“No, not yet. He…”

I moved her backward. “You didn’t like seeing me with someone else, did you?” I grabbed her hands and pinned them behind her back forcing her to look up at me. “Well join the club. I don’t like watching you with him either,” I admitted in a growl.

Her eyes darkened with understanding.

“You need to talk to him. Today, Lace.”

She licked her lips and nodded.

I stared at her mouth. “I’ve laid it out to you how I feel, and I believe you feel the same.” She was fighting it though. She needed a push, and I was going to give her a big one. I came closer, crudely rocking my erection against her. “That’s for you, babe. I’ve been over there with that blonde, but the whole fucking time I’ve been thinking about you. It’s always you.”

Her breath caught. “Stop it, Bry,” she begged in a rough whisper.

“Give me a reason to stop Lace. Or I’m going to take that blonde upstairs and pretend that she’s you.”

She closed her eyes. I could see her pulse beating furiously in her neck. I held my breath waiting for her to answer.

“Excuse me.”

I let go of Lace’s hands and turned to look over my shoulder.

“I need to reorganize the suits,” a shop lady told us. “You two on your honeymoon?” she asked with a raised brow as she started to sift through the bin.

“No,” Lace replied before slipping past me and practically sprinting for the exit.

“Lace, wait.” I caught her by the elbow.

“Let me go, Bry.” Her voice was low and she looked flustered as hell. “I can’t do this right now. I’ve got a meeting with Mary Timmons. I’m already late.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“It didn’t sound like a question,” she rasped. “It sounded more like a threat.”

Fuck me but I liked the defiant glint in her eyes. “You know what I want.”

She shook her head.

So I spelled it out for her. “I want you to tell War it’s over. I want to be able to stop hiding how we feel about each other. I want to hold your hand so everyone will know you’re mine. I want to laugh and flirt with you again. I want to take you out on dates. I want to be the one in the back bedroom with you on the bus instead of him. I want to make love to you and then hold you all night long. I want to wake up next to you in the morning. I want you, babe. Just you.”

She closed her eyes. “I can’t give you what you want,” she whispered, but I saw the surrender written in her eyes when she reopened them, and I knew then that’s what she really wanted too.

23

I tore my arm free from Bryan’s grasp and ran from the shop as if an animatronic Disney villain had come to life and was pursuing me. When I reached the bank of elevators, I stopped to catch my breath and glanced back. Bryan was leaning back against one of the columns of the shop, one ankle crossed over the other, hands in the front pockets of his dark jeans. To the casual observer he might look relaxed, but I knew better. His eyes were watchful. He was like a coiled spring ready to come unwound. I knew because I felt the exact same way.

I watched a mother and a teenage daughter both do a double take when they passed him. Bryan Jackson was every woman’s bad boy fantasy: tall, long legs, tight body, tatted arms, and handsome as sin. And what they saw on the outside was just a small part of all the good that was him.

The elevator door opened. I paused before getting in. I was so tempted to go run to him, who the hell wouldn’t be after what he’s just said. I had to stop doing this though. I’d made my decision, but I really wondered if it’d been the right one. A father and a son hurried onto the elevator. “What number do you need?” the man asked me.

“Twelve,” I mumbled before moving to the back. I shook my head as if that was all it would take to clear away the confusion. After the door closed, I began to fret. What if he did go back to the blonde? I started to shake. I felt kind of woozy like I had a fever. I rubbed my chilled arms, forcing my thoughts back to the upcoming meeting with Black Cat’s CEO.

When Mickey Mouse’s recorded voice announced my floor, I plodded out of the elevator and trudged down the hall to Timmons’ room. Outside the door, a woman with grey green eyes almost as beautiful as Bryan’s smiled pleasantly at me. She had a cell pressed to her ear.

“Just a second,” she told the caller. Balancing the phone between her cheek and shoulder, she held out her hand to me. “Beth Tate. I’m head of PR for Black Cat.”

I nodded and shook her hand.

“She shouldn’t be long,” Beth informed me after ending her call. Sure enough the door popped open. Charles Morris came storming out, straightening his tie and buttoning his suit jacket. Beth slid past the Zenith exec on her way into the room. He had pink lipstick smeared on the side of his mouth. When he looked at me I pointed it out, trying to hide my surprise.

This was interesting.

Rubbing the color off with his thumb, Charles cleared his throat and ran a hand through his close cropped hair. “Whatever she offers you, I’ll double.” His voice was gruff.

I didn’t know what to say, but I got the distinct impression that I was caught in the middle of something more than just a competition for my services.

“You still have my card?” he asked as the door cracked open again.

“Charles,” Beth queried with a frown. “Are you still here?”

“Tell her this isn’t over.” He glanced over Beth’s head. “I’ll see her in Miami.”

“I don’t think…” Beth trailed off as he walked away with a dismissive wave over his shoulder. Her lips flattened, but her expression was neutral when she turned back to me. She opened the door more widely. “Come in. She’ll see you now.”

The huge suite dwarfed the standard hotel room War and I shared. It was huge with a large sitting area in front of floor to ceiling windows featuring a gorgeous view of the Bay Lake. Mary sat on the middle of a beige sofa with her spine straight and her shoulders back.

“Have a seat.” She gestured to the orange egg chair beside her.

As she shuffled through a stack of papers on the oval coffee table, I was surprised to see her hands were shaking. An aftereffect of her encounter with Charles Morris? No doubt the man was a force to be reckoned with. But I got the distinct impression that Mary Timmons usually got what she wanted.

She smoothed her short brown hair into place and I heard the door clicked closed behind Beth. All business now, the exec leveled me with a serious stare. “I want to let you know up front Black Cat is interested in signing you.” She tapped a finger against the manila file. “But there are a couple of things that came up on your background check that concerned me.”

“Oh?” I raised a brow.

“After graduation, you moved in with a man named Martin Skellin. Is that correct?”

I nodded.

“The man was a convicted drug dealer.” Mary tossed the file on the table. “I don’t know if you were aware, but he was murdered last week. Shot in the back of the head, execution style.”

I inhaled sharply. I hadn’t known, but I wasn’t surprised. Martin had been skating on thin ice with the higher ups long before I’d left him. I gave the news of his death about ten seconds of my time, less than two of those feeling bad about it. “That’s awful, but I don’t know how that’s relevant to me.”

“People are often measured by the company they keep.”

“Guilt by association. Great.” My hands balled into fists. “Look, Martin Skellin was an asshole. He knocked me around. I left him when he tried to pimp me out to pay off some debt. My time with him is not something I’m proud of, but who he was or what he did, have nothing to do with me.”

“I understand you’re engaged to Warren now?” She glanced at my left hand. “Isn’t that a little sudden?”

I shifted, uncomfortable under this cross examination. I felt a fine sheen of perspiration break out on my upper lip. “Not really. War and I have known each other for years. Why all this interest in my love life?”

I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I was beginning to feel really uneasy. I wished now I had taken War up on his offer to come with me. He’d warned me Mary was a hard ass. He had been way underselling it.

“It takes a strong personality to go solo. I need to be sure you’ve got what it takes to handle it. There will be no boyfriends or fiancées to hold your hand.

“I realize that.” I straightened. “I can take care of myself. I have been for a long time now.”

“Yes. I know all about your childhood. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like for you.” Mary’s eyes softened. She stood and pulled the bottom hem of her suit jacket down. “I can certainly sympathize, and I admire your resilience, Lace, really, I do. But I have my concerns.” She moved to the windows. “You’re untrained. You’re young, and you’re inexperienced. But more than that,” she turned back around, her brow furrowed. “I’m concerned about your judgment. I’ve heard about all the partying you’ve been doing on this tour.”

I gulped and looked down at my ankle boots. I was sunk. The woman didn’t miss a thing.

“All that said I’m still willing to offer you a signing bonus of thirty thousand. I just need your word that drugs won’t be an issue.”

I nodded, telling myself it wasn’t a lie, not really. I was quitting. Drugs wouldn’t be an issue for me anymore.