by Piper Lawson
“Doesn’t everybody?”
Axe laughed.
“It’s Briggs,” I offered. “Her dad’s David Briggs from New York. Industrialist.”
Axe nodded, recognition sparking. “Think I met the guy once. He has some holdings in Silicon Valley, yes?” Jordan didn’t answer, and Axe didn’t wait for her to. “You know how to pick ‘em, Ethan.”
I felt Jordan stiffen next to me.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” she said under her breath.
“You just went.”
“I just need to…go,” she mumbled before taking off through the crowd.
“Odd girl. Even for Hollywood,” Axe mused.
I debated whether or not to go after her. My conversation with Axe was far from over. But my stomach sank as I watched Jordan weave her way to the edge of the patio, running around the side of the house.
I cursed. “I gotta go, Axe. I’ll call you later about that development.” I took off after Jordan.
8
Jordan
I tripped over the manicured grass, weaving between bodies and past the garden studded with lights. The grass sucked on my heels like quicksand and I paused, cursing, to tug them off.
This place was like a zoo for beautiful people, smiling men and women standing in pairs and small groups. Twittering like exotic birds.
I ignored the stares around me as I picked my way to the front of the house.
My chest heaved as I pulled up in the front yard. Yard was a poor word for the expanse of lawn. The circular driveway leading to the controlled gate entrance.
A hand grabbed my arm and I whirled around.
There was none of the smooth-talking, easy-going Ethan Cameron in the man glaring down at me. This Ethan looked like he wanted to strangle me.
“What is wrong with you? I’m in the middle of a work conversation—possibly the most important one in years—and you take off like you woke up in the middle of a Walking Dead set.”
I took a steadying breath. “This was a bad idea. I’ve had enough LA education for one night. Go back to your friends. I’ll take an Uber home.”
I fumbled with my phone but he grabbed it out of my hand.
“Bullshit. You came with me, you’re leaving with me.”
The tone of his voice said he wasn’t happy about either part. I started to argue but could tell from the look on Ethan’s face it was pointless.
The valet pulled the i8 around in front. I got in and so did Ethan, tossing me my phone once we were both inside. He accelerated out through the gates.
LA looked different after dark, once we’d left the party behind. More subtle, less in your face. The houses were lit softly. The trees were still. Even the air was cooler, a lazy breeze from the ocean sweeping through the open window of the BMW.
“This isn’t the way back to my place,” I said a few minutes later.
“We’re making a detour.”
I turned toward Ethan. His strong face was silhouetted in the neon dashboard lights. He was older, but thanks to countless dinners with my dad’s business associates, I had no problem navigating an age gap. In fact, I’d always done better with people who weren’t my own age. It made it easier to not get hung up on the awkward social stuff—friendships, attraction, anything in between—and to focus on work.
Which is what I should’ve done. I realized again how dumb it was for me to have accepted this invitation to his party. We had nothing in common. Our worlds were completely separate. The one he lived in was just a more glamorous version of the one I’d tried my hardest to leave behind. And Ethan was just another well-dressed opportunist looking for the next leg up.
Ethan pulled into a parking lot by the ocean. It was nearly deserted. Along the horizon I could make out what looked like a Ferris wheel and other rides. The sign for an aquarium.
“What is this?”
“Santa Monica Pier.” His voice was terse and he shifted out of the driver’s seat without waiting for me. I watched him cross to a booth at the far side of the parking lot and speak to the attendant.
I got out of the car, less carefully than I had at the party—no one was looking at what I was flashing, or wasn’t. My feet complained as the straps of the borrowed shoes bit into them, but my buzz dulled the pain.
Ethan returned, a shadow silhouetted by the sparse LED lights over the parking lot. I followed him down the pier, trying to keep up with his long strides in my heels. Nearly everything was closed at this hour, with only the odd couple and group of teenagers walking up the pier.
Ethan steered us toward a strange-looking building lined with arched windows, then used a swipe card on a panel by the door.
The room—or whatever it was—was pitch black. Trepidation clawed at my insides until Ethan hit the lights and the space transformed.
My breath stuck in my throat. The room was huge, but what it held was even more impressive. Rising up out of the floor was the biggest carousel I’d ever seen.
Light bulbs along the center column and overhead lit at once, casting a technicolor glow over the floor, bouncing off mirrors and lingering on pastel paints that graced the prancing horses and other animals. Soft music came from speakers I couldn’t see.
The carousel started turning.
Ethan appeared from around the corner. The sleeves of his midnight blue shirt were rolled up on his forearms, and he glanced up at the ceiling like he was admiring the place too.
“Ethan, what are we doing here?”
“You needed a change of scenery. Though you seemed like you were having a good time until you bolted.”
His gaze came back to mine, expectant.
I considered brushing him off, the way I did with my father. My friends. Something told me he wouldn’t go for it.
Maybe that was why he’d brought me here. To calm me down, sure. But also because I couldn’t duck his questions, or walk away from him.
“You told that guy about my dad,” I said finally.
“So?”
“People know about my family, they see an opportunity. I don’t like being ‘collected’ like a horse on a carousel, in case someone decides they need me some day.”
Ethan folded his arms. “I don’t need your dad’s name, or yours, to do business in this town. But it is my job to know who people are. How they’re connected.”
Memories rushed back at me of “friends” making themselves known at birthdays, special occasions. Teachers who took a particular interest in me and my father’s well-being after my mother died. People lining up to say yes to me, because they thought it meant I would say yes to them when they needed it.
That wasn’t Ethan, though. I remembered how easily he’d navigated the party, and its people. He would fit in, no matter where he went.
I glanced back toward the carousel.
“Can I ride it?”
“It’s not a spectator sport.”
I stepped over the low fence that would contain the line during the day and took the stairs to the platform holding the horses. I kicked off my heels and sat side-saddle on one of the horses, my hands on the pole. Ethan leaned back against the horse opposite.
I glanced down at the horse, then back at him.
He nodded to the lettered sign by the gates. “There’s a weight limit, and it’s a hundred-year-old carousel. I don’t want to go breaking a horse in half.”
Ethan was a bundle of contradictions. He had no problem being the guy’s guy at a party full of rich, shallow people, but he wouldn’t break the rules here and risk damaging something precious.
“How did you get us in here?”
“The guy who works night security’s the brother of our front desk admin at work. I helped his family get a house last year when he was between jobs. He owed me a favor.”
I stroked a finger down the ridges of my horse’s mane. As the carousel turned, I let the music sink into my pores. Ethan seemed content to do the same.
“I’m sorry if I screwed up your work,” I blurted.
>
“It’s fine.”
“That woman, Martina. She followed me into the bathroom.”
Ethan’s face tightened. “Did she hurt you?”
“No, but she was talking shit about you. And me.” I remembered Martina’s words before I’d shut the stall door in her face. Saying I was an opportunistic bitch. There was no way Ethan was really into me. After years of private school, I was used to mean girls. But it still stung.
“Why do you even care?”
I looked up at Ethan, surprised.
“I don’t. Not really. But why do you like those people, Ethan? And don’t tell me they’re your friends. They’re fake people lusting after fake things. Everything in that party—the pool, the lights, the booze—all of it’s designed to remind everyone there that they’re the lucky ones. The haves. The people who made it.”
He studied me for a long time. “Maybe I’m one of them.”
“Maybe you’re not.” I wasn’t sure why I thought that, or why it mattered. But right now I wanted to believe it.
Ethan straightened, moving to stand in front of my horse. I could smell him again for the first time since we’d been dancing at the party. Like warm spice, with an edge underneath.
“You grew up in Jersey,” he murmured, his hands finding either side of the carved bridle. “Didn’t you ever look at Manhattan and think ‘everything’s brighter over there’?”
“There’s always somewhere brighter, Ethan. There are always bigger, shinier things. But chasing them doesn’t make you happy.”
Ethan glanced toward the walls, like he was turning something over in his mind. “You know, I don’t give a shit what Martina said to you. But I’m curious as hell to know what you said back.”
“Just that I loved your photography skills. And how the picture you sent me made your dick look even bigger than it is in person.”
“You didn’t.” The warm sound of his laughter, coupled with the feeling of the carousel going round and round, had me dizzy.
A curious smile stretched across Ethan’s mouth. “Did you delete it? The picture?”
“Not yet. But now that I know it’s in such high demand, I’m thinking I should sell it to the highest bidder.” I slanted him a look. “Maybe it’ll get me enough for that store on Wilshire.”
The amusement faded from Ethan’s expression.
“I don’t get you. You should be like the people at that party. You could be sliding down that iceberg right now without a damned care in the world instead of busting your ass in a city you don’t know to find a good deal on retail property. Why do you do that?”
The intensity of his stare had me hesitating. “I think everyone has to decide for themselves what they want to do with their lives. And they shouldn’t let anyone else decide that for them. Before she died, my mom always used to say ‘find your color and paint the world with it’.”
I felt a flush of embarrassment run through me once the words were out.
But Ethan just watched, silent. “What’s your color?” he asked finally.
“I don’t know yet.”
Ethan shifted closer, his face inches from mine. My fingers tightened on the horse’s wooden mane.
“Let me tell you something, Jordan Briggs.” His low voice had my heart kicking in my chest. “Tonight I could’ve introduced you as an owner of Travesty, but no one knows what that is. Yet. Once we get you established in LA, with the right space? They won’t be able to forget you.”
The final strains of the music died but neither of us moved. His body was inches away. I had the strangest urge to reach out and touch him, to see if he felt smooth or hard or both under my fingertips.
“All right,” I murmured. I wasn’t sure what I was agreeing to, but whether it was the scotch or the atmosphere or just the strange day, I wanted to say yes to Ethan Cameron all day long.
His eyes crinkled at the corners. “Promise me one thing though. Be straight with me, Jersey. No hiding, no games.”
“Deal.”
“Good. You ready to go home?” Ethan pushed back from my horse, and I missed the smell of his aftershave.
I looked past him toward the box that powered the carousel. “One more time?”
9
Ethan
“Helluva party last night.” Dom shoved the barbell up and it dropped into the cups. The sound of metal on metal echoed in the gym. “Didn’t see you though.”
“We must’ve been on opposite sides of the iceberg.”
We switched places.
My hands gripped the bar and Dom looked down from where he was spotting me.
I lifted the bar with effort and lowered it to my chest, the sweat starting. I wasn’t near my max, but the set I’d already banged out felt good. Cleansing.
Dom and I work out six days a week. I push him and he mouths off. It’s a symbiotic relationship.
“Martina was there,” Dom offered, an impish look on his face.
“I saw.”
“And you didn’t even…” I glared as I pressed the bar back up, shaking a little at the top. “Hell. I don’t know who this Ethan Cameron is, but I’m impressed. And deeply saddened. Going to a party solo, leaving that way.”
Sweat ran into my eye and I ignored it. My interest in Martina had waned to nonexistent after her behavior last night.
“I didn’t go solo,” I grunted. “I took my sister’s friend.”
“Now it’s getting interesting. You have a picture?”
“It’s not like that.”
“Like what. She’s non-corporeal?” He reached for the phone I’d laid on the floor next to us and opened it.
Dick move. I couldn’t speak, or do anything actually, as he opened my pictures. The barbell pinned me to the bench.
“There’s nothing here. And you didn’t post anything on social.”
“I told you,” I managed as I pressed the bar up and dropped it into the cups. “It wasn’t like that.”
It wasn’t.
We’d talked for an hour at the carousel. Despite the fact that we each seemed to have the uncanny ability to get on one another’s nerves? Opening up with Jordan almost felt better than needling her.
I’d told her about growing up in the same house as Ava and Dylan. What it was like to come from a big family. The good and the bad—like when my dad had run into gambling problems a couple of years back. All families had their own issues. Big or small, rich or poor.
In return, she’d shown me glimpses of herself. Not everything, but she’d answered a few questions about her mom dying. Private school. How she’d gone into her dad’s business only to leave it because she wanted to make her own way.
I hadn’t done anything like that in a long time. I never talked to girls about my personal life. But something about the fact that Jordan wasn’t used to opening up made me want to spill too. Not just my usual bullshit, but real stuff.
“Even more interesting than your non-date is who else was at Axe’s.” Dom’s voice, and the slap of my phone case on the mat as he dropped it on the floor, brought me back.
“Who’s that?” I sat up and reached for a towel.
Dom’s attention pulled to the TV screen mounted in the corner of the gym.
The guy onscreen had dark hair, a suit to match, and a smile that triggered my gag reflex. The muted commercial was enough to make my skin crawl.
“Mick the Prick? Who the hell let him into Axe’s?”
“I don’t know. But he was talking up Juliet Walcott.”
I straightened. I had a sudden urge to throw something. The tightness in my body had nothing to do with the workout.
“He is the top realtor on the Westside. You can’t blame him for trying to take your clients.”
“I can fucking blame him. The asshole doesn’t know when something’s not his.” I dropped back under the bar, needing something to do to burn off the new energy pulsing through me.
“No one will switch. Mickey Olsen handles more listings than the rest of the top five
realtors combined. And he can’t give your clients what you can.”
I met Dom’s dark eyes over the top of the bar. “What’s that?” I grunted.
A grin flashed across his face. “He can’t give them a second of his time because he has none. And if you haven’t noticed…he’s a prick!”
“I noticed.” I noticed the time he hit on Gia last year at a convention. Two hours after asking how our relationship was going, and I’d told him we were moving in together.
My then-girlfriend was classy enough to turn him away. But that didn’t do a thing for the fire burning in my gut.
My muscles complained as I pumped through another set.
Since last night I’d had an uncomfortable thought take up residence in the back of my brain. Like there was the tiniest chance Jordan was right—I wasn’t happy.
Not that I was going to feel guilty over how I spent my time. Or that there was a damn thing wrong with doing business at pool parties.
But since Gia and I split last year, I hadn’t found my stride. I wasn’t satisfied with work. Plus my relationships…
Hell, I hadn’t been close to any kind of relationship lasting more than a few vodka sodas.
That level of self-indulgence is acceptable when you’re in your twenties. But I was thirty and my little brother was getting married.
The prospect of being the family flake for another decade was losing its appeal.
“Knocking Mick off his pedestal is a nice visual,” I panted, sitting up.
“What are you thinking, Ethan? You want to take a run at top spot?”
“Used to be top five.”
“Yeah, you were. With Gia as your partner. I’m not the self-deprecating type, but I’m no Gia, Ethan. I don’t look so good in a dress.”
“Axe said something to me last night. About that eco development, Aqua, in Palisades. They’re still looking for someone to handle it.”
“Holy shit,” Dom murmured. “You think we can get it? That’s a ten-billion-dollar build.”
“I’m going to try.” It would be the peak of my career, and it was what I needed. Something to get my mojo back.