Chapter 2

Two

Cade

I clenched my jaw and scanned the monitors flashing one scene after another of II. Just another night like any other night. I braced my hands on the back of a chair. Throngs of people wanting to be seen and heard. Everyone from desperates wanting to be accepted by the popular crowd, to old players who knew the game all crowded into the two-story exclusive club and all came looking for the same thing—the limelight.

I used to be like so many of those fools. Wanting everyone's attention and then by the time I had it, I realized the best thing in my life was gone. Elle Morgan. I let the most beautiful soul slip from my fingers because I chased fame and fortune.

Now that I had both…

I sighed gruffly. I turned to Jace, my best friend since forever it felt like most days. He had a drawn brow that gave him a puckered face oddly mirroring my sentiments of the evening perfectly. We had been friends from day one of college, on through football and now our pro days.

"You know, sometimes on nights like this I feel like standing in the middle of the room and just picking and saying that's the one. Fate picked and I was only the instrument."

Scanning the other half of monitors lining the wall in our office, Jace chuckled, which only irritated me more. We've talked about finding someone who completed us on and off for the past year. We had selective tastes in women with the utmost on the list being okay with our darker desires of sharing our women. And able to take all our devotion to her happiness.

Nothing else mattered beyond that and a kind soul.

Sure, we dated off and on solo, but nothing serious for either of us.

To most it sounded weird, but for Jace and me, we've known since college at some point we would end up marrying the same woman. It happened when we unwittingly ended up liking the same girl our junior year and asked her out. Together. She might have found our indecent proposal too sinful for her sweet Baptist Southern soul, but there were a few who we thought might be the one. Then there was Elle Morgan. My God, that woman had it all—heart, soul, killer body. I caught how she looked at my best friend a few times, and it gave me hope. But our relationship was too young. I waited too long to introduce her to my darker side. I had been scared. I didn't want to rush things and scare her off. Then she left college—no warning, no goodbye. Just gone.

"I'm serious, man. I'm tired. I just want to find someone that I can be happy with already and be done."

Jace cocked a brow.

"Okay, we. Sorry," I corrected.

"You're horny," Jace countered. "You're never going to find an Elle Morgan in a crowd like this."

Fuck, I hated he was right. "No one will ever compare. Half the time I want to track her down."

Jace pointed at the bank of monitors. "Before hiring a PI and entering stalker territory, tell you what. Go down there, pick up a busty brunette, take her home for a night or two and get it out of your system already."

I pushed up from where I leaned on the chair and headed for the sidebar in our office. "When's the last time that worked?" I shook my head. "Waste of time. We're not like the guys down there anymore. Way too old and I like to think we've matured past wanting a new woman every other month."

Jace was quiet for a long minute and when I turned to him, something dawned on me. "Why the hell haven't you dipped into the pool lately? Take your own advice and indulge yourself. I thought you liked all the ladies the job attracts."

Jace stood and joined me at the bar, taking the whiskey and pouring us both a double.

"Maybe you're old?—"

"—Fuck you." I cut in.

Ignoring me, Jace continued. "I'm just tired of glitter and fake everything, especially sentiment. You're right. It's been a long time and I'm just… fuck it. I don't know."

A hand came around and Jace rubbed at his neck. "I don't know."

We're in the height of our pro ball career, the days when we should be the happiest, but it all seemed so lackluster of late. We made good investments with our money. Built an empire of nightclubs that strung across the country with our eyes set on taking II global when we decided to retire from the field. Honestly, the more I thought on it, the more it sounded like that day could be sooner, rather than later. We hit the pro scene later on and had a couple or three years on most of our teammates. My shoulders and knees could attest to that fact. Jace's too. While most of our friends were out living up the high life, we spent it either here, on the field practicing, travelling to games, or in ice baths. We didn't understand the meaning of cutting loose, I guessed.

But we did understand burnout.

Our friends flaunted a different woman on each arm for every day of the week. Jace and I didn't work like that. We worked long hours on and off the field, buried our noses in our businesses, and pushed forward. The empire around us will outlive our baller glory days long after we are gray and put out to pasture.

"I can't get hard for another random hookup no matter how much I try."

Jace looked at me with an inquiring stare per his usual MO. He liked to think about everything that came out of his mouth and then when he did speak, his words were firm and intentional. Most times it didn't bother me, but tonight the longer he looked at me the more I wanted to punch him. Maybe I did need to just get laid.

"Yeah, I'm with you on that. I can only take so much, too."

We downed our drinks and went in for another.

"What's really eating at you?"

I grabbed my fresh drink. "My fucking shoulder for one, man. I can feel when the rain is coming and I'm only thirty-two. What's it going to feel like when we're forty? Fifty?"

Jace just stood there, drink halfway to his lips. "You saying you want out?"

I considered him over the rim of my glass, eyes narrowed on him. "We can afford it."

"True, but we have contracts."

"Not for long. This could be our last season, if we wanted." I shrugged.

"I'm saying we need a plan." One thing about Jace and me is, since we had the good fortune of landing the same dream job of going pro, the same luck followed us through life since. Breaking up the duo dream team now seemed irrational at best and just plain stupid. I go, we both go and vice versa.

From day one going in as business partners we had one rule—we remained in control. No one else dictated our lives to us off the field. Ever. No exceptions. And if something caught our eye and made good business sense, we worked damn hard until we had it.

When it came to women, we operated the same. But I honestly can't remember the last time we indulged in a woman's body.

I picked up the remote to the security cameras and flicked from the bar over to the dance floor when I spotted her. Black dress, killer legs, and the regal neck of a queen. Her back was stiff, and she scanned the crowd and her surroundings. She looked out of place among the wolves prowling around her. A woman like that in our club? Innocent and so damn sweet I could practically smell it all the way up here. She spelled trouble for us, and that was the last thing we needed. We have a strict policy of who walked through our doors. Someone like that always stirred up the clientele and not in a good way. We didn't need the bad publicity that would come from someone that innocent falling prey to the animals that would pounce on her.

So caught up in my thoughts, I failed to see she had turned, face toward the camera, her attention set on the dance floor.

I grabbed the control and zoomed in, my heart on the fucking floor. It couldn't be.

"What the hell?" I quickly zoomed in more on the voluptuous brunette and froze. Recognition dawned. I knew that silhouette anywhere. My eyes hadn't lied. Elle Morgan stood in the middle of our club, and my blood pressure shot through the glass domed ceiling. I cursed in a string of searing words.

I pointed at the far-left monitor positioned toward the bar closest to the dance floor. "Jesus. H. Christ. Jace, come here. Do you see what I see?" I risk a glance away and signal Jace over.

Standing beside me, Jace did what I did. We both stared in disbelief. "No damn way."

Absorbed in seeing Elle again, neither of us saw the man approach her on the dance floor until he practically stood on top of her. Some asshat had his hands on her and from the look of it, she didn't appreciate the fact. From the way her brow pinched at whatever the guy spouted was not going over well. Her eyes were wide, and she looked a mix of pissed off and scared. Ire raged inside me almost instantly. Why hadn't security put a stop to this already? Someone would be losing their job tonight.