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Noticing the way each of her curves fit into those jeans he smiled. “Coming downstairs to this view every morning is something I could get used to.”
“I think you’ve seen enough of my ass to last a lifetime,” she said not even looking up from her phone.
He approached her, pulling her phone from her hands. “And I will continue to appreciate it for at least two more lifetimes.”
She finally looked over at him as he confiscated her phone, and whatever she was about to say was replaced with a silent stare at the fine-looking shirtless specimen standing next to her. A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth before she plucked the phone right back out of his hands. “I have work to take care of today, some things have come up.”
“We can talk about it after I get something to eat. I’m starving.” He patted a hand to his defined abdominal muscles.
She rested a hand on her hip. “There isn’t anything to talk about. I have business to take care of.”
“Not without me you don’t.”
She silently said a prayer for more patience with this man. “I thought that when you convinced my dad to drop the security detail on me, I would have more leeway. Instead, you’re…”
“Up your ass?” He chuckled.
“For lack of a better phrase, yes. And stop looking so smug about it!” Her hand smacked against the center of his bare chest, where he caught her wrist and tugged her in up against him.
He nodded his head down to her ear and whispered. “I will quit looking so smug about it when you tell me that you don’t enjoy it.” With that, he gave a quick peck on her cheek and released her wrist.
It had been a lost cause convincing Joey that she didn’t need his overprotective services while she took care of some routine business matters. The best she got out of him was a promise he would stay out of sight, and she wouldn’t even know he was there. Layne found that hard to believe, but it was all she could negotiate for now.
She sat in the closed-off backroom of McGregor’s Pub, straddling a backward chair at the wooden table that was unbalanced on one of its four legs. Joey was out front sitting at the bar in the same seat he had chosen the night he met her. He was at least allowing her to conduct her check-in meeting with family associates in private.
Two of her men, or more accurately her dad’s employees who reported to her, were seated across the table. Standing off to the side, there was one tall and leggy redheaded woman examining her cheap manicure.
“Gary, explain to me one more time what’s going on with Thursday nights at the Brass Mirror.” Layne lifted her glass of golden ale and took a long, therapeutic sip as this meeting wasn’t inspiring her that the minions were holding down the fort. Brass Mirror was one of a few of their backroom sites in the O’Reilly underground gambling circuit, only the elite received invitations, and even then, those memberships were reviewed and scrutinized quite frequently.
“Diego wants a bigger cut. He said that things have been getting a bit wild and he’s had to hire more personnel to keep things civil.” Gary was in his seat, bouncing both of his knees like he was sending erratic Morse code. He was close to Layne’s age, and yet he was struggling to keep up with the pace of the job.
“Jesus, Gary, could you pop a pill and stop with the damn jittering?” She let out an exasperated sigh. “Tell Diego, he needs to hire better help to replace who he has. He’s not getting a bigger cut just because he’s a shitty judge of character.”
Gary smoothed his hands over the tops of his knees trying to slow the movements.
Layne looked over to his partner in literal crime. “Update, Darin?”
He dug around in his jacket pocket, pulled out a few folded pieces of paper, and slid them across the table toward her.
Layne reached out and took the documents, unfolding them and reading the contents. Doing her best to control the expression on her face, she immediately finished off the rest of the beer in her glass. “Alright, go ahead and follow up on this, and let me know what you find out.” She waved the papers at him before shoving them into her back pocket for safekeeping.
“It may take a while, it’s been like casting pearls before swine.”
Layne raised both her eyebrows at the idiom, but promptly shook her head. “I don’t even want to know what the hell that means. Just find out what you can.”
“Are we done here, yet?” The shrill voice of the woman interrupted as she crossed her arms over her stomach, impatiently waiting. God, Layne hated dealing with Kristill, and she hated how she spelled her name even more.
Layne motioned for Gary and Darin to be on their way. “Take a seat.”
“I’m fine standing,” Kristill replied with boredom hanging in her voice.
“I said fuckin’ sit, Kristill.” Layne’s tone getting kicked up a notch at the attitude she was getting.
“I’m fine.” She slowly emphasized each word.
Layne pushed away from her seat, stood up, and walked over to the woman with a really bad box-dye hair job. Going toe-to-toe with her, she lowered her voice letting the seriousness of her voice edge each syllable. “Take a seat, or I will put you in one.”
Her eyes looked Layne up and down, appearing unimpressed and unthreatened. “Oh, whatever, Layne. I don’t take orders from you.”
