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“No,” Ash says at the same time, glancing over his shoulder. “Don’t pretend it didn’t start sooner.” His gaze drops to Harrison’s chest so fast I almost miss it.

“Mischa has a reputation,” Harrison says. “People who disagree with him get silenced.”

“So, you’re the good guy.”

He frowns. “Let’s say it’s good you called me out on my club’s security and not Mischa’s, or we wouldn’t be here talking.”

The idea of a person more fucked up than Harrison, someone who’d stop at nothing to get what he wants, is enough to make me shiver.

We approach the end of the huge line, and I reach for my wallet. “I have Christian’s card.”

Harrison tucks it back in my bag, tugging me by the elbow toward a back door. “We’re not letting Christian know we’re here.”

At the door, Harrison shakes hands with a security guy who lets us inside. Ash leading the way, Harrison at my side with his hand on my back, we head through a dark tunnel, only the music at the other end guiding us.

“So did you fuck your hand to my new song after Debajo last night?” I ask conversationally.

His arm flexes around my waist. “Did you lie awake all night thinking about it?”

I catch a toe on the ground and nearly trip.

The idea of Harrison King thinking of me while he unfastens his dress pants and shoves down the zipper is insanely sexy. His heavy breathing, roughened with pleasure and anticipation as he stroked the hard length of his cock. The flex of his muscles, the way he’d seek out his own brutal pulls as he cursed me.

I wonder how it would feel to wrap my hand around him and watch his eyes narrow to slits. To reduce him to curses, then no words at all.

Too soon, we’re in the open-air club, and the impossible tension slips a few notches.

I’m awestruck by my surroundings. It’s an ode to the stars. A spectacular amphitheater built for revellers.

The crowd is young and beautiful and ready for the release this place promises.

“If you buy it, you’ll need the best DJs,” I comment, breathless.

“I’m not concerned. It’s not only the crowd that lines up for this place.”

“I’ve wanted to play here forever,” I admit, soaking it all in. “To hear my songs, to feel them through the ground, like they’re moving the earth.” I cut him a teasing look. “If you buy it, you’ll let me play, right?”

“La Mer is the biggest stage in the world.” His brows lift, and I feel my smile fade.

Hurt slices at me, cutting deeper than I thought this man could cut me.

“And you don’t think I’m good enough.”

He was by my side as I breathed new life into his club, and despite his sparse praise, it felt as if he was cheering me on. That we were in this journey together.

Harrison shakes his head as if I’m being unreasonable. “I didn’t say that.”

“Yeah, you did.” I twist away from his grip and slip into the throng of people.

Watching the booth, envy settles into my gut like a throbbing mass. The man spinning tonight is Maxx, a DJ I met at Coachella. He has a reputation for being a dick to new talent, especially women.

The thing is he’s not alone. Of Billboard’s top one hundred DJs in the world, only a handful are women. None of the top ten.

I want to make that list, not only because that list determines who gets booked and who makes bank.

Women have always been involved in music, but when it comes to recognition and compensation, it’s still a man’s world.

I try to forget the hurt and dance with Ash and his friends while Harrison’s off doing whatever he has planned.