2. Rae
2
RAE
T he car pulls up to the London townhouse in the rain.
I took a flight from Denver to New York, then New York to London. Now, I knock on the door, cold from the downpour. The wooden panel creaks open, and I hesitate before stepping inside.
The front hall is narrow, the walls a crisp white with a huge mirror. Facing me is a set of steps leading to the top floor.
Sebastian King sits partway up.
“Nice house.” I drop my bag on the floor.
“Bought it last year. Came with almost everything.” He shifts back onto his elbows. “Curtains are new,” he amends, nodding toward the room around the corner.
I step inside, rounding the wall to see rich, green fabric artfully draped from the high ceilings in the living room around the corner. “Why did you ask how quickly I could get here?”
“Because my season was shit and the year went downhill from there. I have a team awards dinner to attend this evening. And you owe me a date for bailing last year.”
I stare him down. An awards dinner? Are you fucking kidding me?
Before I can chew him out for dragging me across the ocean, he rises and pads down the stairs to the main floor.
He’s pale, his mouth slack and shoulders slumped. He looks as if he’s lost weight.
I know what self-destruction looks like. Right now, it wears his face.
“It’s been a rough season,” he repeats.
But there’s humor in his face when he eyes my bag, lifting a brow. “You have a dress in there, or do I need to make you a toga from the curtains?”
* * *
Central London is a dense orchestra of pedestrians, buses, cars, and buildings that seem elegant and old enough to have been built into the landscape.
The event is at a venue on Northumberland Avenue, just off Trafalgar Square. When we arrive in a private car, we join the short line as Ash reaches for his phone to show his ID.
If I’d thought it would be hard to find a dress on a few hours’ notice in London, I was wrong. Ash gave me the names of a few boutiques.
Before heading out, I couldn’t miss the takeout boxes and clothing strewn around the beautiful townhouse.
Between trying on dresses, I did a quick online search to try to find hints as to why Ash looks so strung out. There’s nothing, except confirmation in numerous sports publications and blogs that Ash’s season was subpar. I guess that much criticism would strain anyone, but that doesn’t explain the sudden emergency.
Which means it’s up to me to find out.
“You look good in a tux,” I inform him as we file into the line waiting to enter.
And he does. Showered and dressed, clad in a custom waistcoat and jacket, Ash is every bit the young, gorgeous athlete.
“Better than Harry?” His grin is almost as quick as usual.
I huff out a breath as the line advances toward the door. “No one looks better in a tux than Harry.”
Not that it matters. Harrison’s not here, and I can’t imagine being in the same place as him again.
I came for Ash, a man I consider a friend. Especially given he called me last year, demanding to know what was going on after Harrison returned to the UK. My explanation was the best one my broken heart could give—we wanted different things.
I wanted him.
He wanted to end Mischa.
Harrison’s love for me wasn’t enough to overcome his desire for retribution.
It hurt like fuck. Still does some nights, when I’m lying awake and close my eyes and reach across the sheets as if I’ll feel his body next to me.
Since then, Ash and I have talked a few times. Texted once a month or so. Now, as the door attendant reviews Ash’s credentials and lets us inside, I silently curse Harrison for not keeping tabs on his brother.
Evidently Harrison’s too busy for me and for Ash.
In a beautiful, wide hallway, round chandeliers dot the cavernous ceiling. My heels slip into the plush red carpet.
Ash told me in the car that it’s a club event in recognition of the staff and players.
With the cocktail reception before dinner, we grab drinks and he introduces me around. But when another player from his club approaches, arm in arm with his stunning girlfriend, Ash tenses next to me.
“Gavin,” the man introduces himself to me with an easy smile, but when he claps Ash on the back, the hand lingers.
“Another drink,” Ash mutters once they leave.
“You haven’t finished that one.”
He tosses it back in a single gulp.
I drag Ash into a corner. “Who is he?”
My date shrugs, smirking. “Defender. Not the best one either.”
“Strange. You’re the one playing defense.”
His smile fades.
“Was he giving you shit for a bad season?” I ask.
“On the contrary. He was the only one who didn’t.” Those blue eyes, so much like Harrison’s, streak with self-disgust, and his meaning sinks in.
“Oh. Ohhh.” That was why I never saw Ash with a woman last summer. And explains why despite his cheeky charisma, he’s private about his personal life. “You were together.”
“Shut up, Raegan,” he breathes. “Not here.”
“Did you break up?” Presumably, given the other guy has a girlfriend and Ash invited me.
“We couldn’t break up because, according to him, we never dated. We never did anything.”
The words are low and bitter, and I connect the dots. “He’s not out.” I cock my head. “Are you?”
“Not publicly,” Ash concedes. “But that man’s so deep in the closet it’s a fucking wonder he hasn’t emerged in Narnia.”
Ash shoots me a wry look before grabbing another drink off a passing tray. A warning goes off in my gut as he drains his champagne, then exchanges it for another.
I grab the full flute from his hand. “Think you’re good for now.” I square to face him. “Though I don’t think it was alcohol that had you sweating when I arrived.”
His face falls. “Our season ended, and it was my fault. A play I’ve made a thousand times before. One I should’ve made again. I knew it, and they did too. I needed something to numb out.”
“So you turned to drugs.”
“They turned to me.” He grimaces.
“How many times?”
“A couple.”
Concern has my hand clenching on his glass. “I’m telling you, it’s a bad idea.”
A beat. “I know. I’m done with it. I need to figure this out and get back to my life.”
“You couldn’t call Harrison?”
Before the words are out, I know the answer.
I can only imagine what Harrison would say. Given how their parents died, he’d be pissed if he found out what Ash had gotten into. This was the man who tossed my pills before finding out what they were, who insists on running a clean club in the capital of party drugs.
“He’s not perfect, Sebastian.”
“But he’s strong,” he bites out, frowning. “When our parents died. When his fucking building burned, he walked out. Harrison deals with his shit, and even when he does it badly, he does it.”
I don’t know what to say to that. “All right. Lucky for you, I planned a week’s vacation after Red Rock. I’ll stick around a few days.”
Relief has him sagging. “Thank you.”
“But after that, I have business to take care of.”
“Stateside?”
I scan the room. “Ibiza.”
I need to visit a man I never thought I’d see again. Not one I used to love, but one I used to fear.
Ash’s eyebrows lift. He’s dying to pry more information from me, but before he can, photographers snap pictures, and we smile and pose.
“This your new girlfriend, Sebastian?” one of them asks eagerly.
The man we spoke to is across the room. His girlfriend’s turned to talk to someone else.
Ash leans in to wrap an arm around my waist. “Isn’t she lovely?”
I kick him in the calf, and he only bends closer to whisper in my ear, “You’ve got this down.”
It probably looks as if he’s murmuring promises in my ear, or a filthy joke.
“Not much to figure out,” he adds. “Turn the right angle. Smile the right smile. Pretend you’re not secretly hoping they’ll drop their camera in the street, where it’s run over by a double-decker bus.”
I’ve gotten used to the media this past year as I climbed a ladder of my own, making it back up to the status I held before the confrontation with Harrison last spring, then I shot right on past it. Wild Fest was only the capstone of an incredible year by any standard. Somehow, my bank account is full enough the bank is sending my own money manager to my rental in LA.
I could buy a condo in any of the cities I frequent, but I haven’t yet. Because I’m still adjusting to the new normal—and maybe a little because nowhere I go feels like home.
Flashbulbs go off, and I try to shift away, but Ash slides a hand around to my ass. I’m about to remove it when his words make me stiffen.
“He’d be proud of you.”
Tingles start down my spine. As if the man in question is here, even though it’s impossible.
I’ve been avoiding keeping an eye on the tabloids, but I gave in when I hopped on the flight over here. The publications spotted Harrison in New York this week. Regrettably striking in a dark suit and sunglasses. Thankfully alone.
In the image of him crossing at an intersection, phone pressed to his ear, his hair ruffled lightly in the breeze—an inch longer than before, if I had to judge. But the square jaw was the same, the firm lips I’ve felt on every inch of me, the ones that have whispered comfort and torment in my ears.
I might not be in love with him anymore, but that doesn’t mean I want to see some other woman draped all over him like he hung the sun, and the moon, and the sign at Tiffany’s while he was at it.
I look at Ash. “When did you see him last?”
“A few months. While he won’t give me details, I suspect he’s laying the groundwork to bring Mischa down. As you know, insurance concluded the fire at King’s was arson, and there wasn’t enough evidence to prove it wasn’t Harrison.”
My gut twists with guilt. It wasn’t my fault, but the fact that the security cameras were off was my doing. All because I wanted to surprise him with the sign.
“Is he happy?” I ask, hating that I want scraps of information about my ex.
Ash sighs. “I’ve never seen him happy unless he was with you.”
Thanks for the gut punch.
Smoothing down my dress, I pretend the words don’t affect me. “I’m glad Harrison isn’t here now.”
Curiosity has him narrowing his eyes at me. “Why’s that?”
A knot of tension forms between my shoulders, and I straighten for the cameras. “I need to do something, and he wouldn’t want to see me do it.”