True, I'd been nearly naked. And true, the guy with the handcuffs was hot as sin, with perfect pecs, glorious abs, and a face to launch a thousand fantasies. But all that aside, the experience wasn't half as much fun as it sounds, even if a million other girls would've gladly taken my place.
I'd been handcuffed because my jerk of a boyfriend – correction, ex-boyfriend, if he'd ever truly been my boyfriend at all – had mistaken me for some kind of greedy, lying scumbag looking to exploit his fame for my own financial gain.
But I couldn't think about that now. I'd rather kiss that squid a hundred times than cry in front of my idiot boss and some random car hoochie.
I swallowed the pain and focused on Keith. He covered his privates with both hands while the girl in the backseat continued to screech. Keith leaned toward her and muttered something I couldn't hear. A moment later, the screeching stopped, and a second face appeared in the window. My jaw hit the pavement.
It was Brittney.
The girl who tried to have me kidnapped.
The girl who almost got me fired.
And apparently, the girl who was screwing my boss.
Chapter 2
Standing in the cold parking lot, I looked from Keith to Brittney and back again.
I totally didn't see that coming.
"You aresofired!" Brittney hollered through the glass. Her long blonde hair hung in surprisingly perfect waves, but her dress was definitely off-kilter, like she'd been wrestling a monkey in the back seat. Whatever she and Keith were doing, she apparently hadn't bothered to undress.
I couldn’t really blame her. If I were doing Keith, I'd keep most of my clothes on too.
"You can't fire me," I hollered back through the car window. "You don't even work here."
Smiling, she reached a hand toward the door. The car window slid halfway down, revealing both of them in all their sweaty glory. No wonder the car had been running. Clothed or not, the night was way too frigid for a backseat bang-a-thon.
Brittney turned to Keith. "Go on, baby," she said. "Tell her."
I looked at Keith. "Baby?"
Keith cleared his throat. "Well, uh, you never showed up for your shift, and um –"
"And," Britney said with a flip of her hair, "you're totally fired."
Again, I looked to Keith. He was still covering his privates, but his jaw was set in that stubborn line I knew all too well.
"Is that so?" I said with a lot more surprise than I felt.
In truth, Ihadexpected to be fired. I had a pretty good idea why Keith had called me here. He wanted the pleasure of firing me in person. If I had any dignity whatsoever, I'd have told him to take his ultimatum and shove it. But dignity was a luxury I couldn’t afford.
So here I was, waiting for the hammer, but hoping for a miracle.
Keith squared his shoulders. "You know the rules," he said. "Section three, item two, under employee conduct." He spoke like he knew the employee manual by heart, which he probably did. Oddly enough, quoting the thing word-for-word was the one thing he was actually good at.
His voice picked up steam. "Employees who miss their shifts will be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination."
I nodded. "Uh-huh. And what does the manual say about, oh, I dunno, screwing skanks in the parking lot?"
"Hey!" Brittney said. "I'm no skank."
This wasn't true. If you searched on the word skank, you'd find a picture of Brittney, along with her friend, Amber. They were the worst kind of groupies. Except they didn't specialize in rock stars, or even restaurant managers, regardless of what it might look like now.
They specialized in billionaire bad boys from Detroit. Okay, one in particular. Their latest conquest had been Lawton Rastor – former underground fighter, famous reality star, fitness mogul, and yes, the guy with the handcuffs.
I rubbed my wrists. The skin was still raw, but not half as raw as my aching heart. Walking away from Lawton tonight had been one of the hardest things I'd ever done, especially after he'd begged me to stay.
