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Madison picked up the toothpick with the olive. “I guess I could try it. But I’ll definitely need a massage after.”
“I’ll be happy to give you a massage,” the guy next to her said.
Turning, Madison flashed him a smile. “Now aren’t you a honey.” She waggled her hand with the wedding band on the ring finger. “But I’m afraid Rocky wouldn’t like it.”
Eden had seen the wedding band prop used before. Madison might be an escort, but she was a picky one. In fact, Eden had yet to see her leave with a guy. Or even flirt with one.
A waitress squeezed between Madison and the guy and set her tray on the bar. “I guess I got it wrong. The woman didn’t want a Salty Dog. She wants a Salty Chihuahua. And I need two margaritas on the rocks and an iced tea with plenty of sugar.” She leaned in closer. “And you’ll never guess who the sweet tea is for.” Before Eden could guess, she hurried on. “One of the panty billionaires.”
Eden filled two glasses with ice. “The who?”
“The panty billionaires. You know, the three brothers who inherited the French Kiss lingerie company.” She glanced over her shoulder. “He’s the middle one. Nash Lothario Beaumont.”
“Holy smokes,” Madison breathed. “Are you kidding me?” She stood on the rungs of the barstool and tried to see over everyone’s heads. “I see him. He’s sitting at that table chatting with those two women. Or more like keeping them from eating him alive. God, he’s so-o-o cute. It sorta makes you want to run out and buy a pair of his panties—even if the Lothario Collection is a little racy for my taste.”
Wanting to see what all the fuss was about, Eden finished pouring the margarita mix and tequila before she stepped up on a plastic crate they used for glasses. Her gaze scanned the tables. “So what does he look—?” Her breath left her lungs in a rush as her eyes landed on the man sitting at the corner table.
Cute? Cutewas the last word Eden would use to describe the guy. Gorgeous, breathtaking, and smoking hot all came to mind but still didn’t capture his amazing good looks. His thick brown hair was combed back from a high forehead, and a wayward lock hung over the dark slash of one eyebrow. A day’s growth of stubble shadowed his angular jaw and square chin and framed a pair of full lips. Lips that were tipped in a smile that took her breath away. She looked at his eyes to see which of the two women he found so amusing and realized that he wasn’t looking at either.
He was looking straight at Eden.
Completely embarrassed to be caught staring, she hopped down from the crate. “He doesn’t look that hot to me,” she lied as she went back to filling the order.
Madison laughed. “Which explains the blush on your cheeks.”
After getting caught staring, Eden purposely ignored the panty billionaire for the rest of the night. Which wasn’t hard to do. The next few hours went by in a flurry of drink orders. Madison left only an hour after she’d arrived, promising to meet Eden at the park on Saturday morning. Eden was excited about the prospect of killing two goals with one marathon. She could pick Chloe’s brain and train at the same time. Chloe sounded like just the type of escort her editor had been talking about: a young, disenchanted girl forced to sell her body on the streets.
Around eleven, the crowd at The Lemon Drop dwindled to the diehard drinkers and poor souls who just didn’t want to go home to an empty house. The poor souls she felt sorry for. But the diehard drinkers could get annoying. Especially when she had to cut them off.
“What do you mean, you won’t s-serve me another drink?” The guy in the ill-fitting suit leaned over the bar and grabbed Eden’s arm. “Are you sayin’ I’m drun-nk?”
Before Eden could deal with the drunk, the panty billionaire appeared. And while she’d had no problem ignoring him when he sat across the bar, it was impossible to ignore him now. Especially when he was even more devastatingly handsome up close. Beneath the gray Henley, his shoulders looked wide and his chest nicely muscled. Faded jeans hugged his lean legs and hips… and the nice package that snuggled right between.
Her gaze snapped up, hoping he hadn’t caught her again. But this time, he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at the drunk’s hand wrapped around her wrist. His jaw tightened for only a moment before he flashed a smile that seemed to light up the bar like late-afternoon sun.
He pointed a finger at the drunk. “I thought that was you.” He gave the guy a hard whack on the back, causing him to release Eden’s arm. “Hell, it’s been ages. How are you doing? You still working over at Merrill Lynch?”
The drunk tried to say something, but the panty billionaire didn’t give him a chance before he hooked a muscled arm around his neck and pulled him to the door. “You’ve got to come home with me and say ‘hi’ to the family. They’ll be thrilled to see you.”
Before Eden could blink, he had the drunk out the door. It didn’t take her long to figure out what had happened. The panty billionaire had just rescued her, and he’d done it so slick that the drunk didn’t even have time to cause trouble. Eden stared at the door for only a second more before she turned to the other bartender.
“Can you take over, Jen? I’ll be right back.” She lifted the gate in the bar and headed for the door. She told herself that she just wanted to thank him. But deep down, she knew that she also wanted to see all that hotness just one more time. When she got out front, the two men were nowhere in sight so she headed for the parking lot in back. She stopped in her tracks when she rounded the corner of the alleyway and saw that the billionaire had the drunk shoved up against the wall.
“Now here’s how this is going to play out,” he spoke in a low, deep voice that no longer held one trace of friendliness. “I’m going to call you a cab and you’re going to go home and sleep it off. But when you get up tomorrow, you better remember four words. Don’t. Touch. Her. Again.”
While the drunk stammered his agreement, Eden slipped back around the corner of the building and held a hand to her thumping heart. Because while she hadn’t recognized the friendly billionaire’s voice, she had recognized this one. She recognized the huskiness. The authority. And the smooth Southern drawl.
For a moment, she just stood there and tried to catch her breath as the truth dawned.
The panty billionaire had a dark secret.
And Eden had a great story.
CHAPTER FOUR
The mansion in prestigious Pacific Heights had once belonged to Nash’s uncle. When Michael Beaumont had died, he had willed it to his wife. At one time, Deirdre Beaumont had planned on selling it to help Olivia buy out Nash and his brothers’ shares of French Kiss. But fate had changed those plans when Olivia and Deacon fell in love. Once they married, they bought the house from Olivia’s mother to start their family in.
Nash understood why his brother wanted to keep the mansion. The house, with its multiple rooms and large garden, was the complete opposite of the fishing shack the Beaumont brothers had grown up in. There were no sad memories lurking in the corners, no hidden skeletons waiting to jump out of the closets. The move to San Francisco had been a new start for Deacon. Too bad that wasn’t true for Nash. The past clung to him like the thick fog that rolled in from the sea, heavy and suffocating. And it seemed that wherever he went, the sad memories followed, and every closet door held a skeleton waiting to jump out.
