by Cecilia Tan
Christina let loose a string of Catholic curses that showed her Filipino upbringing. I didn’t even know some of the saints she invoked to express herself. But she relented. “Don’t make me sorry about this.”
“I won’t. Besides, it’s a double date with Sakura’s former college roommate. Someone you might have heard of. Ricki Hamilton?”
“What? The Hamilton heiress?” Christina shrieked with glee. “She and her sister are worth billions! Why didn’t you tell me that?”
“I just did.”
“And who’s her date—who who who?”
“I have no idea, Chris. The limo will be here in—?”
“Twenty minutes,” Tashonda said firmly. She looked at me critically with a rhinestone poised on the tip of her index finger.
I gave her a smoldering look and mouthed almost silently, so Christina couldn’t hear: “Bad boys don’t wear rhinestones. Come on.”
“Hm,” she said, tilting her face toward the phone. “Christina, not sure this rhinestone idea is going to work.”
“No? Are you sure?”
“Don’t want to overdo it, you know? With the close-ups on high-def TV, it might actually be too much sparkle. There will be glare.”
“Oh.” Christina sounded deflated. “Well, see you at the after-parties. Later, Axel.”
“Later, Christina.” I clicked off the phone and hopped out of the chair, catching Tashonda around the waist and twirling her as if we were on ice. Then I dipped her and planted a kiss right on her sternum where her shirt’s neckline plunged. “Thanks,” I said, as I righted her. “For everything.”
She said nothing but fanned herself with an open hand as I sauntered away.
CHAPTER ONE
OVERTURE
RICKI
“Ms. Hamilton. The car is ready.”
I turned toward Jamison, who was standing in the doorway with his usual impeccably bland demeanor, his hands folded. “Do I look all right?” I asked him.
“Stunning as always, Ms. Hamilton,” he said, his voice low and smooth.
“You didn’t even look,” I complained. I gave myself one last glance in the floor-to-ceiling mirror in the two-story foyer. If I’d had my way, I would have had one of Sakura’s designer friends make me something artsy and avant-garde to wear. But if image is everything, then an expensive, big-name designer’s dress was required wear. It was off-white, beaded, classic. If that wasn’t good enough for the paparazzi, then there wasn’t much else I could do. “Where’s Sakura?” Last time I checked, the stylist had been affixing some glass beads in her hair.
“She is already in the car,” Jamison said with a slight bow. That was as close to telling me to hurry as he would ever get. When he’d first taken the butler job with my grandfather he’d gone to finishing school. I wondered if that was where he learned to be so … polite-pushy? pushy-polite? Maybe it was a Cuban thing. He had come to the States when his family fled Castro and at first my grandfather had hired his older brother. Jamison wasn’t his real name: it was the name he’d picked for himself. It suited him. His wavy black hair was slicked close to his scalp and I felt he was a thousand times more polished than I was. He gestured toward the door.
“Fine, fine.” I hurried across the entryway toward the front door, reminding myself not to do anything to dislodge the dress or my coiffure. Members of the staff were bustling about, readying the mansion for tonight. We didn’t host this kind of soiree that often anymore, only a few times a year, not like in my grandfather’s heyday, when the “Governor’s Mansion” was host to a steady stream of Hollywood’s elite. Cy Hamilton, the man they called the “Governor of Hollywood,” had liked to party.
Sarah—Sakura, I mean—was waiting in the limo, looking as perfect as always. Somehow she managed to rock an Asian style without ever coming off like a parody of a geisha or kung-fu movie courtesan. She was half-Japanese and all business when it came to finding the right clothes. Mine just had to look expensive or people would talk. Sakura’s had to look unique and yet tasteful and powerful and creatively artistic all at the same time. I took the seat across from her in the stretch and off we went to pick up her date, then mine.
She grinned. “This is like prom night, only better.”
I shrugged. “The prom night I never had.” Being a Hamilton heiress, I didn’t exactly have the standard American upbringing. “It’s just an awards ceremony, Sarah.”
“Sakura,” she corrected.
“Don’t worry; I’ll get it right when it counts.”
“And don’t rain on my parade. Maybe this is dull and boring for you, but it’s my first time at the Grammy Awards.”
“You went to the Oscars last year,” I pointed out.
“As official arm candy to a total bore. And he wasn’t even a nominee. Axel’s band is up for Best New Artist.” She drummed her toes excitedly on the carpeted floor of the limousine. “Plus I really like him.”
“Like him-like him?” I asked pointedly. This wasn’t the first time Sakura had mentioned this guy. I admit I only knew him from the entertainment trade magazines where he was, admittedly, one of the only rock stars I thought was cute. It might be really good for Sakura’s career to date a rock star.
But she dashed that idea. “Not like that. As a friend, I mean.” She glanced out the window, not that she could see much through the tinting. “He’s really great. A really great guy.”
“Didn’t he start out a client of yours, though?” I was trying not to sound judgmental about it, really I was.
She sighed. “I’m not doing the professional dominatrix thing anymore, Ricki.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“I met him at a photo shoot if you must know,” she said with a sniff.
“The photo shoot where you’re in a latex catsuit with a whip and he’s in a cage?” Of course I’d seen it. After we learned the terms of the will, I found out that the staff regularly scanned all the tabloids looking for anything about BDSM to make sure our family wasn’t being implicated. They regularly showed me anything remotely having to do with kink and pop culture.
She sighed. “Yes, that one. But he is sooooo not a submissive.”
“No?”
“Definitely not. In fact, I’d say he’s a dom but you wouldn’t necessarily guess that from the vanilla supermodel arm candy he’s been seen with.”
“You don’t think he shows his kinky side to the press?”
She clucked her tongue. “You of all people should know most people don’t.”
“Yeah, yeah.” The whole reason my grandfather had built the secret dungeon in our basement had been to give A-list kinksters a private place to meet and spank. Well, and so he could spank them himself, honestly. These days the members were mostly A-list because of their money, though, not their celebrity. We had a lot of presidents and vice presidents of major film studios and entertainment corporations. I know Grandpa Cy had meant well, but I couldn’t help but think my main job was to ensure that these entitled executives could get their knobs polished in the most exotic fashion possible. “Hey, wait a second. Is this all a setup so I’ll consider him for membership?”
Sakura held up her perfectly manicured hands in surrender. “I swear, I didn’t plan it that way. He really has become a good friend, and he asked me to go to the awards, and since I knew you were going, too, I thought it would be a good idea to double date.”
“You haven’t said anything—?”
“Of course I haven’t. Ricki, your secrets are always safe with me. All he knows about you is you’re the Bitch Queen of Hollywood.”
“I am not!”
“You have the worst case of resting bitch face in the state of California.” Sakura framed me between her thumbs and index fingers. “Just sayin’.”
I resisted the urge to fold my arms across my chest, which I knew would only make me bitchier looking. Sakura really didn’t understand how important it was that I not come off as a frivolous airhead or a flirt. Unfortunatel
y the only other stereotype left for women in the popular media seemed to be “ice queen.”
Ice queen had worked for me so far. I had secured a nice job in development at Blue Star that would be a good steppingstone to eventually running CTC. And other than a few “society” photos here and there I had mostly stayed out of the media, because ice queens weren’t actually all that interesting to them. They much preferred the party girls and the fuck-ups, the Paris Hiltons and Lindsay Lohans.
She tried to change the subject. “So tell me about your date. You never told me who you’re taking.”
“You know Milford Randolph?”
“The president of Blue Star Entertainment? Of course I know him! But he’s more than twice your age!”
“Not him. His nephew, Grant.”
“Oh,” she said, much less energetically. I guess she was less impressed with a mere executive at Blue Star Pictures. Or less upset. I had quit trying to figure out Sarah’s moods back when we were college roommates.
“Yes.” I decided not to try to describe him to her. She’d be meeting him in a few minutes, anyway. “He’s a nice enough guy.”
“If you say so,” she said, sounding skeptical, but she didn’t outright contradict me. The only real reason I was going with him was politics, but neither of us was going to say that out loud.
We pulled up to Axel’s hotel. I settled back into my seat and took my phone out of my clutch, expecting we’d be waiting for a while until he came downstairs. But to my surprise, Riggs, my chauffeur, opened the door right away.
Axel Hawke alighted on the seat across from me like a cat hopping onto his favorite perch—lithe, sleekly groomed, and self-possessed. He kissed Sakura on the cheek. He had a diamond-stud earring, a barely tamed coif of blond-streaked hair, and a tuxedo tailored to make it look like his arm and chest muscles were barely contained by the fabric. What looked cute on the magazine page was downright devastatingly good-looking up close. He even smelled good. I found myself suddenly wishing I had worn something more interesting, more of a statement, something that might seem worth his notice, instead of the classic-but-boring dress I was in.
Sakura smiled coyly, as if holding in a gleeful grin at seeing him. He took her hand and kissed the back of it. “Good to see you.”
“You, too, sweetie,” Sakura said. “So this is the ‘playboy’ makeover you were telling me your image consultant wanted?”
“Yeah. Bad boy isn’t good enough anymore, she says. So now I’m a good-bad boy. Or maybe that was a bad-good boy? I don’t know.”
She gave him an approving shrug. “Suits you, anyway. Axel, may I introduce my friend, Ms. Rickanna Hamilton?”
I held out my hand. Instead of looking at it as he took it, he held my gaze. His eyes were agate green. He grasped my fingers with a gentle surety, lifting my knuckles to his lips and saying, “May I call you Ms. Hamilton?” And then planting an intensely warm, suave kiss on the back of my hand. I hadn’t realized my hands had gotten so cold in the air-conditioning of the limo, and the warmth of his mouth seemed to send a wave of heat through me.
“You may,” I answered, a little taken aback by the intensity of his gaze and the fact that he surprised me, asking if he could call me Ms. Hamilton, not Ricki. He had been pointedly polite—and yet the force of his charisma was hitting me like a searchlight. It was too much, I had to push back, had to dim that light somehow and take him down a peg. “So are you really a good boy at heart?”
The light didn’t dim in the slightest. If anything the beam narrowed to point even more directly at me. “Oh no, I’m very definitely a bad boy,” he said, his voice quiet, but firm.
In spite of myself I felt a little shiver go through me at that sound, that tone. Parts of me very suddenly wanted to find out just how wicked he could be. Little fantasies flashed through my head like sunlight coming through patchy clouds: which part of him was the wickedest? His tongue or his fingers or something lower down …?
And then I thought about what Sarah had said. He was a closet dom?
Ugh. The last thing I needed was another spoiled-rotten man in my life bossing me around. And I definitely didn’t need any more BDSM in my life given how hard it was going to be to keep that damn club a secret.
But that didn’t mean I couldn’t have a little fun, did it? She was right. Tonight was for celebrating glitz and glamour, not for showing off resting bitch face. A little flirting would be polite and wouldn’t hurt anybody, as long as I kept my hormones in check. I gave him a little “cat-canary” smile of my own. “In that case, should I call you Axel? Or Mr. Hawke?”
I saw his eyes flick toward Sakura for a moment, as if wondering if she’d told me anything. The intensity in those gray-green eyes ramped up again and it almost felt like he was wrapping me in invisible velvet. “Definitely Mr. Hawke,” he said deliberately, and it was as if with each syllable the invisible velvet wrap grew tighter and tighter around me. Like I was being pulled into his spell.
No. We’re not going there, I reminded myself. Especially not with Sakura sitting right here and my actual date about to get into the car. Time to take things down a notch. I tried to bring the chitchat back to business. “So, Best New Artist nominee? Are we allowed to say ‘good luck’? Or is that bad luck?”
He laughed, a deep, unexpected and genuine laugh, and sat back, resting his hands on his knees. His artfully tousled hair was not as wild or full as a lion’s mane, but he still reminded me of a big cat sitting there, languid but alert. “I have no idea. It’s my first rodeo. The only ‘Superstition’ I know is that old song by Stevie Wonder.”
Sarah began to sing the song, then, and he clapped his hands and snapped his fingers along with her for a few bars, though she only knew a few of the words, and Axel didn’t really know much more. Then they punched each other in the shoulder like playful siblings.
“Oops, careful,” she said, reaching a hand up to make sure the glass beads strung in her hair hadn’t come loose. “Let’s not be rowdy, now.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said with another deep chuckle. I got the feeling when he said “yes, ma’am” he meant the opposite, though. I wondered if Axel Hawke had grown up a troublemaker or what.
We pulled up to the Blue Star building then. Under Randolph they’d swallowed up several of the major studios and record companies. I needed a score card to keep track of who owned who these days. Riggs got out and I expected the door to open, but it didn’t. I peered through the tinted glass: he was standing beside the car, waiting for our last passenger to come out. There was no sign of him just yet.
I turned my attention back to Axel. Let’s see. I was curious if Axel Hawke was a stage name or his real name, but it would be gauche to ask. What could we safely make small talk about?
I settled on, “So where are you from?”
“Everywhere, I guess.” He shrugged. “My dad was a weapons instructor in the Air Force so we moved around a lot when I was a kid. Japan, Texas, Germany, a couple of years in England. Then when I was a teenager my parents split and my mom and I settled in Boston, so I guess that’s the closest thing to an answer to the question. Kind of depends on what you meant by it.”
“Just making conversation,” I said. “Though I guess that explains why I can’t really place your accent.”
“Sometimes when I get really tired I forget to speak English,” he said. “But I only remember a little Japanese, a little German. My bandmates say I need subtitles at times like that.”
That made me chuckle. He sounded so down-to-earth now, so genuine and honest, it only added to his air of self-possession instead of detracting from it. I could see why Sarah liked him. I wondered if the reason they weren’t a couple was because they were both dominant in bed. Maybe he would be a fun addition to the “Governor’s Club.” I had a couple of women on the staff who’d probably enjoy him. He couldn’t have been much older or younger than me, and if I was tired of catering to the annoying, middle-aged and older men who were the majority of the club’s
members, I’m sure the gals were even more so. I imagined him moving through the dungeon like a hungry tiger. A hungry, sexy, bad-boy tiger.
“You’re staring, Ms. Hamilton,” Axel said, startling me out of my reverie.
“Oh! Sorry. My thoughts were a million miles away.” Oh thank goodness, I thought. Here comes Grant to distract everyone from the fact I was just staring at a rock star while sort of fantasizing about him.
Riggs opened the door and Grant half-fell into the seat I had left for him. He pulled his legs in and shook himself, holding up a bottle of champagne. For half a second I wondered if he’d been drinking from it, but no, it was still corked, and he wasn’t drunk, merely a klutz. “Whoops, here we are. Hello, I’m Grant. Alex, is it?”
“Axel,” he corrected, shaking Grant’s hand. “Like the long thing that connects two wheels.”
“Sorry?” Grant seemed unprepared to hear an explanation.
“Or an ice skating move,” I added. “The one where you jump-spin in the air.”
“Yes, exactly,” Axel said, with a smile that was like warm sunshine. God, every time he looked at me I felt a thrill, like I was some kind of giddy teenager.
Grant stared at me for a moment, then back at Axel. “I seem to have arrived in the middle of a conversation?”
“Grant, let me introduce my friend Sakura—”
“Charmed, charmed.” He shook her hand vigorously.
“And Axel Hawke, the lead singer of The Rough.”
“Yes, yes, a prestigious award nominee! Well, let’s celebrate.” He opened the bar compartment and popped down the shelf, took out a few champagne flutes, handing them around to each of us before attempting to open the bottle. He wrapped his fist around the cork and pulled. Sakura shied away.
After he had strained at it for a minute or so, Axel said, “May I give it a try?”
“No, no, I’ve got it. It’s just stuck,” Grant insisted.
He strained at it for a while more, until sweat was clearly shining in the hollows of his eyes.
“Give it here, Grant,” I said. He handed the bottle to me.
