Page 89 of Beautiful Sins

This is wrong. All wrong.

One at a time, I pry off the leads attached to my chest, tossing them aside. The machine they belong to emits a single beep of complaint. Next, I shove myself out of bed, the IV tugging itself from my hand.

“Mr. King!” the nurse says from the doorway, sounding alarmed. “You could aggravate your condition.”

“You know nothing about my condition.” I spit out the words as I stalk past her and down the hall, the tile cold on my bare feet.

I don’t care that I’m wearing next to nothing. Don’t give a shit what anyone sees. The wrongness in my gut drives me forward, past the burning in my lungs.

At the end of the hall, I’m breathing heavily.

But there’s no sight of her.

27

Rae

As I step off the plane in Ibiza, the wind catches my hair and whips it around my face.

“My bag?” I ask my driver, a kid who subtly checks me out as he holds the door.

“Already in your car,señorita. Forgive me. You’re Raegan Madani, aren’t you? The DJ Little Queen?”

I take off my sunglasses. “Sure am.”

He leans in, his handsome face eager and so young. “You were ranked seventh on Billboard’s Top 100 DJs list. No woman has ever been that high before.”

“There’ll be a lot more women that high soon.”

I shift inside the car, and moments later, the driver pulls out.

En route, we drive past a familiar venue, my gaze lingering as my stomach heats.

“It’s a famous club,” the boy in the driver’s seat boasts. “The biggest on the island. But you know that.” He flushes.

“I’ve heard,” I say, not unkindly.

The car winds up into the mountains before pulling up to the gates of the villa.

In the past eight months, through festivals and gigs from Sydney to Tokyo to Paris, my career has exploded in the best way.

I shift out of the car and start up the steps of the villa. The door opens before I can knock.

I expect to find a doorman, but I’m instantly accosted by a familiar face and body. One that has every muscle in me screaming.

“You’re the last person I expected to see at the door of my villa.”

If I thought Mischa Ivanov would look the same as I remembered, I was wrong. He’s leaner, as if the past year has taken a toll on him.

Like a stray dog, he doesn’t look weak. Only hungry.

“Then it’s your lucky day.”

His surprised eyes flash, cold in the Spanish heat surrounding us. “What would your lover say if he knew you were here?”

“Former,” I correct, though I have no doubt he knows that. “And because he’s former, I don’t give a shit what Harrison would say.”

I fold my arms behind my back, my thumb and forefinger lightly encircling the opposite wrist, pressing on the tattoo there.

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