Page 39

It doesn't escape me that she heard what I said to Parker that evening in her room at her mother's home while she was in the oat-milk bath. I wasn't going to come; I wasn't going to ask her for this, but after finding outallof the heads of the chaptersandtheir wives will be there tonight to meet my future wife at the annual Valentine's Day Match, I tucked my tail between my legs and came to ask her for this favor. Because why wouldn’t I be spending Valentine’s Day with my future bride… and then Iburnedher.
"You'll be there tonight?"
"Unfortunately," she calls back softly from the landing and continues on her way upstairs. Away from me.Always doing her best to get andstayaway from me.
I’ve never had this issue before. Most of the issues I have from women involve them trying to makemoreconversation so they can stick around. This is fucking confusing. And fucking frustrating. Not to mention, every time I try, it fucking blows up in my face. I couldn’t just pick a nice, meek, submissive girl, could I? Noooo, I had to choose the most aggravating one in all of New YorkandLondon.
I turn to leave but instead I face Parker's glare. "I'm sure you can find your way out," he growls, bending to clean up the rest of the shards on the ground.
I don't answer, just leave with a door slam. I feel sick inside. Guilt. Shame. I've never hurt a woman in my life.
"How'd it go?" Niko asks when I climb into the passengerside of the SUV.
"Fantastic. I burned her." I choke out, telling him everything that happened, my anger rising. "Then she resorted to treating me like I'mnothing. She's fucking infuriating."
"You need to apologize, Boss."
"You don't think I tried? She wouldn't even look at me. At this point, I don't even know if she's scared of me or just hates my guts. And now I make her go somewhere that's out of her comfort zone to make me look good."
Niko sucks in his cheeks, bright eyes still on the road. "So try again."
I scoff. "You know what she asked me to do?"
"What?"
"Send her a list of all the things I'll need her to do for me so she can have her assistantpencil me inso I don't have to talk to her about it, she can just show up and then leave."
Niko laughs. "She's kind of a savage little thing. Did she do it all posh and professional?"
I sigh, gripping my knees. "Yes."
"That's... that's kinda hot."
I punch him in the arm, and it makes him swerve. "Ouch, boss, fuck, I'm driving."
"Don't talk about my fiancé like that."
"Heard. But seriously, I can’t wait to meet her."
He sounds a little too eager and that irks me. I go back to my phone, pulling up the ticket sales. Over one hundred thousand so far. Seventy-five percent goes to our charity, the other twenty-five goes to the staff attending tonight.
The rest of my day goes as planned, doing numbers with inventory for the bar, talking to the chefs about tonight’s menu, making sure the girls upstairs were okay. Believe it or not, tonight is one of their busiest nights. I have ten extra men as security to make sure they’re safe tonight since I'll be in the basement.
Once I get to the floor beneath the casino, I make sure the chairs meant for Sabrina and me are not too close to anyone else so she doesn’t get overwhelmed. The last thing I need is for her to freak out and embarrass me in front of the capos. I groan; I just had to get the twitchiest woman in all of New York.
I shoot off a text to her.
Me: I’ll be picking you up at 7. We’ll have dinner here with the other heads.
She leaves me on read and then responds with a thumbs up emojian hourlater.
At five-thirty I leave the club, get to my penthouse, shower and get dressed, then leave before six to beat traffic. When we pull up to her house, I get out and stride to her front door. I knock three times, remembering this morning when I came over to ask her to come with me and she didn’t answer the door, wouldn’t answer the phone. I checked the cameras to verify she wasn’t in the office to find it empty as well as her house.
My first thought was that she ran.
I stayed in the fucking cold for almost an hour before she and Parker were making their way to me. Walking just a little too close together.
I need to find a way to insert a tracker in her or something.