A Harmless Little Game (Harmless #1)

 

“You sure you can’t have sex on the beach?” she asks sweetly.

 

Silas’s face turns even redder. I didn’t think that was humanly possible. He’s freaking adorable.

 

“I, um.” He thrusts the drink toward Jane, who gives him a flirty look. “I just can’t, Ma’am.”

 

“My name is Jane.”

 

“Yes, Ma’am.”

 

“You can call my mother ‘Ma’am.’” Jane reaches into her purse and pulls out a business card. I realize I have no idea what she does for a living. Last I knew, she was a computer science major at Cal Tech, but as I’m learning every second of these hours home, nothing is the same as it used to be.

 

She hands the card to Silas. “But you can call me any time.”

 

Drew groans. I groan. Silas just turns into a beet.

 

I share a look with Drew. We’re both smiling. It’s like that feeling you get when you come in from the cold, your hands and feet turned to ice, and you sit down in front of a roaring fire as someone hands you a huge mug of coffee you wrap your fingers around.

 

Like the sun parting the mist covering the bay and making you think you’re catching a glimpse of heaven.

 

It’s like I can touch normal. Just with one fingertip, but still...

 

“I see Jane got bold,” Drew says to me from across the table.

 

“Lots of things changed in four years,” I reply.

 

“Yes. Lots,” he says.

 

Silas just stands there, all broad shoulders and dimpled cheeks, his eyes on Jane. I glance over his shoulder as a mane of thick, long, perfectly-highlighted honey-gold hair walks in, topping a body that looks like it stepped out of a Vogue Magazine issue.

 

A chill runs through me, even though I haven’t seen the woman’s face. I know that hair, though.

 

Lots of things haven’t changed in four years.

 

Jane tenses, then looks where I’m looking.

 

“No way,” she mutters under her breath. “Of all the places one of them could be today, she’s here?”

 

Drew looks over and goes rigid. Makes eye contact with Silas, who gives him a slight frown, trying to read Drew.

 

“Mandy,” Drew says under his breath. He looks at me. He looks at Jane. Then he leans over and almost bumps heads with Jane as he says, “You told Lindsay?”

 

She and I both nod.

 

“Got it,” he replies. “Let me handle this.”

 

Before I can ask him what the hell he means by that, he’s up and over to the bar, where Mandy’s settling in on a bar stool. He lifts one leg up and hops into the seat, thigh muscles straining against the cloth of his suit pants, his waistband exposed as his jacket shifts.

 

I see his gun.

 

I shiver.

 

“You cold, Ms. Bosworth? I can escort you out.” From the flared nostrils and clenched jaw on Silas, I am pretty sure he knows who Mandy is. It occurs to me that a network of people hired by Daddy have more knowledge about my own life than I do.

 

It’s scary.

 

Right now, though, it’s also deeply comforting. Mandy’s outnumbered four to one in this bar. My ex-friend can go to hell.

 

I haven’t even had time to digest what Mandy, Tara and Jenna did four years ago. Why they lied. What drove them to betray me. What on earth made them think it was acceptable to go to the press and say that I got drunk and high and asked those three pigs to rape and torture me. Jane’s memory of my broken cheek makes me touch it, fingertips seeking out the smooth contour of my reconstructed eye socket.

 

I see Drew watching me, puzzled, and then his face goes completely slack. A simmering rage is underneath, though, because he clearly understands what I’m doing. I haven’t seen him in four years and never, ever wanted to be this close to him again, and here he is, as empathic and intuitive as he was when we were together. When we were happy.

 

When we thought we had forever ahead of us.

 

He turns back to Mandy at the bar and brushes her hair away from her ear. His mouth goes toward her neck and I see his lips moving. As the words pour out, her entire back stretches up, like an invisible Puppeteer has a string attached to the top of her head and is slowly pulling it up.

 

Then she turns to Drew with a murderous look on her face and starts to look my way.

 

His hand snaps up and grabs her jaw. It’s not a rough gesture, but it’s a damn powerful one. Mandy’s bright blue eyes widen so much they look like billiard balls. Drew uses his other hand to reach into his jacket pocket and throws a twenty dollar bill on the polished bar.

 

Then he lets go of Mandy, stands up, grabs her forearm, and escorts her out of the bar.

 

I don’t watch once they’re out of my peripheral vision.

 

I’m sick to my stomach. Mandy was always the queen bee of the group, the ringleader, and the one you thought long and hard about pissing off. Watching her manhandled like that by Drew brings a certain kind of delicious enjoyment to a part of me.