This Time Around (Maybe #2)(58)

My heart fluttered for her. I loved seeing her smile. I didn’t think I’d seen her so infatuated before. My eyes flickered between the two. Where Clue was an Asian beauty, this man was an African Adonis. If they ever made it to procreation, their children would be spectacular.

The thought of children just sent me wheeling back to Clara. Her pretty, eight year old face filled my mind. Her long hair, so similar to my own, and her dark brown eyes, made my heart weep knowing our time together was running out.

She looked nothing like her father which I thanked the universe for every day. She was mine. All mine.

Not for much longer.

The memory shattered me and I stumbled a little.

Clue’s man grabbed my forearm, steading me with a warm, strong grip. “You okay?”

Clue untangled herself from his embrace to support my other side. I felt like a waste of space, an invalid and an unfit human being. I needed to find my backbone again and stop wallowing in depression.

I couldn’t ruin Clue’s fun. I had no right. Not after everything.

“I’m fine. Sorry.” Forcing life back into my voice, I asked, “So, you’re Corkscrew?”

He laughed. “That’s my fighting name, but yes. Tonight, I’m corkscrew.” His dark eyes twinkled as he leaned closer. “My real name is Ben.”

The normalcy of his name helped settle me a little and I smiled. “I like that. Two identities.”

Just like me.

Up until recently, I’d had two personas. I’d spun tales and weaved stories as effortlessly as if it was the truth. It started as a game. An avenue to survive my past and paint a childhood I was proud of. To delete the wrongness and conjure an entirely new girl. I went from a gutter rat that bounced from foster home to foster home, never going to school, to a woman with style and poise. Someone with high school diplomas and career possibilities. I wrote my own story with a magical pen called lies.

And it worked.

I climbed from the mud and dreariness into sunlight and hope. I survived.

And now? Now, I was about to lose everything.

Clue interrupted my spiral into depression with a simple question, “What’s this club called. I couldn’t see any name on the building.”

My interest spiked and my damn heart flurried. Something about this place gave me equal measures of unhappiness and hope. I hated the wealth dripping from every statue but at the same time never wanted to leave. I wanted to steal all the positive energy and strength that existed from the men and bottle it—create an elixir where my daughter would survive.

Ben smiled. “This is the best place on earth.” Spanning his arms, taking in the club as if it was his own, he added, “Welcome to Obsidian.”