The check burns a hole in my breast pocket.
Through my suit, my shirt.
Possibly my skin.
When a member of Echo’s team reached out to see where we could deliver the check this morning, Rae responded with the address of a studio lot. They purposely didn’t say I would be the one coming.
The sun bakes my neck, my face damp under my sunglasses as I approach the trailer. The door opens, and two figures emerge—a young, athletic man with a woman slung over one shoulder and a stack of papers in his other hand.
The woman’s curvy legs are encased in faded skinny jeans. One flip-flop falls off her foot, landing next to the steps of the trailer.
“You owe me a shoe,” she huffs.
“Call my people,” Beck replies cheerfully.
“Fuck your people. I’ll stage an uprising in your closet while you’re sleeping. Throw one of your five-hundred-dollar loafers out the bedroom window and see how much you like that.”
The familiarity of Rae’s low mutter is a kick in my gut. The feelings I’ve been shoving down rise up at once, colliding and combusting in a way that feels uncannily like heartburn.
“Excuse me, do you have ID?” A woman shifts out of a golf cart in front of me.
“I’m Harrison King.”
Before she can stop me, I round the golf cart, leaving her behind.
“Well, this I didn’t expect.” Beck’s amused, and his insolent drawl when he spots me has my nostrils flaring.
Rae shifts on his shoulder. “What’s going on?”
“We’ve got company.” He releases her, bending to set her on the ground with a thud.
It’s an easy movement, as if they do this all the time.
I fucking hate it.
Rae straightens her top as she squares to face me.
She’s the same as I remember… and different. Slow curves even understated clothes can’t hide. Dark hair tumbling over her shoulders, eyes framed with thick lashes narrowed in my direction so I can’t read the emotion beneath even if I want to.
And I want to. I’d give every dollar in my damn wallet to know what’s going through her head when we look at each other for the first time in a month.
It’s been thirty-two days, actually, since I left her in my room in Ibiza.
That night, I wanted to stay with her but forced myself to carry out my duties as owner of Debajo and as a King. I went to see the police, then Christian.
Beck holds up the sheaf of papers. “I’m gonna go read. You need anything, I’m on lunch for another thirty.”
She nods as he walks away.
Of the things I’ve pictured her doing since she left me, Beck wasn’t one of them. Jealousy is a living thing in my chest as I consider what they were doing in that trailer together.
The possibility that he gets to touch her, gets to see her smile, gets to fuckingmakeher smile…
It’s agony.
Rae closes the distance, grabbing my jacket and tugging me to the side of the trailer as a golf cart flies by.
“What are you doing here?” she asks.