Page 121 of Heart Over Heels

Keeping everything contained was how I survived. Feelings could be sorted into boxes, labeled “for later” or “never again,” and then stashed somewhere dark. That was how I made it through the next encounter, the next client, the next transaction. That was how I lay down every night, whether I was in my own bed or someone else’s.

I compartmentalized like a human Caboodle. Everything went in its place, and there was no space in any of my compartments for something as dangerous as love.

So I kicked Mercer out.

Again.

And when the door shut behind him, the silence that followed was a vacuum.

I ventured back out into the club and tried to fill my brain with noise. With tasks. With anything that didn’t have Mercer’s voice echoing in it. I moved from room to room, pleasing private crowds while the other dolls went to work on the downstairs stage.

The theme night was going off without a hitch. Ozzy was the star of the moment, tearing away his Colonel Mustard costume with practiced flair. He’d fixed that misstep and was now perfectly on beat and glorious in shades of tan and gold.

I paused outside the next VIP suite, hanging over the railing and letting the energy of it all wash over me. I’d meant it when I told Mercer I made this. I created myself out of what most people would consider nothing. Or less than nothing. I was a colored woman’s accidental child, born a whore and died one too.

But now, I was Luxe.

Luxe, who wore clothes that cost more money than my mother ever dreamed of. He dined at couture restaurants and drank thousand-dollar bottles of wine. People bathed him in champagne and threw hundred-dollar bills at his feet.

Who was Luxe? Mercer had asked.

He wassomething.

I made him, and I made this place. Everything that spread out before and beneath me had been nothing once too. First Maslow’s cage meant to contain us, then Antonella Rossetti’strash heap meant to bury us. And here I was, overseeing it all. Proud. Tired. And lonely as hell.

I exhaled and cast a glance toward the entrance, half expecting to see Mercer slipping out the same way he’d come in. But instead of a broad-shouldered Marine vanishing into the night, I caught sight of something else.

A knot of guests had formed near the door. Guests cluttered where they should not have been, slowing the flow of traffic to a stop. I wasn’t the first to notice. Beck was already moving in that direction, cutting through the crowd with the speed of purpose.

Straightening, I fussed with my skirt then started down the catwalk.

If the club owner was needed on the scene, then so was the manager.

I arrived at a conversation in progress.

Make that aconfrontationbetween Beck and Colette and a pair of uniformed LVPD officers. The policemen looked fatigued, and Beck looked ready to incinerate someone. His glamor was slipping, throwing off a faint shimmer of heat around his tense form and leaking the sharp tang of sulfur into the air. He must’ve been furious to let his human façade crack in the middle of the rush hour crowd.

Clearly, I wasn’t the only one too exhausted to cope tonight.

“Darby!” Beck’s head snapped toward me, and his eyes flared a dangerous yellow. The air stirred around him, a whip of wind hinting at the movement of an unseen tail.

I flinched instinctively.

“Is this part of your murder game?” He gestured to the bewildered cops.

“Murderwhat?” one of the officers echoed while leaning in with sudden interest.

“Maybe we don’t call it that in front of the police, Becky,” I said, glancing at the policemen and giving an affected laugh. “It’s a theme night. Not a?—”

“Did you hire them?” Beck gave the officers a once-over from their bulky utility belts to their unimpressed stares, then threw up his hands. “Because I would like to be kept in the loop if we’re paying for, what? Set extras?”

The line of guests waiting for admittance had taken notice. They whispered and craned their necks to steal a better look. Nothing like a police presence to spice up an evening of faux murder.

“We’re responding to a call—” one officer started.

“Yes, I heard you the first time,” Beck snapped.

“—about cadavers being stored on the property,” the officer finished flatly.