by Piper Lawson
It’s also why I’ve been working on something special the past few days, something that requires him to be far away from the club in order for it to be a surprise.
In the end, he’s too strong and I can’t get his phone.
He stops in the middle of the lobby, pulling up the security footage.
Shit. I squeeze my eyes shut…
“The fuck is wrong with the security cameras?” he gripes.
I exhale and peer around his arm at the screen. “It looks like the interior one is fine. Just the street view is shorted out.”
Thank you, Leni, I say in my head.
I lay a hand on his cheek, brushing my thumb along his jaw. “We should stop and pick up a gift though.”
“No, we shouldn’t.” He takes my hand, nodding to the doorman as we pass out into the sunshine and approach Harrison’s car that the valet has pulled up.
“Yeah, we should. Annie’s pregnant, and you’re supposed to buy shit for babies, right?”
“Their gift is already being delivered.” Harrison rounds to the driver’s side.
I pull up, staring at him. Of course he ordered a gift and had it delivered. It’s probably something thoughtful and expensive, and he knows I suck at friend-ing and didn’t even point it out.
“I love you.”
He freezes before turning back. “Say it again.”
“I love you.”
He comes back to me and kisses me against the side of the car until I’m breathless.
Fuck breathing. It’s overrated. Especially when the alternative is having Harrison King’s possessive mouth worshipping mine.
“We’re going back inside,” he murmurs.
“No time,” I pant in response.
“Wasn’t asking.”
Harrison
Eventually we make it to Tyler and Annie’s place in the Hills. Apparently, Tyler rented the house last year while he was finishing his album and just bought it. It’s stunning, modern and white with a pool facing the view over West Hollywood.
Most of the couple dozen people at the party are familiar. Annie’s father, Jax Jamieson, semi-retired yet still fully the most famous rock star in the world, along with his wife and their two young children. Rae’s friends Beck and Elle.
“The ice sculpture is beautiful,” Annie says, half-serious and half-amused as she surveys the giant form now occupying their table.
Rae snorts and turns to me. “Isn’t that what you sent them for their New York housewarming?”
“It is. It’s why we also sent something else. Because it’ll melt faster here.”
Her laugh bubbles up from somewhere deep inside, and fuck if I don’t love that sound more every time I hear it.
Annie tugs Rae away to talk with Annie’s stepmother, Haley, and I head out to the patio with Tyler and Beck. I can’t help admiring at the view—not of the ocean, but back at the house. The family and friends all around.
There’s love here. The kind I’ve missed since my parents died and the kind I hadn’t let myself hope for since long before Eva.
“Who’s your realtor?” I hear myself asking.
Tyler turns toward me, looking surprised. “I thought your penthouse had three bedrooms.”
I shrug as I lift my glass to my lips. “A man always wants more.”
He and Beck exchange a look before Tyler shakes his head.
“Does Rae know about this?” he asks.
“I find it’s best to work out the details, then start working on her.”
They grin.
“Damn,” Beck says. “She’s got you.”
I cut a look over my shoulder to see Rae inside with the other women. I love her, and the way she told me she loved me too today… it was everything.
I’ve been thinking about what I’d do if besting Mischa wasn’t my only goal. Ceding La Mer always felt like a failure, but I’ve never considered what I’d gain. I could experiment with complementary business lines that interest me. Perhaps smaller venues in new markets. Partnerships with the local community.
Echo Entertainment could slow down and look the fuck around, and so could I.
“Harrison King, family man. Whatever would the tabloids say?” Beck says, smirking.
“He’s not a family man yet,” Tyler comments. “Did you see the announcement for the new club?”
“Kings,” Beck chortles. “You’ve been in the States too long, friend. Whatever British tendency to understatement you had is gone.”
Beck pulls up the social post on his phone—the one that went public through dozens of influencers who’ve committed to opening night, plus my company, scores of media outlets, and, of course, Little Queen.
“Everyone in the world will be watching you,” Beck notes.
I cast a look at Rae talking with the other women. “Fucking let them.”
We toast.
25
Rae
“You guys seem good,” Annie says over her non-alcoholic cocktail as we sit around the couch. The living room looks out on the patio and pool and West Hollywood beyond.
“We’re figuring it out,” I admit.
“You sure looked like you had it figured out at Spago last week.” She holds out her phone with a gossip column picture of me and Harrison after our meal at the restaurant.
“Since when do you comb the gossip online?”
“Since they started posting pictures of my favorite private couple. What was he saying to you?”
My hand is laced in his, and he’s whispering in my ear.
“Don’t remember.” I blink back at my friend.
“Bullshit.”
She’s right. I totally remember.
Annie’s six-year-old half sister, Sophie, climbs up next to me with a book in hand.
“You want me to read?” I ask her, amused.
“No. I’ll read to you.”
She starts to, and I tuck back the soft hair that falls over her face.
“Watch out, or you’ll have some of your own soon,” Elle jokes, dropping onto the chair across from us.
My usual knee-jerk shudder isn’t there.
“Not soon,” I correct. “Maybe someday.”
Annie leans in, hopeful. “Do you love him?”
I sneak a look at Harrison.
“You do,” she goes on without my answering.
“It’s almost like the harder it gets, the closer we are. If that makes sense.”
She nods, enthusiastic.
My phone buzzes with text from Leni, along with a picture.
Excitement jolts through me. “Oh my God. No way.”
“What?” Elle demands.
I explain what I’ve been working on, and Annie sighs.
“Send me a picture of his face when you show him.”
Elle nudges her with a toe. “A, His face is going to be eating her once she shows him.”
Annie claps hands over Sophie’s ears, glaring at us both.
Like it’s my fault my boyfriend is a billionaire with a magic fucking tongue.
The rest of the afternoon is fun, and it’s almost twilight by the time we leave.
“You’re right,” I say as Harrison navigates the roads from the Hills. “We should stop at the club.”
He cuts me a surprised look. “Since when?”
I lift a shoulder. “Since now.”
He reaches over to take my hand in his.
When we turn onto the street, the sun setting behind us and leaving long shadows from trees and buildings, Harrison starts to tense.
High in the air, lights beckon, growing brighter with every second.
“What the…?”
My breath hitches. “We’re not even in the parking lot,” I prod.
He ignores me and parks the car on the street, shifting out to stare up at the marquee on the side of the building.
Kings.
It’s lit up in orange and gold, shaped like a crown. It reminds me of the Ibiza summer or a Phoenix rising.
I rou
nd the car and lean against his side. “Everyone who sees this will know it’s yours. We wanted to surprise you. Okay, I wanted to surprise you,” I amend. “Leni helped.”
How we see ourselves is important. How Harrison sees this place is important.
He grabs me and pulls me against his hard chest. His heart hammers through the clothing that separates us, but it’s his expression of awe that humbles me.
“You’re unbelievable,” he murmurs against my hair. “When you said I could put Ivanov in the past, I didn’t believe you. But now, seeing this place, it feels possible.”
“You don’t need to protect your parents’ legacy anymore. You can have your own.”
His arms are an iron grip around me.
It’s three in the morning, and I’m awake.
Not because I’m stressed or anxious. Because I’m happy.
We’re lying in bed together, Harrison asleep while I replay the moment he saw the sign I ordered over and over, when the phone vibrates on his side of the bed.
He stirs, groaning before he reaches for it to answer.
The moment he does, his gorgeous body tightens, and he shoots to sitting.
“Since when?”
He curses, and alarm bolts through me. I grab for his arm, but he’s already halfway out of bed and still on the phone.
“What is it?” I demand.
Harrison hits the lights by the door before moving to the dresser to grab clothing. He drags on sweatpants, still listening.
“What’s wrong?” I repeat, shifting out of bed after him.
He hangs up and riffles through his drawer. “Leni got a notification the security cameras are down at Kings.”
“We turned off the exterior ones this week so the sign would be a surprise.” I grab him a long-sleeved T-shirt and hold it out. He tugs it on with a grateful look.
“There was a problem rebooting them, and now all the cameras are down. We have no video of the premises.”
A chill runs through me. “Can’t someone else deal with it?” It’s late, and this is why he has people who work for him.
“I have a bad feeling.”
I follow him to the door. “I’ll come with you.”
The look he shoots me is quelling. “No. Stay here. I’ll call you if something’s wrong.”
That stalls me enough that I let him go. I stand numbly in the foyer.
I can’t reconcile our day with the middle-of-the-night call.
My feet carry me down the hall toward the bedroom.
It occurs to me how different this is from the last time I found myself alone in Harrison King’s room in the morning without him nearby. In Ibiza, I was afraid he didn’t have feelings, that everything that had gone down between us was a lie or a flirtation.
There’s none of that fear now. He loves me.
The bedroom feels disrupted, the covers on the bed thrown back. Hastily opened drawers stare back at me.
I won’t wait for him, I decide. I’m going after him.
I pull on jeans and a sweater, not bothering with a bra or brushing my hair. I snap on my gold cuff like a security measure before heading for the elevator.
The concierge looks worried when I demand a car, but he relents, waving over the valet to pull around a Nissan that evidently belongs to the concierge.
I jump in and navigate to the club. Even at three thirty in the morning, the drive is half an hour.
When I get there, the first thing I see are the flames. I hear sirens and see the lights of the approaching fire truck. They cut me off before I can turn off the road. I follow them in, my heart dropping through my stomach as I take in the sight before me.
The club is on fire.
Acrid black smoke pours out of broken windows. The sign isn’t lit, or the bulbs have shattered from the heat. The building is concrete, but the inside is wood.
Worse, Harrison’s car is in the lot, angled awkwardly with the driver’s door open.
There’s no sign of Harrison.
The sound of tires screeching in behind me has me whirling to find Leni, who I recall lives twice as far from the club as Harrison.
“Where is he?” she hollers, wide-eyed.
“I don’t…” I turn back toward the building in horror.
Firefighters pour out of the fire truck, a couple of them uncoiling the long hose from the vehicle’s side.
I start for the building and make it to within a dozen feet of the door before heat blasts open another window, glass flying outward. My hands fly up too late to shield myself, but the next second, Leni’s there.
“We need to get you back,” she says.
“But Harrison—he must be in there!”
I can’t breathe, and it’s not only because of the smoke.
I run to the firefighters. “You need to find him.”
Before the firefighter can say anything, two others bring Harrison out of the club. He’s stumbling between them, breathing through a mask, his arms clutched against his chest.
I’m over there in a heartbeat, and Harrison’s pushing something into my hands before they usher him into an ambulance.
“You were with him.”
I look up to see an officer blocking the hallway I’ve been pacing for the last two hours. It’s been a long night at the hospital while Harrison has been put through a barrage of tests. I’ve heard almost nothing about his condition except that he’s stable. The doctor told me that as if I should have been relieved—like the fact that the man I love running into his burning building had a happy ending after all.
“Who are you?” I demand.
The officer gives me his name. “I need to ask you a few questions. Let’s find chairs and talk.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
He sizes me up, his gaze landing on my bracelet. He nods toward the side of the hallway, and I grudgingly step out of the way of traffic.
“You were the first person on the scene.”
“Second,” I correct. “Harrison got there first.”
The last time a police officer surveyed me so intently, I was a teenager at the front desk of the local branch, deciding whether to report what had happened to me. I was nervous, sweating. In the end, fear overtook me, and I turned around and never went back.
Not only fear of the police, but fear of being found out, exposed, judged, ridiculed, hated.
“How did it start?” I demand.
“It’s too soon to say.”
“Was it…? Tell me it wasn’t the marquee.” My voice fades to a whisper.
He relents. “I heard the firefighters say there was some kind of accelerant inside. Now, Mr. King was found in the building. The only person found in the building.”
Hostility slices through the fear in my gut. “You don’t think he did this? Kings is set to open in less than three months.”
“Why would he be inside?”
“To try and save his damned club!”
He sighs, and I play with the strap on my purse.
“We’ll be reviewing security footage. If anyone was staking out the building after dark this week, or arrived tonight, maybe we’ll be able to see who.”
No, you won’t.
Thanks to me, the exterior security cameras have been out for the past two days.
26
Harrison
“You need to lie down.”
I look up from where I’m seated on the side of the hospital bed at the nurse’s voice.
“I’m fine,” I rasp, spreading my hands carefully to avoid jarring the IV in the back of one.
It’s been hours since I got here. I have no idea how many as I’ve been subjected to countless tests and questions. My lungs burn from the smoke. I’ve been turning over what happened.
How I arrived at my new club to see it engulfed in flames.
I ran inside to see if I could find the root of the damage.
Raegan appears in the doorway, dressed in clothes she must’ve pulled on in a hurry, her hair tugged up in a
messy knot. Her face sags with relief when she sees me, before her brows pull together in concern.
“You’re here.” My words end on a cough. I grab water from the table, swallowing rapidly.
“I got to the club soon after you did.” Rae brushes past the nurse to my side.
I crumple the paper cup in my grip. “I told you to stay at the condo.”
The words are harsh, but she doesn’t flinch.
“I’m supposed to watch the man I love walk away? I don’t think so.” Her lips twitch. “Besides, you’re not as scary as you think you are.”
I glance down to take in the hospital gown. “Christ.”
“They were out of Brioni.”
My eyes narrow, but her fingers thread with mine, making the IV tug. It’s nothing compared to the pain to come.
“They said it wasn’t the sign,” she whispers, and if it’s possible, I feel worse at her expression of guilt.
“It wasn’t the sign,” I tell her firmly. The beautiful sign she arranged to have put up while I was distracted.
Unfortunately, that distraction had a price.
“But there’s no surveillance footage of any vehicles in the area, anyone who could’ve shown up to set the fire. They said they’ll canvass other businesses in the area to look for clues.”
“They won’t find anything.” My words are biting, and she flinches.
“Why not?”
“Because Mischa did this.”
Raegan’s dark eyes blink. “He has La Mer.”
“It’s not enough.”
Tonight, I realized how serious Mischa is.
This is more than business. It’s personal.
He won’t rest as long as I’m succeeding. As long as there’s a chance for my happiness.
She grabs a visitor’s chair and drags it to my bedside, perching on the edge. Reaching into her bag, she pulls out the book in its protective casing and hands it to me.
“They’re still going through the building,” she murmurs as I turn The Count of Monte Cristo in my hands. I managed to get to the office and retrieve it before the fire reached that part of the building. Thanks to its plastic casing, the book is relatively intact. “Leni’s figuring out how much can be salvaged, but I’ve never been so glad it’s a concrete brick. The bones are there, and the insurance should pay for the rest.”