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- Chapter Two -

Bach

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“For fuck's sake!” Slammingmy palm against the wall caused an echo to rumble through the pool room. The water enhanced the noise, making it metallic and raw.

Violet didn't flinch. She just held out a towel to me. “Dry off.”

“He actually said he was pullingoutof his contract?”Water rained down from my hair, glistening over my half-naked body. Swimming had always been a way to center myself. It gave me focus.

Now, every bit of good it had done broke away with this news.

I wasfurious.

Straightening, I faced my vice president. Her long red hair was pulled high, tightening the already smooth skin of her ever-patient expression. Waving the towel, she sighed. “Bach, just get dressed. You'll want to talk to him before he leaves the building and—”

“He's stillhere?” Santino Fresh had the gall to walk into my company, announce he was ending his contract, and he hadn't even asked for me personally? That son of a bitch had a pair of brass balls.

“Where is he? Is he with Farrah?”

“Yes, but—Bach, wait!”

Storming forward in just my black swim trunks—the material clinging tightly to my thighs and showing off my richly tattooed body—I stalked out of the glass doors.

Beats and Blast Records consisted of several floors. This one was near the top - the pool was private and for me alone. If Violet was right, Santino was lingering with my secretary as he finished signing off on the papers.

In the halls, I passed by several employees. The women ogled my damp skin as I stormed through the rooms. I was on a mission. I didn't have time to enjoy their hungry stares.

The men looked, too, but their eyes were mostly dark with envy. How could they not be? Whether I wanted it or not, I was Bach Devine, sole inheritor of my father's billion-dollar music empire. I was the man they all wanted to be—and the ladies ached to be with.

Shoving into my private lobby, I enjoyed the flicker of surprise on Santino's face. He'd been hunched over the front desk, alternating between filling out the form in front of him and staring into my secretary's cavernous cleavage.

At my arrival, he held the pen up like it was a weapon. That was good; his instincts were telling him that even in just swim trunks, I was a man worth fearing. “Bach,” he started to say.

“How fuckingdare you.”I stopped inches from his face, backing him against the desk. My secretary, Farrah, covered her mouth in distress. The last few droplets of water on my skin bounced onto Santino's shirt. “You show up at my company to yank out of your contract and you can't tell me to my face?”