Jason started down the mountain at first light.
Cloudridge Peak was high enough that the summer heat never quite reached it, but by the time he hit the state highway at the foot, the sun was nearly overhead and the air felt like an oven. Down here it had to be pushing the high nineties, maybe flirting with triple digits. Most people would be drenched after a handful of steps.
Jason wasn't most people.
He strolled along the narrow mountain road, not a bead of sweat on him.
The road hugged the slope in a stingy single lane, one of those cost‑cut specials. A horn blared behind him—long and irritated.
He glanced back. Bentley.
The tinted window slid down. A young guy with rich‑kid swagger stuck his head out and glared. "Hey, genius. You plan on getting yourself killed strolling down the middle of the road?"
Jason didn't blink at the attitude. He smiled. "You heading into the city?"
"What if we are? Not your business. Move it—we're on a schedule." The kid sneered.
Jason raised a hand. "Actually, it is. I need a ride."
The trust‑fund brat looked like a comic strip with three stress lines popping off his forehead. He took in Jason's outfit—thrift‑store basics that wouldn't break a hundred bucks—and his contempt went from simmer to boil.
"Try dreaming somewhere else. I'm not letting a backwoods hick grime up my car. Last warning—get out of the way or I go through you."
A cool, crystalline voice cut in from the back seat.
"Let him in."
The driver blinked. "Seriously?"
"Stop wasting time," she said.
He hesitated, then sighed and shot Jason one more hard look. "Fine. Get in."
Jason flashed a genuine smile, stepped to the rear door, and slid in.
A soft, clean scent—young, expensive—brushed over him.
He glanced across the back seat and his eyes lifted.
She was striking.
Clear eyes, a mouth with perfect lines, brows like ink strokes, a waist that made the chiffon fall just right. Her skin had that natural peach tint, and her features looked precision‑cut, like some patient sculptor had spent a lifetime getting them exactly so. A fall of dark hair poured down like a glossy waterfall.
The goth‑tinged chiffon princess dress should've been too much, but on her it just turned into effortless grace. You could call her an actual princess and no one in the room would argue.
Jason took her in for a few seconds, then let his gaze slip away.
Clean. Simple.
She was beautiful—easily top tier among the women he'd seen—but that wasn't reason enough to turn him into a drooling idiot.
That restraint made her pause.
With a face like hers, she'd learned to live under the constant scorch of male attention. Even men pretending not to look gave themselves away in the flicker of their eyes—like the guy behind the wheel. Derek Miles, the kind who'd been handed too much too early.
But the plain, slightly country kid who'd just climbed in… somehow he let it all slide off him.
Curiosity stirred.
"You came down from the mountain?" she asked, actually opening the conversation.
"Yeah. Up there's a lot cooler than down here," Jason said.
"What are you going to the city for? Work?" Her eyes flicked over his clothes—cheap and practical.
Jason shook his head. "I'm going to find my fiancées."
Both she and Derek jerked a little in their seats.
"You?" Her brows knit. "You have a fiancée?"
"Sure. Three, actually."
That earned him open disbelief from both fronts. Derek's expression went full mockery.
"You? That's rich. Keep dreaming, man," Derek laughed.
"I'm not dreaming. And you two look like you run in the same circles—maybe you know them." Jason thought for a beat. "Delilah Dean, Hannah Reyne, and Luna Locke."
Silence.
Their faces went strange—matching shock, quickly masked.
Derek caught Jason's eyes in the rearview like he was watching a live patient escape from an asylum. "You're a busted farmhand and you're claiming those three? Letting you in didn't just dirty my leather, it lowered my IQ."
The girl didn't chime in, but at the name Hannah Reyne, something rippled in her eyes.
Jason exhaled. What kind of world is it where telling the truth gets you nowhere?
Still—the way they reacted meant they knew his fiancées.
He reached into his jacket, ready to produce the three old‑school contracts to shut them up.
That's when the car bucked—hard.
"Son of—" Derek's face blanched. He stomped the brake and the Bentley lurched to a stop.
They piled out. One tire had blown, spikes of metal still jutting from the rubber like a bad joke.
"Who the hell salts a road with nails?" Derek snapped.
Jason and the girl stepped onto the gravel shoulder. She scanned the rock wall ahead and spotted a hand‑painted poster slapped onto the stone: "FLAT FIX—20 YARDS AHEAD."
"That's convenient," she said.
"As in too convenient." Derek scowled.
"Doesn't matter. I have to get back to Los Angeles fast. If I don't—my grandpa…" She cut herself off, jaw tight.
Derek grimaced. "Fine."
They rounded the bend and found a tired cinderblock shack with a swinging sign that read FLAT FIX in sun‑burnt letters.
They'd barely reached the doorway when a scar‑faced bruiser shouldered out with a handful of greasy hangers‑on at his back.
"Well lookee here. Need a fix?" Scarface smiled. It wanted to be friendly, but nothing sat right on that slashed cheek. His gaze slid over the girl and lit up with something he hid a beat later.
Derek pointed back at the Bentley. "That's mine. You can tow it?"
"Sure can. But y'all come inside, take a load off. A fix takes a minute," Scarface said.
"How long?" the girl asked.
"Quick and clean, half an hour. Slow…" He grinned and rubbed finger against thumb in the universal sign for more cash.
She didn't even blink. She pulled out a slim wallet and counted off a stack of crisp bills into his hand.
"This speed things up?"
Scarface's smile went bright and sudden. "Absolutely. Step right in!"
They sat. He flicked on a rattling box fan and set three paper cups of tea on the scarred table, then ducked back out to "help."
The heat pressed even in the shade, and the girl, parched, lifted her cup.
Jason's hand shot in from the side. He plucked the tea straight out of her fingers and drank it in one go.
She froze, then bristled, eyes sparking as she stared him down. "What is wrong with you?"