get involved with women. Sure, I fuck them on occasion, get my fix, and move on without any ties or strings. I take care of my physical needs, and that’s it. Nothing more. Ever.
But this woman. Goddammit. She’s something else. She’d have to be, because there’s no other explanation for why the hell I’m staring through a two-way mirror at her while I think about selling my soul to make her mine.
But she isn’t. She can’t be.
I don’t do connections. I don’t let new people into my circle. It’s too risky. Too dangerous.
After all, the last woman I loved ended up dead.
And there it is. The only reminder that could kill any fantasy spinning to life in my brain.
I turn on my heel and march down the corridor, away from Q and Bump, intent on doing paperwork until I’m blind, deaf, and dumb. Maybe then it’ll be safe to come out of my office again because Scarlett Priest, and all the temptation that comes along with her, will be gone.
Except Q won’t let things lie. I’m not getting off that easy, not that I ever do. His footsteps echo in the hall as he follows me, not caring that I clearly want to be alone.
“Please tell me you’re not thinking about taking that fight with Black. Because I just got a call from his trainer asking if Rolo was really serious or just wasting his time again.”
“Fuck.” I flex my fist and manage to get my shit under control before I throw it through one of the wood panels in my office wall. “Rolo and his big fucking mouth.”
Q comes inside and shuts the door. “So, you are thinking about it.” His voice is even, the tenor he takes on when I might snap at any minute.
And maybe he’s right to be concerned, because I sure as fuck don’t know how long I’ll last before the pressure makes me crack. I’ve only broken down once before, and that’s not something I ever want to go through again. And I sure as hell don’t want Q
to witness it.
I spin around and meet his almost black eyes. “I’m not going to let them take everything from us. Not if there’s a way I can stop it or buy us more time.”
“At what cost? Because that motherfucker wants to kill you, and if you die in that fucking ring, what good does it do the rest of us?” He says it like I haven’t already thought about it. Which I have. In detail.
“You take the money, pay off the creditors, sell the club, and take care of Bump.”
Q jams his hand through his hair, messing up the perfectly slicked-back locks.
“No. No fucking way, Gabe. I’m not doing this shit without you. Don’t go trying to be a fucking hero now. We don’t need that. We just need you. Breathing, and not through a fucking tube.” My best friend turns and reaches for the door handle. “I’m not sure it’ll work either, but you haven’t even given the woman a chance to work her goddamned magic, and you’re already trying to come up with a plan B. Why am I even surprised?”
“What if it doesn’t work?” I ask him. “What if I was wrong about her?”
“Then you’re wrong, and we figure something out that doesn’t include you ending up in a fucking coma or a body bag.”
I stay silent, because at this point, we’re running out of time and options, and Q knows it.
“Look, give it forty-eight hours. If this doesn’t work, you and I will lay all our choices on the table. It’s not like I don’t have some skills I can put to work to make some cash quickly if we’re that desperate.”
My teeth clench together because I know what he’s talking about, and I won’t let him do it.
“Forty-eight hours. Then we work on plan B.”
Twenty-Four
Scarlett
When I walk into my self-defense class at four o’clock, there’s still a spring in my step that shouldn’t be there. I can’t help it, though. For the first time in a long time, I’m filled with a sense of purpose that’s so strong and driven, I can’t possibly fail.