Page 12 of Beautiful Enemy

I’ve always preferred women as careless as they are beautiful. But there’s something about her that makes it impossible to look away.

I expect my brother to rip into me for being soulless. When I finally force my attention to him, he’s watching her, as entranced as every one of the drunk and high patrons below.

“She’s pretty.”

Alarm coils in my gut. Before I can snap a response, or even decipher the layers of my reaction, the track changes.

Boys want a fight

Want to prove they’re right

Let them scratch and hiss

Circle when they piss—

The words seep into my skin.

My gaze narrows on the DJ, and as if she senses it, she looks up toward our booth.

And in a move as graceful as it is deliberate, she flips both middle fingers.

Ash barks out a laugh, the genuine kind I haven’t heard in far too long. “Fuck, Harry. I think I’m in love.”

5

Rae

“Hello, American,” a male voice whisper-shouts as I yank off my headphones at the end of my set.

The man standing within earshot is my age and the kind of preppy handsome that sells Ralph Lauren campaigns.

I look at the security guard, who is facing the other way.Not again.

“Hey!” I shout at the guard, who finally turns back, spotting the man next to me.

“He’s a VIP,” the guard mouths.

Perfect. I should’ve known Debajo would be one of those places where VIPs get whatever they want.

“Don’t worry. We’re going to be friends.” The man who approached me offers a blinding grin that’s familiar and not. “That was quite the set. Have a drink with me.”

“I’m not sticking around.”

“Please?”

What the hell? I could use a drink. Plus, I won’t be able to sleep for hours.

With luck, I’ll get to bed by six o’clock in the morning, stare at the ceiling for a few hours while waiting for a response from my lawyer, then drag myself out of bed midafternoon to do a little sightseeing and get my bag before catching a flight out of here.

“You’re buying,” I inform him.

Before heading to the bar, I stop in the bathroom, pop two ibuprofen, and wipe the sweat from my face and neck.

My new friend meets me outside. “Not going to lose this wig?”

I hold a strand up. “This is my natural hair color.”

He grins. “I’m Ash. Now is when you tell me your real name.”

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