Regardless, he’s the only one I can trust to come get me out of this godforsaken shit-hole. Just like he was the only one I could trust to come pick me up off the freeway when I’d had a flat tire a couple of weeks ago.

He answers groggily on the third ring. “Yeah?”

“Brand?” my voice quavers. I steel myself and swallow hard. “I need your help.”

“Jace?” Brand’s at attention now, his voice sharp. “Are you okay?”

I glance around at the police station, at the yellowed walls, the stern cops, the criminals waiting to be booked. I squeeze my eyes shut.

“Yeah. No. Maybe. I was arrested. Can you come get me?”

There’s a brief, loaded pause.

“You’re at the police station?” Brand finally asks, and I have to give him credit. His voice is calm and even. “What were you arrested for?”

“Possession of marijuana and assaulting a police officer.”

Brand’s not calm now. He erupts into a storm of profanity.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” he finally demands. But before I can answer, the cop next to me taps my shoulder.

“You’ve got twenty seconds.”

My heart speeds up. What if Brand won’t come?

“Brand, I’ve only got twenty seconds. Can you please come get me? I don’t have anyone else to call. They weren’t my drugs. I’ll explain when you get here.”

“Time,” the cop says firmly, taking the phone from me and replacing it in the cradle. I stare at it, aghast.

“But I don’t know if he’s coming,” I tell the cop limply.

“Sounds like a personal problem,” he answers, gripping my elbow and guiding me back to the cell. Every fiber in my being fights against stepping back through the bars, but I’ve got no choice.

The cop shoves me in and locks the door behind me.

I stand alone and dejected, and the women all erupt into howls and catcalls, and for a confused moment I think it’s because of me, because I got thrown right back in here and they think that’s funny.

But then I notice that they’re all rushing to the bars, pressing their faces against the metal to get a good look at something.

I take the opportunity to grab a seat on one of the empty benches, but I do strain my neck to see what the hell has them crowing like banshees.

I quickly see that it’s a who, not a what.

Specifically, it’s Dominic fucking Kinkaide.

Dominic will do. I tend to drop the “fucking.” Unless of course, I’m actually fucking.

The memory of his husky voice causes my breath to speed up a little as I watch him being escorted down the hall through the cells.

Even with his face scraped up, he’s sexy. His hands dangle freely at his sides, no handcuffs, so he’s been bailed out. He pauses in front of my cell, standing in front of the bars, ignoring the frenzied women who are reaching out to him.

Dominic, will you sign my arm?

Dominic, can I kiss you?

Dominic, touch me, touch me.

“Just a second,” Dominic tells the cops. One nods and the other barks at the women, “Get back!”

Dominic steps to the bars, staring at me. Unbidden and unconsciously, I get to my feet.

His gaze is locked with mine, the arrogant green gaze that he’s famous for.

He’s going to help me. He’s going to tell them that it’s all a big misunderstanding, that the drugs were his after all, and he’s going to get me out of here.

I smile in relief as I approach him.

But he doesn’t say anything. He just stares at my face, at the bruise that is forming on my cheek. He reaches through the bars and touches it lightly, his thumb just barely touching my skin.

“Uh-uh,” one of the cops says. “No touching.”

Dominic pulls his hand back, letting it fall limply to the side.

The look on his face turns my stomach into knots… so vulnerable. So tired. So weary. World-weary.

Everything about him is striking, though. Those cut fucking cheekbones… god, in spite of everything, I want to reach out my finger and trace the edges of them. His chiseled jaw covered with the sexiest of stubble, the dark hair tousled in an I-don’t-give-a-shit way. Unlike other wannabes, it actually seems like Dominic doesn’t give a shit. About anything.

But most striking of all are those fucking green eyes, dark, dark, dark, but still somehow rimmed in golden hazel with interesting gold flecks in them. As his gaze stays locked with mine, it’s like he’s burning me, like I’m on fire. And he’s the only thing that can put me out.

I know it’s stupid to say. But his gaze is that intense. It’s like he can see inside of me, deep into my most private thoughts, into where my secrets lie. But then his shoulders drop and his face turns expressionless.

“I’m sorry,” he says simply.

He looks away, like a camera lens shuttering closed. Like I don’t even exist to him, like I’m beneath him and not worth a second glance. The fire has been extinguished.

He nods at his escorts and they continue on, walking toward freedom while I’m still stuck in here.

Because of him.

“Wait,” I call out after them. “Just a second. I don’t belong here!” But they ignore me and keep walking, and I shut the hell up because I’m not going to beg.

Dominic fucking Kinkaide got us both arrested and then he gets bailed out within half an hour, just because he’s a freaking celebrity. And he left me here to fucking rot.

I roll my eyes at his arrogance, at this situation, at my horrible luck. Life sucks so hard sometimes, and it gets suckier by the minute.

As I slump against the cement wall again, I ponder my rotten luck. And my poor decisions which lead to my rotten luck. That, of course, brings me to thoughts of something else, my poorest decision of them all.

My ex-boyfriend. Jared.

He’d killed someone because of me and is currently in prison for vehicular manslaughter. I can’t help but marvel at the irony that we’re both cooped up in jail cells at this very moment.

I swallow hard at the thought. I’m seriously in the same position as that little psychotic fuck. Oh. My. God.

After everything I’ve done throughout the last couple of months to put him behind me… I’ve gotten counseling, I make conscious decisions every day to not be reckless or wild (both things are fundamental building blocks of my nature), and yet here I am… in the same situation as he is.

Locked away.

I gulp. Maybe it’s poetic justice. After all the trouble that he wreaked on my family and friends, maybe I deserve this. Maybe I’ll never get away from it no matter how hard I try. I sigh and watch the clock on the wall outside of the bars ticking down the minutes.

Sixty worst-of-my-life minutes later, I finally hear the words I’ve been waiting for, called loudly through the cells.

“Jacey Vincent. Your ride’s here.”

I breathe a sigh of relief, and I realize that I’d honestly been worried that for the first time ever, maybe Brand wasn’t going to come to my rescue. That maybe he’d called Gabriel, and my brother had told him to let me stew for a while, to think about what I’d done or some bullshit.

But he didn’t.

Thank god.

Once I see his face, though, after I’ve walked past all the hookers and drunks, down the long tiled corridor flanked by jail cells, I’m not sure that I should be thanking god for Brand’s rescue. I should probably be praying for my soul, because Brand’s furious, and from the look on his face it’s a real possibility that he might kill me.

His enormous frame practically fills up the lobby where he’s waiting, and I’ve never seen him look quite as angry as he does right now. He’s got to be at least 6’5” and he’s built like a brick house, with not an ounce of fat on him, and that makes him a very intimidating presence, particularly when he’s pissed.

He served in the Army Rangers with my brother and he looks like he just stepped out of uniform, even though it’s been almost two years now. He’s let his blond hair grow, so now it’s fashionably shaggy and grazes his collar line. If he didn’t seem like a brother to me, I’d say he was hot. The women in the reception area seem to agree. Every female eye in the place is glued on him. But his are glued on me.

His blue eyes are hard and glittering as he watches me approach.

He’s pissed.

I gulp.

“It’s not what you think,” I tell him preemptively when I reach him. “They weren’t my drugs.”

His gaze is fixed on my cheek.

“Are you okay?” he asks harshly. I nod, my fingers brushing across my cheek self-consciously.

“I’m fine… I tried to break up a fight, but—”

Brand cuts me off by grabbing my arm and dragging me toward the door.

“It’s not what I think? So I didn’t just get called to the police station at four A.M. to bail your ass out? Then I get here and your face is swollen and you’re dressed like a fucking prostitute. At the moment, I almost don’t give a fuck what you did or didn’t do, Jacey. You were supposed to quit Saffron. Gabriel’s going to shit.”

“Don’t tell him,” I plead as he holds the door open. And even though Brand’s pissed, I can’t help but notice that he’s shielding my body with his, hiding me from the people in the lobby. As if that can somehow take away my shame for being here. Even still, it’s a sweet gesture, especially since he’s so mad.

Brand stares at me icily. “Your brother’s gonna know about this,” he tells me firmly. “Jesus, Jacey. After everything that happened with Jared, and the therapy that you’ve gone through already… We were starting to think that you were actually going to get your shit together. But now you’re assaulting police officers. Christ. If that Kinkaide kid hadn’t pulled some sort of strings, you’d still be rotting in jail. They don’t let people out who assault cops.”

This stops me in my tracks.

“Dominic got the charges dropped?” I ask in shock. Why didn’t he say anything when he stood there staring at me? All he said was… I’m sorry. And what the fuck was he sorry for? Smacking me in the face? Getting me arrested? Leaving me to rot in jail?

Brand leads me to his truck and opens the door, purposely looking away from my ass as I climb in.

“Yeah. I don’t know how he did it, all I know is what they told me when I arrived. You’re only facing possession of marijuana charges now. You’re lucky. Well, lucky until Gabe hears about this. He’s going to kick your ass. You’re dressed like a hooker, you make tips by flirting with Saffron customers… you might as well be a stripper, for god’s sake. Gabe’s done everything he can think of to help you, Jacey. We don’t even know what to do with you anymore.”

He slams my door and I do feel guilty.

After everything went down in flames with Jared, Gabe paid for therapy for me. He and Maddy let me cry on their shoulders for hours and hours. They held my hand as I was taking baby steps to stand on my own two feet.

And since I lost my job working for Maddy when she sold her restaurant, they put down the deposit for my apartment in Chicago, with the understanding that I would find another part-time job to pay my bills while I finished school. Saffron wasn’t exactly what they had in mind.