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I turned back inside to look over the papers that Mark had dropped off. I needed to get back to work. Last night had been a pleasant diversion, but I had to keep my head in the game.
Even if I wished I could have been keeping my head between Thea’s legs instead.
Chapter Five Thea
I drummed my fingers on the desk as I waited for my brother to show up. Where the hell was he? I needed to talk to him.
I knew he would be confused by all of this, by my sudden interest in the business, but I had to find out what was going on with Scott and how the two of them had come to work together. And just what it was Scott was doing to earn all that cash.
I knew I shouldn’t have even been thinking about him, really. Ever since I had seen Mark turn up at his door, I had known I needed to forget Scott ever existed, forget anything had ever happened between us in the first place. God knows I had tried.
Honestly, when I climbed into that cab after leaving his place, I had sworn to myself in all the ways I could that I wasn’t going to let anything that happened get the better of me. Yes, it had been hot—yes, it had been some of the best sex of my life with a guy who had saved me as nobly as he had. And maybe there had been a part of me that would have wanted more if I could get it.
That morning, when I’d woken up in Scott’s bed, I had just felt as though I belonged there. Hearing him in the shower, seeing him in the light of day when he had emerged, he was so damn sexy to me that it was hard to think straight. Seeing that gorgeous, muscular body, his cocky grin, and the way he ran his hand over his near-shaven head like he knew just what was going through my mind when I stared at him. In the light of day, I could see his tattoo, a large snake that curled up over his torso, its head resting on his shoulder, tongue flickering out over the top of his chest. It was intricate. Each scale was picked out in ink—a little scary and a little sexy all at the same time.
He was well aware of the effect he had on me, and he enjoyed it. And I enjoyed him enjoying it.
If I could have stayed in his bed all day, I would have. Even as I had been lying there, before I’d heard Mark’s voice at the door, I had been thinking about how I could spend the rest of my week there with him. How I could have his hands all over me, his touch hungry for my body, his kiss as starved as it had been last night.
And then I’d heard Mark, and I’d known I had to get out of there. Mark was always particular about keeping business away from pleasure, and I knew he would have lost it if he had known I had slept with someone he was working with. He was more protective than he needed to be of me, too, especially since we’d lost our parents, and I had no doubt he would do anything he could to chase Scott away from me.
I got it. I did. Mark just didn’t want to see me hurt again after everything we had been through. But it was hard to imagine someone like Scott hurting me. He had saved me. And what we had shared was so intense and so passionate and so, so good. In fact, much as I had tried to convince myself I could do without him, much as I had been the one to call a halt to things between us, I had also been the one unable to shake the memory of him from my mind, much to my chagrin.
And so, I had decided to meet with Mark, ostensibly so I could talk to him about the casino. It was our family business, after all, and even if he was running it, I wanted to make sure I was involved with it wherever I could be. But, in truth, I was going to delve as much as I could into the man he was working with to learn just how they had come to go into business together. And maybe learn where Scott had managed to get his obviously sizeable fortune from.
I had this nagging feeling there was something heavy going on behind the scenes—the way those guys who had confronted me had reacted to him, it was as though they knew they had to put as much distance between themselves and him as possible, and I couldn’t help but wonder why. What did he have that made him so commanding? What was going on that made it so difficult for people to stand up to him? I knew there were plenty of shady enterprises in this city, and it wouldn’t have surprised me if he was part of at least one of them.
"Hey, hey," Mark greeted me, slightly out of breath. "What’s up? Sorry I’m late, I was getting a coffee."
He came over to me and gave me a quick hug, and I squeezed him right back. Sometimes, in the midst of all this craziness, my big brother felt like the only touch of normalcy I had. He took his seat opposite me and I sipped the large iced coffee he had brought with him.
"That thing’s going to give you a heart attack," I scolded him looking at his quadruple latte, but I knew he was never going to listen to me when it came to matters of his caffeine consumption.
"Yeah, well, you try running this place without drinking your body weight in coffee," he told me.
"I just finished college, Mark. I know all about coffee." I laughed. I almost felt bad that I was bringing this to him, but I figured it was the best way to get myself over the guy who had been on my mind since the weekend—even if Mark had no idea why I had so much interest in Scott. I planned to keep it that way, too.
"Yeah, of course you do," he replied. "So, what did you want to talk about?"
"Just the casino," I told him with a shrug, trying to keep my voice casual. "I wanted to know where you were with development. You know, when you’re going to open, who’s involved, stuff like that..."
"I thought you said you didn’t want to be involved with the hotel details?" He asked, looking confused.
"Well, now I’m back. I thought it would make sense for me to help out where I can," I replied. "So, what’s going on with it? How did you get the money for it? It’s not like Mom or Dad left us much to work with..."
"Uh, I joined up with some businessmen in the city," He replied, but his eyes slid away from me as he spoke. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I knew my brother well enough to know when he was bullshitting me, and I would be damned if he wasn’t trying to pull that off right now.
"What kind of businessmen?” I pressed him. Of course, he didn’t have to know that I’d wound up in bed with one of them just a few days ago, but I still wanted to find out what exactly Scott was investing here.
"A few people who want to develop businesses in the city," he added vaguely.
"Yeah, but why did they decide to invest here?" I asked him. I knew business well enough to know that what my father had left behind wasn’t exactly the most appealing thing for someone looking to get ahead in the game, and I couldn’t figure out why they would have made a choice to work with Mark over so many other up and coming places in the city.
"We, uh, offered them benefits not everyone was willing to put out there," he continued. The way he was talking, it was starting to get me really worried. Like he was trying to cover something up.
"Like what?" I asked.
"Does it really matter?" He replied, shrugging.
