make it, I had four guys on the ground floor of the Beverly Hills Hotel ready with a giant inflatable to catch his sorry ass because sadly, this wasn’t my first rodeo with a pseudo-suicidal client.
I would’ve dropped him as a client a long time ago, for his selfish antics for starters, and because I never took on suicidal clients, not even ones who were faking it. I wasn’t ashamed to admit suicide was a red-hot button for me. But Ross’s father was my first client, the guy who’d given me a break in a cutthroat place like LA, then gone out of his way to recommend my services to others. And when Victor Jonas had all but begged me to look out for his son, I’d agreed unconditionally.
The worst Ross, only child of rich, overindulgent parents, would suffer tonight if he did jump, was having the wind knocked out of him.
Whereas I was destined to suffer a stronger resurgence of the nightmares I fought each night, not to mention the cold shoulder of a pouty redhead if I didn’t wrap this up fast. “Yes, I am something else. And you have ten seconds to shit or get off the pot.”
I straightened from my leaning position against the French doors and moved toward him. He glanced furtively behind him and paled. “Fuck,” he muttered.
Two feet away I stopped and crossed my arms. “Listen to me. You keep flirting with death like this and one day you’ll succeed. Do me a favor, Ross. Put a little bit of the effort you use to jerk me around into doing some actual work. You might be surprised at how good it feels to reap the results of your hard work.”
The belligerence drained from his face. “But I’m out of the band.”
“Call your guys in the morning. Beg if you need to. Humility goes a long way if you truly mean it,” I said. I had no clue whether that was true or not. Humility wasn’t exactly a strong suit of mine. “And while you’re at it, try showing up when you say you will. Deal?”
When he nodded I stepped back, staying alert as he slowly climbed down. Relieved, I followed him back into the suite he’d checked into for the purpose of pulling this shitty, dangerous stunt.
I breathed through the fury and resisted the urge to tear another strip off him. “One of my guys is going to stick around, make sure you get to Culver City nice and early in the morning. Sound good?”
I slapped him on the shoulder and headed for the door. With any luck, my date would still be warming my bed.
“Hey, Caleb.”
I turned around. “Yeah?”
“Would you...really have watched me jump?”
My face tightened. “If you wanted to, I couldn’t have stopped you.” I paused a beat. “Did you?”
He shook his head sheepishly. “No.”
My anger spiked another notch. “Pull a stunt like this again and I’ll push you myself.”
I left him standing in the middle of the living room, shoulders hunched, pondering that.
My jaw tightened as the elevator rushed me to the ground floor. Unfortunately, the memories Ross had triggered weren’t as easy to leave behind as I exited the five-star hotel.
For my mother it’d been third time lucky. Or unlucky, depending on which side of the fence you stood on. My steps faltered as the acid-sharp pain that always accompanied the memory of her death plowed through me.
Damn Ross Jonas.
With a deep breath I walked out, handed a twenty to the valet attendant holding out the keys to my Bugatti and slid behind the wheel.
Before I could pull away, my phone beeped. Tugging it out of my pocket, I found a centerfold-worthy picture gracing my screen. The accompanying message flashed seconds later.
This is what you could’ve had tonight. Call me never!
I was torn between a smile and a scowl. A smile because if I chose to call her right then, she would’ve answered. A scowl because the redhead was the first to tweak my interest in a while, and I’d hoped she would end this uninvited dry spell that had taken over my sex life. But despite my earlier anticipation, the desire to get her back in my bed was dwindling fast. I stared at the picture again and stroked my dying wood a second before I hit the Delete button, erasing her from my contacts altogether.
I gunned the engine onto the Pacific Coast Highway, pointing my car toward Downtown LA. With my bedroom plans now shot to shit, and in no mood to return to an empty bed and dreams filled with memories I didn’t cherish, work was the next best option.
Nevertheless, I cursed when my phone rang. “Dammit, doesn’t anyone sleep anymore?” I griped.
Maggie, my assistant, answered, “You don’t pay me to sleep. You specifically stated during my interview that I wasn’t allowed to sleep.”
“You don’t get to sleep. That doesn’t mean you can interrupt mine. I’m shocked I need to explain that to you.”
“Tell me you’re not heading to Fixer HQ right now and I’ll hang up.”
I didn’t bother because she had a GPS tracker on my car. Once or twice that tracker had saved my skin and extricated me from some unsavory situations.
“What do you want, Maggie?” I switched lanes, enjoying the sweet purr of the engine.
“Wow, someone’s grumpy,” she muttered under her breath, then said briskly, “We have an urgent situation.”
I tapped my finger against the wheel. “Aren’t they all?”
“This one is less sex, drugs and rock and roll, more...something else.”
I suppressed a growl. “By all means, hold the dramatics.”
My sarcasm bounced right off her thick skin. It was one of the many reasons she was invaluable. “I’m sending you the address her people sent me. You can be there in fifteen minutes.”
The joy in my ride gone, I cursed. “Her people? Did you not explain to them that I don’t deal with people? That it’s one-on-one or not at all?”
Maggie sighed. “I know how to do my job, Caleb. Trust me, please, just a little?”
I frowned. I didn’t trust blindly because I didn’t trust anyone. Maggie knew this. Why she was choosing to tap into a resource not readily available to me wasn’t improving my mood. The sizeable monthly paycheck I signed bought me her hard work and loyalty. I didn’t expect anything else, and certainly not her request for me to trust her.
My phone buzzed with the incoming address. “I’ll be in touch.” I hung up, pulled off the road long enough to check out the Mulholland Drive address before I executed a slick U-turn.
High walls and electronic gates greeted me when I reached the property. Everything about this smelled like trust-fund princess with her panties in a twist about her latest flame. Or a chihuahua kidnapping that wasn’t worth my time.
Only the assurance that Maggie excelled at her job made me roll down my window and press the intercom.
The
