Page 30 of Beautiful Enemy

I shake my head. “They would have. But their assets were tied up.”

I take a long swig of whisky, the warmth scorching my throat like a welcome friend. Rae waves me off when I hold the bottle out to her.

“My parents didn’t own nightclubs, but they managed real estate for a large Russian investor. When I was a teenager, they found out their employer was into… less than legal side businesses. They told him they wanted to go out on their own. Even purchased a venue under their own name.”

My chest tightens. They were optimistic about the possibility of working for themselves.

“Their employer wouldn’t let them. The project burned down, and the investigation ruled they had burned it down to collect the insurance. As a result, they collected no compensation. A few months later, my parents were dead of an overdose, but they didn’t use drugs.”

I feel her attention on me, the shocked stare. I don’t know why I’m telling her except that I haven’t fucking told anyone in a long time, and today of all days, I can think of little else.

Rae shifts toward me, the moonlight catching the highlights in her hair.

“Ash was at boarding school when it happened,” I go on. “I vowed I would clear their name and rebuild what they’d lost—in my own way. So, when you say I only care about making money… you’re wrong. I care about restoring their legacy. Putting right what should have been. All of which takes money, and I won’t apologize for that.”

The tightness in my throat, in my chest, won’t release. After all these years, I should’ve stopped fighting it.

“This was my mother’s favorite beach. We came every year for her birthday.” I lean forward, brace my elbows on my knees. “I still do.”

“That’s what today is,” she says softly, and I nod.

Her presence shouldn’t feel comforting, but it does. I’m less wound up than I was even an hour ago.

Strange how the same woman can bring me madness and peace.

“But… why would you bring me?”

I lace my fingers together as I listen to the waves crash against the shore, watch the lights of the city reflected in the distance. “It’s a place to escape your demons. Or entertain them. You seem like a person who does both.”

Rae shifts off the car, taking the bottle from my hand. She tugs off her shoes and tosses them back at me. I grab them out of the air so they don’t land on the hood of my car.

I follow her out onto the sand. “Give me the whisky.”

“Come get it.”

There’s only one other couple within sight on the beach, locked in a heated embrace. Her gaze lingers on them, and I take advantage, catching up and taking the bottle, then rewarding myself with a long drink.

“This is known as a romantic place,” I inform her.

Rae rolls up her trousers and steps up to the edge of the ocean, her teeth flashing white in the dark. “So, you didn’t bring me here to kill me. You brought me here to fuck me.”

I chuckle. “You’re a porcupine, and it’s not only your hair. I wouldn’t stick my cock anywhere near you for fear it would come back covered in quills.”

Her low laugh ripples across the sound of the waves.

What I don’t say is that I’m starting to think it would be worth it.

I wonder who I’d find when I stripped away her clothes.

The woman she is on stage, or the one in a T-shirt and jeans with a bottle of anxiety pills to keep her company?

Perhaps both.

I reach for the buttons on my shirt, undoing one after another. Then I toss the shirt at her head.

She catches the fabric, looking up in surprise.

I’m already working on my trousers, unfastening and unzipping them before shoving them down.

---