Chapter 5 #2
There are three of them. They’re too polished for this venue. They have drinks they aren’t touching. Their eyes track the stage with the focus of men who are calculating rather than listening.
One of them I know by face, if not by name. He’s a senior rep from Vertex Records. I stand taller, keeping my gaze on them.
Cooper gets close. “You see them?”
I dip my chin. “Yeah.”
“Vertex.” He taps out the beat of the song against his leg. “They’ve been circling new talent on the east side for months.”
Before I can answer, the representative spots me. His expression doesn’t change, but he tips his glass toward me with a smile that has no warmth. Just acknowledgment. The kind that means I see you and I want you to know it.
Bren tracks it from my other side. “Ignore them.”
“I intend to.”
The band finishes their set to a solid roar from the crowd, and the four of us push toward the bar to grab more drinks. This is when it goes sideways.
The Vertex rep intercepts, cutting directly into our path with two of his guys flanking him.
Fucking great.
“Cash Mayze.” He extends a hand. “I've been hoping to run into you.”
I don’t shake his hand. “I’ll bet.”
His lips tighten at the edges. “I have a proposition that would be worth your time.”
“Not interested.”
“You haven’t heard it yet.”
“Don’t need to.” I shift to step past him.
His guy adjusts his position and blocks me. The movement is subtle and deliberate, and his shoulder drops just enough to make the obstruction clear.
Cooper goes rigid beside me. Hawke uncrosses his arms.
Bren flexes his chest. “Move.”
“Easy, boys.” The dude raises both hands, but the smirk doesn’t leave.
Then one of his guys shoves Cooper. One hard palm to the sternum. Cooper doesn’t go down, but he doesn’t stay still either. The space between all of us collapses in under a second.
Fists, forearms, and the crash of a bar stool going over. Paparazzi materialize from nowhere, flashbulbs detonating white against the walls.
A woman screams directly to my left, lunging toward the center of the fight with her arms out as if she can stop it with her body alone. She can’t.
I grab her around the waist and pull her hard against me, spinning her away from an elbow that would have caught her across the jaw. The flashbulbs go off three times in rapid succession. Every one of them captures me holding her.
Fuck. Why does this shit always seem to follow me around?
The paps won’t leave me alone. It’s even worse now that I’m back with Livianna.
The woman, still in my arms, gazes up at me. As soon as we make eye contact, she flashes me a wicked smile. Then her arm goes around my neck, while her other hand slides up my chest.
Her lips are on mine before I can stop her. Her mouth is warm, and I’m frozen for exactly one second too long.
I drop my hands from her waist, step back, and put distance between us. Raising my palms, I shake my head, but the damage is already cataloged in a dozen flashbulbs that don’t care about context or intent.
“What the fucking hell?” I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.
She doesn’t flinch. Her lipstick is barely disturbed, and her eyes are bright with something calculated and amused. This wasn’t an impulse. Every inch of this was engineered.
“You’re welcome. And thanks for making that easier than I thought it would be.” She straightens her skimpy, skin-tight dress and turns back into the crowd without another word, swallowed whole and gone before I can demand an explanation.
I clench down on my molars. “Fuck. She set me up.”
Cooper grabs my arm. “Cash, we need to move.”
The Vertex rep is already retreating with his guys as if the entire thing concluded exactly as he intended. The gotcha expression he was wearing hasn’t left his face.
Bren steps directly in front of me, blocking the remaining paparazzi with the full wall of his body. “Eyes down. Let’s go now.”
We push through the thinning crowd toward the exit, and nobody speaks until the cool night air hits us outside and the venue door swings shut behind us.
Hawke runs both hands through his hair. “That was a setup.”
“Obviously.” Cooper’s muscles flex.
Bren turns to face me straight on, and the banter from earlier tonight is completely gone. “Tell me you moved fast enough.”
I know exactly what he’s referring to. “I pulled her away from the fight. Then she?—”
“I know what she did. I’m asking about the timeline.” He scans me over. “How long between you grabbing her and her kissing you?”
“A second. Maybe two.”
“Two seconds is enough.” He rubs the back of his neck and stares down the street.
Hawke crosses his arms. “Vertex sent those photographers. That’s not a coincidence. They wanted a shot of you in a compromising position, and they got it.”
Cooper kicks a pebble. “The question is why.”
Nobody answers that out loud. But the heavy and cruel answer lies among all of us because everyone in this industry knows that a compromised Cash Mayze is a vulnerable one. And a vulnerable Cash Mayze spirals.
Bren pulls out his phone and starts typing, and I already know who he’s contacting. Our publicist. The machinery that tries to contain things like this before they metastasize overnight.
My own phone stays in my pocket because there’s only one person I need to reach, and there’s no version of this conversation that ends without destroying something between us.
Livianna’s probably deep in work with Jaxon Crowne, in a studio that used to belong to the life she can’t remember.
And somewhere on the internet, a photograph of me holding another woman is already loading.
Damn, I’m fucked.