Page 100 of My Beautiful Sin

“That’s what really caught my eye. Because it was our place. Mine and Alex’s.”

He makes a small noise in his throat. “The lot. Of course I built on that rundown old lot. Where else?” He lifts our joined hands and kisses my fingers. “Do you know what I did after they poured the foundation?”

I shake my head.

“I used a nail and wrote El and Alex’s place in the cement. It’s hidden under the reception area tiles now, of course, but I wanted it to still be there, even though the original chalk words you’d written had long since washed away.”

It’s only when his face becomes blurry that I realize I’m crying. I brusquely wipe the tears away, then manage a smile. “I can’t believe you did that.”

“Yes, you can.”

I nod. Now that I know how much our parting wrecked him, too, I do believe it.

“Go on,” he says. “You paid attention to me in New York because I was prick enough to steal the lot you and Alex had christened.”

“And one of my friends,” I add. “Carrie was with you. Although to be honest, we weren’t ever that close, and we’d lost touch years before. Still, she was a connection. I’d left Laguna Cortez behind, and then there it was, all in my face again.”

“So you went out that night, planning to say fuck you to the past.”

“Pretty much.” I let the memory play out in my mind. I’d started first at bars, then moved to some of the more hardcore dance clubs. The underground kind with a seedier clientele. The kind you have to know someone in order to learn those hidden clubs even exist.

I hadn’t known anyone. Not really. But you pick a guy up at a bar, and he’ll tell you a few things. Maybe even take you somewhere to loosen you up before taking you home.

Not that I tended to let any guy take me home. I was more about dark alleys or the backs of cabs, depending on how hyped up I was on a particular night.

That night, I remembered a club that a lawyer I’d fucked had taken me to. I’d headed that way, determined to dance off some of my excess energy, then finish the night with the hardest man I could snag.

I found him lingering outside the club. Max. He wore tight jeans and a white button down. He looked like an accountant pretending to walk on the wild side, and I almost ignored him when he called out to me. There was something in his voice, though. Something hard. Commanding.

Something dangerous.

And so I’d gone to him. “Won’t they let you in?”

He took a long drag on his cigarette and then tossed it onto the sidewalk. “They won’t keep me out. But that’s not where you want to be.”

I heard the edge in his voice and felt my heart race. All too often, I was the one calling the shots on these nights, even though the guy invariably thought he was in charge. This guy, though…well, he promised a new kind of danger.

“Where do I want to be?”

“With me,” he said. “I’m Max. You’re Elsa.”

I remember swallowing. I used my given name at clubs, but I hadn’t shown my ID in this line yet. Which meant this guy had seen me before. He’d been watching me.

“You look like a girl who knows how to have a good time,” he said before I could ask how he knew my name. “I think we have similar tastes, you and me.”

“Is that so? Like what?”

“Like not this place.” He jerked his head. “With me.”

I’d told him that I wasn’t going back to his place, and he wasn’t going to mine, and he assured me that he had something else in mind. “You like clubs? Trust me. You can do better than this.”

He’d led me down the block, his hand at my back as if he owned me. I let him because he had an edge about him, but something wasn’t ringing my bell. Still, this was the way the game was played, and so I walked with him.

The street was dark, and I remember passing a few people, including one who had a familiar stride. A familiar shape.

I’d shivered, realizing that this was one more night when my mind was conjuring Alex.

“You cold?” Max had asked.