Page 99

He blinks, dark lashes surrounding the lightest of narrowing blue eyes under a jutting, tight brow. I shift my weight back and forth, forcing myself to stop tapping in exchange for twisting the end of the black ribbon tied in a bow around my shirt collar. I focus on Cade’s Adam’s apple and the traces of ink showing on the sides of his neck.

“Stay close to me then,” he grumbles, then nods toward Davis. “Or him. Or our bodyguards.” He snaps his tongue over his sexy front teeth, then finishes with a piercing glare that hits me right in my soaking underwear. “We clear?”

“What could happen to me here? There’s, like, a thousand people and a hundred bodyguards.”

That annoyed, charged look returns, and I swallow a stuttering breath. “Just don’t wander. We have a table reserved. That one.” He points where two black-suited hulks are standing, arms crossed, keeping anyone else at the party from sitting at a circular glass table in the all-white living room space below.

“You know the rules. Out here, beyond the walls of our home, you are always with a guard or with me. Or Davis. No exceptions.”

I nod, wondering how I will pull off my plan for tonight if I don’t get some distance between us.

“Yes, Daddy,” I say, turning into a puddle as the words slip from my lips.

I rarely use that moniker, and what was supposed to be a bratty, sarcastic counter to his over-protective commands, turns his eyes dark. His hand loops around my wrist, the only deliberate touch we’ve had outside of my awkward attempts at physical contact since he shook my hand the day we met. Or the handful of times he’s pulled me out of some dangerous situation.

Evidently, like right now.

My insides tighten like springs as electricity bolts up my arm from where his grip tightens. Even Davis stares at him in stone silence, the tension bucking hard between us as I whimper and chirp and fight the urge to press myself against him as his scent swirls deeper and deeper into my core.

As fast as he grabbed me, he released me. All three of us exhale as Cade’s buzzing phone draws his attention.

Tears prick hot in my eyes as he shoots me a last look, then points down at the table. “You have ten minutes on your own. If you’re not down there checking in with me in ten minutes, I’m coming to find you. I’ll blow this house up if necessary. I’ll hireevery bodyguard here to bring you back to me. And do not go outside for any reason.”

Moisture floods between my legs as Davis offers me a wink, and Cade steps backward, his eyes on my shoes as he answers a call.

“Ten minutes,” Davis repeats next to my ear. “I’ll stall him best I can. Have some fun, but be careful. This gold-plated, diamond-studded world is a minefield.”

I force a smile, spin on the toe of my Reebok and dash down the hall toward the rendezvous point, hoping ten minutes is enough.

Two

Cade

Isqueeze my temples until I damn near crack my skull.

“You remember the last time we sat right here?” Davis drums his fingers on the top of the glass table as I fill my lungs until they ache, then nod on a long exhale.

“Yes. The best and worst day of my life.”

He chuckles, half-squinting with a curious smile. His dark hair shows a hint of silver at his temples. Years of this business making lines in the corners of his nearly black eyes. We will both be forty this year and for the first time, I have this sense of purpose. And a growing dissatisfaction with what previously was my obsession. Power. Money. Success. The insanity which is the entertainment business.

“Interesting.” He says as I scan the beautiful people of the room, everyone so affected and aware of how they are standing, who they are with, and the agenda at hand.

Davis has been my closest friend for close to two decades.He’s my partner at the agency, the only other person I trust besides my mother. I asked him to mentor Lennie when she came to me and asked to train as an agent, yet still, I made it clear I would kill him if he touched her.

Or let her get hurt.

I can refuse her nothing as long as it doesn’t put her in danger, so Davis was part of the deal that would keep her out of trouble, and thankfully, he agreed.

She tried. Goddamn, it hurt my heart she tried so hard. But she doesn’t have that instinct and people skills for the business. I’m glad she doesn’t. I don’t want her corrupted by the brutality of it all. Still, I let her continue because it’s what she wanted. What she still wants from what she tells me and how she’s up at 6 AM, dressed and ready for the day. I even set her up with a few ‘clients’ to help her confidence. Actresses I hired to do just that,act.

Only God bless my babygirl. She sucks at the job. She couldn’t get the contracts signed or a meeting nailed down even when it was all spoon-fed to her.

Davis has taken it all in stride, keeping her close and doing what he always does. Having my back.

He and I met at a shitty motel trying to secure a place to sleep for the night the day we both made it to LA to chase our dreams. He came from fucking Nebraska of all places as I rode my Harley to LA from Brooklyn, Michigan where I grew up.

“Can you imagine if we’d gotten what we wanted all those years ago and we actors?” I muse, thinking of those first years of auditions and realizations about what it meant to be in the business.