AllFreeNovel
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I’ve already been away all week on business, and I miss the fuck out of her.
“Can you fix a truck?” Sophie holds out the phone, showing me her remote-controlled ride-in toy vehicle that has indeed been smashed to smithereens.
“Perhaps if you drove on the correct side of the road, unlike most Americans, you wouldn’t have crashed in the first place.”
She blinks up at me, unimpressed. Evidently, my intimidation skills have slipped of late. I’ll have to practice in advance of my next board meeting lest my management team think I’m losing my touch.
“I wasn’t driving on the road. I was in the driveway. But Mason ran in front of me with his dinosaur and—”
“Rose is down and out.” Jax returns, a sleeping one-year-old in one arm. He reaches for the phone with the other. “All right, Soph. Tell Mommy and Mason I’ll be home in a few more sleeps.”
“Sing to me tonight?”
“Have I ever not?”
Jax finishes his conversation and clicks off to refocus on the reason I’m here.
“As I was saying,” I start, “You and Tyler have been building an enviable pipeline of talent. Wicked has the next generation of artists.”
“And what do you have?”
I smile. “Echo has the venues. Dozens, reaching every corner of the globe. A partnership would get your rising stars onto the biggest stages in the world. Sooner and more effectively.”
“Your company is impressive. But we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t, regardless of you being friends with my daughter and son-in-law.” He grins. “Give me a week to think about it.”
I rise from my seat, and Jax walks me to the door, Rose still sound asleep.
Outside, the warm breeze blows through the palms lining the street and the hedge that separates the house from the street. “Hales is as much a sucker as I am,” Jax comments, noticing my attention. “Money and fame come and go, but being with the people you love never gets old. Don’t take it for granted.”
Those words echo in my head the entire flight from LAX.
When I take a limo to the Strip.
Even when the bouncer lets me in through the back door of the club with a nod. “Mr. King.”
I fasten my suit jacket with one hand, a movement more natural than breathing, as I head inside.
Walking through the hallway, the music envelops me. It pulses through the floor and reverberates off the state-of-the-art panels made to look like simple black walls. But it’s not the infrastructure I’m here for.
At the end of the hall, the club opens up.
Hundreds of partiers fill the dance floor. Athletes, models, businessmen, and actors line the VIP booths around the perimeter.
“Mr. King.” The blond hostess gestures at me to follow.
But I’m not looking at her, because I only have eyes for the stage. The woman in the DJ booth who steals my breath.
Raegan Madani is a wraith. A goddess. A queen.
She sways on stage, lost in her own secret beat tucked beneath the pounding baseline and throbbing melodies pumped out by the sound system to adoring partiers.
Pride and possessiveness mingle, along with the hunger that never leaves whether she’s on the other side of the world or asleep in my arms.
This past week of making do with all-hours phone calls and one round of sex over video chat from an ocean away only wound me tighter.
Before I can decide whether to grind my teeth in frustration for another hour or abduct my fiancée from the stage and lock us both in the VIP washroom immediately, someone grabs my shoulder.
“Sebastian.” I drag him into a one-armed hug.
