Chapter 2

      Ethan stared down at his cleared desktop, marveling at the rarely seen wooden surface usually hidden by stacks of paperwork.

      Nearly all the items on his vacation-prep list had been completed. Clients briefed, contracts read and no scheduled court appearances for the next two weeks. Even his grandma problem had been tentatively resolved with his visit to Espresso Sanctuary’s offices that morning.

      Visions of Tia Gray came to mind, those shapely legs dominating most of them, and Ethan quickly shoved the illicit images aside. He should be focused on wrapping up his afternoon schedule, not imagining a particular pair of legs wrapped around his waist.

      Especially when those legs were attached to a woman who had caused nothing but trouble.

      He looked down at his open diary and saw that one last appointment remained.

      Afterward, he’d follow up with his grandmother and make sure Ms. Gray had indeed done as he’d instructed. Then tomorrow morning he’d set off for Hawaii and his first vacation in years.

      Again, his mind drifted to Tia.

      Ethan exhaled. Maybe it was a mistake for him to go solo on the trip planned a year ago when he was still part of a couple. That had to be the only reason for his reoccurring thoughts of the woman he’d met today.

      He needed to get laid. Soon.

      A knock sounded at Ethan’s open office door and the glazed-over expression in the secretary’s eyes indicated his next appointment had arrived.

      “I don’t believe it.” His young but normally unflappable secretary gushed, her voice an awestruck whisper. “Wangs is actually sitting in my office.”

      She clasped her hands together. “Wangs!” she squealed, as if Ethan hadn’t heard her the first time.

      Ethan’s enthusiasm over the hip-hop superstar’s visit didn’t match that of his secretary’s. In fact, it had taken a pleading call from the young man, whose legal name was Jeffrey Ritchie, to persuade Ethan to even see him at all.

      “Send Mr. Ritchie in,” Ethan said, refusing to use the ridiculous moniker. The kid’s mother had saddled him with it in childhood after his favorite food, chicken wings, and the twenty-three-year-old now used it professionally.

      Ethan glanced at his watch, planning to give his former client a few moments of his time before sending him on his way. He’d tried to bestow Jeffrey with the benefit of his expertise a few years ago, and the kid had told him where he could stick it.

      Seconds later, Jeffrey crossed the threshold looking totally different than the young man who’d sat in his office three years earlier.

      The discount-store wardrobe had been replaced with clothes bearing the labels of the hottest urban designers, and he’d exchanged his beat-up sneakers for a pair of pristine ones named for a basketball legend. Ethan guessed Jeffrey had paid more for the platinum medallion spelling out WANGS in diamonds that adorned his neck than most people would pay for their cars.

      Yet, the biggest difference wasn’t in Jeffrey’s appearance but his demeanor. The cocky swagger was notably absent, and he now possessed the weariness of a much older man, a man weighed down by burdens.

      Financial burdens, Ethan surmised. Five minutes into their conversation, the younger man confirmed it.

      “You pleaded with me not to sign that contract,” Jeffrey said, shaking his head.

      “No attorney would have advised you to put your signature on it,” Ethan said. “The document was no more than an indentured-servant agreement.”

      Jeffrey snorted. It was a hollow, jaded sound unexpected in someone his age. “At the time, you called it a slave contract,” he said. “But I didn’t want to hear what you were saying. All I wanted was to be a superstar.”

      Stardom was one of the two things the multiplatinum artist had gotten out of the deal, Ethan thought. The other was a hard lesson in record-company math. From what Ethan remembered, the deal had been structured in a way that would keep Wangs perpetually in debt to Bat Tower Records.

      “All the limos, the parties, the liquor, I thought they were celebrity perks. Hell, I didn’t know I was paying for them. Right down to the last drops of thousand-dollar bottles of champagne.”

      Ethan leaned back in his office chair and listened, not bothering with the pointless I told you so perched on the tip of his tongue.

      Three years ago, the young man now sitting in front of him filled with regrets had tied his hands. Jeffrey had refused to let him attempt to negotiate more favorable terms out of fear the record company would balk and take the deal off the table.

      Ethan had doubted it, and even if Bat Tower Records had reneged, Jeffrey would have been better off.

      Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to convince his client back then. Jeffrey had stormed out of his office full of attitude, blustering he wasn’t taking or paying for Ethan’s bullshit advice.

      Ethan figured the next time he’d see Jeffrey would be as another broke artist featured on VH-1’s Behind the Music.

      “When I got that first big check from the record company, I thought it was the first of many,” Jeffrey said.

      Ethan sighed. “I told you it would be an advance against future royalties.”

      “Yeah, I heard you, but like I told you, I wasn’t listening. I burned through it on crap like this.” He flicked a hand toward the diamond-encrusted platinum chain. “Now the jeweler who sold it to me for thousands of dollars will only give me a couple hundred bucks for it.”

      Jeffrey dropped his head into his hands, his bony elbows propped on his knees.

      Ethan cleared his throat. He knew where this conversation was headed, and he wanted no part of it. He was done with Jeffrey Ritchie.

      “So what’s the bottom line?” Ethan resisted the urge to glance at his watch. “Why are you here?”

      Jeffrey lifted his head and stared at Ethan with eyes that appeared on the brink of tearing.

      “Because I’m surrounded by people who all want something from me, and I don’t know which ones I can trust,” Jeffrey said. “But I do trust you. I should have taken your advice, man. You don’t