Chapter One

Kayla

"Your boyfriend's here."

My eyes shoot up from the counter I am furiously wiping down and lock on the tall man that just walked in. He's dressed in his signature black from head to toe. The scowl on his face as he looks around the bar is so dark that it causes a sudden shift in the air.

The patrons in the bar all watch him warily, and I can almost see them visibly tense when his dark gaze crosses over them. He has this effect on people, and one glance is enough to have them raising their hackles.

His dark eyes light up when they lock on mine, sending a shiver racking my body. I break the eye contact to trail my eyes over his outfit of black combat boots, dark jeans, a black shirt, and leather jacket, not a hint of color anywhere on his person. Everything about the man, from his dirty blond hair and stormy gray eyes to the muscles even his clothes can't hide, is all male and screams danger.

Well, he is one of the most dangerous men in Austin. He belongs to the Steel Order Motorcycle Club and works as their accountant, but he is no ordinary accountant. No one from that club is ordinary anything.

"He's not my boyfriend," I whisper, switching my attention back to the stain that just won't budge.

"That green stain has been there way before you started working here," Lana says from my side where she's stocking the beer. "So, about your boyfriend . . ."

"I keep telling you that he's not my boyfriend," I say, rolling my eyes and resisting the urge to look up and track Cash's movements.

"Then explain why he's banned everyone from hitting on you."

My cheeks heat at her words. "That's just a rumor," I argue, dragging the rag aggressively over the stain. "I don't know who the hell started it, but Cash has not banned anyone from hitting on me."

I mean, I do find it a bit odd that not a single man has approached me in the year I have been working at the bar, but then again, I am not the best at reading people and might've missed it. All the other girls at the bar get their fair share of attention, but not a single man has ever blatantly tried to flirt with me.

Even so, it's pretty ridiculous for anyone to assume that Cash is the reason I don't get hit on by customers. Sure, he pretty much runs the bar, as it's one of the Steel Order's legitimate businesses, but he can't exactly control what the customers choose to do. Besides, he has no reason to put that kind of ban on me.

"I think you're just choosing not to see that Cash has basically laid claim over you."

"You're wrong," I tell her. "Cash is our boss, and you need to stop calling him my boyfriend. What happens if he hears you call him that and gets angry at both of us? We could lose our jobs."

"Please, we both know Cash would never get mad at you."

"Lana," I sigh.

"What? Am I lying? The man hasn't taken his eyes off you since he walked in, and oh boy, here he comes."

That is all the warning I get before my nose catches the familiar scent of leather, smoky cedar, and expensive cologne that never fails to make my heart hammer in my chest. There is only one person with the ability to make my pulse leap painfully from something as simple as his scent or voice, and . . .

No, I refuse to think about it.

"You're late tonight," I say when he drops his helmet and backpack on the tall seat next to him.

"Got held up with club business," he replies, sounding tired, and I fight the urge to trace my finger over the lines on his forehead like I would do if we were alone. Our closeness is already giving people the wrong idea, anything more will just fuel the rumors.

"Everything alright?" I ask instead, my voice a little unsteady. I'm not usually this flustered around Cash, but having Lana refer to him as my boyfriend has left me feeling a little unsettled. Normally, I would roll my eyes at the speculations of Cash and I being an item, considering how close we are, but there seems to be something in the air.

Cash, as odd as it may seem, is my best friend. He's been the closest thing to family I've had for the past year.

We met by chance. I was a broke girl looking for a place to nurse my broken heart after losing my father and getting kicked out by my stepfamily the day after my father's funeral. I didn't even get a chance to properly mourn my loss, and I was suddenly out on the streets.

A lot of things could have happened to me that night. I could have been kidnapped by right off the streets. I'd heard rumors of human traffickers in Austin. As it was, I was so shocked and upset, I was almost run over—by Cash.

Our first meeting was unconventional, to say the least, as he almost hit me with his bike when I stepped into the road without looking. He barely managed to swerve enough to avoid me and nearly crashed his bike in the process. I remember him angrily climbing off his bike and coming at me, ready to scold me for jaywalking and risking my life, but the moment he saw my face, he stopped. I don't know what came over me, but I fell into the his arms and bawled like a child. I recall Cash awkwardly wrapping his arms around me to offer comfort, clearly caught off guard. But even when I finally stopped crying, he didn't leave. No, Cash gave me a place to stay when I told him I had nowhere else to go, and a few days later, he got me a job. When I asked why, he simply said it was because he could, and it's what he'd want someone to do for his sister, if he had one.

It's been a year since that fateful night, and I've now come to terms that this is my life and Cash is my family, which makes these feelings that I've been fighting back since the day we met wrong.

I can't think of Cash as anything more than my best friend and boss.

"Freckles!" I snap out of my thoughts and blink dazedly at Cash, my cheeks flushing deeply when I realize that I have been staring at him since he sat down. "You seem distracted tonight."

"I . . . Oh, right," I stammer, trying and failing to gather my thoughts.

Lana snorts at my side, causing me to flush deeper. "You want your usual drink?" I manage, breaking eye contact with Cash.

"Just water," he says as he reaches for his bag and takes out a bunch of files, laying them on the counter. "It's tax season, and I have a shit ton of work to get through."

Oh, that means he'll be here for a while. "Isn't this place a little too noisy?"

"I like it noisy."

Right. He's told me time and time again that he works better around chaos. At first, I thought he liked to work at the bar so he could keep an eye on things. I've just never understood why he would choose to work in such a raucous place when he has a private office in the back. He could even work from home. He lives in the one of the most peaceful and luxurious parts of the city, where he can enjoy the quiet. Especially with me on shift at the bar, he'd have the condo we share all to himself. But he insists on setting up camp on the same barstool nearly every night.

Speaking of which . . . "I've been thinking of moving out," I say, holding my breath as I anticipate his reaction.

"Moving out . . ."

"Um, yeah. You've been letting me live in your condo rent-free for a year, and I think I've finally saved enough to rent my own place. I don't want to keep imposing on you."

Cash is silent for a long time, and I gnaw my bottom lip as I await his response. As much as the thought of leaving physically pains me, I can't leech off Cash much longer.

The truth is, my attraction to Cash has only grown over the last year, and living so close to him but not being able to act on those feelings is becoming unbearable. I need some space if I have any hope of getting over this crush I have on him.

"The condo is your home too, Kayla. You living there isn't a burden. I thought I made that clear."

"You did, but—"

"There are no buts about it," he says firmly, his tone leaving no room for argument. "It's as much your home as it is mine. True, you don't pay rent, but you do all the cooking, cleaning, and laundry. You do more than your share, so you don't need to feel guilty or like you're imposing. Save your money for something else. You're not moving out."

"Okay," I whisper, hoping the loud beat of my heart isn't audible to him. Something about him telling me to stay, practically forbidding me from moving out in that warm, deep voice of his has my body warming all over. "If you're sure you don't mind, then . . . I'll stay." For now, I add to myself. I don't want to argue with Cash, but I can't keep living with him, feeling the way I do about him. But I'm at work, and this isn't the place to start an argument that I'll probably lose anyway. Cash has a way of getting what he wants, and for some reason, he seems to actually like living with me.

"Good. I'll be working most of the night in my usual spot, bring the water over there please."

I nod and watch as he gathers his things and moves to the table in the corner that is always reserved for him.

"Freckles, huh?" Lana teases once Cash is out of earshot. "Seriously, anyone listening to the two of you talk will think you're a couple or something."

"We're just friends," I say, grabbing a bottle of water and pouring it into a glass before adding a slice of lemon.

"You think it's normal that you're the only one he lets serve him his drink?"

I perk up at that, finally finding a loophole in her ‘boyfriend' theory. "What about before I started working here? Huh? Surely, he got his drink served by someone else. Did you speculate he was dating that person too?"

Lana looks at me funny. "I have worked here for three years, and he only started working from here when you showed up. Before that, he'd just stop by a couple times a week to check on things."

"What?"

"Kayla, it's no secret that Cash manages all of the Steel Order's businesses. Heck, that's how he got his name, but he never casually interacted with the staff. He only came to collect the books and check in with management before leaving. Cash only started hanging out around the place when you showed up."

Oh.

Her words leave me speechless, a state I am still in when I walk to Cash with his water. Surely, what Lana said can't be right. Cash gives off an air about him that makes him feel unapproachable, but he spends so much time around this place that it's hard to believe that wasn't the case before.

My eyes are on him as I slowly approach his table. Although casually dressed, one can practically read the dollar signs written all over him. I guess it makes sense seeing that he deals with money for a living.

"Here's your water," I say, placing the glass on the table, careful not to spill it on any of his things. "Looks like you'll be here for a while. Do you want me to get you something to eat?"

He glances up briefly before shifting his focus back to his work. "We can grab something after your shift."

"Okay," I say, fighting to push down the flutter in my chest. This is nothing out of the ordinary. Cash and I often grab dinner together after my shift when he's not too busy, so why do the words feel different this time?

Ugh, I blame Lana for this.

Ever since she joined that romance book club, she's been insufferable. Over the past couple of weeks, she's been feeding ideas into my head and making me think things about my best friend that I shouldn't, and now, I read into every little thing he says or does.

"Let me know if you need anything else," I tell him, and he nods without looking up, his focus firmly on the receipts he's reading through.

More patrons filter into the bar, and I quickly become busy but still find my gaze drifting toward the large man working in the corner. I've always thought of Cash as handsome, especially when he climbs off his bike dressed in all leather, but there is just something different about him seated there, all serious and sifting through files. It just does something to me.

"If you keep staring at him like that, people will start to think you like him or something."

"Let it go, Lana," I say, rolling my eyes at her sudden fixation on my relationship with Cash, but her words do force my attention from him to the bar entrance, where two men just walked in. "We have new customers, maybe we should focus on that."

"Pfft, let the others handle them. Now about you and Cash . . ."

Everything quickly goes static when my eyes settle on the faces of the two men who just walked in. They are dressed casually in khakis and matching polo sweaters, as if they jumped straight off a GQ magazine cover. I stand frozen to the floor as the taller of the two men looks around the bar, his eyes and nose wrinkled in disgust as he runs them over the patrons. The shorter one taps his shoulder and points at an empty table, and they both walk over and take a seat.

"Kayla, are you listening? Hey, what's wrong?"

I can make out Lana's voice. Hell, I can even feel her hand on my shoulder as she shakes me, but I can't move for the life of me.

In the same room as me, are my stepbrothers. The same people who cheered on my stepmother when she kicked me out of my family home. No, these two were thorns in my side way before that. My father married my cruel stepmother a short two years before he passed, and not even a full day after his funeral, I was homeless.

I can't fathom why they would be in this bar of all places. No, Mark and Henry would not be caught dead anywhere near an establishment that didn't require a steep membership fee where they could rub elbows with the wealthy elite.

Are they here for me? But that doesn't make any sense. They've made no effort to contact me in the year since they helped my stepmother force me out of my home. But why else would they be here if not to find me?

The thought sends me ducking behind the bar, and I crouch on the floor, my heart hammering in my chest at the thought of having to deal with them. Getting kicked out of my childhood home was painful, but in hindsight, also liberating. It meant I didn't have to deal with my stepfamily's vile tempers.

"Kayla, are you okay?" Lana calls out, and I look up to find her watching me with a worried look on her face.

"Um, yeah," I whisper shakily. "I . . . I just had a leg cramp. I'll be okay in a second."

She stares at me unconvinced but doesn't call me out on my lie, and when she leaves to serve our new customers, I stay hidden, praying like I never have that the floor will open up and swallow me whole.

Anything to avoid the ghosts of a past I'd thought died with my beloved father.