Chapter 43
FORTY THREE
YOU DON’T TRADE your soul for this place, Ames.
Helen’s not wrong. But I also refuse to let James take the café from me without a proper fight.
I slide out of the cab. The cool night air instantly draping around my bare shoulders, the vibrating energy of the club reaching for me.
Ahead, the familiar velvet rope guards the entrance, manned by the same broad-shouldered bouncer from that other night.
The night my world imploded. When I showed up here in a desperate haze, wearing my green sweater dress and beige ankle boots, searching for oblivion.
I still remember his scrutinizing gaze, the hesitation before he waved me through with a dismissive shrug.
Tonight, I don’t just walk… I advance.
The click of my stilettos on the pavement is sharp. It turns his shaved head long before I reach the rope. His eyes, practiced and professional, sweep over me, from the halter neck of the dress down to my heels.
This time, there is no hesitation. Just a brief, assessing glance that meets my own, a curt nod of approval, and the immediate unlocking of the velvet rope.
Stepping through the door is like plugging into a live wire.
A raw current zaps through me, a churning mix of heat, spilled alcohol, and a dozen competing perfumes.
The bass sinks into my bones, vibrating so deep in my chest it forces my racing pulse into its rhythm.
Strobe lights flash, bleaching the color from the crush of bodies on the dance floor before plunging them back into a pulsing, artificial twilight.
I shove my way through the throng, my focus a pinpoint.
I weave past laughing groups and couples plastered against each other until, at last, I reach the long, gleaming bar.
My gaze sweeps the room, bypassing the dancers to scan the periphery.
My target isn’t in the anonymous chaos out here.
He’s in the elevated VIP section, holding court in one of the private booths.
But first, fortification.
I flag down a bartender, my voice pitched loud to cut through the din. “Vodka. Neat.” No hesitation. No ice.
Only pure liquid courage. Or numbness. Whichever comes first.
While the bartender turns to grab a bottle, my eyes are drawn inexorably to the VIP section. I scan the indistinct shapes in the low light; the silhouettes leaning close in conversation within the booths lining the back wall.
And then my eyes lock onto it.
His booth.
Tucked in the corner. Slightly larger than the others. A prime spot for observing, and for being observed. It’s the same booth. The exact spot where my carefully constructed world shattered. The memory isn’t a flashback; it’s a phantom scene playing out right in front of me:
James lounging, possessive, a laughing redhead tucked under his arm.
Dragging her away, plastering her against the wall.
Kissing her neck.
His hand traveling up her skirt—
A cold shudder runs down my spine, and I forcibly banish the image.
No.
Tonight is not about skulking in the shadows. Tonight is for dragging secrets out into the light.
And tonight, he’s sitting there with no female accessory. I vaguely recognize some of the faces around him. Business associates, I assume. The ones he’s always desperate to impress.
The bartender slides the glass across the bar top.
Clear liquid, promising fire.
To my surprise, my hand is steady as I lift it. I toss the shot back in one quick, burning swallow. The vodka hits my throat like a controlled explosion, igniting a heat that radiates deep into my stomach.
I set the empty glass down with a hard thud, a small, sharp sound in the club’s chaos. I take a slow, deep breath, willing the alcohol’s warmth to burn away the last of my trembling edges.
Showtime.
I weave back through the pulsing bodies, heading for the private booths.
My black dress is a sleek. An unapologetic second skin.
My heels infuse me with a layer of confidence I desperately need.
My gaze is fixed on my destination:
James’s booth.
As I get closer, the faces within become clearer. James, the picture of a consummate businessman, leans forward in an animated conversation. Several other figures from his orbit fill the plush seating. And then, tucked slightly back in the booth’s curve—
Candice.
Here.
Tonight!
When our eyes lock across the space, hers widen with pure panic. They dart nervously around the club before focusing intently on her drink, like it holds the secrets to the universe.
Seeing her here feels like ice water shocking my system. But the cold quickly calcifies, hardening my resolve into something sharp and unbreakable.
“Amy!” one of the blond men calls out over the music, his eyebrows shooting up. “Fashionably late. Emphasis on fashionably.”
Mark, Mike—I can’t remember—from one of the holiday parties James and I attended.
I manage the smallest of smiles as the loud greeting snaps James’s attention from his conversation. His head turns, that perfected charming smile still in place as his gaze sweeps up and lands on me.
On me, standing all alone.
He freezes.
The warmth drains from his expression, replaced by a flicker of confusion, then annoyance. All of it quickly masked by calculation. He was expecting me to be a footnote in his staged drama.
I hold his gaze, feeling the weight of every curious, scrutinizing eye in that booth. “About the charade you proposed for tonight—”
“Sweetheart, you made it!” James interrupts, projecting an overly bright tone. A charming smile is instantly plastered on his face as he rises smoothly. “We were wondering when you’d join us.” He earns himself questioning looks from a few of his people at the declaration.
With two quick strides, he closes the distance between us. His smile doesn’t reach his eyes. They are flat, chips of ice, reflecting pure calculation as he effectively shields me from the direct view of his guests.
He leans in and plants a welcoming kiss on my cheek.
His voice dropping to a low, menacing whisper.
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re up to, but you just sealed your fate,” he hisses, his fingers gripping my arm, the pressure just enough to be a warning.
“Follow through with this little plan of yours, and while it might be a public embarrassment for me…” He steps back, smiling ostensibly, sliding his fingers down my cheek to wrap them around my chin.
“…you will lose everything. I’ll personally make sure of it.
” His charming smile is gone, replaced by a chilling certainty in his eyes.
Forced to absorb the full weight of his promise, my carefully constructed resolve crumbles. Panic, raw and icy, floods my veins.
He can take Maddy’s Place.
He can ruin me.
My plan suddenly feels na?ve, reckless. A child’s fantasy against his ruthless power. The faces in the booth blur; the club’s thumping bass fades to a distant pulse. My breath catches, trapped in my tight chest as the fight drains out of me.
He wins.
He always wins.
His eyes narrow slightly, and a flicker of cruel satisfaction crosses his face at my surrender.
And it’s that flicker. That arrogant assumption of victory and the visceral revulsion of his thumb pressing into my chin…
It finally ignites.
With a sharp movement that surprises us both, I yank my chin free from his grip. My head snaps back, and I meet his stunned gaze, my own eyes blazing with a fury that feels brand new.
He blinks, his expression tightening as surprise morphs into outright anger. Every person in the booth behind him is now utterly still, watching.
I open my mouth, ready to unleash hell, to burn his fake world to the ground right here, right now—
“Sorry I’m late, love.”
The voice, unmistakably Matthew’s, slices through the charged air. My half-formed words die on my tongue.
A thrill, pure and electric, shoots through me.
Matthew?
Here?
What—?
He’s by my side before the questions can even fully form, moving with a fluid grace that belies the tension coiled in his frame. One arm snakes around my waist, fingers spreading firmly against the bare skin of my back, pulling me securely against the hard line of his body.
He leans in, his lips brushing my temple. “Should’ve realized it sooner,” he whispers, his mouth close to my ear. “This is my part to play. Nobody else’s.” He presses a firm, proprietary kiss to my jawline.
Matthew lifts his head, but his arm remains a steel band around my waist, anchoring me to him.
A united front.
He doesn’t look at me. His attention, sharp as forged steel, is locked entirely on James. And in that instant, as I feel the unwavering challenge radiating from him toward the man who just threatened to destroy me, the meaning of his words crashes down.
He doesn’t know about my plan.
All he heard were my bitter words from that morning: I can handle a little make-out session.
He thinks he’s here to be the ‘other man.’ To spare me the humiliation of it being a stranger.
He thinks we’re playing James’s game.
The booth is a stunned vacuum where only the pounding beats of the club exist. The friend whose name I can’t recall looks bewildered.
Candice looks shocked, her eyes bouncing between the three of us.
James is rigid. His face is a mask of disbelief that cracks to reveal the unadulterated fury beneath.
Matthew has just thrown a grenade into the middle of my battlefield by playing a part in a script I just set on fire.
James’s eyes flick from Matthew’s unyielding stare to my face, then back. “So this is who you’ve been shacked up with since I threw you out of my apartment?” he spits, his lip curling in a venomous snarl.
His words hit me with the force of a slap. A hot flush of shame and anger burns up my neck.
A muscle tightens along Matthew’s jaw. A new flicker deep in his eyes confirms it.
He doesn’t know James threw me out.
The thought is a fresh twist of exposure amidst my own burning anger.