Beautiful Sins (The Enemies Trilogy Book 2) Read online

  Beautiful Sins

  Enemies #2

  Piper Lawson

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  Beautiful Sins

  Enemies #2

  “I don’t know how to treat a woman like you.”

  I swore I’d cut Harrison King out of my life, and my bed, forever.

  The second my contract with the ruthless billionaire who owned me was up…

  I ran.

  Not knowing that decision would only twist the web around us tighter.

  Now, he’s back, and the sins of his past threaten to destroy us both.

  He still thirsts for power and vengeance. But his secrets run deeper than I knew.

  This time, he wants me to stand by his side.

  This time, he’s asking.

  BEAUTIFUL SINS is the steamy, enthralling continuation of Harrison and Reagan’s romance that begins in BEAUTIFUL ENEMY and concludes in BEAUTIFUL RUIN.

  1

  Rae

  The cable is loose. It’s fucking irritating. What kind of club doesn’t have the right gear?

  The kind I used to play when I was hustling to get where I am.

  Where I was until last month.

  This is the best of the three gigs I’ve played since returning to LA. The caliber of clubs I’ve booked has gone down since the article released featuring the photo of Harrison and me backstage at Debajo.

  My renewed infamy has created a new roadblock. Now I’m not just the woman who might publicly call out a club on their bullshit.

  I’m also a hypocrite.

  Still, we’re in LA, and this venue is full of beautiful people in various stages of intoxication.

  A small film crew occupies one side. Beck’s in the center, security watching him and the crew surrounding him.

  The entire set, the loose cable bugs me. Every minute, I expect the music to cut out and a bunch of partiers to throw their designer vodka drinks in my face.

  But hey, at least I get to do what I love.

  A month after what happened with Mischa, I still get tense during the changeover, doing a scan of the crowd before I unplug and give up the stage to descend into the throng of partiers.

  Tonight, there’s a college-aged kid who leans too close, trying to look down the loose black shirt that’s sticking to me with sweat.

  A duo of guys flanks me, making God knows what symbol over my head while they snap a pic.

  A young, platinum-blond woman drags her friends over. They shift from one deadly high heel to the other while she squeals.

  “Girl, I’m a huge fan! Will you be at Wild Fest next year?”

  I fix on a “we’re all having fun here” smile I learned from Beck. “You’ll have to wait and see.”

  “Ohmigod. It’s going to be the biggest thing.” She makes a duck face next to me as she wraps an arm around my shoulders. “I want life lessons from anyone who can land Harrison King. He’s loaded and gorgeous and that accent… I bet he fucks like an animal.”

  As the flash goes off, I’m not seeing the camera or the woman.

  All I can remember are the memories I’ve tried to shove down. Harrison King, body straining and damp with sweat, me clinging to him and gasping as he drove into me until we both collapsed.

  But it was all a lie. It meant nothing.

  “Dammit, one more?” the girl asks, but I’m already pushing away.

  “Hey!” A whistle cuts through the noise, and I wait for Beck to catch up. “Heading out early?”

  My friend is Hollywood-leading-man handsome, with dark hair and darker eyes that see more than they let on. His looks might’ve helped land him his primetime show, but his shrewdness got him the reality series he’s filming now.

  “Yeah. Thanks for bringing the crew here,” I say.

  The club made a few extra bucks, plus free publicity, for allowing Beck’s crew to film an episode of the reality show here. If they didn’t already want me back on the strength of my set, they will now.

  “How many selfies did you take before someone brought your boy up?”

  I shake my head. “It’s been a month. He’s living his life. I’m living mine.” I eye his crew. “You should get back to the girl you were sucking face with. She’s already bailed on her friends.”

  He glances back that way, where a beautiful, fresh-faced woman stands next to his security.

  He goes to speak with her, then two minutes later, he’s back, ushering me into the rear seat of a limo.

  “Shouldn’t have done that,” I tell him as I drop my bag on the floor and he reaches for a bottle of champagne in the fridge.

  “You’re my friend.” He pops the cork and pours a glass, passing it to me. “So, I heard that chick ask about Wild Fest. Are you mixing there?”

  I stare into the champagne flute, its tiny bubbles at odds with the leaden feeling inside me. “I got on their radar this spring before everything, but they’ve been dodging me since Ibiza.”

  “That’s why you’re pissy? It has nothing to do with Harrison King?”

  “Nothing.” I take a long drink, the bubbles tickling my throat, then burning after I swallow.

  I pull off the headphones still around my neck and tuck them carefully into the bag at my feet.

  Beck leans over, his handsome face suddenly close.

  I frown. “What are you doing?”

  “Testing your claim.”

  He covers my mouth with his.

  His lips are determined and playful at once as he kisses me.

  My hands freeze in midair, too stunned to do anything else. He dares me to pull back.

  I let the feeling wash over me. He’s warm, masculine, compelling in a totally unselfconscious, totally Beck way.

  But it’s not dangerous or breathtaking. My heart rate is up from surprise, not arousal.

  When his tongue parts my lips, I shove at his chest.

  Beck drops back against the seat with a laugh. “See? You’re still hung up on the guy.”

  “Just because I don’t want to fuck you doesn’t mean I’m hung up on someone else.”

  “You’re kidding, right? Have you seen me?”

  His words eat at the wall around my heart. “Thanks for trying to make me feel better. Even if it was a fucked-up way to do it.”

  “I can’t fix your heart, but I can say you have no reason to feel ashamed of what you did in Ibiza. Whatever makes you so critical started a long time ago with shit you don’t think about in the light of the day, not to mention talk about.”

  “You get all that from me not letting you stick your tongue in my mouth?”

  He shakes his head. “Been watching you a while, Little Queen. You haven’t made peace with who you are. You want to play the Wild Fests of this world, you gotta do that sooner or later.” His phone rings, and he mouths, “My producer,” as he answers.

  I drag out my own phone and pull up my social accounts.

  Harrison King watch has resumed. He has left Ibiza. Since the photos of us surfaced, he’s been seen in London. Paris. At his clubs, but also with women.

  What surprises me most is how the pictures make my chest ache. An unrelenting ache that lingers through days of trying to work, dinners with friends, nights alone.

  How I feel has nothing to do with his hard, beautiful body or strong hands or firm lips or piercing blue eyes, and everything to do with the fact that I felt as if he showed me parts of himself he’d never shown anyone else.

  Admitting what happened to his parents, that he’s on a mission to redeem them. He’d do anything to win La M
er and rebuild the empire that fell when they died, the same empire I threatened when I exposed him on social media.

  Anything—including using me.

  I don’t believe he set up the pictures of us at Debajo, but he must have seen them, and he hasn’t reached out once.

  Not a damn word. No defending what happened in his clubs or how it looked as if he used me.

  I need to move on.

  I haven’t been up to New York because I know Annie will want to talk—the kind of talk with way too many feelings—and I’m avoiding getting into that.

  Which is why I’m in a limo with Beck, who has not only given me a place to stay the past few weeks when I didn’t want to be alone, but who should be fucking a perfectly nice girl instead of looking after me.

  There’s an email with a subject and sender that leap off the page.

  “What’s wrong?” Beck asks, and I realize he’s hung up his call.

  “My brother Kian’s getting married in a month. He’s inviting me.”

  “Short notice. Where’s the wedding?”

  “Napa.” I fold my arms at his raised brow. “I grew up in Orange County.”

  His low rumble of laughter has me sighing. “You’ve been back a month, and I bet you haven’t told any of them.”

  Shadows flick across his face from the streetlights, but it’s the darkness inside me that makes me shiver.

  “We haven’t been close since high school.”

  Beck pulls my head down on his shoulder and lays his on top of mine. “Here’s the thing. You could be a superstar. Have the Wild Fests of the world begging you to show. But you won’t get there until you make peace with where you’ve been. No matter where you’re going, you can’t run from you.”

  “Have you made peace?” I ask him pointedly.

  He’s had trouble with his parents—they’re flush and part of New York society, and from what I understand, having their son turn his back on the career his father wanted for him to pursue acting and come out publicly as bi pushed their self-righteous buttons.

  He sighs. “Work in progress.”

  I grab the champagne and chug the rest, then turn off my phone and shove it in my bag, leaving the top open. The glint of diamond headphones follows me home.

  2

  Harrison

  It’s not the first time I’ve tried to open a new door in my life—metaphorically or literally.

  Nor is it the first time the way has been thoroughly barricaded.

  “How long will this take?” I bark into my Bluetooth headphones, kicking at the stack of cinderblocks barring the entrance to the warehouse.

  “Depends. The documents you shared about your parents weren’t much to go on.” The other man’s Northern Irish accent abrades my ears.

  “So go to other sources. You’re the investigator.” Cobwebs cover my hands as I lift a brick and set it a dozen feet away.

  “You can’t just go around asking whether dead people were involved in illicit activities.”

  I toss my tie over my shoulder as I bend to grab two more. “Should be easier than when they were alive.”

  My top priority is convincing Christian my parents were innocent so he’ll sell me La Mer. Hence the investigator.

  My father helped build the legitimate side of Mischa’s family’s business, acquiring and managing real estate and venues. I didn’t think much of it until the summer after my fist year of uni in Connecticut. I arrived home to find them looking so drained even a self-indulgent nineteen-year-old would notice something was wrong.

  They looked over their shoulders when we were out. Stayed in the living room, speaking in hushed tones late at night. While I had been at school, they’d become unhappy ghosts of the people who raised me.

  Which was why I told them to leave the Ivanov family’s business.

  They were in the process of doing that when they were killed, their deaths made to look like drug overdoses.

  “Someone is alleging my parents not only knew the full nature of what transpired in that business but enabled it.”

  If anyone but Christian needed the kind of proof I hired the investigator to find, I’d have dismissed it as ugly conjecture. However, what Christian thinks matters because I need to buy his club in order to bury Mischa once and for all.

  “You have thirty days to definitively return evidence they were innocent.”

  I click off more forcefully than necessary and toss the earpieces in my pocket as footsteps approach me from behind.

  “Sounds juicy, boss.” Leni pops a hand on a hip as I grab the last of the blocks blocking the door.

  “Christian’s holding out on La Mer. I thought he and my father were good friends. Turns out there was something between them. A misunderstanding, no doubt. My father was a decent man.”

  “And if he wasn’t?”

  I frown at the sun over the top of the warehouse, sweat making my shirt stick to my back. “Everything I’m doing to rebuild what they started is for them. I can’t believe he would have knowingly helped build an empire on people’s suffering.” I grab my pocket square and wipe the dirt off my hands, the sweat at the base of my neck. “Digging up the truth is my investigator’s business. In the meantime, this is ours.”

  She turns to survey the property. “Looks like shit.”

  “Most diamonds do before they’re polished.” I unlock the door and gesture inside. “After you.”

  The space is massive, a single open rectangle with concrete floors and industrial lighting suspended thirty feet up.

  The floor plans I reviewed say there are offices at one end, which we can use. The dozen loading docks are overkill. We might use one, but the rest need to be closed off or redesigned.

  “How long to renovate it into a nightclub?” I ask.

  “Assuming the permits and zoning are lined up… a year.”

  “They’re not, and I want it in six months.”

  Her laughter dies. “You’re serious?”

  “I’m not waiting around while Christian passes judgment. Echo will continue to expand. We’ve been making acquisitions, but we can’t ignore development opportunities. This will be our next nightclub.”

  Rumors of the nightclub industry’s downfall are overblown. The clubs that are closing are ones where the owners don’t understand the business they’re in and don’t evolve to deliver their function in new ways.

  A club isn’t a venue that serves drinks.

  It’s a theme park.

  A secret rendezvous.

  Hell, even a runway.

  It’s a vehicle for thrills. The thrill made by being swept up in the darkness, the music, of watching and putting on a show.

  Leni sighs. “I’ll see what I can do about the timeline. Work our contractor contacts, assuming we can pay twice regular rates.”

  “One and a half,” I correct. “I’ll take care of the zoning and permits.”

  LA is a city built for that twisted intersection of the elegant and the hedonistic, the cultured and the primal.

  This area includes some studio buildings and storage. It’s close enough to Hollywood and most LA neighborhoods to get people in, and transit is established, though I expect most people will arrive by car.

  Still, I’ve heard it’s tough to get through the zoning committees. We need to show them that putting a mixed-use entertainment venue here will be an asset to the local community rather than a liability.

  “Why are you even here, converting some warehouse instead of running La Mer?” Leni prods. “I thought you and Christian were working it out.”

  “I told him I’d prove to him I could run it and suggested an artist who could step in for the long weekend.”

  “And?”

  “And the day after I promised that, she left.”

  My feet echo on the concrete as I cross the space, heading for the doors at the far side.

  Leni cocks her head. “Let me guess—she doesn’t know about La Mer. Because your pride stopped you from telling her or fr
om asking her to stay.”

  “It’s not pride. She made it clear she wants nothing more to do with me.”

  I grimace as I reach the door labeled OFFICE, try the handle. It gives. I peer into the darkness, feeling for a light switch. When I find it, the overhead light clicks on, showing a surprisingly decent space with furniture still in place.

  This summer with Raegan was unexpected. I might’ve been the one to trick her into playing Debajo, but the joke was on me.

  I felt way too fucking much around her. Not only was she beautiful and talented and stubborn. I wanted to fix the damned world for her, to make myself and everything around me worthy.

  None of it mattered because she left at the first opportunity.

  It’s unreasonable to blame her after what happened with Mischa. But I do.

  I blame her.

  Because whatever I felt, she didn’t feel the same, or she would’ve stayed.

  Leni passes me and drags a finger across the dusty desk. “Rae’s playing in LA, you know.”

  My abs clench at the sound of her name.

  When Rae left, I needed to get my head out of my ass and move on with my business. Part of that was being seen at events, which I squared my shoulders for and undertook. I needed to play the game and be seen playing it.

  Still… Every suggestive look, every overt invitation from women in my social circle, I’ve turned down.

  It’s a strange combination, being available and being utterly uninterested in anyone but the one person I can’t have.

  “You’ve been a bear since she left. What’re you going to do about it?”

  I glare. “I liked you better when you weren’t up in my business.”

  “You’re the one who hired me. Still can’t quite figure out why you picked up a bunch of misfits. Me, Natalia, Toro, half the people in your business.”