Walking out of the bathroom, she ignored the insults Sandra rained down on her. She was now confident that Sandra had set her car on fire. Relief flooded through her, even as she shook her head in disgust. Straightening her shoulders, she took a deep breath. At least one good thing had come out of tonight.
SANDRA SCREAMED IN frustration, picking up the vase sitting on the black vanity and throwing it at the bathroom mirror. Ignoring the roses that scattered everywhere and the startled waitress who had just walked into the bathroom, she let out another scream. Pushing past her, she stalked back into the bar, anger coursing through her veins.
She hated Stephanie Carovella! She’d never hated anyone as much as she hated that woman. It had taken everything in her willpower not to attack her. The bitch had dared to mock her, and she’d dared to insinuate that Dominic didn’t want her and was using her. She knew better. Dominic loved her. He had to.
Pushing through the crowds, she elbowed her way to the bar where Dominic sat with Tyler and Ben, laughing.
Placing her hands over his eyes, she said brightly¸
“Guess who?”
Dominic ripped her hands away from his eyes, pushing her away from him in annoyance. “For God’s sake, Sandra. What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Did you miss me?” she cooed, ignoring the uneasy feeling settling in her stomach.
Dominic glared at her. “Can’t you see I’m busy? I’m hanging out with my friends. Go away.”
“Dom, you don’t mean that,” she whispered tearfully as she tried to slide her arms around his neck.
He grabbed her arms, jerking them from around his neck and pushing her away from him. “Yes, Sandra, I do. Get lost.”
She stumbled back, unbalanced. Gripping the bar, she shot him a look of pure malevolence. “She was right, wasn’t she? You were just using me.”
Dominic didn’t answer, turning his back on her. Tyler and Ben did the same, and she stamped her foot in frustration.
Narrowing her eyes, she turned on her heel, storming off. Dominic had treated her badly for the last time. She swallowed angry tears. She wasn’t going to let him get away with this. Glancing back over her shoulder in time to see Dominic wrap his arm around Ben’s shoulder, she smiled spitefully. He couldn’t use her and abuse her whenever he felt like it.
She was going to make both him and Stephanie pay, and she was going to do it in one swoop. Not taking her eyes off Ben, she smirked.
Payback was going to be a real bitch.
STEPHANIE LEANED AGAINST Outlaws’ upstairs railing, scanning the scene below. A bitter smile slid onto her lips when she spotted Dominic, Ben and Tyler sitting at the bar, laughing and doing shots together. Dominic and Ben were best friends.
She snorted at the irony. Of all of the men in LA she could have fallen in love with, she’d fallen for the one man she could never have—her boyfriend’s best friend. Crap like this could only happen to her.
Slipping her hand into her pocket, she pulled out a pack of cigarettes and tapped out a cigarette. She fumbled in her pocket for her lighter, then lit her cigarette and inhaled deeply. Turning so her view of Dominic and Ben was obscured, she scanned the crowd with a smile of pleasure on her lips. These people were here for Ben. They were all here to celebrate his success because they loved him.
Feeling someone watching her, she turned her head and her gaze clashed with a man standing mere meters from her. Flicking her gaze over him, she took in his faded denim jeans, and the black T-shirt that was stretched wide across his chest. She took a drag of her cigarette and arched her eyebrow, refusing to let him intimidate her.
Closing the distance between them, he stopped inches from her, breaking her gaze as he turned to face the bar. Copying her stance, he leaned against the bar’s upstairs railing, scanning the crowd. Not looking at her, he said huskily, “Don’t you know smoking’s bad for you?”
“So is watching me,” Stephanie said pointedly.
The man chuckled softly, angling his body towards her. “Maybe I find you attractive?”
“Try again,” she said flatly.
He smiled sadly. “Maybe I wanted to meet the woman who has brought Dominic Delaney to his knees.”
Stephanie snorted at this. “I think you’re mistaken there.”
“Am I?” he asked silkily, watching her turn towards the bar, automatically seeking out Dominic and Ben.
“Dominic doesn’t give a damn about anyone except himself. I was just another notch on his belt,” she said bitterly, turning to glance at him. When he studied her silently, she scowled. “What?”
“You truly believe that, don’t you?” he murmured.
She nodded her head jerkily, not looking at him. He unsettled her. It was almost as if he could see into her soul. She didn’t like it. Chewing her lip nervously, she took another drag of her cigarette.
“I’m Jake Carlisle,” the man offered, holding out his hand and forcing her to acknowledge him.
Accepting his handshake, she winced at his firm grip. Studying him closely, she took in the buzz haircut, piercing blue eyes, and the military tattoo on his arm. “Carlisle?” she said slowly, arching an eyebrow. “Any relation to Tyler?”
“I’m his little brother,” Jake said.
Stephanie snorted with laughter at his response. Jake Carlisle was anything but little. She hadn’t been surprised by the news he was Tyler Carlisle’s brother. She’d noticed the resemblance immediately. They had the same facial structure and stubborn jawline, but that’s where the similarities ended. Tyler was drop-dead gorgeous with a killer body and equally killer smile. Dominic had once told her Tyler played as hard as he did, and she could believe it. He exuded sex, and she hadn’t been immune.
But Jake Carlisle was something else altogether. He was in complete control of his emotions, and she could almost feel his strength radiating from him. Towering over her at 6’4”, he was all lean muscle, and from the marine insignia emblazed on his bicep, she had no doubt he would be deadly if he needed to be.
“Or, not so little,” Jake murmured, smiling at her. “Ty’s a couple of years older than I am, but we’ve always been close. I used to tag along with him, Ben and Dominic.”
“Then you know who I am,” she said quietly, leaning over and stubbing her cigarette out in a nearby ashtray. Before he could answer, she snorted softly. “Of course you do. You wouldn’t have come over here if you hadn’t.”
Jake looked down to where Ben, Tyler and Dominic sat together. Grimacing when he met Dominic’s angry gaze, he turned his head back to study the redhead standing beside him. So this was Stephanie Carovella. He’d been curious about the woman who had managed to tie his brother’s two best friends completely in knots. She wasn’t what he’d expected. Ty had said she was different, and she was.
Not that Stephanie wasn’t beautiful. She was, but she just wasn’t the manufactured Hollywood brat he’d expected after he’d read the background check he’d run on her. He’d been observing her all night, and she intrigued him. She hid her emotions, rarely letting down her guard except when she thought no one was looking, and only for Dominic. When she was with Ben, her expression never changed. She carefully controlled her emotions, almost as if she’d built a wall around herself, but with Dominic it was different. When she looked at him, all of her emotions were stripped bare. He saw her pain, her anger, her love and her sense of betrayal. He saw her.
Looking at Dominic again, he chuckled softly. He could feel the waves of fury rolling off him as well as the jealousy. She thought Dominic felt nothing for her; that she was only a notch on his bedpost. But if Dominic’s glare were anything to go by, he was ready to leap off his barstool and tear him apart.
“I know who you are,” he said finally, inclining his head. “You’re wrong, you know. You’re not just a notch on Dominic’s bedpost.” Hearing her snort of derision, he said quietly, “Ben is Dominic’s best friend. There is nothing he wouldn’t do for him. Nothing. That includes breaking his own
heart to protect Ben.”
Stephanie clasped her hands together, fighting down the lump growing in her throat. Jake’s response was so Dominic. He would put his friends first. Swallowing hard, she said quietly, “Ben’s a good guy.”
“Yeah, he is, and he certainly doesn’t deserve what you’re doing to him,” Jake said, softening the blow of his words with a gentle smile. “You’re lying to him by pretending there’s nothing going on with you and Dom. You know it, I know it, and I’m pretty damn sure Dom knows it. You can stick your head in the sand and pretend that those feelings you’ve got are going to go away, or you can act like an adult and tell Ben the truth. Sooner or later he’s going to find out, and when he does, it’s going to hurt like hell. Especially when he finds out the two people he loves the most didn’t have the guts to tell him that they’re in love with each other.”
“Dom doesn’t love me,” she spat out, her eyes flashing with fury. “If he did, he wouldn’t have hurt me the way he did. He wouldn't have said—”
She broke off, tears blurring her vision. Wiping the back of her hand across her eyes quickly, she whispered softly, “He doesn’t love me. If he’d loved me, he would have fought for me. He would have made Ben understand. We both would have. Instead, he walked away. He gave up on us.” Pounding her fist against her chest, she whispered fiercely, “He gave up on me.”
Dropping her hand away, she said quietly, “You’re right though. I need to end it with Ben, and I’m going to.”
“It won’t be pretty,” Jake warned.
Stephanie laughed harshly. “This is LA, darling. Nothing is ever really pretty here. It’s all smoke and mirrors. I thought I could pretend. I wanted to believe that Ben and I could just go on the way we were, but I can’t. Not with Dominic in his life.”
“Nothing is fair in love and war.”
“Ben doesn’t love me,” she said sadly, wrapping her arms around her waist protectively. “He just thinks he does. He loves the person he wants me to be, the one I pretend to be around him. He doesn’t love the one who is damaged. He can’t, because he doesn’t know who she is.”
“And Dominic?” Jake asked, arching an eyebrow.
Her expression hardening, she said cuttingly, “He pretended to love that girl. I exposed myself to him. I laid myself bare and stripped all the barriers away, and showed him the real me, and he pretended to give a damn. Once he’d gotten me into bed, he didn’t care anymore. I needed him, and he rejected me.”
“I told you—”
“It doesn’t matter anymore. After tonight, I’m gone. It will be as if I ceased to exist. Ben will forget about me, and Dominic will continue to whore his way through LA.” Taking a deep breath, she shook her head in surprise. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I never share how I’m feeling with anyone, ever, yet here I am, telling you everything.”
Jake shrugged nonchalantly, drumming his fingers against the railing. “Everyone needs someone to vent to. Some people use their friends, but people like . . . us . . .” he said, pausing to look at her. “We like control. We like to hide how we’re really feeling, but even the strongest of us can break. When that happens, a stranger can sometimes be the best person to talk to. A stranger won’t judge or condemn us for what we’ve done, or who we’ve fallen in love with. They’ll just listen.”
“And the best thing about a stranger is that you will never see them again,” Stephanie finished for him, a ghost of a smile playing on her lips.
“Exactly.”
Stephanie held out her hand, smiling when he gripped it. “Well, Jake Carlisle, it’s been ... interesting. Some might even say pleasurable. I hope we never meet again.”
Jake watched Stephanie walk away, a slow smile sliding onto his lips. “And I hope we do,” he murmured, not taking his eyes off her.
Watching her walk down the bar’s staircase, he shook his head. Turning to face the bar again, he noticed Dominic’s barstool was now empty. Scowling, he muttered to himself, “Dom, you dumb son of a bitch, you had the girl, and you let her go. What the fuck were you thinking?”
DOMINIC SANK DOWN into his office chair, closing his eyes wearily. He wished this night would end. He didn’t want to have to pretend anymore. He’d spent the past hour laughing and joking with Ben and Tyler as if he didn’t have a care in the world. It felt like his skin was stretched too tightly across his face from all the smiling he’d done throughout the night.
Flexing his fingers, he winced at the throbbing pain. It was nothing compared to the agony that had sliced through him seeing Stephanie. Christ, she’d been so gorgeous, and Ben . . .
He opened his eyes, slamming his glass of whisky down onto his desk. He didn’t want to think about Ben and Stephanie and how perfect they’d looked. They were a stunning couple who seemed as if they belonged together.
Dominic hadn’t been able to take his eyes off Stephanie all evening. He’d watched her with Ben. She’d been going through the motions without feeling anything. Part of him felt a cheap satisfaction knowing that she didn’t feel anything for Ben, knowing that he didn’t know who she really was, and that he never would.
All night, his focus hadn’t strayed from Stephanie. If the anger and hatred radiating off her were anything to go by, he’d hidden his emotions far better than he’d thought possible. Watching her, he’d realized she didn’t want to be here anymore than he did. She was here because of Ben. Like him, she didn’t want to let him down, so she was playing the role of the loving girlfriend and hiding how she really felt. But, every once in a while, her mask slipped, and he saw her pain. He saw what he’d done to her. And it killed him every time.
Gripping the glass tightly, he brought it to his lips, downing the whisky in three gulps. Both Tyler and Ben had accused him of getting drunk, but he wasn’t even close to it yet. He still felt as if his heart had been ripped out of his chest.
His whole body hummed with the pain radiating through it. He wanted to feel numb. He wanted to feel nothing, and he was determined to keep drinking until that happened. Maybe then he could close his eyes without seeing Stephanie; without seeing how deeply and swiftly he’d cut her.
Closing his eyes again, he cursed softly. He wanted to scream at the top of his lungs. He wanted to tell everyone to get out of his bar. Except Stephanie. He wanted her here with him, where she belonged. He wanted to lose himself in her, and never let her go again. More than anything, he was desperate to hear her say she loved him, like she had that night in San Francisco.
Hearing his office door open, he didn’t open his eyes. Instead, he growled, “Ty, if you’re here to lecture me on Stephanie, go away. I don’t particularly feel like a deep and meaningful right now.”
When the door closed again, he breathed a sigh of relief. The relief was short-lived when he heard the scrape of a chair. Opening his eyes, he tensed when he came face to face with a man he didn’t recognize.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked irritably, sitting up in his chair and glaring at the man opposite him.
“A friend,” the man murmured, reaching over to pick up the letter opener sitting on Dominic’s desk.
“I don’t know you,” Dominic growled, pulling out his phone and preparing to call his security team. “How the hell did you even get past security?”
“I didn’t say I was your friend,” the man said, smiling. The smile sent shivers down Dominic’s spine.
“What do you want?” he asked cautiously. Placing his phone onto the desk, he leaned back in his chair, not taking his eyes off the man in front of him.
The man ignored him, glancing around the office with interest. Moving to the liquor cabinet, he poured himself a glass of Johnny Walker Blue before returning to sit in the chair opposite Dominic.
“You have a nice bar, Dominic,” he said softly.
“How did you—”
“Know who you are?”
Dominic nodded his head.
“I made it my mission to find out about you, just as I made it my m
ission to find out who Ben Reynolds was, and every other man who has come and gone from Stephanie’s life.”
“Stephanie,” Dominic breathed, leaning forward and staring hard at the man. “If you’re the fucker who’s been stalking her . . .” he growled.
“I’m not,” the man growled back. “Like I said, I’m a friend.”
“Who are you?” Dominic pressed again, standing to tower over the man, his hands clenched into fists.
“You can call me . . . Danny,” the man said, indicating for him to sit down again. “Please, sit down.”
Dominic nodded his head curtly, his heart thundering within his chest. He knew it hadn’t been a request. It had been an order.
“Well, Danny, what the hell do you want?” Was he really stupid enough to provoke this man? He didn’t know who Danny was, but there was an element of danger about him, and he scared the living hell out of him.
“I was intrigued by you,” Danny confessed, leaning back in his chair to study Dominic. He smiled coldly when Dominic studied him back. “You’re not like the other boyfriend, Reynolds. You’re . . . different.”
Fingering the letter opener, he said slowly, “She told you about her parents?”
“How?” Dominic began.
“I know everything there is to know about Stephanie Carovella. I know she was born on October thirty-first in Los Angeles. I know when she was five she wanted to be a ballerina, and I know on her eighth birthday she watched her parents die,” Danny said evenly, his smile growing. “I also know the idiots at Child Services handed her over to Kerri Murphy without even bothering to check to see if the woman had the morals to raise a child, which she did not.”
“You’re an FBI agent. Stephanie told me all about the FBI, especially that agent, what’s his name?” Dominic said, angrily clicking his fingers.
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