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He's clearly baiting me with this question, and I'm not interested in playing his games. “Why don't you just come out and say what you want to say?”
I stare into the crystal decanter my mother had bought me as a college graduation gift and notice the bourbon is getting low. I have plenty to replenish the bottle with, but I always let the bottle run out before refilling.
“It must just kill you that she's coming over to my home for a date.” The snide tone of his voice doesn’t surprise me, and I have to mentally tell myself not to ball up my fist. With everything else going on in my life, there's too much pent-up frustration within me for me to have patience with his games.
“I think it's time for you to leave.”
He laughs. “Clearly bothers you quite a bit.” He shifts in the seat and the leather squeaks. “I'm just saying that you two looked so happy at the club.”
I take another drink, well aware that he is not willing to leave, and if I try to physically throw him out, he's going to get hurt.
But the idiot is not done talking. “Wouldn't it just be a shame if I seduced her and had my way with her while she's at my house?” Every word that he says makes me want to put my knuckles through his face more and more. I'm not sure why he thinks antagonizing me is a good idea, but I don’t know what his damn problem is. It's pretty pathetic that a guy can get upset that I didn't take a bad business deal with him years ago and hold that against me for the rest of his life.
“Don't you have better things to do? Time is money.” I parrot his favorite phrase from back in the day to him as I turn around and sip my drink. Leaning against the bar, I watch him, noticing the angry tick above his eye and the way his jaw tightens up my words. “And you need that money, don't you, after that embarrassing loss. What was that company called again? Staros?” I glance down into my glass before continuing. “With a name like that, it already sounded like an abject failure before you started the pitch.”
I sense he's seething and I get a tiny bit of satisfaction from that. If he wants to throw stones, we both have plenty of ammo. He doesn't say a damn word, and I decide to poke again as I swirl the last of my drink in my glass.
“How much money did you lose? Again, something to the tune of millions?” If he wants to play hardball, I’ll hit him where it hurts right in the losses.
“All I lost was money. You're about to lose a woman.” The words sound weak and wobbly at best, and I let out a chuckle.
“You don't sound too confident in your own plan. What, too many failures on your record to be sure that this one will be a success?” I say the words knowing full well they might be enough to push him over the edge and hoping he'll do something stupid.
As if on cue, he leaps out of the chair, stalking toward me with an almost adorable fury. There's nothing imposing or frightening about him. “You think you're so smart and funny, don't you?”
I lift a shoulder, nodding my head. “I wouldn't be this successful if I wasn't.” I gesture around us at my home. “Funny? That’s a little more objective... but Alisha seems to find me amusing.”
His apple-green eyes narrow and his nostrils flare. “I will take her from you, mark my words.”
I lazily scan him from top to bottom and back up again. “I have a feeling she's not going to take what you're offering. And with your track record, are you certain that winning is in the cards for you?” I say the words with the same bored inflection I feel before finishing my drink and pouring another.
“You didn't win then and you're not going to win now.” With those words, he turns, making his way toward my door.
“Don't worry, big guy, I won't let you fool her.” I toss the words casually after him and see his fists ball up. I can sense that he wants to turn around and fight, but he also has to know that I'll mess up his pretty face, which wouldn't be a good look for his date. I doubt that he wants to explain to her that he came to my home and got the beat down put on him for his poor behavior.
As I think about her, I feel the warmth from our encounter filling me. Because if Methew is here, that means he's not the person she was running to when she left my place. This gives me hope that maybe there's more to the situation than I know, and maybe one day she'll let me in.
My door slams behind Methew and I take a moment to reflect, realizing that I've never fought so hard for a woman before. Hell, I've never cared this much about any woman before. They've always just been a means to an end to enjoy and forget.
This leaves me with a really uncomfortable feeling that I've never cared before... but I do now.
Alisha is important to me.
I have feelings for her.
I want her in my life.
And that's almost as crazy as Methew coming to my door to try to fight with me on my own turf about the woman I’d just slept with.
I down the rest of my drink. Today has been wild, that’s for sure.
Chapter Seventeen
Alisha
It's Saturday.
The very day I'm supposed to be meeting up with Methew to tell him the truth.
