Page 50 of Entangled Vow
“I love a good steak,” I mused.“Prime rib, preferably, but I wouldn’t turn down a porterhouse if it landed in front of me.Medium rare, tops.”
“Your point?”he asked, chuckling.
“If I ate it every day, I would get tired of it.”
“Gotcha.I see how it would get boring.”He finished his drink, checking his phone.“Better go.I don’t feel like being bitched out for being late.”
“A new woman?”I asked, vaguely curious but more interested in a blonde lingering on the fringes of the crowd down there.She was a virgin to the scene.Anybody with eyes could tell once they observed the way she stood with her arms folded over her middle, chewing her lip, her eyes shifting around.Most of her face was concealed by a black lace mask, but she could not conceal her nerves.
“The same woman for the last few months, hence getting bitched out.Take a woman out enough times, and she thinks it gives her the right to carry your balls in her purse.”He shook my hand one final time after gathering up the contracts I’d signed.“I’ll follow up with you tomorrow.”
I was glad to see him go, since there was only so much sidestepping I could do when it came to explaining my reservations about expanding.I didn’t have the luxury of warm, happy memories when I looked back on my youth.There were good times, sure, and plenty of people had it worse than me.
It wasn’t as if I’d be going home with my tail between my legs either, far from it.I was more successful than I ever dreamed of being ten years ago when I left home for the last time after graduating college.I had packed up my things, along with a shit ton of bitterness and regret, and I’d moved to Los Angeles.Since then, I’d opened the clubs here and in New York, where countless patrons relied on my staff to be discreet and professional, to keep them safe and let them feel free in the way they couldn’t in their everyday lives.I was providing a service, and I had made a mint.I could sail into town with my head held high.
It was a big city.There was practically no chance at all of me ever seeing her again.No, I was more concerned that the proximity would drive me out of my skull, and I would have no choice but to find her.Just to take a look, to hear her voice again.
Lenny.The thought of her stirred something in my chest that had been dark and cold since the day she walked out of my life.The day I forced her out.
The blonde wandered the floor, a lost lamb in a room full of wolves.Wolves were being watched closely not only by me but bouncers whose sole job was to keep rule breakers from ruining anyone else’s night.There was no room for second chances in a business like this.One strike and the person responsible wasn’t welcome in any of my clubs ever again.
At the moment, a man whose body language I didn’t like was watching her, following her, waiting for his opportunity to strike.He would only spook her if he came on too strongly.
It was none of my business.I paid people to take care of shit like this for me.
Yet something compelled me to grab a mask from my desk drawer and tie it in place over my eyes and nose on my way out of the office.For some reason, this was not the sort of job I wanted to leave up to my staff.
Perhaps because it meant not getting the chance to protect that beautiful blonde lamb myself.