As Lita saw it, her reasons for cruising for a man ranked slightly higher on the survival scale. She’d stretched the fifty dollars she’d vamoosed with by sticking to street vendors and the McDonald’s dollar menu, but someone in the shelter had pocketed her last ten two nights ago as she slept, leaving her broke as a joke. And speaking of jokes, hunger pains were not one. Lita nearly staggered under the intensity of them as she crossed the crowded hotel bar on Wilshire Boulevard, looking for—
Who? A man with a thing for scrawny chicks with fading bruises? Gazes followed her as she circled the bar, customers probably wondering who the hell had let her into the swank establishment. If they knew she’d ducked in behind two tall blondes while the bouncer checked their identification, outrage would abound. How dare this imposter breach the inner sanctum?
Lita’s chin went up with that last thought. She wasn’t the imposter. They were. The privileged corporate slaves she’d laughed about with her bandmates, back when she’d had a band. Back when she’d had people who cared. If she hadn’t chosen a man over those friends, they might still be there, too. Then she wouldn’t be in the Beverly Wilshire trolling for someone who’d let her share his clean, fluffy hotel bed for the night. Maybe let her take a shower and share a plate of French fries.
At the thought of salty, savory goodness, Lita’s stomach rumbled loud enough to draw the attention of a group of men. Men in ties. Men that didn’t live in her world. Still, she sent them an inviting smile, praying her sparkly, thrift shop miniskirt looked better in the near dark than it had on the rack.
The words, please, I’m hungry, were burning on her tongue, but she couldn’t just say that, could she? They would alert security or turn their backs, muttering about the lack of decent drinking establishments for professionals such as themselves. Before they finished their drinks, she would be an afterthought.
One of the men—he wore a blue button-down shirt and ruby red tie—checked her legs out, his expression relaying interest. He nudged his friend with an elbow and Lita stood there, stomach twisting, as the four of them looked her up and down. A polar blast swept over her skin, far cooler than the air conditioning. No. This wasn’t what she’d envisioned, but could see now that she’d been wearing rose-colored glasses, even after being chewed up and spit out on the curb of life. After everything, she was still na?ve. Still an optimist.
How fucking sad.
“How much for all of us?” Ruby Red Tie asked before tossing back the contents of his rocks glass. “At the same time.”
For the first time that day, an empty stomach was a blessing because Lita would have lost the contents right there on the men’s shiny loafers. They’d categorized her as a working girl in under ten seconds. Everyone in the room probably had. Maybe they were right. Even if she found a way off the street tonight, what about tomorrow? Would she keep doing this? Lita’s attention spanned the room in quick jerks, taking in the way other women were dressed. How men looked at them. With respect. One week. It had only taken one week for her to fall this far.
She had to get out of there—figure out a different way to eat. Anything was better than being judged. Laughed at.
Lita spun on a heel—too fast. She’d moved too fast. The room spun and blurred around her, stomach clenching around nothing. Her hip rammed into a table, upsetting drinks on a pair of female customers. She tried to mumble an apology, but her legs chose that moment to stop supporting her. Down she went, like a sack of wet laundry. Down…down…
Powerful arms caught her around the middle just before she hit the floor.
Chapter One
Four Years Later
This time she would finally crack him.
Ignoring stares from her cellmates, Lita jogged in place, preparing for the confrontation with James, her band manager. This was her ritual before shows, too. It loosened the limbs, shook out the demons. She took her role as drummer for Old News seriously, same way she considered riling up James a form of art. For four freaking years, they’d been repeating this song and dance—and Lita was over it. Today was the day James lost his cool. The way he’d lost it the night they met.
Remembering the state she’d been in when James found her, Lita jogged a little faster. At twenty-three, she wasn’t that scrawny, starving girl now. Not in most ways, anyway. The memory of what took place that night still had the ability to steal her breath, make her restless. But unlike the girl she’d been at nineteen, Lita didn’t wait for fate to wave its magical hand. No. She grabbed fate’s wrist and shook, shook, until the pieces fell into an acceptable pattern. That modus operandi is what had landed her inside a musky, Wilshire division holding cell of LA County’s jail system.