Page 11 of Beautiful Enemy

My grip on the glass tightens. “You don’t know what they’d want. You were a boy when they died.”

My brother shifts out of his seat. He has the same hair and eyes as me, but he’s a few inches shorter. He’s made the most of what he’s been given and is now a forward for the second-best professional football club in England since getting drafted out of uni last year.

“I thought you’d started to mellow when you were withher.” My brother leans over the railing next to me. “You stepped back from the business. Started genuinely enjoying life a little. It was good to see, Harry.”

My gut clenches. “Love is an illusion. I was a fool to think it was more.”

The tabloids paint me as a richer-than-Midas entertainment mogul with no greater pleasure than adding to the piles of money I’ve made.

It’s easier for me that they do.

Their needling over superficial flaws and supposed weaknesses doesn’t bother me.

It keeps them from digging at the real ones.

The crowd below us is dancing, losing themselves in the music pounding through the speakers, reverberating off every wall.

“Leni texted this afternoon to say I should come down to see a show,” Ash says over the music. “She also said a woman tore you a new one.” His grin flashes white for a second before the club lights go dark.

The hairs on my neck lift in anticipation.

The DJs change over. It happens every night between the opening act and the headliner, but tonight, I feel it.

It’s a tug in my gut, a thrumming in my veins.

It’s why I came, though I’d never admit it.

The way she spoke to me earlier… No one challenges me like that.

She can’t honestly think she’ll get out of this deal. The fact that she’s here means she’s admitted the truth.

She’ll bend to me, like everyone else does.

When the black light comes on, the crowd erupts.

She’s on stage, her hair, trousers, and cropped body-hugging top glowing white before the lights change to a more normal range.

I’m floored.

Out of costume, off stage, she’s moody, seething. A girl who hissed at me like a cornered animal.

On it, she’s vibrant.

“Little Queen,” Ash observes. “The name suits her.”

Her clothes cling to her body in a way that draws attention to her curves but also lets her move uninhibited. A long, blond wig is a stark contrast to her warm skin and dark lashes, thick and lowered as she studies the computer in front of her with the intensity of a rocket scientist navigating a launch.

“She owes me,” I say at last, my voice gravel. “And even queens must pay their debts.”

I see why she was on the rise before imploding. She’s mesmerizing.

This arrangement is supposed to be strictly business, but the idea of seeing her admit she can’t fight me is oddly appealing.

Fuck. I need to get laid if a naïve young American hurling insults at my decency and my empire makes my cock hard.

But I’m still watching her, trapped in the limbo she creates with her energy, her music, leaning in like a shameless voyeur.

She’s the rebel girl every horny teenage boy at boarding school badmouthed, then secretly fucked his hand to at night while wishing it was her pussy instead.

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