Money, Madilyn. Don’t be so naïve.
He shakes hands, he chatters as we pass groups of people. Hell, he chatters at me, but my brain is exclusively stuck on the man sneaking around behind us.
A week ago, I’d be screaming and waiting for the knife to be plunged into my back. But tonight… I don’t know.
Jenna’s explosion in my office this week seems to have changed things. She’s not talking to me, she’s not taking my calls, she’s not answering my texts or visiting my home like she normally would a couple times a week. Her brother is still up in my business, but Jenna’s absence is palpable. And the reason for her absence – my lack of vilifying Bryan Kincaid because she cheated – seems to change things.
The world hasn’t changed. I have. And that is what has led me to feel like I don’t belong.
“Hey, Snapper!”
Jackson greets someone – Snapper, a man that kind of looks like a fish, I suppose – and bumps me around as he half hugs the fish-man. They clap hands, exchange cash so fast that no one but a trained socialite would notice, then they pull back and study me.
My mind is on Bryan as he sneaks through the crowd. A dark shadow, a looming omen that’ll probably kill us all.
But then I’m torn back to the guys in front of me. To Jackson’s expectant gaze, to Snapper’s hungry eyes. “Huh?”
Jackson chortles. It’s like an old, fat, cigar-clutching, whiskey-sipping chortle; just like his father’s. “I was saying, Snapper, this is Madilyn Tosky. Madilyn, please meet my friend.”
“Oh, okay. Hey.” I extend a hand and try to focus on the tall man in front of me. His face is long, narrow, angular. His lips, heavy and bottomset. “You can call me Maddi.”
“Enchanté.” He dips a little. Bows. And completely contradicts the loud noises of the track, the filth, the dirt and sweat. “You’re Tosky? Monaco?”
I nod. “I like to think of myself as Madilyn first.” I give him a sugary sweet smile. “Ya know, just me. No labels. You weren’t here last weekend? I thought Jackson introduced me to everyone he knew.”
Jackson laughs.
“No,” Snapper continues. “I was traveling for work. One weekend a month, I can’t make it to Piper’s Lane. Rumor has it that I missed the best weekend of them all.” He leans a little closer. “Is it true you decked Bryan Kincaid?”
Now Jackson growls and pulls me closer.
“I… had words with him.” I try to pull away from the possessive arm slung over my shoulder, but hide it by turning to him to ask, “Do you think we should check in?”
“Yeah.”
Refusing to release me, he reminds me of the talk he gave me on our way out here. You have to stay with me, Maddi. It’s for your own safety. You can’t wander around alone, because the men out there think any unaccompanied female is free game. He’s taking his protective role seriously, and in the process, he gets the added bonus of letting everyone think we’re a couple.
Successful, I suppose, considering the number of times Bryan sneered the word boyfriend.
“I’ll circle back around to you, Snap. Come on.” He tugs me away from the small crowd that was gathering, and leads me toward the woman I met last week. Manda.
And while we walk, I glance around in search of that shadow. That dangerous man, the unspoken threat.
Except… I’m not scared.
“Maddi?”
“Yeah?” I jerk my head back around to look up at Jackson. “What’s up?”
“You looking for someone?”
“Yeah. Uh… is Jenna coming tonight?”
“Nah.” He takes someone’s hand as we pass… I have no clue who, because everyone seems to be reaching for him. “Jen’s not allowed out here anymore. Not for as long as assholes like Kincaid live.”
“Live?” My brows shoot up high. “Wow, that’s intense. You gonna hire an assassin to have him taken out?”
He actually chortles. “If I was, I wouldn’t announce it so people could hear me.”
When my heart lurches, he looks down and snickers. “Kidding, Maddi. It was just a joke.” Lifting my hat back, he presses a long, juicy, loud kiss to the center of my forehead. And for the world’s longest minute while his lips are in contact with my skin, my eyes stop on a pair of dark brown orbs.
Bryan stands ten or so feet away, amid a crowd that he barely notices. They want his attention, they want him to smile for them and acknowledge their existence, but he merely slides his hands into his pockets, rocks on his heels, and watches me with a damn smirk.
He wears dark jeans again tonight, a cream shirt with a motorbike on the front. His hair is tidier this week, but I suspect that’s because he came out knowing he wouldn’t be wearing a hat. His square jaw is so pronounced, so sharp, that it shadows his neck, and emphasizes a five o’clock shadow.
I bet his chin is spiky. I bet it’s like sandpaper, and damn if I don’t angle my head in such a way that Jackson’s chin scrapes over my skin just so I can compare.
Baby-bottom smooth.
Bryan’s smirk turns to a full-blown grin, telling me that he knows what I just did. Why I did it. And what’s running through my brain as Jackson steps back and fixes my hat.
Oh god, it’s Bryan’s hat, and Jackson doesn’t even know.
Bryan stands to my right, sort of at two o’clock, so he’s in Jackson’s blind spot.
“I was kidding, Maddi.”
I can’t take my eyes from the man who completely ignores everyone that tries to speak to him.
“Maddi?” I gasp when fingers come below my chin and draw my eyes around. “Did I scare you?”
“Huh?” I swallow to lubricate my bone-dry throat. “What?”
“The assassin thing. I was only kidding.”
“Oh…” I let out a squeaking, giggling laugh. “I know. Sorry, I’m just…” I wave him off. “Tired from work.”
“Assassins aren’t easy to come by,” he jokes. “It’s not like I could walk into a random business in town and find a gun for hire.”
“Ha…”
No longer willing to entertain him, I pull away. “I’m done discussing guns and killing people. I’m gonna…” I cast a glance back to the space Bryan was standing a moment ago.
It’s empty.
“Uh…”
“Maddi?”
“Pee,” I blurt out. I meet his eyes. “I have to pee.”
“Oh. Uh… okay. If you can wait a couple minutes for me to sign in with Manda, I can walk you over and stand guard.”
“No, it’s okay.” I pull out of his hold and pat my bag close. “It’s fine. There are spotlights and stuff over there. I’ll be fine.”
“Maddi.” He steps in my direction. A single step to show his concern. Except I doubt it has anything to do with my safety, and everything to do with his self-proclaimed arch nemesis. “Just give me a minute.”
I shake my head. “I’m busting, so I’ll head over that way. You can come over when you’re done here.”
“But I’ll probably be ten minutes or so. That’s too long.”