Page 95 of Reluctantly Yours

“What’s next? You always have a deal on the back burner. The next target.”

“I don’t know.” I shrug. Carl’s right, I’m always after what’s next, never content in the present. It’s different now with Chloe in my life. What’s next is figuring out how to keep her.

It must be written on my face.

“Wait a minute. I know that look. It’s the look of a man who’s wrapped around a woman’s finger. This is about Chloe. You really like her.”

My eyes narrow.

“Go ahead. Try to deny it,” he says.

I can’t. I don’t want to, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to gab with Carl about my feelings for her.

“Should I remind you of all the advice you’ve given me? Minimize distractions, don’t make it personal, eye on the prize? Sound familiar?”

Those are my words repeated back but they sound foreign to me now. Chloe’s not a distraction, she’s the main attraction and I want to make it personal.

My eyes are on the prize and it’s making Chloe mine.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got it handled.”

While Carl opts to stop for a beer in the men’s lounge, I head for the locker room, eager to get showered and get home.

On my way down the hall, I hear a familiar laugh. I turn around but no one is there.

The woman laughs again, then I hear whispering.

I wouldn’t bother with further investigation, but I could have sworn it was Frankie’s laugh. I wonder if she and Fred are here.

I back track, but there’s only the door to the stairwell leading down to the lower two levels. Deciding to not give it any more thought, I start moving back down the hallway. The laugh registers again. It’s bugging the hell out of me now. I either need to find out what’s going on or give it up and go shower.

Determination to uncover the mystery of Frankie’s soundalike laugh has me moving back to the stairwell door and looking through the window.

What I find there has me wishing I would have kept moving.

The woman is in fact Frankie, but the man who has her pinned to the wall isn’t Fred. It’s Vance, one of the tennis pros at the club.

I hear their murmurings as they echo off the cement walls. They’re kissing, which is evidence enough, but from the thrusting motion of Vance’s hips, I can tell they’re doing far more than that.

My guts twists and I back away from the stairwell door.

Fuck. Chloe’s instincts about Frankie had been right. I’d had my suspicions, a woman like that with a much older man like Fred is your typical gold digger stereotype. I’d hoped I was wrong. For Fred’s sake.

Now, I’ve seen it with my own eyes.

My mind immediately goes to the deal with Fred. I can’t begin to know what his response would be if I told him about Frankie’s infidelity. He’d be hurt, maybe embarrassed. And I’d be the messenger of that pain. No matter how good my intentions would be, saving Fred from further heartache and financial loss, he might not see it that way. Fred is prideful, he’s already making me earn this acquisition. I’ve been jumping through hoops to get this deal closed. He could walk away with Voltaire, give Ryan Shaw the chance to swoop in and take it out from under me.

No. I can’t let that happen. I can’t do anything to jeopardize the deal with Voltaire moving forward.

We’re a month out from signing. Surely, not much harm can be done in four weeks.

Besides, it’s not my place to tell Fred something so personal. We don’t have that kind of relationship. It’s just business.

I head for the men’s locker room, determined to forget what I saw in that stairwell.

CHAPTER22

Chloe