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Roni thought she was dreaming as the screeching sound of her smartphone echoed in her ears. But when it would not stop, as it would have in a dream, but continued to screech, her eyes opened, she realized it wasn’t a dream after all, and she reached onto her nightstand. Feeling around for her phone and knocking over the photograph of her mother she kept at her bedside, she finally retrieved the phone and swiped it. She laid on her back and answered it in a voice muffled by sleepiness. “Hello?”

“Let me guess: You didn’t hear the alarm. Again.”

She wasn’t so sleepy that she didn’t recognize that voice. His fussiness was easy to figure out even half awake. But what alarm? What was he talking about? “What’s that again?”

“It’s time for your ass to get up. That’s what it is. You should have been up half an hour ago, Veronica.”

Roni frowned. “What time is it?” She squinted her eyes as she looked at the time on her phone. When she realized he was right and she should have been up by now, she jerked up. “Shit,” she said and threw the covers off her naked body. “I didn’t realize it was that late!”

“You need to start taking your ass to bed at a reasonable hour,” Brax said over the phone, “instead of partying all night with those rowdy friends of yours.”

“I’m up,” she said although she was still getting out of bed. “I’m getting up.”

“This is your first day of your new job and promotion I might add, and you’d better not blow it. Do you realize what I had to do for you to get that?”

Roni might have still been sleepy, but she was still feisty Roni. “I worked my butt off for that promotion so don’t even try that,” she said as she made her way to the bathroom. She worked in a profession that required her to go hard, and to her dismay, she always did. Even when it wasn’t called for.

“Did I say you didn’t deserve it?” Brax shot back at her. “I would not have gone to bat for you if you didn’t deserve it. But there were fifty other cops who applied for that detective’s position and deserved it too. But your ass got it. I wonder why?”

Roni couldn’t argue with that. Her hard work got her to the door. His connections got her through the door. “Thank you for putting in the word for me,” she said to him, although she’d already thanked him more times than she could count. Being a detective and moving up the ladder was a dream come true for her. Even in Victorville. “Thanks.”

“Are you up?”

“I’m up,” she said as she turned on the shower tap. “I’m prepping the shower now.”

The thought of her naked body made Brax hard. “What would have happened if I hadn’t phoned you? Do you ever think about that sort of thing when you’re out all night partying? And that’s where you were, weren’t you?”

She had an excuse: she attended a bachelorette party for one of her dearest friends from childhood. Would she have preferred that the party be held on a different night? Sure. But that date was established long before her promotion and she wasn’t about to be a no-show at one of her girl’s biggest nights. And whenever she and all her hometown friends got together, it was always going to be a long, festive occasion. It just was. But she knew that wouldn’t mean shit to Brax. It would only be an excuse for the inexcusable to him.

In the limo, Brax waited for her response. “Did you hear me, Roni? Were you out partying all night?”

When she still didn’t respond, he exhaled. He was hard on her and he knew it. There was nothing wrong with her going out with her friends. But the world order itself, and those good old boys at that police department, all wanted her to fail and he wasn’t going to let that happen. Not after doing all he could do to get her away from the NYPD. Not on his watch. And if he had to be hard on her so be it. “I’d better not hear you were late on your first day.”

“I won’t be late.”

“You’d better not be,” he added rather harshly. And then he added: “Happy birthday,” and ended the call.

Roni looked at her phone. He never said goodbye. Not ever. And even his happy birthday sounded like a putdown. As if to say here you are, you just turned thirty years old, and you’re only just getting started in your sorry-ass career when he was nearly a billionaire by the time he was thirty. And the fact that her birthday was two days ago, while he was out of town, didn’t faze him either. But that was Brax. Always so hard on her. The asshole , she thought as she tossed her phone onto the bathroom vanity.

But that was just her bad temper being what it was. Because inwardly she knew Braxton McCrae was no asshole. Braxton McCrae was the best man she’d ever known, and the only human being other than her mother who would go to the ends of the earth for her. Bar none. Besides, what asshole would have given her a Porsche for her birthday?

But back inside the limo, as Brax ended the call, he inwardly felt regretful too. He knew he was harder on her than any human being alive when she was the last person on earth he’d ever hurt. But he somehow couldn’t help himself. He was pulling for her, every bit of her, because he knew the world was pulling against her. She was black, she was beautiful, and she was proud and loud. Her confidence was always confused with arrogance. Bitch was her middle name her whole life. But she always remained true to herself, despite the negativity. That was one of the reasons why he loved her so much.

But why was he so invested in her was a mystery even to him. But there was no denying it: he was heavily invested.

As Tim continue to drive, Margo could see him glance at their boss through the rearview. And she knew what he was thinking because she was thinking the same thing. And Margo, who took more liberties with their boss than anybody else on the payroll, could hold back no longer. “Why do you put up with her insolence, Boss? You’re always helping her, and she’s always so ungrateful. Are you so beholden to her because her mother once worked for your family and on her deathbed she told you to look out for her daughter or something like that? Is that it?”

“Hell no,” said Brax. “Her mother told me to stay away from her daughter.”

Tim laughed. But Margo was offended. “Are you serious? Her daughter should be so lucky! Why would her mother say a fool thing like that to a man like you?”

“Because she knew me. Just like you know me.” Then he looked at Margo, a woman who came to work for him years ago and who was very loyal. “Would you want your daughter to get entangled with a joker like me?”

“I sure would,” Margo said without reservation. “Will you be faithful to her? Absolutely not. Will you neglect her and treat her as if she was an afterthought? Probably so. But will you care for her, look out for her, and treat her better than any of these other bozos out here would? Yes, yes, and yes.”

Brax smiled a weary smile and looked out of the window. She meant what she said as a compliment, but he knew it was another slap in his face. A well-deserved slap in the face because he did treat women like commodities. He did this for them and they did that for him and that was all there was to it. Like a stock exchange. He barely remembered their names, let alone their faces and personalities. And whenever one of them wanted to come back for seconds, he refused to let them anywhere near him even as he knew it was no way to treat a lady.

But that was why, if it took every breath in his body and denied him the pleasure he would give a limb to have again, he was going to always shield and protect Veronica’s heart from every one of these bad men out here. Especially a no good, lowdown dirty dog of a scoundrel of a man like him.

Margo could see him pulling back into himself, where cracking that shell was harder than cracking steel. Just talking about her was still off limits, she realized.

That was why she moved on. “The Chamber of Commerce requests your attendance at their annual year-end awards banquet. They happily informed me that you’ve been nominated as businessman of the year once again.”

Brax shook his head. “Do they have no shame? Am I the only person in this city of over half a million people that can see how it’s a clear conflict of interest for me, the largest employer of the city and the man who chairs the Chamber of Commerce itself, to even be nominated as the businessman of the year by the Chamber of Commerce?”

“It’s a definite conflict of interest,” said Margo with a chuckle. “But who cares? You have excellent approval ratings. The ladies in town love you. They want a piece of all that.”

“It’s that simple?”

“It’s that simple,” said Margo.

“This is a corrupt-ass town.”

“It was corrupt before you were born and will always be corrupt. But they still expect you, with your power and your money and your family name, to hold the feet of our elected leaders to the fire and clean it all up.”

“I’m contributing to the filth, but they want me to clean it up? Genius,” he said. “Just genius.” Then he looked out the window and started thinking about Roni again.

He looked at the time on his watch again.

Margo and Tim glanced at each other again.