wicked combination of annoyance and humiliation while driving to his next stop.
The thrift store couldn’t have been more different from the Rodeo Drive strip of glamour and wealth. Gray was pretty sure he smelled urine on the sidewalk.
Through the disgusting odor, that whiff of lime hit him again. He glanced around and caught his redheaded stalker slip into a bodega a few doors down.
If this didn’t go well, he’d be there next to grab a six-pack and break his no drinking streak. Hopefully, Red would be waiting for him and had a taste for cheap beer.
Inside the thrift store, a teenage manager with a scraggly beard and tight jeans, thumbed through thousands of dollars’ worth of his designer outfits like they were China-made trash from Walmart.
“Dude, look at the labels,” Gray argued. “Plus, they have the tags. Here’s my receipt.” He slapped the crinkled strip of paper on the counter. “They’re not stolen. My credit card got canceled so they couldn’t give me a refund.”
“Where have I heard that one before?” The hipster used an iPhone with a broken screen to tally up all the tags.
“Sixteen thousand and change.” Gray had already added it up. “Come on, ten grand.”
The hipster scoffed. “I’ll give you five.”
“Five grand?”
“Five hundred.” He reached into his register. “Take it or leave it.”
Gray’s heart fell into his stomach. Ten thousand would have bought him more time in L.A. He could have even moved back to Hollywood while he waited. Waited for that call from Matthew Trainor.
Feeling sick, Gray turned away from the hipster who looked at him like an utter loser.
He finally came to terms with the fact that he wasn’t the same guy strutting through Manhattan. A billionaire who got whatever he wanted.
In L.A., Grayson Hart was just another struggling actor. “One thousand,” he countered over his shoulder. That would at least buy him two more weeks in L.A. Although, he’d be stuck in Marina Del Rey, outside of the action. He turned back around, his face full of charm. “Come on, help me out.”
The hipster glared more closely at him then looked at the bottom of his receipt. “Grayson Hart? From A Day to Die?”
His bomb. “That’s me.”
Hipster rolled his eyes and reached back in the register. “One thousand. I can’t see you getting any more parts. You were awful.”
Gray’s throat tightened and his hands dropped to his side. He’d rather burn the clothes in front of this asshole. What had he been thinking, leaving New York? Luke had given him a job at the hotel and a killer fucking penthouse to live in for free. Out-of-town babes fell in his bed every night.
Why the fuck did I leave?
“Guy, I got customers.” The hipster waved the cash at him. “Do you want the green or not?”
Gray whisked the thousand dollars out of the asshole’s hand. “Sorry you didn’t like me in A Day to Die. I’m up for a part that will make tool bags like you bring my Insta account down with all your apologies.”
“Dick.” Hipster grabbed the bag and tossed it on the floor behind him.
“Go suck one.” His New York attitude kicked in.
“For another grand, I’ll suck yours.”
Gray didn’t have a snappy New York City comeback for that one. Only a gaping stare.
“You’re a shitty actor, but man, you’re fucking gorgeous.” The guy licked his lips.
Shaking his head, Gray stalked out of the dirty store.
He wasn’t that desperate.
Yet.
CHAPTER TWO
Sabine
“I found yer brother, Mr. Hart,” Sabine said to one of the two billionaires staring at her through the video chat.
“It’s about damn time. I contacted you three weeks ago.” Luke Hart peered over her shoulder. “Where are you calling me from?”
“My whereabouts are not important.” She’d learned that the Harts were as rich as the day was long, but not very technically savvy.
Their hotel in New York City didn’t even have a proper security system. She tried to hack into their cameras to check the place out, understand who she was dealing with, but found they’d had an antiquated system running on a mind-numbingly slow router and she didn’t have the patience to wait for the video downloads.
If Luke Hart had reached out to her to find his brother Grayson in Los Angeles, it meant he didn’t know how run-of-the-mill tracking methods worked.
Luke’s go-to solution had been to cut his brother off. Freeze his bank account and cancel his credit cards. Very old school. But it’d worked. Gray was running out of money. She’d hacked into a bank account Luke didn’t know