by Nova Raines
Really? He was going to take this all the way then, pretending like he hadn’t recognized me back there. “Nope. I’ve been living on the East Coast for school. I just come out here to visit my dad every summer.” Saying that makes my heart hurt. Even though he ignored me every time I visited, I’ll still never see my dad again.
“You finish college already?”
“Just graduated.”
“Why’d you decide to come back here afterward?”
I clench my jaw and shoot him a dirty look, but he’s watching the road and seems utterly oblivious. There’s no way he missed the news about my dad dying. It’s been everywhere, on every news network, for days. “I’m just visiting. My dad’s got a huge party planned to celebrate my graduation.”
I watch him carefully, but he doesn’t wince, nothing. He just nods like he’s mildly interested. Wow. Maybe I’m wrong and he’s an actor, not a lawyer.
“We stop at another light, and the silence stretches on and on, until I want to leap out of the car and walk the rest of the way to the garage. It’s not that far, but what if the paparazzi are still nearby?
“So you grow up here?” I ask.
Kaidan furrows his brow and studies me with those intense brown eyes. I feel myself blush, and I self-consciously smooth back my hair. Do I have something on my face?
He sniffs and shakes his head. “Yeah. I’m from here, but went to college up North. Decided to come back to see if I wanted to work in the family business.”
He sounds unhappy about it, but now it all makes sense. His dad is the bigwig lawyer. It explains everything. The car, the reserved spot, his utter lack of smarm. His dad must be a partner or something.
“Ah. Daddy got you a job.” It’s out before I can clamp my mouth shut.
Kaidan’s face darkens as he shifts the car into gear. “Actually, that’s pretty much exactly right.”
The thought of Kaidan’s dad, making life so easy for him… It’s like a knife twisting in my chest. My own dad left a giant “fuck you” note to me, even in death. “So Daddy hired you. Still live with him, too?”
Kaidan narrows his eyes at me, then works his jaw. “Yeah,” he finally says. “It’s sad, right? I’m twenty-eight and still living at my dad’s house.”
I swallow, and shame floods me. What the hell is wrong with me? This guy rescued me from the cameras, and I’m being a giant bitch. “Sorry. It’s cool. I wish I had a job waiting for me, too.”
Kaidan’s silent for a few moments, but then his expression shifts, like he’s decided to forgive me for being a bitch. Or maybe he just realizes we’re almost back to the garage. “You plan on staying here and working?”
“Maybe.” No. But I might not have a choice.
“What’d you major in?” he asks.
“Communications. I hear there’s some great opportunities in the tabloid industry here.”
He gives me a rueful grin. “And now you have some on-the-job experience.”
God, he’s hot. I suck in a breath, inhaling sex in the woods, and I avert my eyes. My seat suddenly feels uncomfortable again. I’ve been really rude to this guy, and he’s been nothing but nice. “Thank you for getting me out of there. Those cameras—they’re overwhelming.”
“They really are.”
He hangs another right, and we’re on the same street we left. I stare out the window at the palm trees and skinny women walking tiny dogs, a heavy weight growing in my chest. I don’t want to be in LA at all. Not a lot of great memories here. I wanted to start a life somewhere else. Somewhere where no one remembers my parents. I almost laugh out loud at the absurdity of that thought. I’d been recognized within twenty-four hours of starting college on the East Coast. And now the paparazzi are after me again. It will never end.
We reach the parking garage, and my shoulders slump as he pulls into it.
“What level you on?”
“Three.”
We ride to level three in silence.
“My car’s here,” I say. Why do I feel like I want to cry?
He stops his car and gets out. He’s around to the other side, opening the passenger side before I’ve even gotten my purse from the floor.
He offers me a hand and pulls me out of the low seat. But he doesn’t back away. I’m pressed up against the open door, standing there, staring up into his dark brown eyes. I can smell his woodsy scent, feel the heat radiating between us.
I draw a ragged breath and shift on my feet. He takes a little step back and openly looks me over again, drawing his gaze up my body from my exposed legs to the curve of my hips, to my breasts peeking out of my top. His eyes finally come to rest on my face.
Longing shoots through me, and I want to close the space between us, feel his hand on mine again. I’m sure he can tell.
A little smirk appears on his mouth, along with a dimple on his cheek, and he challenges me with his lust-dark eyes. I don’t know if I should smack the smug expression off his full lips or kiss them. My emotions are a mess. I swallow hard, getting ready to speak to fill the electric silence with something, anything else.
His phone goes off. He licks his lips and turns away from me to pull the phone from his suit jacket. He looks down at it, and his jaw tightens. Anger replaces the lust in his eyes.
“You good now?” He looks back at me, and whatever spark we had between us has vanished. Did I imagine it?
I catch my breath and point to my Mercedes. “My car’s right here. Thanks again for the ride.”
He nods and looks at his phone again. “See you around, Hayley.” Without giving me another glance, he gets back in his car, revs the engine, and drives off.
I’m a bundle of raw emotions and longing as I get into my Mercedes and slam the door. My dad’s dead, my brother won’t talk to me, and I’m broke with no hope of fixing it any time soon. And then Kaidan… I don’t even know his last name. Whatever that was between us, clearly he didn’t care to continue it. He didn’t even ask for my number.
I drive toward the penthouse, and when I get past the endless traffic and hit the beach, I lower my window. The salt-tinged air blows my hair into a knotty mess and stings my eyes. The whole time I drive, I try to think of anything but Kaidan. But everything about coming home has been shitty. The funeral, the headlines, the empty penthouse, Rowan ignoring me… Everything up until the moment Kaidan grabbed my hand and pulled me to his car. And every time I blink to keep the tears away, he’s all I see.
It’s starting to get dark when I type in my code and pull into my building’s parking garage. Another car sneaks in behind me, a black SUV with dark windows, not bothering to input their code. I roll my eyes and frown in my mirror at them. Then I shake my head and drive up to my floor.
The penthouse was a better choice than my dad’s house for lots of reasons. My dad died there, so that’s one reason I never want to go back. Second, it never really was my house. Rowan lived there for a little while, but I got sent away at thirteen, which was the year after my mom died and the year my dad bought the new mansion. I thought Rowan would take it, but he’s apparently living in a crappy apartment in Santa Monica. I’ll never understand him.
I park in my spot, and I’m opening my door when the black SUV pulls up behind me and stops, blocking me in. A massive Latino guy dressed in a crisp white shirt, dark suit, and reflective sunglasses gets out.
Fear flickers alive within me, and I try to pull my driver’s side door shut again, but I’m too late. Beefy Latino dude moves fast, and he’s got his hand on my door. He grunts, “Get out of the car.”
Pepper spray. I have some, but I’m an idiot, and it’s in boxes being shipped here from Boston. I try to pull the door shut again, and the guy pulls it open.
“Out of the car,” he says with a thick Spanish accent. “Or I can make you.”
My heart’s thumping fast enough to give me a heart attack as I get out of my car. The guy reaches in to grab my purse and shoves it at me. I clutch it to my chest as I stumble away a few steps to put distance betw
een us, but now I’m headed away from the safety of the foyer and elevators and toward the SUV. This is bad. Really bad. I don’t know this guy. Am I being kidnapped?
I back up right into someone else. I whirl around and come face to face with another Latino guy, dressed like the first, but this one is short, my height, and he’s built, but slimmer than the guy blocking my escape to the elevators. I take a step back. I think I’m gonna puke, and I’m too freaked to say a word.
He pulls off his glasses. “Miss Wade,” he says in an accent like his henchman, “pleased to finally meet you. I’m Luis.” He holds out a hand like he expects me to actually shake it.
“What do you want?” My voice cracks. I’m not going near his outstretched hand. I’ve never felt as vulnerable as I do in this moment.
He drops his hand. “We just want to talk,” he says.
“Good,” I say, my voice shaking. “There are cameras in here. This is a secure building.”
Luis offers me a false smile, and a chill runs down my spine. “Yes, there are cameras, but they aren’t recording us right now.”
I lick my lips, but I don’t know what to say to that. Is he lying? He sounds extremely confident about it.
“We have many friends, in many places, you see,” Luis says. “Your father was one of our friends, but unfortunately, he did not pay his debts.”
“For what?” But I already know. I know because I’ve seen guys like these show up at my dad’s mansion during my visits. Drug dealers. “He’s dead. I can’t—”
“Then is good he has family to pay us back, no?”
I back up another step, but I can feel beefy guy at my back, and the last thing I want to do is make physical contact with him. “I had nothing to do with my father’s debts.”
“Where I come from, when you promise payment, you pay. Even after death.”
A drop of sweat trickles down my back, and I try to keep my breathing even. “I could call the cops—”
Luis laughs, and I just know he’s got a gun hidden somewhere under that suit jacket. “What? You think we have this business without friends in the police, too? Chica, as I say before—we have friends everywhere. Calling the police would not be wise.”
The guy behind me grunts in apparent agreement.
Hot rage spreads through my chest, warring with my need to vomit. Who the hell do these guys think they are? They provided drugs to my dad. Probably the very drugs that killed him. I stand up straighter, even though I feel like I’m going to pass out. “You can’t threaten me. Maybe you shouldn’t sell shit that kills your customers.”
The friendly expression fades from Luis’s face, and he gestures to his henchman. “Carlos. Miss Wade does not want to pay us.”
I twist around in time to see Beefy—Carlos—taking a tire iron to my driver’s side window. He hits it twice, and I gasp, covering my mouth, as the glass cracks into a thousand pieces. My window disintegrates, and the shards fall into my seat and hit the garage floor.
“We supplied all your father’s many parties,” Luis is right next to me, and I feel his hot breath on my neck.
I can’t move. My heart’s in my throat. I can’t breathe. I can’t respond.
“He owed us over $80,000 dollars,” Luis continued. “We expect all of it, in full, the next time we meet. Which will be soon.”
Carlos moves out of my way, clearing my path to the elevators, and somehow I make my legs move. I dart past him, flinching as I do, and as I type in my code, hand shaking, to get through to the elevators, I take one glance back at them. They’re still standing next to my Mercedes and its shattered window, and they’re staring at me.
The glass doors slide open, and I back into the foyer. Luis says something to Carlos in Spanish, and I watch them get into their SUV as I jab frantically at the elevator button. The doors open, and I get inside. As they slide shut, my legs give out, and I crumple to the floor.
Tears spring up in my eyes. Drug dealers after me? Drug dealers who have friends in my building and in the LAPD? I’m so screwed. I could easily pay them back without even making a dent in my inheritance, but I can’t get my inheritance until I fulfill the one condition in my father’s will. As it stands, I barely have enough money left to pay the rent on the penthouse this month.
But Luis won’t care about that. That much is clear. They just want what my father owed them. As the elevator reaches my floor, I pull my phone from my purse. My hands are shaking so bad, I nearly drop it.
I dial Rowan’s number, but of course he doesn’t answer.
“You have reached Rowan Wade,” an automated female voice says. “Please leave a message after the tone.”
“Rowan, please. Please call me back. It’s really important.”
As I hang up the phone, I have no faith Rowan’s going to actually call me back. Will Luis visit him next?
How am I gonna fix this?
I’m curled up on my father’s suede couch, three days worth of TV dinners and junk food strewn across the coffee table, and I’m watching an old movie for the fiftieth time.
Jareth’s in his tight pants. He’s threatening Sarah with his magic balls again, and she’s determined to get to the castle beyond the Goblin City. I feel just like her. Alone, lost, with no hope of finding my way out.
Where’s my Hoggle? My brother never did call me back, and the only real friend I have in LA, Charlotte, is calling and texting me non-stop, but I can’t deal with her right now. I ignored all her messages, and when a bunch of strange numbers started calling, I finally just let my phone die. Reporters, no doubt. I need to change my number yet again.
Goblins have been the only thing distracting me from all the blond anchors reading details of my father’s “tragic early death” over and over. But I can’t leave my house. The thugs are waiting for me.
“It’s not fair,” I mumble. I make myself get up, brush crumbs off my pajama pants, and wander across the wooden floors to pull open the heavy curtains across the windows. I squint against the sudden brightness and check the road in front of the building. The black SUV is parked outside again. They’ve been here every day, waiting for me to leave my penthouse. I don’t know if it’s the same car, but it shows up every morning and leaves at night. They’ll be gone within an hour, when the sun sets. I let out a shaky breath and pull the curtains shut.
The kitchen is as dirty as the coffee table, plates piled high on the granite counters, overflowing in the porcelain sink. I need to call a maid in. I’ve always had a maid. I let out a strangled laugh. How will I pay a maid?
The intercom next to my door buzzes, and I freeze. Are the thugs trying to come inside?
Why the hell would they buzz, Hayley? Idiot.
I answer.
“It’s Char. I was worried!” a high-pitched voice exclaims over the intercom. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I come up?”
I sigh and wince as I glance around my disgusting house. “Fine.” I buzz her in so she can park.
I half-heartedly start moving the mess from my coffee table to the kitchen. Char’s my only true friend—the only one who stuck by me past middle school, the only one I ever called during my summers here. We got caught stealing when we were thirteen, and that’s when my dad shipped me off to the East Coast. He never liked Char after that, which made me hang on to our friendship even more. That was the beginning of my habit.
After I got arrested last year, I had to go to therapy to avoid jail time. I’m addicted to the thrill of it. I steal for control. That’s what the therapist says, anyway. But she’s full of shit. An addict would still be stealing. It was easy to stop once I got caught.
A knock sounds on my door, and I open it. Charlotte’s dressed like she’s ready to go clubbing. She strides into my house like she owns it and wraps me in a hug. Even in heels, she’s all of five foot two, but she’s intense enough that she somehow takes over every room she enters. Her adoptive mom’s the famous one, but Char’ll be famous in her own righ
t, someday. I’m sure of it.
Char steps back from me, looking at my pajamas, at the mess in my kitchen. She wrinkles her nose and shakes her head. Her gorgeous jet-black hair sways in its ponytail. “Have you left the house recently?”
She takes off toward my windows, pushing open the curtains, flooding the living room with light.
“Did anyone talk to you outside?” I ask. I’m suddenly afraid, embarrassed even, to tell her or anybody besides Rowan about the situation with my dad’s drug dealers.
“Who, paparazzi? Ha Ha. I don’t exist to them. But you, girl, do.”
“I haven’t—”
“How could you not tell me?” She throws her hands up, stalks over to an armchair, and sits in it. “Why didn’t you call me back?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” A twinge of annoyance runs through me. She’s acting like my dad didn’t just die. She was at his funeral. Why is she being like this?
Char pulls her tablet out of her leather messenger bag. “I’m sorry. I know you’re dealing with a lot. But—what’s up with this?”
She hands me her tablet, and when I see the ScandalLust headline on her screen, nausea hits me full-force. I sink into the couch next to her chair.
“Has Rock Star Heiress Hayley Wade Snagged Lust List Bachelor Kaidan Stone?”
So Kaidan is someone.
I scroll down, taking in all the shots the sharks got of me and Kaidan. A little bolt of longing runs through me, remembering how he looked at me in the parking garage. He looks sexy, even when he’s shoving a pap into a sidewalk.
At the very bottom, there’s an old picture of me next to a picture of another girl.
Kaidan’s got a thing for sexy blondes. Dopplegangers, much? Rock star heiress Hayley Wade (left) and Werewolf Chronicles actress Peyton Mackenzie (right).
My stomach turns. We look a little alike, it’s true. She’s got the same dirty blond hair as me, sun-kissed light skin, big green eyes. She even has a sprinkling of freckles over the bridge of her nose, like I do. But that’s where the similarities end. Her nose is longer, and her cheek bones less prominent than mine. I read the paragraph below it.