The Business
Cece POV
Cece kept her clutch close to her body as she weaved in and out of the people—very famous faces with very deep pockets, and far too many secrets to name. Working in this business of dealing drugs to the rich, famous, and spoiled since she was eighteen had taught her one very important thing: everybody had secrets to hide.
It just so happened to be that Cece, and the drugs she supplied, was a secret far too many in the elite circles kept.
Still, even though she knew a lot of the faces at the New York after-party, she didn’t feel very comfortable letting her guard down. She was twenty-two, not fourteen. She wasn’t some naive girl with the belief that she held all the power.
Her mother taught her that lesson.
Not to trust anyone. Not to give an inch to any-fucking-one.
A woman gave an inch, and a man took a mile. Men were goddamn predictable like that. Creatures of habits when it came to getting what they wanted. Or better yet, being denied what they wanted, and their subsequent reaction that came from it.
Cece couldn’t count the amount of times she had been propositioned by the men she dealt to—or someone in their inner circles—for more than just drugs. They rarely even made a secret about asking, instead seeming to get some strange, sick enjoyment out of asking her where everyone else could hear, too.
She had no problem saying no. She always said no. They knew better, anyway.
Her body—sex—was not on the table when she showed up to answer one of their calls. She was there to hand off the drugs they wanted, and get the hell out shortly after.
Be their beautiful ghost, her mother liked to say. It was supposed to be a nothing more, nothing less kind of thing.
Some of them didn’t want a ghost, though. Some of them wanted something much more tangible from Cece.
This client in particular was one …
“Cece!”
She plastered on her fakest smile, but it still passed Mack Gordan’s shit-o-meter, it seemed. The famous football player was built like a brick shithouse, and had a booming voice to match. As far as Cece knew, he’d retired a couple of years ago from the game after a bad knee injury left him practically useless.
He liked to party, though.
His reputation preceded him. Everything people said about him was true, and then some. The guy was overbearing, a little too touchy-feely, and he didn’t seem to get the hint that Cece was not on his market.
Or frankly, any fucking man’s market.
He was a client, though. And so, Cece sucked up her issues and uncomfortable feelings whenever she got another call that he wanted something delivered, and did her damn job. She didn’t want to tell her mother that she couldn’t handle this guy.
After all, Mack had never actually crossed a line. Not one that Cece hadn’t been able to handle, anyway.
With his friends all around, a large party happening, and witnesses … she doubted he was very threatening to her. Harmless, really.
“Hey, Mack,” Cece said.
She took his hug, but didn’t offer more than an awkward pat on the football player’s shoulder in return. If he noticed, he didn’t say anything.
Then again, he was a little too occupied by dragging his hand lower on the back of her black body-con dress until his palm rested right on the swell of her ass.
Nope.
Cece took a wide step back, and had to practically take Mack’s hands off her body.
In the background, she could feel eyes blazing on her. Cece had a job to do, so she focused on that instead of looking for the man she knew was there to watch her back. He would do his job, and only step in, if he really needed to.
But she still wondered …
“Don’t you want to party with us tonight, Cece?” Mack asked.
His smile was too wide.
His pupils pin-small.
The guy was already high. Already entirely fucked up. And clearly not on her drugs because she had just arrived.
Why was she even here?
“Actually—”
Mack didn’t let Cece finish her statement. He grabbed her wrist in his beefy palm before she could even finish, and dragged her to a leather sofa. She had all she could do not to trip in her heels, not to mention, keep herself somewhat modest when she was dragged onto the couch.
On Mack’s lap. Nope.
Nope, nope, nope. Fuck no.
She was going to try to get out of this situation with as much dignity and respect she could muster to Mack, but that was all she could offer the man. At this point, he had already taken things way too far.
She didn’t know if it was because he was putting on a show for someone, of if it was because he was already high.
He knew the rules.
He kept trying to cross them.
“Sorry, Mack, not to—”
Mack’s hands tightened on Cece’s waist to an almost painful point when she tried to stand up. “No, you can stay right where you are. Say hello.”
Cece’s gaze drifted over the people at the party. Famous faces—other football players, and socialites. In essence, people who would be more than willing to turn their cheek to something that happened because they didn’t want their faces or names attached to that kind of problem. Not to mention, their precious fucking reputations.
Screw this.
Cece tried to be nice.
She tried to do this cleanly.
But she was done.
Done with Mack.
Done with being the girl who handled his calls and product.
Done with dodging his advances.
Done with his games.
Cece’s hand slipped up her thigh, and while Mack’s head and attention was turned on someone else, she pulled the knife out from its sheath. For some clients, Cece never even felt the need to keep protection on herself.
They were genuinely decent people—minus the occasional drug use. They never made her feel unsafe, never crowded her personal space, and never ever got handsy with her. Nothing like Mack had done time and time again.
It was sickening, really.
Flicking the knife up and around in her palm with a quick spin of the hilt around her fingertips—a cute little trick her mother taught her when she was fifteen—she had the blade resting against the side of Mack’s throat that his guests couldn’t see. The side that was facing the window, not the people.
Mack stiffened.
His grip on her tightened.
Cece pushed the blade harder against his pulse in his throat. “You will bleed out before an ambulance ever gets here. Now, you know I’m not interested. You know you’re not supposed to touch me. Remove your hands from my body, or I will make sure the heel of my stiletto will be the last thing you see before it crushes your skull.”
The whole time, she managed to keep her voice at a respectable, calm level. She didn’t even let that fake smile of hers fall.
Talent, really.
It all took talent.
Cece heard Mack swallow hard a second before he let her go. A bit too hard, and with a quick shove, but she was quick on her feet. If the asshole meant to surprise her, she was already planning for a move like that.
Again …
Men were predictable.
Cece was quick to hide her blade behind her arm as she turned to face Mack, and his now-confused looking friends. “And this is where our night—and business—ends, Mack. I will let the regina know to take you off her client list.”
“You can’t—”
“I can do whatever I want to do, actually,” Cece said. “What, do you think the regina will replace me with some other poor girl for you to harass and bother? Unlikely. Have a good life. I’m sure I will see you on a new series of Celebrity Rehab in a few years.”
With that, Cece turned away. Maybe that was the mistake.
Not going in there. Not letting Mack get too close. No, turning her back on him.
A hand came to lock around the back of Cece’s neck before she had even taken a second step away. She knew it was Mack, but her flight or fight instinct kicked in hard at the feeling of somebody grabbing her like that.
Nobody touched her that way.
Not without permission.
Finally, those eyes that she had felt watching her from the moment she stepped into the party made their presence known.
Juan.
The only man her mother sent to watch after her when she worked. Her only bodyguard, so to speak.
But he was so much more than that, too.
He was everything to her.
Sometimes, it was confusing. Sometimes, they were on, and they were off. Sometimes, they didn’t know if they were together, or not.
It didn’t matter.
Juan looked after her.
Juan was hers.
He was six feet, five inches of two-hundred and forty pounds of Latino muscle coming through the crowd. And the man could part a crowd just by fucking looking at it. How he managed to blend in as well as he did with that God-like face of his, and those dark eyes, she didn’t know.
Cece always found him.
He could never hide from her.
Cece met Juan’s gaze a second before his arm slipped around her waist. And then his fist crashed into Mack’s face.
The football player had nothing on Juan.
For a second, Cece relaxed.
Juan said nothing, simply pointed at Mack bleeding on the ground like that was his one and only warning. Or maybe like he was daring the guy to stand up. If she actually cared about Mack, she would tell him the smart move was to stay on the ground and play dead like the stupid fuck he was.
He would die if he stood up.
Simple as that.
The party wasn’t fun anymore.
The guests looked like frozen statues. Someone even turned the music off.
“Come on,” Cece murmured in Juan’s ear. “Let’s get out of here.”
His arm on her waist tightened.
He’d been holding onto her since she was thirteen, and he was fifteen. Her backbone, really. He held her heart, too, and was always oh, so careful with it.
“Come on,” she said again.
Juan heard her that time. “Yeah, babe, let’s go.”
Soon, the two were outside, and Juan was holding open the door for her to get inside his still-running Rolls-Royce. He never really failed to amaze Cece in more ways than she sometimes understood.
He wouldn’t say a word about this.
Not about what happened, or how much it scared him. And she knew it did scare him.
He would never ask her to stop.
Never hold her back.
How could he?
How could he do that when he only ever had her back?
“Juan?” Cece whispered.
Her dark-eyed love looked back at her. “Yeah, babe?”
“I love you.”
He smiled. It’d probably been too long since she told him that. It’d been a couple months since they were official on being together again.
What even were they right now? She didn’t know.
“You know I love you, C.”
Yeah, she did.
“Juan?”
“Hmm?”
“I want to marry you.”
His dark eyes widened a bit, and he lifted one brow high. “Is that a proposal? Because that’s not how it’s supposed to work—I ask you.”
“Yeah, well …”
“Is it, though?”
“What?” she asked.
“A proposal.”
“Have you ever thought about marrying me?”
Juan didn’t even think about it. “Every day since you turned eighteen. I even asked your dad just so I wouldn’t have to do it later.”
“Really?”
He nodded.
Huh.
“So … why haven’t you asked?” Cece asked.
Juan pointed to the necklace Cece was wearing. It was a metal pendant of a tribal-style heart that he had given to her for her eighteenth birthday. On the middle of the heart was a single diamond. She never took it off. Ever.
“What?” she asked.
“Let me see that, babe.”
Cece took the long chain up over her head, and then passed it over. Juan closed the pendant in his hand, squeezed hard, and she heard it crack.
Crack like he broke it.
“Juan!”
He opened his palm.
The pendant was in two pieces. In the middle, sat a ring.
The prettiest, most beautiful diamond ring. Her mother’s ring.
“All this time?” she asked.