Sofia motioned for another bourbon, slamming it back as soon as the glass was in her trembling hands. Had she really thought she could walk up to Isaac Blue and leave unscathed? He was scorching hot, unpredictable and totally infuriating. Half an hour with him had made her revert from a sophisticated professional to a panting teenager. She should have slapped him. She should have found his bad-boy antics crude. The problem was she didn’t.
Never once had she felt the need to drown her sorrows after a day on the job and here she was, throwing back booze as if her life depended on it. Her only saving grace was that she’d managed to wait until five in the evening, the socially acceptable drinking hour, and that she’d got in touch with an old friend to join her.
Belle appeared in the doorway and quite a few heads swiveled around to watch her as she made her way toward Sofia. There was no denying that Belle was a knockout especially in a leather miniskirt and boots. She looked like Grace Kelly and dressed like a pop star—every guy’s fantasy. More than a few of the men murmured appreciatively as the two blondes hugged one another before settling back onto their barstools.
“I’m so glad you could come on such short notice. I was worried about dragging you from your fiancé,” Sofia said, grabbing Belle’s hand and inspecting her insanely gorgeous engagement ring.
“Stuff and nonsense.” She waved off Sofia’s concern with her free hand while preening under the attention. “He’s out of town and my flatmate has recently discovered the joys of sex.”
Sofia laughed at this, letting go of her friend’s hand. “Hot guy?”
“You could say that.” Belle gestured to the barkeep for a drink and then turned back to Sofia with a wide smile. “So what brings you to town—business or pleasure?”
Sofia grimaced at the reminder of Isaac. Right now she needed Belle to distract her with tales of London and wedding plans and booze.
Belle cocked her head to the side, studying her. Sometimes it was like looking at a mirror, Sofia thought. Belle had the same naturally blond locks and fair skin. They’d even managed to fool a few teachers during the years that they’d attended the same boarding school in Suffolk while her father opened the London branch of Maxximum Studios. Even now, they could probably pass for sisters if they could still pull off each other’s accents.
“Out with it, Fia,” Belle demanded.
Sofia sighed and shook her head. It was going to take a lot more to get her talking about Isaac than Belle’s demands no matter how insistent she became. “No one calls me Fia anymore.”
“I do.” Belle ordered another round. “You’re not getting out of telling me.”
“You’ll have to pry it from my cold, dead lips,” Sofia said, taking the new drink with a tight smile.
Belle laughed. “No, I won’t. I’ll just have to pry it from your warm, drunk lips.”
Sofia raised her glass and the women clinked the rims. “Challenge accepted.”
* * *
Two hours later Belle hauled Sofia from the billiards table where she was bragging to a group of amused men while swinging a pool cue in erratic, dangerous arcs around her.
“Ah, Belle! I was going to kick their asses!” Sofia flopped into the corner booth and accepted a glass of water grudgingly.
“You are pissed,” Belle said, giggling. “You must hold a lightweight record.”
“I’m jet-lagged,” Sofia pouted.
“You’re not just drunk, though.” Belle wagged her finger at her knowingly. “Fia, your feathers are ruffled.”
Sofia took a deep breath, but the bourbon coursing through her bloodstream was making it impossible to hold back the truth. “Daddy sent me over here to do a turnaround.”
“It must be going well,” Belle said dryly.
“You have no idea.” Sofia dropped her head to the table, trying to sort through the thoughts and emotions swimming in her alcohol-soaked brain. She couldn’t discuss a client with Belle. Sofia might not be a licensed therapist or a doctor, but she took confidentiality as seriously as if she were. Still, Isaac was hardly a regular client, and after how she’d lost control this afternoon—after she’d come close to reaching out and wrapping her hands around his hot, stiff dick—she was increasingly sure he couldn’t be. Being around him was too tempting. Suddenly the fantasies she’d once deluded herself with were returning in full force. Isaac sweeping her off her feet. Spending one more night in bed with him. A turnaround on Isaac meant forcing herself to relive the pain he’d caused her. There was no way she was going to let him break her again.
“Tell me about it,” Belle coaxed.
“It’s Isaac Blue!” His name burst from her mouth before she’d really decided whether or not she should share. But now that the cat was out of the bag, she couldn’t stop the details from pouring out of her. The arrests. Her father’s call. The tart in his hotel room. By the time she’d got to naked Isaac Blue grabbing her wrist and kissing her neck, Belle was watching her dreamily, her elbow propped up on the table and her chin resting on her hand.
“Belle!” Sofia tried to snap her fingers, but they weren’t working quite right.
Belle blinked a few times as if she was waking from a dream. “I’m sorry. I just... Isaac Blue! Thanks to that partial nude scene in Death Race I have a pretty good visual of this afternoon. Care to fill me in on the full-frontal details?”
Pressing her lips together, Sofia shook her head.
“He’s one of the sexiest men alive! People Magazine told me so.” Belle held her hands up defensively. “And if you were really my friend, you’d spill.”
“He’s packing heat offscreen, too,” Sofia admitted. She couldn’t help it. Something about Isaac made her want to giggle and gush to a girlfriend. No one had ever had that effect on her since him.
“I knew it!” Belle fanned herself.
“Now can we concentrate on what the hell I’m supposed to do?” Sofia asked in exasperation.
“You still have it bad for him, huh?”
“I do not have it bad for him!” Sofia hesitated, steeling herself as she prepared to rip the mental Band-Aid off that covered the wound of their relationship. “You never saw us together. I was in love with him. Completely. Totally. And I honestly thought he loved me. I mean, I was eighteen and too stupid to know better.”
“I still want to know why you’re so certain he wasn’t in love with you,” Belle said gently, reaching across the table and taking Sofia’s hand. She’d experienced her own dose of bad-boy induced heartbreak in college.
“Let’s see, do you want the long list or the short list? Let’s keep it to the point.” Sofia decided for her. “I got to find out from Entertainment Today that he was screwing around on me with his Days of Rain costar, Nina Justin. He went on location with her and never called me back!”
“I guessed that was why you left Malibu Place.”
Sofia nodded. She’d never admitted that was why she’d left the popular evening drama she’d starred on with Isaac to anyone outright before, but she’d also never thought she’d have to face Isaac Blue ever again. No one had batted an eye when Arnold Maxx’s daughter had given up acting. She had money and looks, and Sofia wouldn’t have been the first Hollywood princess to get bored with the business.
“I wasted a year of my life in clubs, trying to drink away how much that jackass hurt me, and now look at me! I’m right back where I began.” A sob escaped her lips and Belle’s hand tightened on her own.
“That is not true, darling.” Belle spoke in a low, soothing voice. “You have a kick-ass job. Not only are you empowered, but you actually help people. Not to mention that you’re the hottest piece of ass in this bar.”
“Except for you.” Sofia smiled, dabbing at her eyes with a napkin.
“Well, of course.”
“But I can’t turn Isaac around,” Sofia whispered, finally giving a voice to her fear. She hadn’t been enough to keep his attention before. Her love hadn’t been enough to keep him from running wild. How was she supposed to fix him with all the baggage she was still carrying?
“Maybe Fia Maxx couldn’t, but I hear Sofia King is one tough bitch.”
Belle was right. No one had expected her to take her mother’s maiden name and go into business for herself. Sofia hadn’t clawed her way out of LA’s party scene to fall victim to one of its predators again—no matter how frustratingly sexy he was. She wasn’t eighteen anymore and she wasn’t fragile either.
Sofia’s phone buzzed and she snatched it from the table, frowning when she saw the text message from her father.
Entertainment Today is reporting our boy is at the strip club. Surely that’s not a sanctioned outing?
She pulled a hundred-pound note out of her wallet and threw it on the table. “My treat.”
“Something important?” Belle raised her eyebrows.
Sofia laughed as she stood to leave. “Something Blue.”
* * *
Isaac’s eyes followed the dancer’s hips as she circled around the pole, but his heart wasn’t in it even as his mates cheered and catcalled around him. Tonight he was here to bankroll and nothing else. If he’d played his cards right the paparazzi shots of him entering the club were already online, which was just what he wanted.
Movement at the champagne room’s private entrance caught his eye and within seconds one of the bouncers barreled toward him. The man stopped and crossed his hands over his belly. “Mr. Blue, there’s a woman claiming to be your publicist at the door.”
“Blonde?” Isaac asked, and the man nodded. “Legs that should be wrapped around that pole?”
“Her legs could wrap around my pole,” his buddy Spencer crowed.
“I think you better focus on the scenery.” Isaac groaned and pushed Spencer back toward the stripper. There was a reason the guy was stuck behind the camera and not in front of it. The poor kid still looked twelve, and he acted like it, too.
The bouncer coughed politely. “Should I show her in, sir?”
“Please do.” Isaac’s lips carved into a crooked smile. He’d managed to lure perfect Ms. King to Wellie’s. Now he had to decide what to do with her.
Sofia sauntered into the room, ass swaying and eyes blazing. If her surroundings bothered her, she hid it well. She’d changed from the tight-fitting skirt she’d worn earlier into a slinky dress that wrapped around her perfect body. The neckline dipped low enough to display her décolletage. Isaac imagined slipping the dress over her shoulders and taking her perfect tits in his mouth. She was the only fully clothed woman in the room, but he only had eyes for her.
“Miss King,” he greeted her, enjoying the annoyance that flushed across her cheeks when he purposefully used the wrong title. He knew that blush, and he’d missed it.
“Mr. Blue.” She took a step forward and he couldn’t resist reaching out to pull her into an embrace. The electricity that had hummed between them this afternoon built to a throbbing pulse as she pressed gently against his body.
It felt good to hold her. With her this close, her icy facade had thawed. She felt warm and delicate and soft. He fought the urge to lift her up and carry her out the door and back to his hotel room.
“Bourbon and me don’t mix,” she said apologetically as she stepped away from him and her cool veneer returned.
“Drinking on the job?” he asked, his mouth twitching.
“All part of the process.” She shrugged, but he couldn’t help notice that she turned away quickly. Sofia surveyed the room, her hands planted on her hips. “I thought I told you to stay out of trouble.”
“You told me not to get arrested,” he corrected her. There was no way he’d be able to stay out of trouble with her in the room with him.
Spinning back to him, and showing no signs of her momentary clumsiness, she shook her finger. “We need to talk.”
“I couldn’t agree more, Ms. King, but this is hardly the place to do it. Too many distractions.” He let his eyes wander to a girl twisting upside down on a stripper pole.
Her eyes followed, narrowing when she saw what he was looking at. “Can I assume you bought the room?”
He nodded, not bothering to avert his gaze. She was playing into his hand nicely.
“Then get rid of them,” she purred.
“The girls?” he asked.
Sofia pressed her index finger under his chin and tilted it until their eyes met. “All of them.”
Would she ever stop surprising him? There was a good chance he was about to toss a bunch of half-naked girls and his friends out in return for a lecture. But the thought of having Sofia alone, in that dress with those heels, was impossible to resist.
He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted his order. “Clear out. My tab is open downstairs.”
A few of his buddies started to protest, but Spencer pushed them through the door as they bitched. He winked knowingly at Isaac as he passed.
“Friend of yours?” Sofia asked.
“Cameraman.”
She studied Spencer as he exited. “He doesn’t look like much of a wingman.”
“Looks can be deceiving,” Isaac said with a shrug.
“Can’t they?”
He thought he heard a hidden message behind her words. She really thought she had him fooled, and now he had her right where he wanted her. At least for the moment.
“Them, too,” Sofia said, pointing to the bouncers.
He raised an eyebrow but pulled his wallet out to bribe them all the same. This was really getting interesting. A minute later, the security team was standing guard on the other side of a locked door.
“You’ve got me alone,” Isaac pointed out, moving toward her with deliberately measured steps. “Nothing to distract me.”
“I’m not sure I can hold your attention.” This time he was certain there was a double meaning.
“You can try.”
“I don’t try, Mr. Blue. I do, and I do it well.” Sofia’s body undulated to the music pouring through the overhead speakers. Lights shimmered through the room, flashing across her shapely form as she twisted to the beat. Her hands folded over her taut belly, slipping down to her hips as she dipped her knees. Leaning forward, she treated him to a better view of her breasts.
Isaac swallowed against the lump that had formed in his throat. “You have my attention.”
“Good.” Sofia pushed him into a club chair, but Isaac’s hand closed over her wrist, pulling her down on top of him.
He trailed a finger across her lips, traced along the curve of her neck to the hollow of her throat and finally stopped an inch above the swell of her breasts. Leaning close enough that he could taste her perfume on his tongue, he whispered. “But do I have your attention?”
Sofia didn’t move as he reached up and tugged the barrette out of her French twist. Blond waves spilled over her shoulders, curtaining her face in shadow. Isaac wove his fingers through the loose hair, his grip tightening as Sofia closed her eyes with pleasure.
His dick stiffened in his pants and he shifted so that Sofia would be able to feel it through her thin skirt. He watched as her teeth sunk into her lower lip. This was what he longed to see: Sofia unraveling, coming undone because of him.
But her eyes snapped open as if she’d been given a shot of adrenaline, and she pushed herself out of the chair and away from him. “I apologize. We have a professional relationship, Mr. Blue. Nothing more.”
She smoothed out her dress and pushed the loose hair out of her face. The mask of professionalism had returned, but Isaac could see it was cracking around the edges. One more blow to the fragile facade, and it would shatter.
Standing so that they were eye level, he shook his head. “We both know that’s not true, Fia.”