Unworthy (The Worthy Series Book 1) Read online

  The music escaping from the club pounded into her ears, but it sounded as if he’d told her she couldn’t drink or dance. And considering part of her job was to party, drink, and flirt, she had no idea what he’d be paying her for.

  She hurried alongside him figuring she’d do her own thing once inside. The important thing was she’d be inside earning more money in one night than she made in a week at Mo’s. She’d be moving into Amy’s house next Friday and she wanted to pay her share. Surely he couldn’t keep his eyes on her all night.

  Cries rang from the line of people who wanted to get into the club and bounced off Ian and onto Cat.

  “Hey, Ian.”

  “Ian, let me in.”

  “Ian, we went to college together, remember?”

  Ian was completely impervious to the strangers desperately calling his name. She threw the wannabes an apologetic smile. The club was packed to capacity already, but it gave her a glimpse into Ian’s life; always at the center of attention, always befriended by people who liked him for what he could give them. A flash from a camera went off in her eyes, and then they were in front of the remaining bouncer.

  Ian pulled her through the club doors and into the writhing mass of dancers to head for his table where his crew waited. As they reached the table, she started to smile at the other occupants, but Ian leaned to whisper in her ear, “No drinking, and definitely no drugs.” He released her hand and scooted in the booth when everyone made room.

  She glared at him. After what they’d both witnessed, courtesy of her brother, did he really think she ever did drugs? She’d have to enlighten him later. For now, she was at the It table at the hottest party in Miami and getting paid for it. Her brother weighed heavily on her mind, but there was nothing she could do about Danny at this moment.

  “Sit your ass down, Cat,” Ian said behind his glass of something that was clearly for the twenty-one and over crowd.

  Her ass got down in the booth next to him. “You’re allowed to drink?” Her tone was that of a bratty teen.

  “I’m the boss.” He grinned, and her gaze remained locked on his smile, which was the same, yet different than she remembered. It didn’t quite reach his eyes, as if he hadn’t found something genuinely amusing in a long time.

  “Hey, Catherine, how’s your first night?” Drew hailed her from across the table.

  “You look good, baby,” the other guy said, earning a glare from Ian.

  “Hey, guys.” She waited for someone to introduce the three other women at the table, but the men remained silent.

  “Hi, I’m Catherine.” She leaned across the table to offer her hand to the woman nearest her.

  The emaciated woman eyed Cat’s hand, then grasped it in a weak attempt at a handshake. “Mackenna.”

  Ian waved over a waitress and said something to her that Cat didn’t catch. His thigh muscle was rock hard against the bare skin of her thigh. She probably should shift over, except; one, there was no room. She’d end up with her ass on the ground if she flinched; and two, she liked the way he felt pressed against her.

  The other two women gave her equally limp hand clasps and then turned away back to the men at the table, making it clear they had no interest in befriending her. Fine, she could handle it. Cat spotted Lisa and gave a wave, then stood to go talk and maybe see the bartender for a cup of ice. Her face was starting to hurt like a bitch. Ian pulled her back down.

  “I’m going to talk to Lisa. Relax. I’m not going to buy a dime bag from the guy in the corner.”

  Ian’s head swiveled in the direction she’d indicated. “Who the fuck is selling pot?”

  “I was kidding. I have no idea who the dealers are.”

  “You’ll have to learn,” Ian said against her ear. “If you’re going to work with us, you need to know who they are and what they’re carrying.”

  A shiver of excitement whistled through her at the brush of his lips against her ear. She told herself it was because he’d admitted she might keep her job, and it had nothing to do with the attraction she felt for him. He nudged her spine. “Go. Lisa is waiting for you.”

  She gave him a look, then scooted out to intercept Lisa.

  “You okay?” Lisa grabbed her wrist and grinned conspiratorially at her.

  “Not sure.”

  “I’ve never seen Ian act like that. He’s never brought any of us over to his table,” Lisa said. “And you look good together.”

  “I’ve known him since I was a kid,” she said. “He’s acting like my big brother, only ten times more bossy.”

  Lisa nodded knowingly and leaned in to whisper in Cat’s ear. “Rumor has it, he’s like that.”

  Cat pulled back to look her new friend in the eye. “Like what? Bossy?” The one time they’d had sex, he hadn’t been domineering, but gentle. Then again, she’d been a virgin, so what did she know?

  Lisa nodded and cupped her mouth again. “I have a friend who knows someone who works at Beach Drive magazine, and she heard that Ian has the models there on call. He calls. They come. He fucks them. He sends them home.”

  Cat felt her lips part.

  “He doesn’t date, and he definitely doesn’t date employees.”

  She tried to get her mind off the visual of Ian screwing a runway full of models, then blinked the image away. “It doesn’t matter. He’s my boss, and I’m not going to sleep with him.” Suddenly the music felt too loud, the nightclub too frenetic with its flashing lights against the dark. What was she doing here? This wasn’t her world and she wasn’t sure she wanted to belong here in Ian’s world. She’d learned early on that a crush on Ian wasn’t healthy.

  “Sleep with who?”

  From behind Cat, Ian’s voice flowed between her and Lisa. Cat could guess that her own face was a mirror of Lisa’s embarrassed expression.

  “No one,” she said quickly. Ian’s large body was pressed against her back, which meant in her skintight dress, she could feel every inch of his chest and thighs against her rear. And…no. She could not—would not—consider Ian Lawrence’s penis. Bossbossboss. When that little mantra didn’t work she tried modelfuckerplayer. Nope. Even worse. Because the truth was, she’d had a crush on Ian since forever. It had been easy these last five or six years to put him in the back of her mind. Not to mention the little detail of him ditching her after sleeping with her. She’d had seven years to convince herself she was over Ian Lawrence, which was clearly much easier to do when his large muscular body wasn’t pressed seductively against her ass.

  Ian clasped Cat’s narrow hips and resisted the urge to grind his growing erection into the cleft of her ass. What was he doing? He needed to get his head out of his ass and do his job. Normally on a night like this, he’d be at his table pretending to be partying with his boys, when in reality, one eye was on the bar and the other on the door.

  After a few years in this business, he could mentally calculate his take of the bar within a few hundred dollars. Tonight he had no idea whether he’d made a thousand Gs or twenty. And it was all Cat’s fault.

  Sure, blame the victim. He swallowed back his grimace. It was his own damn fault for hiring her, when she had a way of needling past all his guards and affecting him emotionally. She’d always had the ability, but he’d only acted on his desires one time. She’d been Danny’s little sister. And then he’d purposely removed himself from her life to let her go to college unencumbered.

  Now Danny was a mess, Cat was back in his life, and he was too damn happy about it. The trick was going to be making her happy about it. She had a legitimate beef with him after he’d abandoned her for years.

  He saw now that he’d made the wrong call. The right call would’ve been to stay in Cat’s life—in her face—and not let her suffer the poverty and humiliations she’d encountered after he’d abandoned her.

  “What are you doing, Ian?” Cat spun to look up at him.

  “I’m over here to check VIP bottle count,” he lied smoothly. “How’s it going?” he asked Lisa.
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  “Fine,” she shouted over the music. “But those fraternity guys are the biggest douches in Miami. Can you send Javier closer to stop them from getting stupid?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Come back to the table, Cat. There’s an ice pack waiting for you.”

  The rest of the night went smoother after that. Cat sat with him for a little while longer, holding a glass of ice to her face, then she left to work the club, flirting harmlessly with other partiers, and he went back to his table. At no point was he unaware of her exact location in the room.

  Every time he let himself look her way, she was looking back at him, telling him she was feeling the pull, too. It was like they were teenagers again, stealing glimpses of each other in Danny’s living room. Only this time, there was nothing stopping them from acting on their desires.

  On Friday night, Cat stood in her new bedroom in Amy’s house. She’d spent the better part of her daytime hours moving from her old shithole to here. It hadn’t taken long to load up her car with her clothes. Almost none of her furniture was worth moving.

  She looked at her reflection in the full-length mirror. The minuscule royal blue dress was a big F and U to Ian Lawrence. It covered enough to keep her from public exposure but revealed a hell of a lot of her body. A wrong move on the dance floor and she’d be Janet Jacksoning her night.

  She didn’t know what the heck was going on between her and Ian. At work, he was either in her face, flirting and touching her, or totally ignoring her. He acted like he was interested in her, but if he was, wouldn’t he have asked her out for tonight? But nope, she got nada.

  Lisa, her new coworker, had called her that morning and told her she was picking her up and to be ready by seven. Since Cat hadn’t had any other plans, she’d obeyed and she was dragging Amy along. She suspected Amy wasn’t all that keen on going to a club, but Cat wasn’t taking no for an answer. Amy had protested that she was in mourning, but Cat argued they were just doing drinks then dinner. No wild partying. She didn’t want her new friend and roommate alone and miserable in front of Netflix all night, especially without the chill part.

  She gave another look in the mirror and bent to pet Baroness von Fancy, Amy’s mother’s cat who obviously stayed in the house. Amy seemed indifferent to the cat, but Cat loved having a pet. It was such a normal thing that had been absent from her life for so long.

  “How do I look, Fancy?” she asked. The cat gave a cat-like swish of her indifferent tail. “That good, huh?” She grinned and went to go find her roommate.

  Amy’s attitude about the night was crystal clear by her chosen outfit of black shapeless T-shirt, cargo capri pants, and no accessories. It was a stark contrast to the Amy she’d been living with all week who wore cute dresses and makeup.

  “You said it was a low-key girls’ night out,” Amy complained the moment she saw Cat in her sexy dress and heels that were tall enough to need aircraft warning lights.

  “It is.”

  “Then why are you dressed to the nines?”

  Cat fiddled with her purse, pulling out her phone. “I always dress up more for my girlfriends. Don’t you? And remember, I’m now one of the faces of I.D. Productions. We have to look good in public.”

  Amy groaned and leaned back on the couch. “This was a mistake. You go without me.”

  She laughed. “Nah. It’ll be fun. I promise.” A knot in her stomach tightened at the promise of fun. A glance at her phone told her that her many, many texts and calls to her brother had gone ignored. A sour feeling passed through her gut at the thought of how her brother had looked when she’d seen him last. Suddenly, Amy’s idea of wearing baggy, comfy clothes and watching a movie on the couch looked better and better.

  At that moment the doorbell rang, and the time for bailing on the night was gone. Cat went to open it for Lisa, and Amy ambled over, too.

  “Are we finding men tonight or going home alone?” Lisa cried the second she entered the house. Cat felt Amy stiffen beside her, and she put a reassuring hand on Amy’s arm. Lisa wore a red dress that would barely cover Cat, and Lisa was eight inches taller with straight-ironed hair and amazing olive skin.

  “It’s girls’ night. No men allowed other than for ogling or drink-buying purposes,” Cat said, mostly to calm Amy down, because as for herself, she was forcing herself to be open to finding any man to knock Ian Lawrence out of her brain.

  Amy snorted at that. “Men don’t buy me drinks.”

  “They will when you’re with us,” Lisa said, eyeing the woman. “And if you didn’t hide those boobs behind all that fabric, you’d be raking in the free drinks.” The look Amy gave Lisa was full of doubt.

  “Seriously.” Lisa stepped further into the house and positioned Amy in front of the sliding glass doors, which at this time of night acted more like mirrors. “You’re wearing the don’t talk to me outfit.”

  “I know,” Amy replied with her chin up.

  “Why?” Lisa asked.

  “Her mother just died. Go easy,” Cat murmured. Lisa’s expression softened and she patted Amy’s shoulder.

  “What’s the point of me dressing up?” Amy asked. “It’s not like I can compete with you two.”

  Lisa’s perfectly shaped brows rose and she pulled the rubber band out of Amy’s ponytail, eliciting a wince.

  “I’m so sorry your mom died. I can’t even imagine, but would she want you hiding at home alone for the rest of your life? I think not. Ponytail says I don’t give a shit,” Lisa said.

  “I don’t give a shit,” Amy said.

  “Are you a lesbian?”

  “No.”

  “Do you want to have sex with a man in the foreseeable future?”

  “I have plenty of sex,” Amy said.

  Cat felt her own brows rise. With whom was Amy sleeping? No men had come around in their week together at the house.

  “Good for you. But take your friend, Cat, here.” Lisa was on a roll. “If she wore baggy jeans and a T-shirt like you’re doing, she wouldn’t get a second glance. Men would assume she was their little sister.”

  Cat gave Amy a commiserating look. Lisa was obviously a force of nature and when on a rant, it was best not to fight it.

  “Instead,” Lisa continued, “she’s got her boobs properly displayed, a dress color that does amazing things for her skin, and her hair and makeup say she cares.”

  “Thank you?” Cat said.

  Lisa and Amy ignored her.

  “If you say I could be so much prettier if only I lost a little weight,” Amy said, “I’ll punch you.”

  “And I’d deserve it,” Lisa said.

  Cat released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

  “I didn’t say you weren’t pretty. I said you were sending all the wrong signals. I bet I can get at least three men to buy you drinks tonight if you let me work my magic,” Lisa said. She tugged Amy’s hand, leading her to her bedroom. Cat followed, curious. They were going to be way late for dinner, but this was Miami. Nothing started on Friday night until Saturday morning.

  The three women piled in Amy’s room, and Cat watched as Lisa took the liberty of throwing open Amy’s closet doors and riffling about.

  “Girl, look at you. Men will be lining up to buy us drinks,” Lisa said, after about twenty minutes in which she’d done Amy’s makeup, hair, and doctored her outfit.

  Amy now wore a purple silky blouse, cut strategically to show cleavage and hints of her lacy bra. Her jeans had been cuffed and rolled and a pair of stiletto booties covered her feet. Her long silky brown hair was messily curled and falling over her shoulders and abundant breasts.

  “You look amazing,” Cat told Amy.

  “We all do,” Lisa said. She grabbed her phone and started snapping photos and selfies of the three of them posing. “What’s your deal tonight, Cat?”

  “What do you mean?” Cat asked, watching Amy stare at herself in the floor-to-ceiling mirrored closet doors in her bedroom.

  “You and Ian have been circling
each other since your first day at work. What’s up? Did you finally do the dirty? You’ve loved him forever?”

  Stunned, Cat froze. “How did…”

  Lisa grinned. “I knew it. I was laying out a guess, but I got it right.”

  “Who’s Ian?” Amy asked curiously, turning away from the mirror to look between Cat and Lisa.

  “No one,” Cat said.

  “Our boss,” Lisa said at the same time.

  “He’s been like my big brother forever,” Cat said.

  “And you like him?” Amy asked. “You didn’t say anything all week.”

  “’Cause there’s nothing to say,” Cat said. “There is nothing between me and Ian Lawrence and there never will be.” She turned to exit the bedroom. “Now, are we going to dinner or what?” She didn’t wait for her friends to follow her and headed to the car.

  “What’s the plan for tonight?” Cat asked Lisa to distract herself from thoughts of Ian and how he’d felt pressed up against her when they’d kissed and danced. The tactile memory made her shiver.

  “Isn’t Friday amateur hour?” Amy asked. “All the tourists are here for a party weekend.”

  “It is dead as far as going to clubs, but we should still be seen out, and in these outfits.” Lisa shimmied in the driver’s seat.

  Cat tried to relax in the back seat at the knowledge she wouldn’t be seeing Ian tonight, and she ignored the part of her that wished Ian would see her in this sexy dress. He’d seen her in plenty of sexy, revealing clothes at work and hadn’t done a thing about it. Yet she didn’t think the attraction was one-sided. He was probably respecting her wishes. She’d told him she didn’t trust him and wasn’t looking for a relationship; screw him for actually listening to her.

  She stared out the window watching the buildings of Miami Beach go by. Maybe giving in to their mutual desire would be what they needed. She’d made it clear she didn’t want anything serious with him, but surely the sooner they slept together, the sooner they’d burn out. She told herself that she should be open to looking to new men tonight, but her mind only wanted Ian.