Chapter One
April’s thighs stuck to the cheap plastic seat of her faded blue Cruiser, and she groaned as she pulled into the narrow parking lot on her side of the apartment complex. The cars were randomly spaced, as though the lines didn’t exist. To be fair, the spaces were pretty difficult to see at night with the streetlight perpetually out. Either that or some of the drivers had been stoned.
April narrowed her eyes and coasted along until she could find a spot where she could slip in between the lines without bumping into another car. She couldn’t risk parking the way everyone else did. The complex periodically towed cars that weren’t properly parked, and there was no way she could afford to pay another impound fee right now.
“Hey-hey, girl!” a deep male voice called from behind her as she made her way to her door. April ignored the guy, since he probably lived a few blocks over. She hated the guys who rolled through here. Besides hitting on her and being unable to take a hint, one of them was probably responsible for the break-in last week.
“You have got to be kidding me!” April stormed toward her door as her eyes caught sight of the eviction notice taped to it.
“Can you believe it?” Rene said from his stoop.
“I paid my freakin’ rent two weeks ago!”
Rene shook his head and tapped his cigarette. “They had that kid from the front desk out putting those up all afternoon.”
“What the hell is their problem?” April pulled the notice off and began to skim it.
“Hate their jobs as much as they hate us, prob’ly.” Rene exhaled a long plume of smoke.
April considered going inside to change out of her work outfit first, but didn’t feel up to the hassle. So, wearing only a pair of black hot-pants and a very tight white t-shirt with “The Dog House” on the front, she hurried toward the front of the complex, the garishly yellow notice flapping in her hand. By the time she reached the office, her heart was in her throat and she felt ready to jump across the property manager’s desk and shake that bitch.
Instead, she found herself cooling her heels as she waited in line. Both desk workers were occupied and two other women, older than April, were waiting in the few available seats. A small older man who didn’t seem to speak English very well was trying to explain to the girl behind one desk that he’d been waiting for his roof to be fixed for two months. April wanted to tell the guy that he shouldn’t hold his breath; he should start looking for a new place to live.
Her ire had calmed slightly by the time she finally made it to the front of the line. That “kid” her neighbor, Rene, mentioned was at the other desk, and as April stood in front of him with her complaint, his eyes seemed to drift uncomfortably from his notes on the desk to the door to the right that sometimes contained the property manager. It was like the door that you had to pass to see the wizard: no tenant managed to get back there without an act of a wicked witch. No way, no how.
“Miss Lucas, the water company billed us incorrectly for several months,” Jacob said in a flat voice that spoke to a day full of complaints. “The amount you owe is the corrected total that should have been paid for each of those months.”
“Then shake down the water company! It isn’t my fault they charged you incorrectly.”
“You are responsible for paying for water and sewer services.”
“Yeah, and that’s fine, but I never got this bill before today. How am I supposed to have paid you for a bill that I didn’t know existed?”
“Look, it says you have fifteen days to pay the bill—”
“What is with that random amount of time?”
“That’s because the amount is about half a month late.”
“Again, because you never billed me for it to begin with! If you’d just sent me a bill, I would have arranged to pay it!”
“If you pay, then there’s no problem. It’s only $120.”
April knew the answer before even asking: “Is the manager in?”
“No.”
After a few more volleys, April headed back to her apartment. This was the last thing she needed. Maybe for some people it would be “only $120,” but chances were, if you lived on Imperial Valley Drive, you didn’t have that kind of money lying around. If you did, you’d be looking for another place to live.
“You go in there and tear that kid a new one?” Rene had finished his cigarette and was leaning back on his front door.
“Hell yeah.” April lifted herself up onto the ugly brown fence around the patio and sat on it for a moment. “Still gotta pay it, though. And by the time it’s due, I have to pay rent, too.”
“That’s some stuff, girl. Is your door fixed yet?”
“Nope.”
April swung her legs around and dropped into the patio before heading into the apartment through the window. The place was a disaster, of course. The last creeps who had broken in hadn’t taken anything, but they still managed to rifle through every single thing she owned, left boot prints everywhere, busted her doorframe, and scared her dopey pug. April picked her way through the mess to give her little black kitten some food, and then flopped down on the blue chair—with the stuffing falling out of it—and propped her feet onto the cracked coffee table.
Her eyes drifted to the remains of her door. Instead of fixing it, the complex had the handyman slammed so many nails into the frame that it might take a battering ram to open. She couldn’t hire a repair man herself. She couldn’t pay this extra bill. All of her last paycheck had gone to skimming the interest on her student loans.
And to top it all off, she’d been fired from her awful job today. April had been at the top of her class in her design program at Parsons, and now she’d just been fired from a job that hinged on how ambitiously she could arrange her cleavage.
“What a life.”
***
Lana Bennet stood by her window, running her fingers through her long, shiny hair as she looked out over the Montrose.
“Okay, let me get this straight. You called your boss an impotent, wrinkled tangelo?”
“He made a deep grab for my ass and said he was ‘brushing off a hair,’” April protested.
Lana turned and crossed her arms. “That’s grounds for a lawsuit.”
“Lawyers are for people with the money to hire lawyers. If I could hire a lawyer, the first people I’d hit up are my apartment complex.”
“I will never get over you living in Gunspoint.”
April smirked. “It’s Greenspoint. And the rent is cheap.”
“Until you take into account that your television was stolen, and you can’t keep your valuables there.”
“Well, the TV was the only thing worth stealing. The latecomer thieves just made a mess.”
“You are too blasé about this! What if someone came in while you were there?”
April shrugged. Someone had come in through her balcony window once, but she wasn’t about to mention that to Lana. The girl would have a fit. “I have a taser.”
“You’re the worst.”
“And my neighbor, Rene, has his eye out for me.”
Lana wrinkled her nose. “The drug dealer?”
“To be fair, he’s the nicest drug dealer I’ve ever met. And yes, I’m counting your boyfriend from college.”
“Cheston was not a drug dealer!”
“He gave his friends speed for money.”
“Well... Yale is a hard school. They were struggling.”
“Not enough. I’d love to see a guy like that really struggle.” April ran her palms along the soft, plush fabric of Lana’s sofa. She and Lana met in college, but the circumstances of their lives were radically different. If anyone had told her growing up that her best friend would be a fashion major and a trust-fund baby, she might have smacked them.
“You know what? You should come stay with me! We had so much fun rooming together at Parsons!”
“Oh? Was that an experience you wanted to relive? I thought you were slumming it, living with us ‘dormies’ when your daddy could’ve gotten you a swanky apartment,” April teased.
“I was, but we still had fun.”
April bit her lip as she thought it over. She had never been good at asking for help, but Lana was offering, and it wasn’t like she was overwhelmed with options. Lana dropped down right next to her on the sofa and reached over to play with April’s blonde curls.
“C’mon. I have plenty of room. It’s not like you’d be a burden. And you have to get a new place. You can’t stay somewhere so dangerous!”
“Can I bring Damien?”
Lana shrugged. “As long as he doesn’t mind the Roomba.”
Knowing Damien, he would either spend his time chasing it or riding it, but no, he wouldn’t mind. That dog could put up with anything. He even liked cats, although cats didn’t much like him.
“Okay. If you want me, you’ve got me.”
***
“We’re back!” April yelled down the hallway. She wiggled a little, trying to keep her shorts from riding up too far on her. Even with her thighs bare and her thin, racerback tank top, April was drenched in sweat. There was nothing like a Texas summer.
April hefted the two stacked boxes in her arms and headed through the hallway to the den. “We hit some traffic on the way back. Sorry it took so long.” April grunted and set the boxes down by the pile of other boxes, then stretched her arms over her head. “I’ll get them unpacked this weekend.” She bent over, touching the floor with her palms. “I’d hate to mess up the Feng Shui of this gorgeous, spotless, miraculously air-conditioned haven from Houston’s poorly-maintained streets.”
“Hm,” rumbled a deep, amused voice. “Do you promise?”
“Do I…?” April turned and then flushed scarlet as she realized she’d just been flashing the backside of her short-shorts at Lana’s brother.
Samson Bennett sat there, smirking as he sprawled his six-foot-five frame across Lana’s sofa. April wanted to smack that look off his face, but as per usual, she was mute in his presence. She’d only seen him a few times before at Lana’s house during the holidays. But since he was twelve years their senior, he never stuck around to chat. He was in and out of the house, either with a different girl on his arm each time on his way to meet a woman before going to a meeting.
The man was as much a playboy as he was a businessman. You couldn’t get through the checkout line without seeing his face on a magazine related to one or the other.
“So you’re moving in with my baby sister.” He leaned forward and tented his hands.
“No, I’m robbing her place,”April’s voice dripped with sarcasm and she crossed her arms.
Samson raised his brows and tilted his head to the side. April tried to remain annoyed with him while he looked so coy and charming. Samson had his sister’s dark hair and dark eyes, although his hair only came just below his jawline… and what a well-cut jaw it was. As her embarrassment faded, April’s face continued to burn as her body reacted to Samson’s large, powerful form. It seemed out of place lounging about like that.
“You could’ve said you were here when I yelled,” she pointed out.
“I could have said ‘hello,’ I suppose. But it would’ve been strange, wouldn’t it? Some strange man yelling out of her apartment?”
“Strange, definitely, but it isn’t like I don’t know who you are.”
“Really?” Samson lifted his chin and sat up straight. “You’re a fan?”
“A fan? What?” Her face blanked in realization. “Oh, my God. Get over yourself, Samson. We’ve met!”
He raked his hand back through his hair as he rose to his feet. “Oh, no. I’d have remembered you.”
“Apparently not. I was Lana’s college roommate.” She paused, waiting for a light of recognition in his eyes that never came. “I stayed over? We had dinner at the same table on Christmas Eve during sophomore year. Well, part of it. Maybe you had too much champagne with Bunny before you sat down for five minutes and left before the main course.” April rolled her eyes. “Your mom was pretty upset.”
Samson strolled closer to April, practically casting a shadow over her. “Now, Bunny Bradshaw, I remember.”
“Good for Bunny. I have a few more boxes to bring up. My friend is holding the car.” April forced herself to look away from him, but she could still feel his body getting closer to hers. “Where’s Lana?”
“She went out to run an errand. She and I are going out to lunch now that I’m in town.” Samson stopped moving and leaned over a little, smiling like a Cheshire cat. “Would you like to come with us?”
He was so damn handsome that April’s eyes were drawn back to his like magnets. Her heart thudded impetuously in her chest.
“After you get cleaned up, of course.”
April flatted her lips into a line. Samson’s smile was so slick, so confident, and he looked down on her like his baby sister’s dumb kid friend. Like he was humoring her.
“I have a lot of work to do here. You two enjoy.” April patted her pocket to make sure she had her keys. “Maybe you should go easy on the mimosas, though. Try to finish something you start.”
Samson stepped back. “I’m the CEO of the country’s largest design conglomerate!”
“Yes, yes, and the CEO of disposing of girlfriends like used tissues.” April leaned into the doorframe. “I’ll see you around. Probably in the tabloids, but that doesn’t bother you, does it?”
April’s palms were slick with sweat as she sauntered back down the hallway to the elevator. She didn’t know if she hoped he’d be there when she returned, or not.