“YOU REALIZE IT SOUNDS SHADY as hell,” Rosie said between coughs while I packed all of our worldly possessions and tucked them into plastic trash bags in our studio apartment.
I was going to miss this place. Even though our mattress was located less than a foot from the stove and had a hole in it the size of my head, and even though we had to jump to reach the top kitchen cabinets where we stored clothes, it still felt bittersweet to let go.
This was where we’d made memories. Happy, funny, sad, emotional memories. This is where we’d danced to music and cried in front of crap B movies and eaten junk food until our stomachs hurt. Where I’d painted canvases and sold my art for actual money. Where I’d helped Rosie with her nursing degree, staying up nights to quiz her from doorstop-thick books.
Now we were moving to one of the most exclusive luxury buildings in Manhattan, but I was anything but happy about it. I was frightened. I knew Vicious had plans for me, and I was absolutely positive that whatever those plans were, he was going to cash in on my fat salary.
But I didn’t want Rosie to worry about it.
“Well, he said it wasn’t sexual or illegal, so at least we know he’s not going to sell me across the border or make me kill someone.” I fake-laughed, balling up another one of my dresses and stuffing it inside a duffel bag.
I was packing up our stuff as fast as I could. I’d changed from work, opting for my black faux-leather tights and pink pom-pom sweater, and I knew I didn’t have time to change again before the limo picked me up to head to JFK. But I tried to convince myself that looking plain and messy was the best approach. I didn’t want Vicious to get the wrong idea. Even though he was still cold and rude to me, I’d noticed the way he looked at me. It was the same way I’d looked at him when I would sneak into the football field in high school to watch him play all those years ago.
We liked what we saw.
But I reminded myself that this man didn’t do relationships. He did destructions. And one of his past projects was my life.
I zipped up the duffel and pulled a few more trash bags from a drawer, throwing canned goods, coffee, sugar, and everything else we had that was non-perishable inside. We were going to take our food with us. Vicious might have advanced me part of my obscenely large salary, but we still needed to be careful with our money. Very much so. Despite the contract he’d made me sign, I didn’t know how long I’d last as his employee.
And despite what he thought, I was no fool. I was still going to look for a different job, even if it paid a fraction of the salary. Being at that man’s mercy was like getting comfortable inside a golden cage with a hungry tiger.
Rosie followed me with her gaze, still lying on our mattress and coughing into a crumpled piece of toilet paper.
“You’re a bold ho, sis. I can’t believe you agreed to work for The Undertaker after what he did to you. It’s the second time you’ve let him buy you.” Little Rose was the only one who knew what happened on my eighteenth birthday.
I refused to let her words get to me, though. She was the main reason why I’d taken the job in the first place.
“People do things for lots of reasons. Or do you have another idea of how to pay for our lives in New York?” I muttered.
“I don’t care about our money situation. I wouldn’t work for Baron Spencer.” Rosie jutted out her chin, defiant.
“But you’d certainly kiss him.” I turned my back to her, throwing a jar of strawberry jam and a pack of cookies into a bag full of junk food. It was a cheap shot, but I couldn’t help myself.
Rosie coughed some more. “That’s ancient history. Get over it. I was fifteen, and he was gorgeous.”
He still is, I thought bitterly. And he was mine.
No. No he wasn’t. Dean was mine. Rosie had kissed Vicious because she didn’t know I had feelings for him. And after that night, she’d chased him around like an eager puppy—until Vicious told her he was drunk when he kissed her and that she needed to get over herself.
I remembered that night like it was yesterday. He wasn’t drunk. He was stone-cold sober. It was after he saw Dean and me, when he knew we were making out. I’d hurt him so he’d wanted to hurt me back, so he’d kissed my sister.
I turned to face her, and for a moment I felt a lot less guilty about leaving her with a nurse for the weekend. Then she coughed, and the familiar stab of protectiveness returned.
“Are you sure you’ll be okay without me?” I asked.
She gave me a sideways look and rolled her eyes, “Yes, Mom.”
I knew better than to buy it. She looked pale. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and her nose and upper lip were peeling with dry skin. What was I thinking, leaving her here in New York with a nurse I didn’t even know? I realized she was twenty-five and perfectly capable, but she still had a lung infection and a mouth that could start a war, or at the very least get her into a lot of trouble.
“Thanks for doing all the packing for me, dude.” She waved her hand toward the mountain of trash bags and boxes that had basically taken over the whole room.
I plopped down on the futon beside her and hugged her tight. She buried her nose in my shoulder.
“Hey, Millie?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t fall in love with him again. I saw how you reacted after you found out we kissed. What you went through after you left Todos Santos. You can work for him, but you can’t let him get to you like that ever again. You’re too good for that. For him.”
Just as I was about to respond, the buzzer sounded. My heart jumped into my throat, which was ridiculous, because I knew it couldn’t be him at the door downstairs.
“Be right down,” I said into the speaker. But when I peered out the window and saw a man wearing a chauffeur’s uniform standing next to a big, shiny black car, I froze. It was all happening too fast. I felt like I hadn’t had enough time to get myself together. To prepare.
I stared at the driver, a physical reminder of how different I was from my boss. I wasn’t used to being served. I’d always been the servant. Me, my parents…
Vicious was right in calling me Help. Not that it wasn’t rude, but it was the truth nonetheless.
I grabbed the duffel and looked at Rosie. “The movers should be here soon. They’ll put the furniture in storage.” Another way I planned to hedge my bets. “The nurse will be waiting for you at the new apartment. I arranged for a taxi to pick you up in an hour. Oh, and your medicine is in your backpack.” I jerked my chin to the bag I’d packed for her.
Rosie offered another eye roll and threw a pillow in my direction. I dodged it.
“Try not to piss the nurse off,” I suggested with a straight face.
“Sorry. I piss everyone off. It’s the way I’m wired.” She shrugged helplessly.
“Don’t forget to take your medicine, and there’s a list of restaurants that deliver in your backpack. I put some cash in your wallet, too.”
“Jesus, dude. Thank God you’re not trying to wipe my ass.”
Rosie could mock me all she wanted. I didn’t care if I annoyed her.
But she was going to be okay.
And I was going to see our parents. It’d been two years. Lord, I’d missed them.
“Please tell Mama I got fat and that I’m dating a forty-year-old biker who goes by the name Rat.” Rosie sniffled, patting her nose with the wad of toilet paper.
“Okay. That will soften the blow when I tell her I’m knocked up with twins and have no idea who the father is.”
Rosie giggled, coughed and slapped her hand over her mouth, feigning an oops. “I think Mama would like that, actually.” She blew a strand of her toffee-colored hair out of her eyes. “Have fun, okay?”
“Hey, it’s Vicious. Fun is his middle name.”
“No, honey. Asshole is his middle name.”
We both laughed.
I grabbed the strap of my duffle and descended the stairs, smiling to myself. I could do this. I could survive a business trip with Vicious without letting him into my pants, and more importantly—my heart. I just had to keep my eyes on the prize.
The money. The means. The key to financial freedom.
How hard could that be?
I met him at the airport.
He wore a long dark-gray pea coat, charcoal slacks, a cashmere sweater, and his usual scowl. He was standing outside, the freezing New York weather staining his cheekbones a dark shade of pink while he puffed on a blunt.
On the sidewalk of the airport.
I was a little surprised to see he was still smoking weed. He had when we were teenagers, but he was twenty-eight now, a workaholic, and a control freak. Granted, he’d always been a control freak. He just had less things to control when we were kids.
I jogged the short distance from the limo to him, rubbing my arms against the cold. I’d thrown an army jacket on over my thin pink sweater, but my thrift shop jacket didn’t stand a chance against December on the East Coast. I stopped a few feet from him and started swaying from side to side to warm up. He noticed, but didn’t offer his coat.
“You’re getting a little old for that,” I remarked, slanting my eyes to his joint.
“I’ll remember that next time I give two shits about what you think.” He blew a cloud of smoke into the air.
I knew that the HotHoles had always viewed me as the naïve goody-two-shoes girl from the South. They weren’t wrong. Even New York couldn’t harden me all the way. I’d still never smoked weed or tried any other type of drug. I still didn’t use words like “fuck.” I still blushed and looked away when people talked about sex in an explicit way.
“You could get arrested,” I continued, nagging. Not that I particularly cared. I just knew it annoyed him, and I liked irritating him. It gave me the false notion that I had some kind of control over him.
“So can you,” he replied.
“Get arrested?” I asked. “For what? Standing next to an ass?”
He stubbed out his blunt against a garbage can, his fingers so white they were almost blue, and flicked the butt to the sidewalk. A luggage cart wheeled by and crushed the remains of the weed into the concrete. Vicious leaned down toward me, and I held my breath, my lungs burning, anything to protect me from his addictive scent.
“If I answer your question,” he said, his body close, “you’ll get all feisty again. You blush every time you look directly at my face, so I’d advise against asking me about what I have in mind. Don’t tempt me, Help. I’d be happy to help you stain your pristine criminal record with a public indecency charge.”
Good. Lord.
“For a lawyer, you seem to be begging for a sexual harassment lawsuit. Why?” I rubbed my hands over my thighs. I started to remember why I’d wanted to slap him half the time when I lived so close to him.
“I’m not sure.” His thick, dark eyebrows pulled together. He headed toward the entrance of the terminal. I followed. “Maybe because I know you’ll never have the balls to go against me. To fight me, Help.”
And it was high school all over again.
I should’ve known.
After security, we turned toward the airline’s executive lounge, with me carrying my own duffel and Vicious luggageless except for a laptop bag. I tried to keep up, but he was taller and faster, and the weight of my bag was slowing me down. He didn’t like it.
Vicious glanced at my duffel before groaning and snatching it from my hand.
This wasn’t him being a gentleman. He just wanted to make sure we caught our flight.
JFK was packed with people. Snow was settling on the runways, and there were flight delays, white letters flashing on the blue electronic screens around us. The crowd was thick, the security people tired and aggravated, but still, Christmas was approaching and the air was sweet and hopeful.
Seeing my parents this time of the year would be nice, even if we weren’t going to spend the holidays together.
I glanced at Vicious. “I feel like we should set some ground rules here. I’m not going to date you, and I expect you to stop threatening men who talk to me. Floyd, for instance.”
“First of all, no one wants to date you, Help. I want to fuck you, and by the way you look at me, I know the feeling is mutual. Second, it’s my company, so I make it my business to know when my employees are porking each other in the bathroom.”
As we breezed into the executive lounge, I blushed so hard I felt as if my cheeks were going to burst into flames. He was being crass again, deliberately so.
“Third, I did you a huge favor. The guy is a piece of crap of the worst variety.” He directed us both straight to two plush recliners arranged to face one another.
We both took a seat. There was plenty of food and coffee around, even alcohol—I’d never been in an airport lounge or flown first class, so this was new to me—but neither of us opted for anything. I assumed he was used to this kind of luxury. Me, I was too stunned to make a move. It felt like entering a universe where I didn’t speak the language or know the social codes.
“Fourth, you don’t want a last name like Hanningham,” Vicious finished.
It was so ridiculous I started laughing. Actually, I might’ve also laughed because I was so nervous to board a flight headed back to Todos Santos. I wanted to see my parents but dreaded seeing anyone else.
A troubling thought stabbed at me. “Will Dean be there? Is he still living in Todos Santos?”
Vicious’s jaw twitched the way it did when he was unhappy about something. His grip on the arms of the recliner tightened.
“Dean’s in Los Angeles,” he answered, glancing at his Rolex.
I was glad I didn’t have to see my ex-boyfriend after everything that went down. I eased further into my comfortable seat, closing my eyes. I wondered if I could catch up on some sleep on the plane. I’d worked a shift at McCoy’s last night—I was hedging more bets, not willing to hand in my notice yet.
I felt his eyes on me, but he didn’t utter a word.
I liked when he watched me, and that bothered me.
And he was right about sex, and that bothered me even more.
I did want to sleep with him. It was worse than those butterflies that take flight in your chest the first moment your eyes lock on your crush. When I was around Vicious, they flew all the time. But I also knew that I was not a one-night stand kind of girl. And even though I wasn’t morally opposed to casual sex, starting something up with Vicious was an absolute no-no.
We shared a history.
I had feelings for him.
Bad feelings, good feelings…in short, too many feeling.
“Where are the rest of the guys?” I murmured, my eyes still closed.
Yesterday, I’d done my homework. I knew they were all partners in FHH, and knew the branches of their company were scattered around the world, but I didn’t know who lived where. And Dean living in Los Angeles? That was a surprise. Dean loved New York, talked about living there even when we were teenagers. It was Vicious who always preferred the glitz and plastic, the masks and pretense of Los Angeles. For a cynical person, he really seemed to hate the stark, naked honesty that was a city like Manhattan. In LA, he was another beautiful, empty mask passing for a human being.
“Dean was in New York until about two weeks ago, then I took over. I’m not sure when we’re switching back, but when it happens, I’ll go back to LA. Trent is in Chicago, and Jaime is in London.”
“You switch branches often?”
He shrugged. “’Bout twice a year.”
“Sounds confusing. And pretty dumb,” I mumbled.
“Well, I appreciate the insight, especially from someone who’s been serving beer for a living.”
Silence fell and I looked away, taking in the polished women and suited men around me. As far as I was concerned, the conversation had ended the second he’d decided to act like a jerk again.
“We don’t usually switch places for more than a week,” Vicious gritted out of nowhere. “Special circumstances kept me in New York.”
It was his version of an apology, but I still wasn’t satisfied. I only shrugged.
“How long have you been supporting your sister?” His eyes skimmed down my body. Regret swallowed the sarcasm and edge in his voice. He wasn’t used to being nice to people. To being civilized, really. Though, he seemed to be trying.
I licked my lips, refusing to make eye contact. “Too long,” I admitted. “Is Jaime still with…?” I trailed off when I realized it was none of my business.
Vicious’s best friend had dated our Lit teacher, Ms. Greene, while we were seniors. Their affair blew up shortly before we graduated, making waves in Todos Santos, and a tsunami in our high school. Then he took off with her after the school year ended.
Vicious huffed, and even though my eyes were still closed, I knew he nodded yes. “They’re married. They have a baby girl, Daria. Took after her mom, thank fuck.”
That made me smile. “How is he doing?” I asked, knowing it was territory Vicious would feel comfortable with.
“Jaime has assumed the role of the responsible adult out of the four us. When Trent, Dean, and I get out of line, he talks some sense into our asses.”
His candor made me turn my head toward him. “You were always good together, the four of you.”
A dark smirk found his lips, and he shrugged tiredly. “Until you came along.”
It didn’t sound like a jab. He said it more matter-of-factly. I wanted to ask him so many questions—Why me? What was the fixation with me to begin with? Why did you care that I dated Dean? Vicious was a god among men to the girls of All Saints High. Good looking, rich, and a jock. I should never have been on his radar. Dean was more easygoing, playful. I could see why he’d wanted to date someone like me. But Vicious…he’d hated me.
I let out a sigh of relief when they announced our flight was boarding. We got on the plane before everyone else. We were scheduled to land in San Diego, a short half-hour drive from Todos Santos, and would arrive by early evening with the time change. But after explaining everything to Rosie and packing up the apartment, exhaustion found me, lulling me into the kind of sleepiness you can’t fight. And anyway, staying awake and dealing with Vicious wasn’t an option that I found particularly appealing. The minute I landed in my first-class seat, I nuzzled into the headrest and closed my eyes.
Shortly after we took off, I peeked over at him for a few seconds. His gaze was on his laptop. His eyes remained there, but I knew he sensed me watching him.
“Thank you for giving Rosie a place to stay,” I whispered.
His jaw ticked, but he didn’t lift his gaze from the legal document he was working on.
“Go to sleep, Help.”
And so I did.
