1
Iweave through thousands of commuters, both amused and frustrated. I am more than happy to fly commercial if Regan and her baby sister, Raquel, get back to Texas before Raquel delivers, but my usually impenetrable façade feels on the verge of fracturing this evening. Raquel looks nothing like Ophelia, my girlfriend who was in a horrific accident the same night she told me she loved me for the first time, however, I can’t help but wonder what would have occurred if she wasn’t involved in the fatal collision that claimed her life. Would the child she forewarned about the night I fought her brother in an underground fight ring have my gray eyes or her almost translucent eyes? Would its hair have beenas dark as a stormy sky or as mousy as a mouse? And would it havebeen a boy or a girl?
So many questions need answering, but not only do I have an inability to ask them, more than my reputation would be on the line if I did. Ophelia was the daughter of an infamous old-school gangster. Although Col Petretti’s ‘family’ no longer holds the nobility it once did, they’re still well-known amongst the riffraff in my home state. They run drugs, weapons, and if the information Hunter, my head of security, unearthed the past three months is accurate, women and children in the towns bordering mine. I say bordering because,despite Col’s best efforts, I have never worked with him. I willneverwork for him.
I only fought in his underground fight circuit to amass the capital needed to start my empire. I invested every cent I earned in the once-a-week fights in my college days. Now I have more money than anyone thought possible, and I’m only twenty-seven years old, although I feel more weathered today. It isn’t every day the baby sister of your lawyer goes into labor weeks early. My impressive bank balances would have most people believing I can slow down my business endeavors and the aging process that will have me in the grave before I turn sixty.
I wholeheartedly disagree with them.
My businesses areallI live for.
I eat, breathe, and sleep for my empire. They keep my competitive streak well-nourished while ensuring my family never goes without…if they’d accept my help.
My mother has no qualms taking my money. Her husband is a partner in a successful plastic surgery practice in Miami, but my motto ‘never enough’ was bestowed from my mother. She could have a 20-carat diamond dangling off her thin neck but would pout if she saw someone with a 20.1-carat diamond.
My father, on the other hand, is so goddamn stubborn, he’d rather live in a Hicksville town instead of one of my penthouses in a forever-growing metropolis, and Nick, my little brother I want to strangle more times than I want to nurture, is following in our father’s footsteps. I’ve always encouraged him to find success for himself, and he is on the pinnacle of stardom with his band, Rise Up, but not everyone has what it takes to get bloody and bruised for a bit of coin. Nick would run from a fight before he’d ever glove up for one.
While smirking about my brother’s belief the only thing in desperate need of a pounding is women, I return Hugo’s text message. He’s the equivalent of Hunter to my team, he just brings additional brawn instead of a computerized brain. Don’t misconstrue. Hugo isn’t stupid by any means, he’s just too wired to sit behind a computer twenty-four-seven. He likes to get his hands dirty in more ways than one. If he has a grudge, you’ll know about it. Just like if he can rile you about something, you’ll be well aware of that too. Since he’s with me more than anyone, that somewhat irritable trait occurs more often to me than anyone else.
I freeze just inside the domestic arrival terminal at JFK International Airport when it dawns on me how insolent I’ve been. I hate reneging, it is one of my pet peeves, but I must take back what I said earlier. Clearly, Hugoisstupid. Only a man with the strength of a hundred has the gall to go against me, and even then, he won’t win. My reputation is fierce for a reason. You won’t believe the shams some people have tried to pull on me. Women are usually the worst. Take now, for example. I’ve barely stopped for a second when a flurry of dark, stormy locks smack into my face, and a mere second after that, the hair’s owner darts past me.
Since one of my hands is wrapped around my cell phone and the other is shoved in the pocket of my business trousers—an obvious stay-the-fuck-away-from-me stance for anyone who travels often—I don’t have the chance to impede the brunette’s tumble to the floor. It’s for the best. With the news my flight is fully booked out, my mood is sour. I stopped flying commercial over three years ago. Being stuck on a seven-hour flight with a woman who believed rubbing plant leaves under her armpits would discount the copious amount of garlic-laced food she consumes each day is enough to scare anyone into buying their own fleet of aircraft.
Here’s a hint, leaf deodorant doesn’t work. It’s like all fads—overused, under-trialed, and out of fashion within a month.
When a hiss of pain projects from the woman who crashed into me, I’m tempted to sidestep the woman vying for my attention with the savageness of a cavewoman, but something holds me back. I want to say it’s because my father raised me better, but that would be a lie. He did raise me right, and he is the reason I’m as successful as I am, but there’s something greater at play here, and it isn’t solely coming from my side of the duo. Tension is bristling in the air. It is as perverse as the energy that surrounds me when I prep for a fight. I’m in for a battle, but I simply have no idea how extreme it will be.
Needing to break the ice before my vacillating moods get the best of me, I say, “I’m used to people falling at my feet, but not quite as undignified as that.” My tone is as commanding as ever, but there’s also a dash of amused truth behind it. I wasn’t lying when I said people fall to my feet. It’s as regular as an alcoholic adding a nip of whiskey to their morning coffee.
As the brunette’s chest rises and falls in sync with the thudding pulse in her neck, she raises her eyes to mine. I almost take a step back, mesmerized by the darkness of her dilated gaze. You could say her eyes are as dark as death, but they’re too attractive to associate with something so gory, so I’ll settle on something more enticing and sweeter by saying they’re the color of rich chocolate.
She has an almost tulip-shaped nose, full, kissable lips, and the brow not arched as she scans my body is being brushed by lashes only coated with the slightest bit of mascara. Her clothes are casual yet enticing since they hug her curves, and her hair almost touches her tiny waist.
She is very attractive, which is odd for me to admit since I haven’t sought a single familiarity with Ophelia during my greedy assessment of her form. Usually, similarities with my deceased girlfriend are the first thing I seek. That isn’t occurring this time around. Until I considered the rarity of me not hunting familiarities, Ophelia’s brown locks, pale eyes, and angelic face weren’t in my head at all, and their pop-in now doesn’t linger for long.
They vanish as swiftly as the brunette’s belief the shock on my face is displeasure about our contrasting sense of style. My six-foot-one frame is clad in a tailor-made three-piece suit. She’s wearing faded sweats.
Her choice of outfit doesn’t make her any less appealing, though. If anything, it has the opposite effect. She’s too mortified with embarrassment for me to ever believe her tumble was a ruse to secure my attention, and her outfit all but confirms my beliefs. If she were out to impress me, she wouldn’t have worn lint-riddled clothes.
Not even someone as confident as Theresa Veneto would give that a whirl, and she thinks the sun shines out of her ass. It’s an exasperating trait of anyone in law enforcement. Instead of enforcing the law, they often mistake themselves as lawmakers. Theresa is the worst of the worst, but since the unnamed brunette is scampering herself up from the floor, that’s a story for another day. My father will lecture me for hours on end if the morals he drummed into me from birth aren’t launched into action immediately.
With the heat on her cheeks as warm as the blood tracking through my veins, the brunette’s footing is a little unsteady when I curl my hand around her elbow to aid her back onto her feet. I’m barely touching her, but the zap that roars up my arm redirects the blood pumping through my heart to my cock. His response to the attention of a beautiful woman is nothing out of the ordinary, but my lack of worry about his eagerness most certainly is.
This will sound conceited because it is, but I don’t prowl for dates, nor do I wine and dine the women who occupy my bed. I’m honest about what I want. I want to fuck. But only if they agree to my unbreakable no-strings-attached clause, then I leave the task of kicking out my ‘bed companions’ to my housekeeper slash PA, Catherine. Women are merely a vessel for me to get off on.
I’m not sensing the same one-and-done perception now. I don’t even know if this brunette is single, but for some stupid reason, I’m plotting ways to ensure she can only respond to her relationship status in one way.
It is crazy for me to think like this? I’ve only experienced this type of madness once before in my life, and it didn’t have the all-encompassing impulses it does this time around. I chased Ophelia like I had nothing to lose because, back then, I didn’t. I can’t say the same this time around. It feels like more than my reputation is on the line.
That doesn’t mean I’ll sit back and watch, though.
You don’t get fearless unless you’re willing to face your fears head-on.
While breathing out a quick “Thank you,” the brunette glances down at the contents of her bag that burst open during our collision. It has all the items Regan refuses to travel without, but every man cringes while purchasing—lip gloss, an e-reader full of steamy romance novels, empty chocolate wrappers, and the very cause of my cock’s demise, a half-empty box of tampons.
There goes my inflight entertainment.
Is it pretentious of me to assume a beautiful stranger would change her plans solely for me and my raging libido? Not if you are as cocky as me. Furthermore, her boarding pass reveals she’s traveling to the town everyone considers mine, and now that I have the credentials needed to bump her flight from economy to business class, my odds are even more improved.
