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A cell phone chimed a tune I didn’t recognize as I zipped up a highway on-ramp, and I tapped the steering wheel absently. There were definitely worse things that a grumpy client—like a client that never shut up or got personal. Putting pressure on the gas pedal, I checked my mirrors habitually before flicking on my blinker to merge into the far left lane.
“You couldn’t call me in the morning? I just landed, I’m not even at the hotel yet.” Annoyance seeped into Anthony’s thickened voice, and I flexed my toes in my heels as the urge to glance back at him burned between my eyeballs and their sockets. “I know that, this isn’t my first business trip, you know. If you don’t like it, why don’t you do something about it besides complain?”
“You know what—I really don’t care at this point. I’ll call you when I feel like it.” Electricity crackled in the air as Anthony cut the call, and I couldn’t resist temptation anymore. Peeking in the rearview mirror, my eyes widened slightly as I watched him drag his hand down his face. His grimace morphed his expression as he slouched in his seat; even behind his palm, he couldn’t hide the frown that tugged at his mouth.
He looks really stressed.
The thought banged against my forehead just as his eyes flickered to mine, and I fixed mine back on the road without watching his pupils restrict. For a long, tense moment, Anthony stared at the back of my head, and I held my breath as my hair follicles tingled under my cap.
But Anthony didn’t call me out, and after that few seconds slid by on pins and needles, my tight muscles relaxed when he moved his stare to the scenery.
Chapter 3
Anthony
Scrolling through the search page I’d brought up on my cell phone, I frowned deeply at the sheer number of bars and clubs this city had to offer. The elevator gave a shrill ping as it stopped at the ground floor, and I stepped out onto solid ground without tearing my eyes from the screen.
“This one looks the best, I guess.” Slipping my phone into my suit pants pocket, I raked my hand through my hair as my grumble rang in my ears. My bad mood had only gotten worse since landing, and I strode heavily towards the hotel’s revolving doors to step onto the busy sidewalk. This city’s nightlife was insanely active, and I took a deep breath filled with the smell of food from nearby restaurants and bars.
The map to the particular place I wanted to check out branded against my eyelids every time I blinked, and I set out at a leisurely pace. Couples on dates, groups of people just hanging out, flooded every inch of downtown, but the claustrophobia eased some of my nerves. It only briefly came to me that I should’ve asked Hailey for a tour, but I didn’t want to talk more than necessary and end up heaping guilt on what was already a volatile situation.
Music spilled onto the street as I passed a bar-b-que joint that was filled to the bay windows, but it couldn’t stave off my frown. Loosening my tie and unfastening the top two buttons of my shirt as I wandered down the sidewalk, I rubbed my neck roughly before shoving my hands into my pockets.
“At least she didn’t seem to take it personally…” My mumble was lost under all the other noise, floating on the crisp breeze that combated the heat radiating from various eateries. Hailey was a nice surprise from the groveling, insipid drivers that I was usually stuck with; I got the instant impression she was a great conversationalist.
But I’d kept my mouth shut on the 45 minute drive to the hotel rather than test that theory.
Not that there’s not a good reason, though.
My mind wandered back to California, and I ground my teeth as the phone call only two hours ago rang in my ears. Irritation flooded my veins at the overbearing tone in my father’s voice, and I curled my hands into fists in their sheaths.
If my father didn’t trust me after all this time to run the businesses he forced me to take over, why in the fuck didn’t he just take them back? The question haunted me more often than I cared to admit, and even after five years, I didn’t have an answer. He was a control freak, he always had been, but that strictness that’d served me well in adolescence was crushing me as an adult.
Our relationship had deteriorated considerably since my father’s heart attack, and I could barely stand to even take his calls anymore.
Money. Hedge-funding. Banking. Properties. Stocks. Everything my father had shoved down my throat, he topped with a direct style of management that I couldn’t swallow. Slowly over the years I had begun to break away from him, but he still found ways to fuck with me.
Like he was doing right fucking now.
My destination was only about a fifteen-minute walk from the hotel, off a side street that was surprisingly clean and well-lit. Staring at the long line of men and women idling on the sidewalk to get in, I frowned absently as my gaze slid to the bruiser that guarded the entrance.
I couldn’t even remember the last time I waited in a line for anything, let alone a club entrance, and I inhaled deeply to exhale heavily.
The bouncer and I were the same height, and he watched me through narrowed eyes as I strode towards him. Recognition flashed in his dark irises and across his face before he reached for his little walkie-talkie.
Hiding the little sliver of surprise that lodged in my chest, I only nodded as he opened the door for me wordlessly.
Even after a lifetime, I still found it amazing that people recognized me almost everywhere I went.
Leather and sex tainted the air, growing thicker and headier as I made my way down the hallway that led to the club’s main floor. Not just anyone could find this place, and I shirked off my jacket to hang it on a peg on the wall.
Pulsing, low music reverberated up from the floor, and my palms tingled as I pushed open an otherwise boring looking, metal door.
A deep, richly stained bar stretched to my immediate left, and the mingling floor spread to my right. Stalking down towards the center of the clean counter, I dropped into a leather-clad stool to signal the bartender.
Ignoring everyone around me, my eyes fixed on the wall of alcohol before me as a woman in a form-fitting, purple dress came slinking towards me.
“Just a beer.” Speaking up before she could even open her mouth, I twisted on my stool to finally take in the characters around me.
