by Piper Lawson
“My father always said to put the right people around you. I need a team that doesn’t require coddling to do what has to be done.”
Leni cocks a brow. “And she fits right in. Rae’s tougher than I thought. I like her. And you do too, or you wouldn’t have taken a sudden interest in a Burbank warehouse that’s sat vacant since you bought it a year ago.”
“I’m not here for her. This is business.” I survey the room, imagining the dusty furniture replaced with more modern trappings.
“Let’s pretend that’s true. Rae’s taken a hit, but her cult following is devoted. If we can get this place ready in six months, we’ll need to book talent. You’ve gotten a lot of bad press this year but still came out on top. Mischa didn’t press charges. No patrons were hurt at Debajo the night you two decided to bring your little fight club to town. Not that I’m complaining, but next time? Give me a heads-up so I can sell tickets.”
My gaze snaps to Leni’s.
I knew Rae was here when I decided to move this launch up the priority list for Echo, but she wasn’t the reason. I was done hiding out in Ibiza, licking my wounds, and needed to get back to running a growing corporation—one ready and able to bury Mischa’s once and for all.
“Not everything comes back to her,” I say.
My friend crosses to me and brushes off my suit. “So, why did you have a check printed instead of having her final payment wired to her like the others?” She taps my breast pocket. “Don’t worry, Harry. If I didn’t know you so well, I’d have no idea you were still obsessed with her.”
The check burns a hole in my breast pocket.
Through my suit, my shirt.
Possibly my skin.
When a member of Echo’s team reached out to see where we could deliver the check this morning, Rae responded with the address of a studio lot. They purposely didn’t say I would be the one coming.
The sun bakes my neck, my face damp under my sunglasses as I approach the trailer. The door opens, and two figures emerge—a young, athletic man with a woman slung over one shoulder and a stack of papers in his other hand.
The woman’s curvy legs are encased in faded skinny jeans. One flip-flop falls off her foot, landing next to the steps of the trailer.
“You owe me a shoe,” she huffs.
“Call my people,” Beck replies cheerfully.
“Fuck your people. I’ll stage an uprising in your closet while you’re sleeping. Throw one of your five-hundred-dollar loafers out the bedroom window and see how much you like that.”
The familiarity of Rae’s low mutter is a kick in my gut. The feelings I’ve been shoving down rise up at once, colliding and combusting in a way that feels uncannily like heartburn.
“Excuse me, do you have ID?” A woman shifts out of a golf cart in front of me.
“I’m Harrison King.”
Before she can stop me, I round the golf cart, leaving her behind.
“Well, this I didn’t expect.” Beck’s amused, and his insolent drawl when he spots me has my nostrils flaring.
Rae shifts on his shoulder. “What’s going on?”
“We’ve got company.” He releases her, bending to set her on the ground with a thud.
It’s an easy movement, as if they do this all the time.
I fucking hate it.
Rae straightens her top as she squares to face me.
She’s the same as I remember… and different. Slow curves even understated clothes can’t hide. Dark hair tumbling over her shoulders, eyes framed with thick lashes narrowed in my direction so I can’t read the emotion beneath even if I want to.
And I want to. I’d give every dollar in my damn wallet to know what’s going through her head when we look at each other for the first time in a month.
It’s been thirty-two days, actually, since I left her in my room in Ibiza.
That night, I wanted to stay with her but forced myself to carry out my duties as owner of Debajo and as a King. I went to see the police, then Christian.
Beck holds up the sheaf of papers. “I’m gonna go read. You need anything, I’m on lunch for another thirty.”
She nods as he walks away.
Of the things I’ve pictured her doing since she left me, Beck wasn’t one of them. Jealousy is a living thing in my chest as I consider what they were doing in that trailer together.
The possibility that he gets to touch her, gets to see her smile, gets to fucking make her smile…
It’s agony.
Rae closes the distance, grabbing my jacket and tugging me to the side of the trailer as a golf cart flies by.
“What are you doing here?” she asks.
I drag my sunglasses off, tucking them into the pocket of my suit. What am I doing here? If I had a reason, it’s lost in her eyes.
That’s when I remember the envelope. “I was in LA for business and wanted to drop this off.”
Rae’s brows pull together as she accepts the envelope, opens it, and sucks in a breath. “This is more than my cut.”
“We filled Debajo, which exceeded even my expectations. You deserve it.”
Dark, troubled eyes search mine.
“Besides,” I go on, impulsive, “I wasn’t sure where to send the espresso machine, and you wouldn’t use it anyway.”
Rae shoves a hand through her hair, looking as if she can’t decide whether to laugh or scream.
I want her to say she made a mistake by leaving. That she still thinks of me late at night after her shows.
Instead, Rae lifts the edge of my suit and tucks the envelope back in my pocket over my heart, her gaze lingering on my shirt as if she can see the scar beneath. “You don’t owe me anything.”
But it’s the look she gives me before turning and starting back toward the trailer door—not angry but sad, overwhelmed—that steels me.
“You owe me something.” She stops, and I press on. “You left my bed without saying goodbye.”
Rae turns slowly. “You didn’t see the article?”
“I saw it. That’s what happens when you’re in the public eye. You grow a thick skin because the arrows only get sharper.”
Her voice rises, her hands fisting at her sides. “I woke up to that news story, to the world calling me a hypocrite and someone I cared about shoving it in my face.”
“Are you a hypocrite?”
“I don’t know!” she retorts. “You didn’t come back all night. I tried calling you. Waited for hours.”
Each word is a knife in my gut.
I figured she’d decided I wasn’t worth sticking around for, like everything else in her life. I wasn’t going to reach out to her and beg her to reconsider.
The possibility she’d taken the article to heart never occurred to me.
She’s so fucking young right now. It should be a warning, another brick in a fortress of reasons I can’t have her, but all I want to do is drag her against me.
“You tried to reach me when I was at the police station,” I say, clenching my hands into fists so I don’t touch her. “I stopped to see Christian on the way home. When I got back, you’d left.”
Raegan doesn’t blink. “What about the issues with the clubs?”
“I swear I cleaned house. I told you I would make them better, and I did. There’ve been no issues since. Not a single claim.”
She wants to believe me. I want her to, though I have no right to ask.
“The article made me question a lot of things,” she says at last. “Things I’d stopped questioning while I was in Ibiza, playing for a man who was my enemy. One I swore I’d never support again.”
“He’s grateful.”
Her eyes cloud, either at the expression on my face or the humility in my voice.
I won’t beg. But seeing her like this, knowing where she’s coming from, I need to make her understand.
I can live with being a villain, but I won’t let her be one.
“I have somewhere to be,” she says.
“I’ll walk you
out.”
She reaches into the trailer, coming back with the same backpack she toted around Ibiza. The top is open, and I catch a glimpse of the contents before she flips the top closed.
“He can’t do what I can do, “ I say as we fall into step next to each other and head down the road between studios, runners and golf carts passing every minute.
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
The clawing in my chest has my hands clenching into fists.
Hello, jealousy. It’s been a while.
“Tell me you’re not fucking him.” I laugh, but underneath, I’m livid.
“That is every shade of not your business.”
“It is because you still have feelings for me.”
Rae pulls up, looking indignant.
“You kept the headphones I gave you.”
She follows my gaze to the now-closed bag on her back, where I’d caught a glimpse of them in the sunlight. “They’re diamond.”
“And you live out of a single bag. You wouldn’t want the reminder staring at you every day. So, if you were over what happened between us, you would’ve pawned them without blinking, love.”
The endearment slips out, but I hide my surprise. She can’t mask hers, though, and it’s worth the mistake for the way she swallows hard.
When I talked with Leni, I was still telling myself I could move past Rae. Now, I realize…
I don’t want to.
I resume my ambling toward the road until she catches up to me, her fingers digging into my skin through the jacket. This might be the first time I’ve wished I was wearing a polo shirt instead of a suit, if only to feel her touch without asking for it.
“What are you doing here, Harrison?” she demands. “You think you can keep an eye on me?”
“I purchased a lot in Burbank. It’s an industrial warehouse I’ve been planning to convert to an entertainment venue.”
“You’re opening a new club.”
“I need an act opening night. And whether you get off on my cock or just thinking about it”—her dark eyes flash—“you still owe me two favors.”
“Not legally enforceable.” Her voice is full of disbelief.
“But you’re not a woman who goes back on your commitments. It’s why you don’t make them lightly. When you’re done arguing with yourself, you know where to reach me.”
I savor her stunned expression as I press the envelope into her palm.
It’s hardly enough to tide me over until she comes back, but it’ll have to do.
3
Rae
“No way that’s going to happen. We need staff on those hours,” says Callie as she rounds the corner to her cubicle and pulls up when she spots me.
“We’ll catch up later,” she says to the phone, clicking off. Her outfit is tidy business casual, a threadbare blue skirt and knit white T-shirt with nude sandals.
“Greetings.” I lift a hand.
Since returning from Ibiza, I’ve only had a couple of texts from my cousin in response to mine, and I’m done with it.
That’s why I’m showing up in person at the small office in a strip mall that houses the charity where she works.
“You can’t stay. I have a meeting in ten minutes.” She glances around the room as if she’s looking for a door to eject me from.
“We’ve both been there for one another over the years. On some serious shit,” I emphasize. “So don’t go hating on me all of a sudden.”
Her expression clouds, and I know she’s thinking of our shared past.
“Come on, Callie. You don’t actually think I was having some affair with a man I thought was bad news?”
She tucks her dark hair behind her ear and sighs. “I think you might’ve gotten caught up in what he was selling. You did lie to me about who you were with. I don’t want to see you get hurt again.”
It’s true that I lied. But Harrison showed up yesterday and rocked me—not with the check, but with his words.
He’s not in LA for me, but fuck… it felt like it.
“I got carried away,” I admit.
Callie cocks her head, lowers her voice so no one outside can hear. “On some level, I get it. He’s pretty extra, Rae. An actual billionaire? He’s nothing like the guys we went to high school with.”
“Because they were such princes,” I remind her.
Her shoulders slump. “Fair enough. They were all assholes back then. The guys and the girls.”
My chest tightens at the unwanted memories that rise up. The rejection from the people who claimed to have my back. The isolation of feeling as if no one else I knew was going through the same thing.
It wasn’t Harrison’s money or status that seduced me. It was the way he wanted me, the way he made me feel more than myself. In Ibiza, at Debajo, I started to believe I was part of something again.
The shock of Mischa’s appearance and the article the next morning about me and Harrison reminded me I’d slipped into that dependence without noticing.
A woman sticks her head in the doorway with an apologetic look. “Callie, you need to be out of here in half an hour. Even if you’d work all the hours for free, Ramona needs the office.”
“Who’s Ramona?” I demand as the woman leaves again.
“The money you sent helped—it helped a lot, and we’ll pay you back. In the meantime, we gave up a couple of offices to another organization to save money.”
I look out into the hall to see women filling a waiting room, some reading, some staring at the floor. Another is pacing the floor, her dark hair swinging in a long ponytail that reaches her belt.
“I can get you more money,” I tell Callie.
She folds her arms. “No. You’ve already given us more than enough.”
I think of the check from Harrison.
What affected me more than the gesture was his words. The fact that he thinks I’m still into him.
It’s crap, of course.
But with his blue eyes staring into me, it was hard not to feel something...
Still, even if he’s here, I can’t just forget everything that went down. Callie’s right that I got caught up in his world. We’re back on my turf, and it won’t happen again.
“I RSVPed for Kian’s wedding.”
My cousin’s words jar me out of my head.
“He invited me too. I’m thinking of going.”
Her brows shoot up. “Really? That would be...big.”
My stomach knots and I shove my hands in my pockets, thinking of Beck’s comments the other night. “Do you think we have to make peace with the past to move forward with our lives?”
“Peace seems ambitious. But I do know that arguing with things that have already happened only brings us more pain.” Callie’s gaze flicks toward the hall. “A lot of the women who come through these doors think they’re broken in some way. They’re looking for justice, or vindication, or absolution. But often what they really need is to know that they get to choose how to act, how to feel, who they want to be today. That’s all any of us can control.”
BLUE is darker than its namesake color. A black club with fish tanks around the perimeter.
I haven’t been here since the week before Tyler and Annie’s wedding when I played and saw a woman assaulted.
Harrison promised he fixed the problems at this club, and the others.
I need to know if he’s telling the truth.
I put on high heels and a short, black dress and plum lipstick. There’s mace in my bag, though it’s more of a security blanket than anything.
Inside, I head to the bar alone.
This place is a shark tank, but I’m not the bait. Instead I scan the crowd, looking for men doing the same kind of looking I am. Searching for a particular kind of partner.
The DJ is good, a guy I’ve heard locally and in New York. But I’m not here for the music tonight.
“Can I buy you a drink?”
A tall guy with dark hair and a leering grin cuts off my view of the d
ance floor.
“I’m a big girl, I can get my own.”
“Baby, you shouldn’t have to.”
Ignoring my rejection, he reaches a hand around my waist to grab my ass.
I shove at him. “I said I’m not interested.”
“Sure you are. We’re getting along great.” He tries again, and this time I shove harder, stepping back, bodies bumping mine in the dense crowd.
“Excuse me. Is he bothering you?”
My heart pounds as I look up to see security at my shoulder.
“No,” the guy snorts, annoyed.
“Yes,” I say at the same time.
The security guy moves between us. “We have a zero-tolerance policy for harrassment. That means you have to leave.”
The guy puts up a protest, but security escorts him to the door.
A breath trembles out of me. This time when I scan the room, I spot security at several points around the perimeter. They’re attentive. Focused. On the crowd and the DJ booth.
Tonight could be an anomaly. But judging by the robust staff, this isn’t the same club it was.
“Yes?” the bartender shouts over the music, and I reluctantly turn to face her.
“Whisky. Neat.” She reaches for a bottle, and I lean over the counter. “Wait.”
I see Harrison’s fingerprints all over this place, and I want to believe he meant it when he said he changed things here.
“Glen Scotia. Thirty-year-old.”
She stares at me long enough I think I spoke Greek. But finally, she bends under the bar and retrieves a bottle.
“It’s two hundred,” she says as she pours.
“I’m celebrating.”
“Anything in particular?”
“Faith in mankind.”
I click into my messages and fire off a text.
Harrison King might not be finished with me, but we’re in my territory now.
I can handle myself. For a moment in Ibiza, I questioned it, and that was my mistake. Not trusting him, but failing to trust myself.
Rae: I have a DJ who might work for your opening. But she’s expensive.