Chapter 1 #2
The entire VIP section went silent.
I froze. My hand was still in the air, the empty glass dripping onto my own shoes.
"Oops," I whispered.
Cameron
I didn't move. I didn't breathe. I simply closed my eyes and counted backward from ten in French.
Dix. Neuf. Huit...
The sensation was revolting. Cold, sticky wetness seeping through the layers of wool and cotton, touching my skin. It felt like contamination. It felt like chaos.
I opened my eyes and looked down at my chest. The stain was spreading, a Rorschach test of my own failing patience. I could smell the artificial coconut. It was cloying, suffocatingly sweet.
I slowly lifted my gaze to the source of the disaster.
Camila Sterling.
She was standing there with her mouth slightly open, her eyes wide and panicked, looking like a deer that had just realized it charged a tank.
She was a mess of sensory overload—wild dark curls that looked like they’d been styled by a wind tunnel, lips painted a distracting shade of berry red, and a dress that was barely holding onto her curves by the grace of gravity and double-sided tape.
She was everything I despised. Loud. Unpredictable. Wasteful.
She was the daughter of the man who held my future in his hands, and she acted like the world was her personal playground to destroy.
"Did you..." Her voice wavered, losing its bratty edge for the first time. She swallowed hard, her throat bobbing. "Did you just... absorb that? You didn't even flinch."
"You are a stain, Sterling," I said. My voice was quiet, lethal. I saw her flinch as if I’d slapped her. Good.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a pristine white handkerchief. I dabbed at the lapel, but it was useless. The suit was ruined. The night was ruined. My mood, which had already been precarious, plummeted into the basement.
"It was an accident," she stammered, stepping back. Her heel caught on the edge of the rug, and she stumbled.
I reached out—instinct, purely reflex—and caught her by the elbow. My hand wrapped all the way around her arm. She was smaller than she looked in photos. Softer. Beneath the cheap scent of the drink, I caught something else. Vanilla. Warm skin.
For a split second, the anger paused. My thumb pressed into the soft flesh of her inner arm. I felt her pulse hammering there. Rabbit-fast. Erratic.
She wasn't just drunk. she was terrified.
I looked at her face, really looked at her. Her pupils were blown wide, swallowing the hazel-green irises. There was a tremor in her bottom lip she was trying desperately to bite back.
I hated that I noticed it. I hated that my body reacted to the heat of her skin, a sudden tightening in my groin that had absolutely no business happening while I was covered in blue sugar-water.
I released her arm as if she had burned me.
"Leave," I commanded.
She blinked, regaining some of her defiance. "You don't own the bar, Vance."
"I own the space within ten feet of me," I snarled, stepping into her personal space.
I towered over her, using every inch of my height to intimidate.
I wanted her gone. I wanted her chaos away from my order.
"And right now, you are polluting it. Get out of my sight before I decide to send the bill for this suit to your daddy.
Although, from what I hear..." I leaned down, bringing my lips close to her ear.
I lowered my voice to a whisper that cut through the music.
"...Daddy isn't paying your bills anymore, is he? "
She went rigid. All the color drained from her face.
Bullseye.
I knew everything that happened in this town. I knew why her card had been declined at the bar ten minutes ago—the bartender was a puck bunny who texted the group chat immediately. I knew the rumors swirling in the locker room. The Princess had been dethroned.
She looked up at me, her eyes shimmering with sudden tears she refused to shed. For a second, she looked so shattered I almost felt a twinge of guilt. Almost.
"Go to hell, Cameron," she whispered.
"I'm already there," I said, gesturing to the crowded, sweating room. "I'm looking at you."
She turned on her heel and fled. She didn't walk away with her usual hip-swaying strut. She ran. She pushed through the velvet ropes, past the bouncer, and out toward the exit.
I watched her go. I watched the sway of her dark hair, the curve of her spine in that ridiculous backless dress.
I should have felt relieved. The variable was removed. The equation was balanced again.
But as I looked down at the blue stain on my chest, I didn't feel balanced. I felt an itch under my skin. A buzzing in my blood that had nothing to do with the music.
I signaled the bouncer. "Jag."
Jagger Cole, my left wing and the only person I tolerated for extended periods, looked over from where he was flirting with a redhead. He saw the suit and burst out laughing. "Holy shit, Cap. You look like you jerked off a Smurf."
"Shut up," I said, peeling the wet jacket off. "Is she gone?"
"Sterling? Yeah. Saw her bolt. Looked like she was crying." Jag’s grin faded slightly. "It’s ten degrees out there, Cam. She didn't have a coat."
My hand paused on the buttons of my cuffs.
Ten degrees. Snowing.
She was wearing a scrap of silk and strappy heels.
Not my problem, I told myself. She’s a grown woman. She’s a brat. She has Uber.
Payment Declined.
The thought intruded, uninvited. If her card was declined here, it would be declined on the app.
She had no coat. No money. And she was drunk.
"Fuck," I swore softly.
"What?" Jag asked.
I tossed my ruined jacket onto the bar stool. "Watch my tab. I have to go take out the trash."
Camila
The cold hit me like a physical blow.
It wasn't just cold; it was the kind of New England freeze that bites through your skin and settles in your marrow. The wind whipped around the corner of the brick building, stinging my bare arms and legs.
I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering violently within seconds. The adrenaline from the confrontation was fading, replaced by the crushing weight of reality.
I was outside. I couldn't go back in.
I pulled my phone out of my clutch. 12% battery.
I opened the Uber app. My thumb hovered over the "Home" button—my sorority house.
Account Suspended: Please update payment method.
I stared at the screen until it blurred. Tears, hot and humiliating, finally spilled over, freezing on my cheeks.
I couldn't go back to the sorority house.
The President, a girl named Madison who had always hated me, had gleefully informed me this afternoon that my key fob had been deactivated until my semester dues were paid.
My luggage was currently sitting in the trunk of my car, which was parked in the long-term lot three miles away because I couldn't afford the gas to drive it.
I had nowhere to go.
I looked down the street. The streetlights created halos in the falling snow. It was beautiful, in a cruel, indifferent way.
I was Camila Sterling. I was supposed to be untouchable. And here I was, shivering on a sidewalk in Wickfield, Massachusetts, realizing that without my father's money, I didn't exist.
"You're going to freeze to death," a deep voice said from the shadows. "And the paperwork for that would be a nightmare for the team."
I jumped, spinning around. My heel slipped on a patch of black ice.
I flailed, expecting the impact, the crack of bone on concrete.
It never came.
An arm—hard as iron—snaked around my waist, jerking me upright. I slammed into a solid wall of muscle and heat.
Cameron.
He was standing there in just his white dress shirt, the top buttons undone, the blue stain still visible on the fabric. He wasn't wearing a coat either, but he didn't even look cold. He looked annoyed.
"Let go of me," I chattered, my teeth clicking together.
"If I let go, you'll fall," he stated. "And you're already messy enough."
He pulled me closer, not out of affection, but out of necessity. His body heat was overwhelming, radiating through his shirt. For a second, I wanted to bury my face in his chest and steal every ounce of warmth he had.
"What do you want?" I whispered, too tired to fight. "You kicked me out. I left. You win."
"Where is your coat?"
"I... I checked it. Inside." I lied. I had sold my Canada Goose jacket yesterday to a consignment shop for cash to buy the blue drink.
He stared at me, his eyes searching my face. He knew. He always seemed to know.
"You don't have a coat," he concluded. "And you don't have a ride."
"I'm waiting for a friend," I lied again.
"You don't have friends, Mila," he said softly. "You have an audience. And the show is over for the night."
He used my nickname. Mila. It sounded strange coming from his mouth. Rough. Intimate.
He sighed, a puff of white steam in the night air. Then, without asking, he began to drag me toward the black Range Rover parked at the curb.
"Get in."
I planted my feet. "No. I'm not going anywhere with you. You hate me."
He stopped and looked down at me. The snow was catching in his dark hair, melting against the heat of his skin.
"Yes," he said, his voice dropping an octave. "I do hate you. You are chaotic, spoiled, and infuriating."
He opened the passenger door. The interior was tan leather and looked warmer than heaven.
"But I'm not going to let the Commissioner's daughter turn into a popsicle on my watch," he said. "Get in the car, Sterling. Before I throw you in."
I looked at the open door. I looked at the dark, empty street. I looked at him—the Wall. The man who had humiliated me five minutes ago and was now offering me the only lifeline I had.
I was shivering so hard my bones hurt. My pride was already dead; I didn't need my body to follow.
I got in the car.
As he slammed the door shut, locking me into the silence and the warmth of his world, I had a sinking feeling that I had just made a deal with the devil.
And the devil drove a Range Rover.