“How much?” Nya asked.

She had been dealing with the schedules when Tag came into her office at Sizzle, so she was distracted by her computer. Straight off, it was obvious that her friend was in a snit about something, but before she could give him her full attention, she had to finish her work.

If he visited her at the club, it was unlike him to stop at the bar for a drink. This time, he had. She knew because the glass he’d brought in with him was currently leaving a water ring on her desk that would distract Archer next time he was in here.

“Fifty grand,” Tag said, helping her to understand why he looked so stressed. “I need to find this fucker.”

That was a turnaround of attitude. While tapping her pen on the desk, Nya crossed her legs under it. “Gio is one of your best friends.”

Emptying his glass in one gulp, he slammed it onto the desk. “He’s a fucker who’s stolen from me!”

Tag got up to cross the room; he was restless enough to raise her concern. Peering at him, she got suspicious, and decided to poke at him. “I stole from you.”

“Not fifty grand,” he said, striding the width of the room. “Gio has no right to touch that money. The bastard. I did everything for him. Pulled him out of nowhere. I made him someone. I trusted that bastard. He’s the only one. The only one who knew…”

He kept ranting. Nya examined his movements—pacing, working his knuckles, running his hands into his hair. Tag sniffed once then twice. Grabbing a tissue, she left her chair and went around to get in his way.

Pissed off, Nya was aware of what caused this kind of agitation and she wasn’t impressed. “Are you getting a cold?” she asked, holding up the tissue.

Snatching it from her, he wiped his nose. “This has upset me. He stole from me, Yorkie! Stole from me!”

Seizing her arm, he gave her a shake. His grip was so tight that it bruised, but she didn’t care about that. She cared that he was an idiot. “Do you know what Gio’s into? What he needs the money for?”

Her friend’s obsessive, singular focus confirmed her fears. “I don’t give a fuck why he needs the money, it’s my fucking money!”

“Maybe he needs help,” she said, pressing a hand to his torso to stop him from shaking her again. “You should hear him out before you do something stupid. Don’t trash your relationship with him.”

“Me? He’s the bastard. He stole from me! He’s a double-crossing, scum-sucking—”

“Ok,” she said. “Calm down. How about I go and get you another drink and we’ll sit down to work this out?”

Nya had to make sure no one came back to the office while Tag was like this. Her friend didn’t agree or disagree, but she guessed he was ok with drinking more alcohol. When he spun around to start pacing and cracking his knuckles she hurried from the room, locking the door on her way out.

The club was jumping; this was a frantic time of night, not long before closing. Everyone was drunk, couples were hooking up, and her staff were ready to go home. Jada was behind the bar and Nya ducked to get a glass. She didn’t use the optics, she grabbed the vodka bottle and poured less than half a measure to tip it into the glass.

Jada was laughing at something as she passed behind Nya’s back, she twisted to clutch Jada and draw her near so she could keep what she said private. “Don’t let anyone come in the back,” Nya said.

Jada had become a rock for her. Although she was young, she was responsible, and the other employees trusted her. Nya had taught her how to cash out and given her access to the safe. Jada was flattered by the show of trust; Nya was just relieved to have someone to rely on.

“Is your friend ok?” Jada asked, moving near.

“I think so,” Nya said, she wasn’t going to share her misgivings about Tag’s state with her employee. Nya trusted her, but not that much.

Jada was eyeing the glass in front of Nya with a frown. “That’s not a full measure,” she said.

If any of her staff tried to short-change a customer, Nya would address it. It made her smile that Jada’s autopilot compelled her to flag the violation, even though Nya was the manager. “I know,” she said, offering no explanation as she turned around to grab the draft gun. “Just keep everyone away from the office. Staff and customers.”

Jada moved with her. “Archer is here, does he count?”

She stopped filling the glass to look at her employee. “Arch is here?”

Jada nodded and ducked back and forth to see through the bodies at the bar. When Jada spotted him, she pointed to the far end of the bar. Nya’s relief almost made her curse. She smiled at Jada and kissed her cheek before squeezing around her to hurry down to the end of the bar toward Archer.

Archer still conducted a lot of business in Sizzle. He wasn’t always here, but he came in a few nights a week, sometimes he was here for ten minutes, other times he was still at the bar after they closed. His contact with her was as erratic, sometimes he was at her side all night, but on other occasions he didn’t talk to her at all.

Archer saw her coming. He was leaning on the bar, one forearm against his torso and the other laid out at an angle so his fingertips could rest on the base of a glass that she knew would only contain soda. He was talking to the guy on his other side, who Nya couldn’t really see.

The group of girls nearest Nya had noticed the two hunks at the far end of the bar. She couldn’t blame them, but she did miss the days when she could pull Archer over the bar and snog his face off, which would put those girls in their place.

Widening her smile, she went over. Nya was the manageress, she had to exude confidence and hospitality; that was what she told herself anyway. “Hello, boys,” she exclaimed. “Are you having a good time?”

She’d bypassed a dozen other customers, so it was obvious she wasn’t just playing hostess, and Archer knew it too because his eyes had already narrowed. “Great time,” Archer’s friend said and she liked that he smiled, because few of Archer’s friends did.

The girls were edging closer and giggling. Archer was focused on her, probably trying to figure out her mood, but Nya was edgy about these females. Leaning over the bar, she tickled a kiss to the corner of Archer’s mouth, and when she sank back onto her heels, his knowing smirk made her drop her gaze. The bastard. He knew exactly what she was doing.

“Friendly place,” Archer’s friend said.

“Yeah,” Archer drawled.

Clearing her throat, Nya cast aside her embarrassment to relocate her bravado. “You know that thing you’re doing for me?” she asked.

Archer straightened and turned to murmur something to his friend whose eyes glittered with mischief when he scanned her figure. The guy zipped away. She peered at Archer when he turned back to her and shifted down the bar away from the women, giving them more privacy.

Propping herself on her side of the bar, their faces were only a few inches apart. “What’s up?” he asked.

“What did you say to that guy?”

“That the kiss meant you wanted to take me in back to suck me off.”

Nya might object, except she wasn’t averse to the offer. “I’d love to, Fella, but I have a problem in back.”

His mischief fled. “What problem?”

“Nothing, it’s not important,” she said. Tag and Archer already didn’t get along, she wasn’t going to fuel that fire. Before she got to business, she had to backtrack. “I was a complete lush last night, I’m sorry.”

“No worries. Love to see you hot for me.” If that were true, he wouldn’t keep telling her not to hit on him. “Now what is it you need, Squirm?”

“Gio took fifty grand from Tag’s offshore account.”

“Interesting,” he said, sampling his soda.

Since Archer was working on finding Gio, she figured she should let him know. “We still don’t know where he is.”

Watching his eyes, Nya tried to judge if he knew more than he was letting on. Trouble was, Archer always knew more than he was letting on and he had a great game face.

“Are you trying to read me, Squirm?” he asked, his lips hinted at amusement.

He thought it was downright hilarious that she might try to see beyond his poker face.

“Why would I do something so stupid?” she asked and inched closer. But she wasn’t going to let him get away with laughing at her without having a little fun of her own. “You know if I wanted to know what you know, I could find out.”

“Could you?” he asked, his brows sliding up. “How would you do that?”

He’d once told her that he could have any woman he wanted, that anyone could be persuaded to do anything, because everyone had a price. Pushing her arms together, she plumped her breasts. “What’s your price, Mr. Archer?”

“I’ve seen your tits,” he said.

He didn’t like that her cleavage was on show, so it probably wasn’t smart to remind him about it. Since they’d broken up, she’d seen him eye her chest, though she’d never worked out whether he was admiring the view or resenting that others had it.

“I never convinced you to tell me anything by showing you my breasts,” she said, though she did remember how much he enjoyed playing with them. “Do other women do that for you?”

Tipping his head back, he took a drink. “I’m not touching that.” Probably best that he didn’t fill her head with mental images that would add to her stress. “Did you see the footage?”

She had no idea what he was talking about. “What footage?”

“In the bank, of Gio withdrawing the money.”

Tag hadn’t said anything about seeing footage. From what she could figure out, there was money missing from the account and that was how he knew it had gone. “I don’t… Tag didn’t say anything about that.”

“Was it a physical withdrawal or a wire transfer?”

“I… I don’t know. I can find out what bank it is if you think you can—”

“I know where Taggert keeps his money,” he said.

Damn Archer and his inquisitive mind, she hadn’t thought to ask about the bank or how the money was transferred. Except even if she had, Tag probably wasn’t present enough to answer. Her head fell back and she growled, though the noise wouldn’t be heard over the music.

When her head came forward again, Archer was standing up and she knew he’d identified that she was stressed. “It’s nothing,” she said, anticipating his question.

Though it was against all her rules, Nya took a mouthful from the glass she’d filled for Tag and wished she’d been more generous with the alcohol.

“You put vodka in that,” Archer said, proving that he must have been watching her before she even knew he was in the club. “You never drink on shift.”

And if she hadn’t already garnered his concern, she had it now. “I do now.”

“Why?”

Sometimes his questions irritated more than they helped. “It’s nothing.”

But there was no way he was going to accept her being dismissive. Side-nodding, Archer didn’t give her a choice except to follow when he began to move up the bar. If he was on a mission to talk to her in private, there was only one place around here they could do that. Shit.

Sliding the glass out of her hand, Nya ran along behind the bar in her attempt to get to the office. She managed to plant her back on the door just a second before he got there.

With a hand on either side of the door frame, Archer leaned in to her. “What’s going on?”

If she didn’t answer him, he’d go through that door whether it was locked or not. “I think he’s high,” she answered, thankful that the music still gave them some cover in this quieter corner of the club.

“Stoned?” he asked.

“Tweaked.”

The shift of his jaw made her nervous and he slapped a hand onto the wood beneath his palm. “Open the door, Ny, or my boot’s going through it.”

Not much of a dilemma, turning in the cocoon of his arms, she was so close to the door it was tough to find the lock. As soon as Nya turned the handle, Archer shoved he door open. Bowling her aside, he stormed into the room, seized Tag’s jacket, spun him around and threw him face first into the wall.

“Archer!” she shouted because she didn’t want Tag hurt.

He was digging in Tag’s pockets, holding him on the wall with his powerful forearm. Tag objected, but Archer didn’t stop frisking him and it wasn’t long before he pulled a bag of white powder from his pocket.

Archer swore and leaned hard on the arm pressed into the width of Tag’s shoulders, holding the bag in his face. “You sonofabitch, you don’t bring drugs into this club, never again, you hear me? Ny is cleaning this place up, you fuck! You fucking bring drugs in here again and you won’t get back in.”

“You can’t stop me,” Tag spat over his shoulder, his cheek pressed to the wall, he couldn’t move under Archer’s compression.

“Every guy in this place was vetted by me,” Archer snarled in his ear. “If I say no, you don’t get through the door. I don’t give a fuck who you are, you’re not gonna fuck this up for her.”

With a pounding heart and her hands over her mouth, Nya was in shock that Archer was so vehement. After receiving the deeds, Nya had rehired every security man that Hexam had laid off. “You’re no one to her,” Tag said, trying to push away from the wall Archer had him pinned to.

Archer relented enough that Tag could shove from his grasp. “I’m more to her than you are,” Archer sneered.

Tag yanked down his jacket to straighten himself out. “Not a fucking chance! You’re temporary. In six months, she won’t remember your name!”

No way was that true. Nya was offended, Archer would be too. “Tag!”

She didn’t think Archer heard her because he got in Tag’s face. “Long as you keep fucking up and putting her in danger, I’ll be around,” he growled. “You better get used to my face, ‘cause I’ll be looking over your shoulder for a long time.”

Tag cursed and shoved Archer but he didn’t go far, and shoved back. Nya sped over because this was going to escalate fast. “Both of you stop it,” she said, getting between them. She grabbed a handful of each of their shirts and glared at them both, but they were still snarling at each other. “Stop it! I love you both and there’s room in my life for the two of you. But goddamn it, don’t make me knock your heads together!”

Tag tried to surge forward and her elbow bent, but Nya used the wall that was Archer to straighten her arm and push Tag back. “Let me go, Yorkie!”

Adrenaline increased her panic. “You’re not fighting in here!”

“Outside,” Tag said still tussling to get past her.

Pulling away from her grip to pull off his jacket, Archer tossed it onto the desk. “Let’s go,” Archer said.

Leaping around her love, into his path, she splayed a hand in the middle of his chest. “You’re armed,” she said, thinking of the knife he always kept on his belt.

Reaching behind, he dragged the knife from the sheath and slammed it onto her desk. “I don’t need a weapon to take down this piece of shit.”

“I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” Tag declared, heading for the door.

Archer was amped, but Tag was halfway out the office. Rushing over, she tried to block him, but he was too intent, he’d knock her down before stopping, so she hurried to the door and slammed it. “Stop it! If you do this, I won’t talk to either of you again!”

Archer was by the desk, his scowl set on his face. Tag was glaring too, but he was focused on her. “This has fuck all to do with you, Yorkie, get out of the way! I’m gonna take this guy down! He treats you like shit, he broke your fucking heart! This is long overdue!”

Going to her friend, Nya took his shoulders. “You’re emotional, Tag. Archer’s not gonna touch you while you’re like this.”

“He’s a chicken-shit,” Tag said.

Archer stormed over and shoved him to the side. “Get your ass to the street, Taggert! It’s past time I took you down.”

Spinning to pin her rage on him, she pushed Archer’s chest. “If you won’t fuck me when I’m drunk, you won’t beat him when he’s high!” That must have gotten through because some of Archer’s bluster eased until he backed down. “Now sit your ass in here, Fella. I’m gonna put Tag in a cab and I’ll be back in two minutes!”

It took closer to twenty. She got him outside, but Tag still thought they were fighting and wanted to go back in for Archer. She calmed him down, but it took two security guys to get him into the cab. She gave the address, paid the driver, and promised Tag she’d call to make sure he got home.

After that drama, she had to deal with Archer. Setting the office in her sights, she ignored the patrons pouring out of her club, as it was closing time. Even if Archer thought he was going to get away without facing her wrath, she would be going to his apartment. The best part was, Ester was at his, so Nya was guaranteed to get inside.

But when she stormed into the office, Archer was there in her chair, swinging side to side. Throwing the door closed, she went to him and shoved her knee to the inside of his thigh to stop his movement.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she asked.

His arm shot out in the direction of the door. “He brought drugs into your club. If he was anyone else, I’d have tossed him onto the curb, forced him to eat the lot and let him die in the gutter.”

Archer needed to learn to temper his feelings for Tag; she didn’t often see him this riled. “But fighting?” she asked, pushing her knee into his leg, but his thighs were already far apart, pressed into the arms of the chair. “Why would you want to fight with him when he’s so messed up?”

“Your boyfriend is always messed up.”

Eurgh, just the sound of that word on his lips in such a snide way tempted her to lift her knee higher to drive it into his groin. “Don’t start,” she said. Grabbing his jacket from the desk, she thrust it at his chest. “Just get the fuck out of here, go home.”

“He gets the royal treatment and I get tossed out for saving your ass?” Archer said, shooting to his full-height to shove his arms into his sleeves. “You took him outside, got him a ride; I bet you paid the driver too.”

“Yeah, I did,” she said, going around to snatch up his knife from the desk. “Because his best friend just screwed him over, he’s lost a bunch of money, the girl he loved just dumped him ten days ago and now he’s picked up this stupid habit.” Grabbing the bag of coke from beside Archer’s knife, she shook it. “How the fuck do I get him off this? Far as I know, he hasn’t touched coke since he was twenty-one.”

She tossed the bag to him. Archer examined the plastic wrapped powder. “With your boy, Tag, you have to pick your battles. You act like he’s together, but he’s a fucking mess and he’s dragging you down.”

Nya couldn’t remember Archer ever saying a positive word about Tag and it hurt her heart that they continued with their feud. “Why don’t you like him?” she begged. Standing his knife on end, she pressed her weight onto the butt of it, driving the point into the desk. Nya couldn’t care about defacing property when her best friend was on a path to self-destruction. “If you could support him, help him… Arch, you could make such a difference.”

But he was still angry and groaned. “Don’t ask me to like him, Ny,” he said, shoving the drugs into his pocket. He reached over to swipe the knife from her. She fell forward, but righted herself as he returned it to its sheath. “I’ll mop up the shit around you. Anything that might touch you is my business. But I spent a week in South America with him and I didn’t see a single thing I liked. I won’t go an inch further than I have to for him in the name of protecting you.”

It was frustrating that Archer could be so cool and detached when Tag’s life was falling apart. How could two men she cared about so much be at such opposite ends of the personality spectrum? Neither would agree to bridge any distance between them, even though it would mean so much to her.

“Don’t put your hands on him again,” she said. “If there are drugs in this club, they’re my problem.”

“Suits me,” he said, but she’d seen how angry he was. Maybe Archer felt an affinity for this place because it was him who had put it into her hands. He could’ve owned it himself; all he’d have had to do was sign his own name at the bottom of the deed instead of hers.

Brett Hexam wouldn’t have wanted to give up Sizzle and she sure made an easier target if he decided he wanted it back. But Archer had done what he saw as the right thing and put the club in her name, she’d worked hard to nurture this place. Deciding to clean it up was the first goal she’d set, Nya was tired of the shady deals and the shifty characters. But it would take time; she was never going to make a palace out of a slum.

“I have the car, I’ll give you a ride.”

Nya was still too angry and although he had his own snit on, he expected her to put their argument aside. She couldn’t. “I don’t want to get in a car with you tonight, Arch. So fuck off now or follow me home. I don’t want to see you.”

He stopped on his journey towards the door. “You’ve never fucking said that before.”

“And how much do I mean to you?” he asked. “That guy was so strung out, he could’ve pulled a gun on me or anything. You don’t know what he was carrying.”

“You patted him down, you knew,” she said. Going to him, she got up close. “When we met, I told you that Tag never loses. But he was willing to give up everything for Farrah and now he’s in a place where he doesn’t know himself. He doesn’t know what’s happening to him or how to get it together and he thinks Gio’s screwing him over. Then he comes in here and thinks that his oldest friend brought her ex into a private office to rough him up. His life is falling apart.”

But Archer had no sympathy. “It’s his doing. I won’t feel sorry for him just ‘cause you use those big doe eyes. Gio fucked off because he was tired of hiding, tired of being second everywhere including in Tag’s eyes. Farrah left your boy ‘cause she’s a spoiled brat who gets obsessed and infatuated, then she gets bored.”

“That’s not his fault,” she said.

He grabbed her arm. “You’re not going fucking anywhere,” he snarled. “Do you know who the fuck I am? There isn’t a place in this country you could go that I couldn’t find you.”

Yanking her arm from his grip, Nya followed up with a push. “Then own me, Arch. You don’t get to make choices about my club, my apartment, my life, until you’re willing to be proud of me. Remember what I said to you about the man I would end up with? I told you my guy has to be willing to declare me as his openly. I wouldn’t deny our love for anything.”

“You also told me I should protect you from other guys. I was doing that tonight. Just like you when you kissed me at the bar because you didn’t like that those females were getting too close to me.”

Nya couldn’t deny what she’d felt at seeing the young party girls who would be a great distraction for him. Archer said he didn’t associate with whores, but that didn’t mean he’d never had a one-night stand. If he was working off the same reserves as she was, it had been thirty-nine days since he’d had sex. He probably needed a release.

“These are the fights we were supposed to stop having,” she said.

When they’d broken up, he’d shut her out. When that hadn’t worked and she kept pestering him, they began to talk again and Nya figured out pretty fast that he still cared about her. They had a few sentimental moments, a few intimate ones too when they may have kissed by mistake or she may have accidentally stripped naked in front of him and let him take liberties in touching sensitive parts of her body.

They seemed to be moving past the denial part of the break-up. Tonight, she’d landed smack bang in the middle of anger.

He had to feel the same way and didn’t come up with any response.

“You kissed me tonight, Squirm. I’ve kept my lips from yours for ten days.”

Exhausted and confused, Nya was losing her perspective. “Maybe we need distance, because this is messing with my head.”

His anger grew. “What kind of distance?” he asked. “Are you telling me you’re going to his bed?”

Archer knew that she’d slept next to Tag a thousand times. The friends had never had sex, there was nothing sexual about her relationship with Tag. But Archer despised the idea of her lying with him.

“Not tonight. I hate drugs. The coke made Damien worse,” she said. “When he came home twitchy like that, I knew I was gonna get it for something.”

He tried to touch her face, but she shrugged him off. “Babe—”

“Tag knows I hate it, I’ll call him later and make sure he got home. You can go home. You’ll hear me come in, you don’t have to wait. We’ll just give each other space. I was supposed to be going to dinner with Ester tomorrow, but I’ll cancel. I’ll give her an excuse, you don’t have to say anything for me.”

“This is dinner with her new guy?” he asked and she nodded. “I’m not going to that.”

As adamant as he was about keeping himself apart from Ester’s casual relationships, Nya was disappointed that he wasn’t willing to make an effort with Woodrow, who Ester claimed to love. “She’ll be devastated,” Nya said. “This means a lot to her, Arch.”

There was just no wiggle room when he’d made up his mind. “Then you go. I don’t like spending time with her in my own apartment. I’m not going out to be part of some parade. It’s bullshit.”

Anger infused her again. “Well fine then, you sit in your little hole and you brood. Ester and I will have the time of our lives.”

“I have business out of town anyway. I was putting it off, but I’ll leave in the morning, get it out of the way.”

“Fine, you do that.”

He took a step back. “It means I won’t be around, Ny. You’ll have to look out for yourself.”

“I did fine for twenty-nine years before you showed up,” she said, although Archer could poke holes in that by pointing out she was only so close to Tag because he’d saved her ass.

“I’ll be back the next day and you can call—”

“Oh, Arch, just fuck off.”

In recent weeks, every time she’d looked at him, her heart had ached because there had been this barrier between what they had and what she wanted. Maybe it was the frustration of that coming to a head that was getting her so worked up tonight.

Nya didn’t like this phase because it felt like a transition. While he might be able to slip her into a friendship zone and be happy to leave her there, Nya would never be able to move on from what they had, to settle for anything less. Every relationship after Archer would be less potent.

Yes, she’d been desperate to have contact with him because she wanted him in her life and she’d even once told Tag that she wanted to be Archer’s friend. But she couldn’t go on like this forever. Tag was right that she’d never been friends with exes. Most of the time it was because she wanted to get as far away from the animosity of the breakup as she could.

She and Archer didn’t have that hostility at the end of their relationship and she thought that meant they could work through their issues and come together again. But it didn’t seem like her faith was going to pay off.

“Nya,” he said.

“Just go! Just go! Get the fuck out of here! Go on your little trip! Go live your life, Archer, that’s what you want to do. Go!”

It wasn’t like she gave him much of a choice to do anything else. Despite his tension, Nya couldn’t appease him. Letting him pivot and stalk out of the office, full of his own attitude, Nya had to accept that it wasn’t her place to soothe him anymore.

He wanted her to look out for number one and Nya started to think about doing just that.