Layla The first time I met Leif Sorensen was six years ago. I was twenty-one years old, and perpetually on the brink of disaster. Money was tight, so tight. Bills were in arrears, rent seemed to be always due, and my eleven-year-old little sister looked like she was in desperate need of a good meal. I have no idea how I looked. Worse than Emma, probably. A stick insect with desperate eyes, scrabbling to make ends meet while pretending that everything was going to be fine. It’d been five years since Mom left, since my world imploded and I was forced to grow up. Five long, hard years since I kissed my teenage years goodbye and took responsibility for myself and Emma. All the while, my grandparents were struggling. Grandpa needed a new kind of heart medication while the insurance company gave him the runaround, and their house somehow acquired a carpenter ant infestation. Then I got The Job. You know the one—the type of job that takes you from relying on loose change from the couch for at least a meal a month to a bank account that isn’t overdrawn. The type of job that feels like a gift from God, because it means you’ll be able to feed the people that d epend on you and pay the bills and pay rent. The type of job that leaves extra at the end of the month, that would even allow me to pay for my grandfather’s medication as well as an exterminator. All I had to do was wear a bright smile and ferry drinks from the bar to VIP tables in a dark, pulsing nightclub. I bluffed my way to the job, lied about my experience, and wore a teeny tiny skirt to the interview, and I’m not ashamed of any of it. I know I was hired for my looks, because VIP waitresses in dark nightclubs are supposed to look pretty and available and expensive. Fine by me. My grandparents, Emma, and I needed the money and I was ready to do almost anything to get it. The lucky thing about my face, I think, is that it’s generically pretty enough to be able to transform into something more. With some clever contouring, eyeliner, and false lashes, I was able to become a different person. I wasn’t Layla Reynolds, desperate big sister pretending to know what she was doing. I was a flaxen-haired babe who batted her lashes and flirted, then relieved drunk, horny men from the weight of all that cash in their pockets. Glamorous? Of course not. But I didn’t care. I had a hard-earned high school diploma and no additional training to speak of, with my best asset being my looks. I would’ve been a fool not to use them. The makeup and hair were my armor—along with the push-up bras. My modest cleavage looked fantastic with the help of not one, not two, but three double-padded bras. I hid behind my Hot Waitress persona, then I’d go home, strip off the layers of padding, scrub my face, and be the big sister Emma needed to get her to school on time. For three whole weeks, Emma and I had more stability than we’d had in all the years since my mother walked out on us. I had money. Wads of it, rolled up in neat cylinders, stuffed in my underwear drawer. A couple hundred bucks doesn’t seem like a lot to some people, but to Emma and me, it was everything. It
was stability. Stupidly, I allowed myself a thin, golden thread of hope. I nurtured it in the d epth of my heart, hid it from view, but secretly let it grow into something shining and strong and real. With The Job, I could save some money. I’d be able to get my sister and me an apartment so we wouldn’t have to crash in our grandparents’ cramped spare room. I might even be able to afford some of those summer camps she was so desperate to go to—and maybe, one day, put aside some money for her college education. Even at eleven years old, Emma was a brainiac. She wouldn’t be held back in life the way I was; she was going to get every opportunity I could scrape together for her—and The Job was going to make it happen. Hope made everything taste sweeter. It made me enjoy putting on pounds of makeup every night. It made me not care that I had to wear three bras to work. Hope, ultimately, is what broke me. Because at the height of my hopefulness, Leif happened. That night is written in my mind with crystal clarity, as if it happened yesterday instead of over six years ago. I remember getting ready for work and having a Good Eyeliner Day. Both eyes were perfectly outlined in sultry black, a little flick at the outer corner angled perfectly to suit my face. Red lips, shimmery and enticingly wet- looking. Hair in big, loose curls, pinned back from my face to show off the too-sharp cheekbones that betrayed the fact that I was in need of a good meal. I looked good. I felt good. I was ready to paint that bubbly, brainless smile on my face that was so useful in making me seem friendly and unthreatening and worthy of all the tips in the world. And, of course, the bras. Three double-padded bras that took my modest bust to something Hooterific. The moneymakers, I called them. I blame the bras for everything that happened. If I hadn’t been wearing them, things wouldn’t have gone so horribly wrong. I would have reacted quicker. Or at all. The club was set up in two sections. The bottom level was mostly a big, sticky dance floor with two bars on opposite ends of the room. There were high-top tables and a few chairs along the edges, but mostly the area was reserved for drunken, debauched dancing. I worked in the mezzanine level, with the VIPs. The VIP section was set up in multiple nooks of low couches, arranged to afford as much privacy as possible in a nightclub. Seeing it at the end of the shift—when the lights came on and the place was a mess—was enough to strip any illusions of glamour, but wealthy young people with egos and money loved to come sip a drink and regard the dancing masses like they were royals overseeing their subjects. One set of couches in particular was on its own on one side of the mezzanine and gave a perfect view of the floor below. That night, halfway through my shift, I was tasked with removing a group from that section to make way for people higher up in the hierarchy of VIPs. Easy, right? Not so much. The thing about people who go to fancy nightclubs and pay stupid amounts of money to be waited on in an exclusive VIP section is they don’t like being told what to do. So when I asked the group to move, telling them the couch had been reserved by other, more important Very Important People, I could tell there would be trouble.
The big man nearest me had hands like ham hocks which clenched into tight, white-knuckled fists when I asked him to vacate the space. His hair was dark and cut short, revealing a few white scars on the side of his head. A crooked nose sat above thin, angry lips. A brawler. And by my count, he’d had five or six drinks in the time he’d occupied that particular sofa. “Fuck off,” he said to my breasts. “Sir, this table is reserved,” I answered, leaning over to be heard above the pulsing music. This put my breasts even more directly in his eyesight, with the added benefit of having the neckline of my shirt dip down to reveal a bit more skin. I didn’t do it on purpose. Typically, my breasts didn’t bulge out so much, and sometimes I forgot what the three bras did for me. But when his eyes dipped down and his tongue darted out to lick his lips, I immediately straightened. Brawler lifted his dark, dark eyes to meet mine, a dangerous expression in his eyes. “I said, fuck off. And get us another bottle.” My fingers curled around the edge of the tray I held under one arm as I straightened, resisting the urge to pinch my nose. Brawler was clearly the leader, with his cronies cackling along with him. For once, my bubbly Hot Waitress persona was a disadvantage. It didn’t exactly engender respect. The woman next to him flicked her hair over her shoulder and arched her brows. “You heard him, girlie. Run along and get us a round.” “This table is reserved,” I said, a bit louder. “I’m happy to show you to your new table, but you have to leave this one.” “I don’t want to leave this one,” Brawler said as petulantly as a child. Then, inexplicably, he took a bucket of ice I’d brought over for their drinks and upended it all over the table, to the delight of his friends. They cawed and cackled like a pack of hyenas, kicking ice cubes toward me. Unbothered, I stood waiting. This was the thing about drunk people: they were like children. They just needed a firm hand. Face blank, I lifted my arm and gestured to the open table a few paces away and waited for the group to get up. Brawler rolled his eyes, muttered something that made his girlfriend sneer at me, then heaved himself off the couch. I took a st ep back to let them pass—and banged right into a wall. Exc ept this wall was warm, hard, and it smelled like heaven. Two hands slid over my hips as a de ep, de ep voice said next to my ear, “Well done, gorgeous.” Warmth flooded my belly and for a single, shimmering moment, I felt the urge to melt into those strong arms and let that de ep, sinful voice carry me somewhere new. I forgot I was at work. I forgot I was supposed to be helping the customers to their new table and making sure everyone was supplied with enough alcohol to make them overlook the fact that they were upset.
All that existed was the strong, broad chest behind me, the big hands wrapped around my hips, and the soft, minty breath tickling the edge of my cheek. For that moment, I wasn’t worried about money, about my sister, about carpenter ants, and certainly not about angry customers. The man’s touch did something to my body—electrified it, turned my knees to jelly. My brain started dissolving the moment he touched me, and it took all my strength to take a single st ep forward, away from the warmth and safety of his body. Then I turned. Leif Sorensen stood before me, tousled blond hair and strong, warrior-like features. Ocean-de ep eyes danced with barely concealed amusement as his gaze landed on mine, then moved lower. He stared at my lips for a long, torturous moment, then flicked his eyes down my body and back up again. I’d been working in this club for weeks, and I was used to men checking me out. It was part of the job. It was the reason I wore three double-push-up bras. But Leif was different. His gaze set my body alight. It felt like a physical touch and it made my skin tingle from my scalp down to my toes. I wasn’t just an automaton with big boobs and a bright smile carrying drinks to various tables. I was a woman, and all I wanted to do was close the distance between us, wrap my arms around his neck, and let him do whatever he wanted to me. Of course, that’s not what I did. I mumbled something unintelligible and got a mop to clean up the mess from the upended ice bucket. Then I got them all a round of complimentary drinks for their trouble and went to the brawler’s table to soothe his precious ego. All the while, I felt his gaze. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled and an awareness settled over me like a blanket. Even though I only looked over once to see him watching me, I could feel his gaze pressing up against me, his presence filling the room like a storm cloud. My hips burned from his touch, and the space between my legs felt painfully empty. My cheeks flushed and my heart pounded for long minutes afterward, until I darted into a back room to gulp down shaking breaths. Of course, at the time, I didn’t know he was Leif Sorensen. I didn’t know he was the heir to a fortune, or that he was a genius businessman, or that he had a two- year-old daughter. I’d learn his name later, when my manager’s face turned reddish-purple as he yelled at me for my supposed unprofessional behavior. All I knew was the danger in his gaze, those sapphire- bright eyes piercing through every shield I’d ever erected. With a de ep breath, I st epped back onto the floor and ran more drinks to their table. I thought I’d recovered, but he sat in the sofa like a Viking king reclining on a throne of furs, his arm draped casually over the back of the seat as his eyes scanned the room, missing nothing. A woman sitting to his right leaned into him as I d eposited drinks on their table, feeling Leif’s gaze on me like a heavy weight. Furtively, I threw him a glance and met his gaze in time to see the woman run her hand up his thigh, dangerously close to the bulge at his crotch.
He leaned his head toward her to listen while his eyes followed me, and I knew he was trouble. Big, blond trouble. A berserker dressed in an expensive suit. A dangerous, bloodthirsty Viking masquerading as a civilized businessman. Then his eyes slid away from me toward the woman at his side, and my chest gave a sharp twist. I was jealous of her, which was stupid. I was jealous of the sky-high heels that didn’t make her totter. Her expensive, revealing dress. The diamonds shimmering like a collar around her neck. I was jealous of her hand, and the way it slid over Leif Sorensen’s leg like it was her right to do so. Thoughts and feelings built up like a maelstrom inside me, demolishing everything in their way. My hands shook as I gathered empty glasses, my vision became hazy as I straightened and headed for the bar. I was still in a daze when I went to the brawler’s table. That’s probably why I didn’t notice the hand. Well, that and the push-up bras. The thing about wearing three double-push-up bras is that there are at least four to six inches between skin and shirt. My breasts were so much bigger than I was used to that I’d bump into things without noticing, brush up against people and objects, even spill drinks if I wasn’t careful. A small price to pay for double or triple the tips and enough money to feed, clothe, and house myself and my sister. But on that particular night, I didn’t notice the brawler’s hand reach out toward me as I leaned over to pick up an empty glass. I didn’t even feel him touching my breast until he squeezed. Then all hell broke loose. An arm banded around my waist and yanked me back into that same warm, hard wall. I had another minor brain- melt moment as the length of my body pressed up against the length of Leif’s. Then he was d epositing me to the side and pulling the brawler up by his shirt collar. I have no idea how Leif moved that quickly. I still don’t know how long the brawler was fondling me before I noticed. All I know is within moments, Leif had the other man on his feet and was pummeling his fist into the bigger man’s face. Someone screamed. Security rushed the two men. I just stood there and stared. If I’d noticed the fact that I was being groped, maybe I could have shied away. I could have batted his hand away before things turned ugly. I could have even dodged his touch. But those stupid three push-up bras were a shield that did their job a little too well, and Leif Freaking Sorensen rushed to my rescue. No one—and I mean no one—had ever defended me like that. No one had ever fought for me, or even cared. I’d been on my own for so long, with my life and my sister’s life resting on my narrow shoulders, and in that moment, I felt seen. I wasn’t just an invisible waitress who used her padded bras to draw more tips out of Neanderthalic men. I was a person. I was worthy of being defended, of being protected. I think, for those few, brief moments, I was in love. It was a bright, hot feeling that pierced the middle of my chest. My feet no longer ached and my heart didn’t know if it wanted to stop dead or pound harder. Leif Sorensen, the Viking king who was equal parts terrifying and thrilling, fought for me. But then security was dragging them apart, the brawler and his crew were being ejected, and the moment was over. Leif shook off the security guard and in three strides, he was in front of me. His big, broad hands cupped my cheeks
so gently it was like I was made of glass. His unforgettable eyes stared into mine for a moment, an eternity. “Are you okay?” His voice was a low growl that reverberated in all the places I wasn’t supposed to be thinking about right then. I nodded, my voice deciding to take that moment to malfunction. “Leif,” a female voice shrieked. “Let’s go!” He held me for another long second, then glanced over his shoulder. The beauty who’d been stroking his leg stood with her arms crossed, her foot tapping on the dirty floor. I felt the tension in the air between us. It was like breathing in soup. His energy crackled, anger and rage and adrenaline and pure, male virility. For a moment, I thought he’d stay here—with me. I thought he felt what I did, that he knew what he did to me and he wanted more of it, like I did. How utterly, desperately stupid. Leif Sorensen, heir, billionaire, businessman, dropped his hands from my face. “Take care,” he said. Then he turned around... and left. I stood there like a lump: crushed, confused, horny, and alone. Later that night, my boss fired me. I still had two more months in my probationary period, and he said I was more trouble than I was worth. I lost The Job. That thin, brilliant thread of hope snapped, and I knew that stability was an illusion. Safety was out of reach. Men would never rush to my rescue and fight for my honor. If I was to care for my grandparents and help my sister achieve all she could, the only person I could rely on was myself. Leif Sorensen didn’t see me. He probably had a temper, was spoiling for a fight, and the man fondling my bras gave him a convenient excuse. It was never about me, and I was a fool to think it was. A painful lesson, but a necessary one. I scraped together enough money to cover my grandfather’s medication until the insurance got sorted and worked at a call center to pay the rest of the never-ending bills. The Job slipped from my fingers. As much as I told myself I’d learned my lesson, I still k ept a tiny, flickering flame of desire alive. I fantasized about Leif Sorensen riding to my rescue and lifting me out of the grips of despair. I gobbled up any news or gossip about him and his family, trawled every inch of his social media accounts late at night, and imagined what it would feel like to have those strong arms wrapped around me again. In short, I was an idiot. I clung to the one bright moment from my life in those years, and I made it into something it wasn’t. Six years later, the fact that that fateful night meant nothing to Leif was confirmed when I saw him at Benny and Jane Eldridge’s birthday party and knew from the blank look on his face that he didn’t remember me at all. And why would he? Today, all those memories rush through my mind as Leif’s arm clamps around my waist. His cheek brushes mine as he pulls my back to his front, his other arm reaching to catch the grocery bag trying to tumble once again off my shoulder. Just like that, Leif transports me to that one, single night when I felt safe, protected—and the horrible moment when I realized it was all an illusion.
Working for him will be a disaster. No matter how much I’ll try to ke ep my distance, Leif will swe ep through my defenses like they’re nothing more than cobwebs. All it will take for me to crumble will be his confident stride and his de ep, de ep voice. I’ll feel things I have no business feeling, and then he’ll leave and forget all about me. It’ll break me. To me, he’s the most attractive man in the world. To him, I’m nothing more than another r eplaceable woman. As his hand eases from around me and he sets me on my feet again, time freezes. Things haven’t changed so much since that day at the nightclub. I’m still broke, still desperate for money, still shouldering too many responsibilities. But what choice do I have? If Leif is offering me a job, I’m not in any position to say no.