His intimidating height came closer and although she had a wall at her back, she didn’t recoil in the shadow he cast over her.

‘Do you think you’re a tough girl?’ he asked. ‘You have no idea what you did tonight, no idea what I’m capable of. You should never piss off a man who has no conscience.’

‘If you’re like that, then I guess that’s why your buddy Trystan keeps you around,’ she said. ‘I don’t know who you are, or your connection to each other. But threatening me won’t win you any favour with him. So if you’re hoping that this little intervention will get you between his sheets—‘

‘You don’t know when to quit,’ he sneered, bearing down upon her. ‘You couldn’t keep your eyes off me tonight, is that why you’re obsessing about my bedroom?’

‘Obsessing—‘

Urging her back to the wall, he blocked her in, placing his forearms on the wall on either side of her. ‘Is that why you fought Tryst so hard? Were you disappointed that I wasn’t the man above you?’

With what little space she had, she managed to bring her hand across his face in a half-force slap and his lip curled to display a perverted satisfaction. Then jerking forward he snatched her hands and slammed them to the concrete that they leaned on.

‘You want to get physical with me, you minx, then you better be damn sure about it.’

‘Get off of me,’ she protested, trying to wrench herself free, but to no avail.

‘Mr Stark likes a show,’ he said, her feeble struggling meant nothing to him. ‘Should I take you back upstairs and show him how compliant you can be when you’re getting what you want?’

‘What I want is for you to let me go and get lost.’

‘You’re lucky that you’re not my type.’

‘Oh yeah? And who is? I imagine that the only women you get near are the unconscious ones your buddy is through with after about thirty-five seconds.’

‘Women like you deserve every damn thing that they get,’ he said, squashing her body deeper against the wall, making no disguise of his arousal that imprinted itself on her belly.

The disgust she’d felt at Trystan’s violation was absent here. This man should repulse her in the same amount, and yet this verbal sparring coupled with the occasional lingering stares they’d shared upstairs sent her curious hormones into overdrive. She was angry and intimidated by this unknown human variable, but she wasn’t afraid.

Long ago she had learned how to quash ineffectual fear and channel the useful adrenaline into fight rather than flight. Bullies only won if victims lost their wits, and she would never do that, not again.

‘And men like you eventually lose their power. When your physical strength fades you’ll be left with nothing, and that vulnerability will ruin you, you’ll self-destruct.’

‘Said the voice of experience,’ he said, then shoved away. ‘Think twice before you insult those who are more important than you are.’

‘Thanks for the advice,’ she said without concealing her disdain.

‘You better hope you never hear of the Stark’s again. If Trystan decides to come after you, to punish you, then you’ll have no hope of escape.’

‘Like I said, I can take care of myself.’

‘You better hope so, because on my side of the fence, there’s no mercy.’

‘I’m shaking with fear,’ she said with no sincerity.

‘You will be.’

The liquid ocean in his eyes coated her figure, then he turned and stalked toward the opposite end of the alley. A few seconds later, he was out of sight.

Men rarely intrigued her anymore, not in the way that one had. But the fantasy of mystery surrounding him would never live up to the reality, because nothing ever did. Just the company he kept was evidence enough that the mysterious stranger wasn’t sane or reliable and she was too old for adventures of the heart with bad boy types, she’d gotten over that adolescent illusion a long time ago.

Facing her roommate wasn’t something that Ivy wanted to deal with now, but unfortunately it was unavoidable. Their one bedroom apartment was in a rough area not too far from The Strip. It smelled of mold and sweat, and the windows were covered with lengths of material pinned to the wall that had been there since she moved in with Trudi. The rent was cheap and the neighbours kept to themselves. Though the streets were filled with gangs, and hookers, and drugs, these were all things that Ivy was accustomed too.

The tension of the day expelled from her lungs and she sank onto the couch. Trudi bounced out of the bedroom, which didn’t have a door on it, hooking one of her shoes onto her feet.

‘That was quick,’ Trudi said. ‘How did you get home so fast?’

‘I got fired,’ Ivy said, spreading her hands and her head dropped onto the back of the couch.

‘Oh, shit,’ Trudi said. ‘You want to take a shower and come out with me?’

‘No,’ Ivy said.

‘I know a guy who’ll look after you.’

‘How many times have I told you not to tie yourself to a pimp?’ Ivy said.

‘You don’t know what it’s like out there on the streets. It’s dangerous nowadays.’

‘I know it’s dangerous,’ Ivy said. ‘But you don’t need anyone taking your money away from you.’

‘Not now that my roommate has lost her job. You think you can go straight, but you can’t. It’s no way as easy as that. You held onto that job for a month, the one before that was two weeks. You’ve lived here for nine months and you’ve never had a job for more than two months.’

‘Not your problem,’ Ivy said. ‘I’ve never missed rent, have I?’

‘We’re in Vegas, girls like us, from the streets, we make money one way. You’re no better than the rest of us, Ivy. I know you try to stay legit, but…’

‘I am not walking the street, Trud, things haven’t got that bad.’

‘Maybe not yet,’ Trudi said, scooping condoms out of the drawer under the coffee table. ‘You know where I’ll be if you change your mind.’

Trudi was a pretty girl who’d made some bad decisions in her life. Her drug habit was moderated by the various men who came and went from her life, but Ivy knew she never stayed stable for long. In her own life she’d travelled from city to city and done just about every job there was, but streetwalking was a last resort that she’d managed to avoid so far, though she’d done just about everything else.

Just once she’d like to catch a break, and her private concierge job at the GoldSpring had been the best job she’d had so far, except now she’d lost it. So she was back to square one. Trudi wasn’t too disheartened and was already singing as she headed out the door. How she could be so happy when she was going out to sell her body was a mystery to Ivy. She had never been content with her lot in life, she didn’t want money and riches; she just wanted to belong, to know that she would be ok and that she wasn’t alone. That dream seemed to be getting more distant every day.

Chapter Two

At the Stark mansion, where Trystan lived with his father and brother, there were plenty of trusted staff to run around after the youngest Stark boy, who had never quite managed to grow up. Dax had never intended to find himself in the unofficial role of Trystan’s minder, but he had. While he succeeded in delegating the babysitting duties from time to time, he still had to do it far more than he would ever choose to.

For most of the night he’d been in Trystan’s suite of rooms in the Stark mansion listening to him go on about how much of a bust Vegas was.

‘You’re letting it get to you,’ Dax said, glancing toward the window in Trystan’s private drawing room. ‘It’s been a week, forget about it.’

‘No,’ Trystan said, filling his Scotch tumbler again. ‘That’s what she wants. It snowballs, you know that. My father always taught us—‘

‘Disrespect is the greatest enemy,’ Dax muttered.

Over the years he’d spent cleaning up Trystan’s messes he’d gotten used to how the brat could become fixated, especially when it came to getting his own way. But Dax owed the Stark’s a lot, he wasn’t blood, yet Maurice Stark treated him as kin. Making sure that Trystan didn’t get himself into too much trouble, obvious trouble at least, had become second nature to him, because the kid couldn’t keep his nose clean. He didn’t realise that all the attention he brought on the family affected the family business negatively. The last thing they needed was anyone in law enforcement looking too closely into how the family made their money.