8. Harrison
8
HARRISON
S ecurity at Debajo is surprised to see me twice in four days.
I make my way to the private balcony, waving off the offer of a drink. After the week I’ve had, though, I sorely want one. Between meetings and business dinners, plus an overnight to London, I’ve barely been home enough to confirm the villa still stands. But today I did my business, worked out, put on my suit, and here I am.
In fact, I have a plan to advance my business agenda that will happen this weekend.
I told Rae to take her power.
It’s about damned time I did the same.
The man who’s been avoiding taking my calls about his club can’t avoid me any longer…
He’s hosting a charity gala at his home, and I’m invited.
On my way in, I checked the door with Leni—lower than Thursday.
I shouldn’t be disappointed. There was no earthly reason to believe a twenty-something woman could do what my PR team couldn’t.
I’m listening to the opening DJ and entertaining a group of visiting businessmen from Australia in my booth when my phone buzzes in my pocket.
The letters blur at the sides as my eyes adjust in the dark.
Ash: Where are you?
Harry: Debajo.
Ash: I’m worried about you. We both know what day it is.
Harry: I’m fine.
Ash: High functioning human being fine or drowning your sorrows in expensive liquor fine?
I frown. Of course he’s thinking about it too. Not even the French-press coffee—which I’ve been having the past three days—could snap me out of my melancholy this morning.
I don’t respond, and another text comes moments later.
Ash: Speaking of problems, Christian’s gala this weekend. Will Mischa be there?
Harrison: He had better not be.
I need to get important business done with our host.
Mischa Ivanov’s presence would be more than a complication.
I’d rather eat glass than be in that room with my business rival—both because the business I want to do is more easily conducted without him and because of the woman who’s been publicly on his arm for months.
I shove the phone back in my pocket, feeling the change in energy in the club before I look up.
Rae is in the booth, and suddenly I get the “American Dream” theme Leni has been pushing all weekend on social.
Tonight my little American is wearing a platinum wig and a white halter-neck vest and trousers, like a girl-next-door Marilyn Monroe pinup. Except her hair is twisted and spiked.
Not a goddess. A monster.
An arrogant Medusa.
In a room full of people trying to attract one another, she’s practically daring anyone look too long.
I shift over the railing, entranced.
When I brought her here, I did my due diligence. I wouldn’t let just anyone play my club. But now, watching her play…
Her music lacks the echoing numbness of house tracks. It’s melodic. Intimate.
I’ve only seen her a few times since the run in that left me drinking her coffee and imagining how she tasted instead.
But all of my suits in my wardrobe are accounted for and the pool hasn’t acquired any new textiles to clog the filter, so I suppose that’s progress.
I stay for the set, half listening to the men I’m entertaining while inwardly hoping Rae can weave the same spell on me that she weaves on the crowd.
I want to forget the things Mischa Ivanov has done. The things I said to my mother before she died. The vows I made after, that they wouldn’t die in vain.
To give up every shred of my own expectations and lose myself in what this woman is creating.
After a few tracks, I look over to see her pressing a hand to her head like she did in the kitchen.
She said it wasn’t withdrawal.
Whatever it is, I’m not taking chances.
I motion to security upstairs, pointing at the stage. “Get her water.”
“Mr. King, I’m sure there’s water?—”
“I want a fucking line of them. Enough to hydrate a platoon.”
He nods and speaks into his walkie. Moments later, one of the bartenders arrives at the stage with a champagne bucket full of waters on ice.
At the end of the next track, she glances at the waters, then back to her computer.
She transitions into a mashup, “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” mixed with something R&B.
Then she looks up toward the catwalk and flips both middle fingers in the air.
The crowd erupts. They have no idea who she’s calling out, but they get off on her defiance.
Perhaps I’d get off on it too, if I wasn’t the one she was defying.
Despite the fact that she refused to eat with me the one time I took dinner at home, and barely acknowledges me when we pass in the house, I notice things.
She’s terrible at taking care of herself. Lives on fumes. Doesn’t go to bed until four or five—I was up one night and saw her light on—even when she doesn’t have a show.
That might be fine for a group of college students on holiday, but for a professional who does this year-round? It’s unsustainable.
By the end of her set, I haven’t seen her touch the water. It’s concerning.
“Bring her to the VIP,” I tell security.
I’m waiting there, halfway through a poker game, when I feel the presence at my back.
But when I turn, it’s security, alone.
“Senor King, she did not want to come.”
I drop my cards and leave my chips where they are as I shift out of my chair with a nod to the other players—rich businessmen and VIPs all of them. I grab my jacket off my chair and shrug into it.
“Where is she?”
He doesn’t immediately answer, and I take off through the halls.
She’s still taking selfies with patrons.
Concern replaces my irritation when I see the fatigue on her face. Security shadows me, but I wave them off as I cut through the crowd to her.
“I told security to bring you back.”
She glances at me but poses with her fan. “I didn’t want to.”
Frustration clashes with the other emotions inside me today—loss, grief, sadness.
“You looked unwell.”
Her grin is as aggressive as her spiked hair. “Unwell? I tore the roof off your chic basement tonight, and you think I’m unwell?”
She shoves me out of the way and beckons for the next fan.
“Strange. A woman reamed me out recently—and publicly—for avoiding taking care of someone who was my business,” I bite out as the fan takes a selfie, Rae muttering an apology when her hair nearly pokes the man in the face before he heads on his way.
I dismiss the small line of eager fans waiting, ignoring their protests as I grab my DJ’s wrist and tug her after me toward the back door.
On the way, I snatch a water bottle off the bar and shove it at her chest.
When we’re outside, fresh air washing over us both, she rounds on me. “I can’t handle this tonight.”
“Because I give a shit whether you pass out on stage or in the middle of a crowd?”
“You don’t care about me. I saw you up there, hosting a dozen men exactly like you. All you care about is whether I’m making you money.”
My summer home has turned into a hostile place. I’m walking on eggshells in a house with my damned name on the deed.
If I’m going to keep her around, it would be easier if she didn’t think I was the devil.
“Follow me.” I walk to my Ferrari Roma, then ball up my jacket and throw it in the rear seat as I shift into the front.
The seat molds to my body as I lean back against the headrest and wait.
Seconds tick by.
Finally, the passenger door clicks open, and she shifts inside. “Are you taking me somewhere to kill me?”
“Would’ve been far easier to do it in your sleep.”
“You don’t do things the easy way either.”
I start the car and shift into gear and pull out of the parking lot.
“My parents died of an overdose. Both of them, the same night. Fourteen years ago. That’s why I don’t tolerate drugs in my business.”
I grip the wheel tighter as I navigate the streets.
“I’m sorry.”
Her voice is low, the contrition genuine.
“You didn’t know?”
It was in endless media outlets at the time. They were senior executives at a massive international organization, plus visible contributors to a dozen charitable organizations in the UK and abroad.
“I would’ve been ten.”
Fair enough.
She leans an arm against the window. “The pills you found were prescription. For anxiety. I haven’t taken them regularly for months, but I like having them just in case.”
Relief blurs with guilt.
“Why were they in an unmarked bottle? And in your checked bag, for God’s sake?”
“Why not? I wasn’t expecting the airline to lose my suitcase.”
I navigate to a place I would know with my eyes closed, then I pull into the parking lot.
I shift out of the car and retrieve a bottle of Glen Scotia from the boot. “The first time we came to Ibiza, I was eleven. Ash was a baby. My parents bought a villa here when I was thirteen. I lost my virginity in that house.”
Rae shuts the passenger door. “I hope she was well paid.”
The laughter rips from deep inside my chest. I don’t let anyone make fun of me.
Just this once, I allow it.
My companion shifts up onto the hood and turns to look out over the sand and surf. “They left it to you when they passed?”
I shake my head. “They would have. But their assets were tied up.”
I take a long swig of whisky, the warmth scorching my throat like a welcome friend. Rae waves me off when I hold the bottle out to her.
“My parents didn’t own nightclubs, but they managed real estate for a large Russian investor. When I was a teenager, they found out their employer was into… less than legal side businesses. They told him they wanted to go out on their own. Even purchased a venue under their own name.”
My chest tightens. They were optimistic about the possibility of working for themselves.
“Their employer wouldn’t let them. The project burned down, and the investigation ruled they had burned it down to collect the insurance. As a result, they collected no compensation. A few months later, my parents were dead of an overdose, but they didn’t use drugs.”
I feel her attention on me, the shocked stare. I don’t know why I’m telling her except that I haven’t fucking told anyone in a long time, and today of all days, I can think of little else.
“I vowed I would clear their name and rebuild what they’d lost—in my own way. So, when you say I only care about making money… you’re wrong. I care about restoring their legacy. Putting right what should have been. I won’t apologize for that.”
The tightness in my throat, in my chest, won’t release.
“This was my mother’s favorite beach. We came every year for her birthday.” I lean forward, brace my elbows on my knees. “I still do.”
Rae shifts toward me, the moonlight catching the highlights in her hair.
“That’s what today is,” she says softly, and I nod.
Her presence shouldn’t feel comforting, but it does.
Strange how the same woman can bring me madness and peace.
“So why bring me?”
I lace my fingers together as I listen to the waves crash against the shore, watch the lights of the city reflected in the distance. “This is a place to escape your demons. Or entertain them. You seem like a person who does both.”
Rae shifts off the car, taking the bottle from my hand. She tugs off her shoes and tosses them back at me. I grab them out of the air so they don’t land on the hood of my car.
I follow her out onto the sand. “Give me the whisky.”
“Come get it.”
There’s only one other couple within sight on the beach, locked in a heated embrace. Her gaze lingers on them, and I take advantage, catching up and taking the bottle, then rewarding myself with a long drink.
“This is known as a romantic place,” I inform her.
Rae rolls up her trousers and steps up to the edge of the ocean, her teeth flashing white in the dark. “So, you didn’t bring me here to kill me. You brought me here to fuck me.”
I chuckle. “You’re a porcupine, and it’s not only your hair. I wouldn’t stick my cock anywhere near you for fear it would come back covered in quills.”
Her low laugh ripples across the sound of the waves.
I’m starting to think it would be worth it.
I wonder who I’d find when I stripped away her clothes. The woman she is on stage, or the one in a T-shirt and jeans with a bottle of anxiety pills to keep her company?
Perhaps both.
I want to find out.
So fucking much.
I reach for the buttons on my shirt, undoing one after another. Then I toss the shirt at her head.
She catches the fabric, looking up in surprise.
I’m already working on my trousers, unfastening and unzipping them before shoving them down.
Her gaze lingers on my body. “Is this how you get women?”
“Let’s find out.”
I’m nostalgic and buzzed, and the way she’s looking at me helps both.
The cool water licks my feet and ankles as I stop in front of her. “Admit you want me,” I challenge. “I won’t tell a soul.”
She pries the alcohol from my grip. “I told you—the only way you’ll ever get me naked is to sue the clothes off me.”
My hands close over hers on the bottle. She doesn’t let go.
I back into the surf, and her grip means she’s forced to follow. “That could still be arranged.”
Rae’s lips curve in the dark as the water rises up her body.
It soaks her trousers. Her stomach. I don’t stop until water reaches my abs and her chest, and I feel the tug of the undercurrent.
The exhilaration on her face is interrupted by shock when she notices the marks on my chest.
“What is this?” She nods to my pec, the mass of white lines there.
“Prison tattoo.”
She looks up in alarm, realizing I’m joking when she sees my expression.
“It’s a scar from boarding school,” I amend.
Her brows tug together. “You let another person do this to you?”
“’Let’ is a strong word. Boys can be cruel.”
“Anyone can be cruel.”
The water is up to her ribs, high enough it licks at her breasts when a wave rolls through, leaves her top stained and her nipples hard against the fabric when it recedes.
I want to trace the path with a finger.
Maybe my tongue.
“I didn’t mean it.”
Her words have me jerking my gaze up to meet hers.
“About your ex-fiancée and that you deserved for her to leave you.”
I pull the bottle toward me and take a drink. “I thought I was in love. She was a spoiled princess. We wanted different things.”
She takes the bottle back but not to drink it. It bobs in the water at her side, her grip on its neck assuring it doesn’t drift away.
I reach a hand out experimentally to touch one of the spikes in her hair.
It’s sharp.
“Your brother said you dated her because you thought she was what you deserved.”
Her voice is low, but the words land in my chest as my hand falls away.
She’s young.
Too fucking young to ask questions like that.
My attention drifts down her body exposed by the water. Her lips, full and parted. Her shoulders, dripping with the sea.
It’s all there on her face. The vulnerability she hides under sarcasm and barbs.
“On stage when you play, you’re generous,” I murmur. “Are you so generous when you fuck?”
Rae’s eyes widen as she holds my gaze for a heartbeat. Two.
What I’m feeling is attraction, but it’s more than that. It’s reckless. A need no amount of money can solve, a question no woman but this one can answer.
She backs slowly out of the water, and my gaze sticks to her body even as she reaches the shore.
“What are you doing?” I rasp.
Rae bends toward the sand, every curve hugged by her wet clothes. When she straightens, something glinting in her hand, her slow smile catches me off guard.
“I need your keys, King. Because you’re drunk and I’m driving.”