“Well, this is a strange sight,” came a familiar voice.
Catherine looked over her shoulder at the woman who entered the office, and smiled. “Oh?”
“Usually for our talks, you would be on the floor or staring at a wall. Never, ever sitting upright and waiting for me, Catherine.”
“Okay, that’s not entirely true, Cara.”
Her old therapist smiled as she took a seat on the chaise opposite to Catherine. “You’re right; I’m just teasing. How are you?”
“Really good,” Catherine said, “for the most part.”
Cara tucked curly red hair behind her ears, and her blue eyes surveyed Catherine. Catherine thought Cara, like her own mother, was aging gracefully for women of their age. Still holding onto beauty with a firm grip, yet showcasing the life they lived with the small lines around their eyes and smiles.
“Have you graduated from Columbia yet?” Cara asked.
Catherine made a face. “Another two years, at least, to complete my graduate program.”
Cara cocked a brow. “You settled on law years ago, didn’t you? You already had quite a few years in, too.”
“Things kept getting in the way. I took two classes this summer just to play a bit of catch up.”
“Things like what?”
Nothing got past Cara. Catherine learned that quickly years ago.
She also learned not to lie.
“My work for my cousin,” Catherine said.
Cara made a quiet, unsurprised sound before saying, “For, now. Not with, I noticed.”
Catherine lifted a hand as if to say, whatever. “Andino’s more involved with Daddy’s business as his man, now. I work for his side of things.”
“Hustling, you mean. Dealing drugs. You still have a hard time explaining what you do, I see.”
“Not really, but even when I am working, I don’t use those kinds of words. It’s not good to make the people buying feel like they’re doing something wrong or dirty. Business one-oh-one.”
Cara laughed. “I’ll have to ask Gian about that, then.”
Gian, Cara’s husband, was a man much like Catherine’s father. A Cosa Nostra Don running a criminal empire.
“Not sure how much a mafia boss knows about being the person on the ground selling the drugs,” Catherine mused.
“Oh, you would be surprised.” Cara glanced at her watch. “Have you chosen to tell your parents about the hustling for your cousin?”
“No.”
“Catherine.”
She sighed loudly. “They never would have wanted me to do this, and I know it. They always pushed me toward school; to college. Any interest I ever had in my mother’s business was quickly shut down, if not entirely ignored.”
“Still—”
“I know, Cara. Own who I am. Be honest with those I love. Hold myself to higher standards. And I do that with every other thing. But not this. This is my thing, and I’m not ready to deal with how they’ll react about it all. I’m good at this, and I would like to keep doing it. It makes me a hell of a lot of money, but it’s also—”
“Empowering, addicting, indulgent, risky,” Cara interjected. “We’ve had this discussion a thousand times over, but I see you’re still only looking at it from your perspective, Catherine.”
“Because right now, my perspective is the only one that matters where hustling is concerned. I know what they’ll want, and it’s different from my wants. So, for now, it stays my private business.”
“It’s your choice, but you know where I stand.”
“Of course.”
Eventually, Catherine would take Cara’s advice regarding dealing and being honest with her parents about it all. Today was not going to be that day.
“It’s been, oh, three years since we’ve sat down and had a proper session,” Cara noted.
Catherine glanced at a painting on the wall, a new one since her last visit to the Guzzi mansion. Cara liked to display her family, and this new painting was no different. Only now, five boys, Cara, and her husband, Gian, were all in the artwork. Older, too. It was more recent.
“I didn’t think I needed to chat beyond a phone call occasionally,” Catherine admitted.
“And that’s fine,” Cara said. “Plus, we can catch up a bit. I’m surprised you made a trip all the way over to Ontario, though, when you know you could have waited for me to come over.”
Catherine shrugged. “Maybe I panicked a bit, too.”
“Maybe?”
“I did.”
Cara nodded. “Why would you panic? Are your anxieties resurfacing? Have you found your depression becoming frequent again?”
“Not at all,” Catherine said.
That was true.
She learned a lot from three years of therapy with Cara. Mostly, that she was allowed to be who she was, and that person was just fine. She was normal. She was sane. She was stronger than she gave herself credit for.
Catherine could be sad, or angry. She could feel nervous, and have anxiety. It didn’t automatically mean she was going to slip into another spiraling depression with crippling anxiety. And even if one of those spells came about, she had the tools to deal with them now.
“Then what is it?” Cara asked softly. “What caused you to make a trip across the border to sit with me today, Catherine?”
Catherine wet her lips.
Now or never.
Cara would be the first person she admitted to that Cross Donati had sort of, kind of showed back up in her life when she least expected him to. Sure, her parents knew about the run in, but that was it. They didn’t know how Catherine wavered for two weeks about an offer of a date from Cross, or how badly she had wanted to say yes, before she finally texted to refuse. They didn’t know that she refused because she was terrified what might happen if she said yes. They certainly didn’t know that Catherine then proceeded to spend another two weeks, after she already refused his date, convincing herself not to pick up her phone and just say yes.
So here she was, with Cara.
She needed to talk.
Someone needed to listen.
“Well?” Cara pressed. “What is it, Catherine?”
“Him.”
Cara straightened on the chaise, but her expression gave nothing away. Catherine really didn’t need to explain further, or give Cara a proper name to attach to the mysterious him. A great portion of her therapy with Cara had involved discussions about Cross, and Catherine’s relationship with him.
Mostly, that she had allowed it to be unhealthy by her actions and choices. She, like with many other things in her life, had been attempting to sabotage the one thing she loved above all else because that’s what she did. She pushed and pushed and pushed until something snapped.
Why would Cross be any different?
“Well,” Cara murmured softly.
Catherine swallowed the thickness forming in her throat. “Yeah.”
“Give me a run down on what’s happened.”
“Not a lot.”
“Still,” Cara said with a wave of her hand.
Catherine went over the rundown of what had happened. From that first run in at the restaurant, to the call that followed a month ago, and finally, her last text message two weeks ago that refused Cross’s offer. Cara stayed quiet until Catherine was finished.
“And this is the first time in how many years that you two have had contact?” Cara asked.
“Almost seven years.”
“You were … okay with it, though.”
Catherine tipped her head to the side, saying, “Well, not okay. More … confused. No, not even that. I don’t know. It was like dipping my head into a cold bucket of water and thinking it was going to be warm. You know what I mean?”
“A shock.”
“Yeah, that.”
Cara let out a slow breath. “What about today—now? You’ve had two weeks to sit on your choice to refuse his offer, and really think it over. How do you feel now?”
“Like my fingers are itching,” Catherine confessed.
By the look on her therapist’s face, Catherine knew Cara didn’t understand.
“I don’t regret it. I simply want to say fuck it and contact him again.”
“Ah,” Cara said in a murmur. “Well, that’s to be expected, considering.”
“Considering what?”
“How long you loved him.”
“Love,” Catherine said before she could stop herself.
Cara raised a single, manicured brow high. All she said was a quiet, “I see.”
Catherine knew this trick of Cara’s only because it was one she played on her several times over. Cara would wait Catherine’s nerves and confused thoughts out. She would allow her to talk and talk and talk, even if it only led them in circles. Eventually, Catherine would talk her way out of the mess with a new understanding of her problem and an outlook that helped.
She didn’t know if this was the same thing.
She didn’t know if it would work.
“Catherine,” Cara said, “why are you here?”
“I just told you why.”
“No, you gave me a topic. Cross is a topic. He is not your issue. Topics are things we choose to discuss to avoid the real issues. Give me the issue, Catherine.”
Catherine looked down at her clasped hands, unsteady and wary in her heart. “I’ve loved him since I was thirteen. I don’t understand how someone can be gone from my life for all these years, and still make me question everything when they waltz back in like nothing’s changed. Because it does feel like that when he’s around. Like nothing’s changed. It makes me think I have zero control; my feelings and heart, my past and future are things I don’t own or control when he’s near.”
“Mmhmm.”
“He wasn’t there. I went back, and he wasn’t there. I was well. I was good. I fixed myself. I was better than I had ever been in years. I wanted him to see it, to know. He forced me to do it, so I did, and he was fucking gone. It was the best thing he ever did for me, and then he ruined it.”
“He promised to be there, didn’t he?” Cara asked.
Catherine shrugged. “How far did that push me back, Cara?”
“A ways, but not too far. See, I think a part of you was still expecting Cross to hold together your pieces when you weren’t capable of doing it back then. Instead—”
“The issue is that I’m scared,” Catherine interrupted.
She had to say it before she said nothing at all.
Cara frowned. “Yeah, I know.”
“Terrified.”
“Of course.”
“I don’t ever want to be that broken girl again,” Catherine said. “That’s my issue. I see him, and I feel like I did when I was happy and innocent and in love. Yet, I see him, and I feel broken and incapable and scared. I don’t want to be her again just because of him.”
Cara smiled. “Oh, Catherine, don’t you know? We only move forward once we’ve changed. Going backward is impossible because of growth. You can’t possibly be that girl again when you’re already who you are now.”
“Name?”
The bouncer of the new, yet extremely popular, nightclub barely looked up from his tablet. The line was at least two hundred people long. Catherine had simply walked past the waiting people with her sky-high Louboutin heels and black bodycon dress.
She didn’t wait at clubs.
She didn’t have to.
If the people at the front didn’t know her name, they definitely knew the people inside who called her there.
“Catherine Marcello,” she said.
The guy looked up, and his eyes skipped over her sly smile and perfectly done makeup. She had been to the club twice—once during it’s opening night a few weeks back, and then a week later when some of her other clients moved from one club to this one in between parties.
“Have a good evening,” the bouncer said.
He stepped to the side, and let Catherine pass without another word. She didn’t miss the way his gaze drifted over her ass, but she was used to that. Men always looked. They loved a beautiful woman, and felt it was their right to a free, cursory look.
As long as they didn’t touch, Catherine tolerated their stares.
Catherine tucked her diamond incrusted over-sized clutch close to her abdomen. She found that at clubs anything larger than a big clutch, and they demanded she hand over her bag at the front, or let them search it. They would allow her to take the cash, cards, or ID from it, of course, but not the entire bag.
That defeated Catherine’s purpose of being there to begin with. She needed her bag, as it had the substances inside that whoever called her in wanted to buy. She opted for oversized clutches to keep from having her bag confiscated.
Also, it was big enough to fit a small handgun inside. There were only a few clubs that Catherine worked in where they had metal detectors or searched bags. She knew every face at the door, and worked a bit of magic to get in without the trouble of having her bag searched.
She knew her game.
She played it well.
Catherine enjoyed clubs, for the most part. Sometimes she went for her own pleasure, but most times it was to work. When drugs and money came into play, she barely paid any attention to the music or atmosphere of the club. She had a purpose, and that was all that mattered.
She quickly headed across the main dance floor of the club. Since she didn’t drink even when she did party, she sidestepped the girl walking the floor with ready-made Jell-o shots. At the far west side of the club, winding metal stairs led up to a second level loft area where VIPs partied. The upstairs loft was a good quarter of the size of the downstairs.
“Catherine,” the bouncer—Marley—at the bottom of the stairs said. He stood in front of a red velvet rope, and like the man at the door, held a tablet in his hands. “Long time, no see.”
“It’s only been a few weeks,” she told him. “I haven’t been gone that long.”
“Well, whatever. You’ve got too pretty of a face to stay away that long. Give us something to look at, girl.”
Catherine laughed. “Get more of my people in here partying, and I will.”
He winked, and stepped to the side to let her pass as he undid the velvet rope.
Upstairs, Catherine found some of the most elite, young New York socialites. Sitting on red velvet-covered benches and matching couches, the twenty-somethings laughed and barely noticed she was watching the group. She counted their number—sixteen, like her main contact said. A celebrity defense lawyer’s son, and the guy’s fiancée. The daughter of a Wall Street wolf, and her flighty group of girls. Another son that had grown up on reality TV while his B-List celebrity parents showcased their hot mess of a life.
Kids that were already born millionaires.
Like Catherine.
Privileged.
Rich.
Demanding.
Spoiled.
Only a couple of them might have actually wanted her to show up to supply their little party, but once it got going, every single one of them would be shelling out cash. It never failed.
“Catty!”
Catherine smiled at the call of her name, and waved a hand as she approached the group. There were far more VIPs in the upstairs loft, but she was only there to deal with her particular group. For now, anyway.
“I heard somebody wanted to party,” Catherine said.
Jonas, the reality TV child, threw his head back with a laugh. “Do you have my usual?”
“I’ve got everything.”
Cocaine.
Ecstasy.
Molly.
Those were the favorites of this bunch, usually.
Catherine charged double, and sometimes triple, the drugs’ street value simply because she could. The product was excellent, it was her, and she catered to their natures and lifestyles.
They paid.
The spoiled ones always did.
That was all that mattered.
“Let’s party,” one of the Ken-doll look-a-likes said to the girl on his arm.
“Yes, let’s do that,” Catherine said with a smile.
They said party.
She heard money.
Catherine stared at her reflection in the club’s bathroom mirror, and ignored the giggling, drunk group of girls at the other end of the line of sinks. She touched up her lipstick, and then brushed a small streak of white powder off her black dress.
She was done with the people upstairs for the night, and ready to go home. After her session with Cara a week before, Catherine had been trying to focus on getting ready for her full-time classes to start again. Come Monday, she would be sitting in lecture halls and working on things that bored the hell of out her.
Yet, she didn’t have the nerve to quit.
Not entirely.
Quitting would mean explaining to her parents what she planned on doing, or rather, what she already had been doing for almost a decade. It would mean explaining how she learned to hide dirty money by buying expensive, luxury clothes, bags, and shoes just to get rid of it. It would mean confessing she had learned how to launder her drug money by the time she was twenty-one in businesses she had invested in using the trust fund her parents made for her.
Catherine wasn’t ready for those conversations.
Not yet.
Sighing, she pushed away from the sink and headed for the bathroom door. The drunk giggles of the girls echoed behind her, but they didn’t follow. She peeked her head out the door, and looked down the dark hall toward the back offices. A couple of the bouncers stood with their back turned to her, chatting. A couple just a few feet away from them were kissing against the wall.
Catherine stepped out of the bathroom only to find she should have looked down the other way, too. One of the guys from the VIP loft that had enjoyed a little bit too much cocaine was waiting for her. He crowded Catherine against the wall before she even knew what was happening.
His cocaine-blown pupils looked down at her. “There you are, girl.”
This shit sometimes happened. More often than Catherine liked. Part of her thrall, especially with guys, was the way they liked her to act. Flirting, smiling, and all that nonsense. Sometimes the men understood it was just a part of her game, but other times they took it too far.
Truth was, she learned it was the shitty nature of the business. She also learned how to take care of herself in these goddamn situations.
“What was your name again?” Catherine asked the Ken-doll look-a-like.
“Matthew.”
She ignored how close he was to her, and how he pressed into her body like he was finding something he liked to feel. Instead, she flipped open the top of her clutch while it was down at her side, and waited.
From surface appearances, no one would think anything was wrong. Catherine preferred to keep it that way when drawing bad attention meant she might not be allowed back into a club.
“Right. Matty, they called you.”
“I was thinking …”
Catherine smiled sweetly. “I bet that’s a new concept for you, huh?”
His brow dipped. “What?”
Right over your head, pretty boy.
“What were you thinking?” she asked.
“I want another line of your shit, but preferably at my place, and straight off your back while I’m behind you.”
“That’s a no,” Catherine said.
Matthew pushed harder into her. “Come on. Don’t pretend like you don’t want this. Or is it like something else with you? How many zeroes attached to a one would it take to get a taste of your cunt, Catty? Three? Four?”
“More money than you will ever have.”
“I doubt that.”
“Don’t.”
“So you’re a fuckin’ tease, then.”
And that was Catherine’s cue.
She let him know she wasn’t interested. He took it further, and she had to slight him. All these guys acted the same way when put in that position. They got their pissy little pride hurt, so they had to hurt her. His hands came up to find her throat, but she didn’t even blink when he squeezed.
Catherine let her almost-empty clutch fall to the floor now that she had her small handgun tight in her palm. She clicked the safety off at the same she used her other hand to find the sharp, small switch blade at her thigh.
The knife went to Matthew’s cheek.
The gun went to his groin.
Catherine cocked back the hammer of the gun, and dug the tip of her knife into his cheek with a smile. “Now you get to learn a lesson, pretty boy.”
Matthew’s eyes went wide, and his fingers loosened on her throat.
She didn’t move an inch. Not her gun, or her knife. She didn’t look away from him, either.
“I’m neither your toy, nor your bitch,” Catherine said lowly. “I am your dealer. You want drugs from a pretty face, that’s what I’m here for. Anything else, and I’m going to take a pound back from you for it. You choose—your face or your dick.”
Matthew blinked. “What?”
“Face or dick. Choose.”
“You can’t do—”
“I can do whatever the fuck I want,” Catherine interrupted. “Choose, or I will do it for you. Keep your dick, and ruin your face. Lose your dick, and keep your pretty face. Don’t worry, all those zeroes in your bank will fix whatever happens, I promise.”
Matthew stumbled on his words.
Catherine chose.
Her knife left a one inch slice across his cheek that bled instantly onto her blade. He jumped back with a holler that gained the attention of the bouncers down the way. She was already picking up her clutch and heading out into the swell of people, making sure to hide her gun in the bag quickly.
She didn’t even notice the form she passed at the mouth of the hallway that led onto the dancefloor until he was behind her. She only knew she needed to get away and make sure the bouncers didn’t get a good look at her.
“Whoa, slow down, babe.”
The familiar voice was followed by someone grabbing her wrist in the crowd. Catherine turned fast, already flicking the bloody blade of her knife out and putting it to the throat of a very handsome face.
Cross didn’t even flinch.
In fact, he grinned.
And fuck him for it, too.
The grin looked good. Like all of him. Dressed in a black on black suit, with leather shoes to match, and a deep red tie. Sex and sin and problems.
Sexy.
Dangerous.
Bad for her health.
Dark.
Lovely.
Catherine didn’t lower her knife.
“Quite a show back there,” he told her.
Catherine’s gaze narrowed. “You were watching me … following me?”
“Zeke—do you remember him?—owns this club, Catherine. I happened to be upstairs in the corner when you came in. You didn’t see me. I had my back turned. Zeke let me know you were there, that’s all. I didn’t intend to follow you until I heard the guy say something about looking for you when you skipped out. I just came to check—”
“To what, protect me?”
Cross scoffed. “Apparently, you do that just fine on your own, babe. He never would have picked his cock, by the way.”
“No man ever does.” Catherine let her knife drop to her side. “Quit smirking like that.”
His lips quirked at the corner again. “Am I?”
“Cross.”
“If you’re already here, can I buy you a drink?”
Catherine looked away. “I don’t drink.”
He should know that, after everything.
“Good,” Cross said, reaching out to stroke her cheek with two fingers. Anyone else, and Catherine would have pulled away. It was habit and instinct and love that made her punish herself by letting him touch her and enjoy it. “Then have a dance with me. You still dance, don’t you? I loved that, Catty.”
She shivered in her heels, confused and overwhelmed all at the same time. Invisible butterflies beat inside her stomach and into her throat. She hadn’t felt that sensation since she let this man take her virginity when she was sixteen.
“You don’t speak now?” Cross joked.
Catherine let out a soft exhale, and met his dark gaze. “I was told by someone to do what felt right where you were concerned.”
He chuckled. “What do you mean, someone?”
Cara.
Her therapist.
She didn’t tell him that.
“Someone,” Catherine repeated. “The problem is, Cross, every fucking thing feels good and right with you, and you can’t even help it.”
“But is it really a problem when it’s like that for us?”
Yes.
“Let me save us both some time here,” Catherine said, knowing exactly where this whole thing would take the two of them. “Let’s pretend like we danced, but don’t. Let’s act like we talked, you were arrogant, charming, and good-looking, because you are. Except we actually won’t talk at all. I didn’t bring my car; I took a cab because it’s easier. So you can drive me back to your place because you are not coming to mine. We’ll fuck, and there you go. That’s what’s going to happen anyway, Cross, because it just will. Let’s save time and nonsense, and go.”
He cocked a brow.
Catherine just stared at him. “Well?”
“All right,” he murmured.