AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Ryder gets out and holds the door, offering me his hand which I ignore. There’s a building set back amongst a small garden of trees beyond a brick wall. From inside, music tinkles out and Ryder heads up the path to the door where he flashes the woman just inside a card. She waves us in.
“Private club. Old school,” he says as we wind down the hall of polished dark wood. He pushes open a door and we go into a small room with a bar and lush private booths. It’s full of older, suited men, some smoking cigars, the acrid scent burning my nose.
There are young women in tight dresses draped over some of them, but most are there, deep in conversation while some classical music plays over discreet speakers.
He points to a booth and then signals the waiter and orders drinks. All this is done so fast and smoothly I know it’s not his first time. This isn’t a part of Manhattan I’m privy to, although I’m aware such places exist. They’d have been a gentleman’s club in the classier aspect of the word back in the day and I’m assuming it’s private with the cigar smoking.
“I fucking hate this place,” he says as two martinis appear discreetly. “Just so you’re aware. My father came here. It’s a place to do deals and talk business—”
“And flaunt girls.”
“Those are wives,” he says, barely flickering a glance. “And I hate this kind of shit. But it’s private and discreet and I didn’t think you wanted to come to my place.”
“Ryder.”
He ignores the warning. “On account of all the hot sex we had.”
“Ryder.”
He takes a swig of the martini and I almost smile at the savagery. “Thing is, tonight I didn’t do anything wrong and you’re acting like I did.”
“You had numbers.”
“So?” He sounds hard and brutal as he says it, but there’s something in his gaze that hurts my heart. It’s at odds with the hardness in his voice. “That happens. All the time. I didn’t seek it out, I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t do anything. For what it’s worth, I didn’t speak to the first woman. She just gave me the card. And I told you about Leah.”
And him saying the name of one of his many lovers slices into me.
“Ryder, maybe I’m not the right person for this job.”
“Oh, is that your professional opinion? Because here’s my opinion. I’m doing my best, and you’re meant to take that and turn it into something that works. It’s not about right or wrong in that. You’re the best, I want the best and…” He leans back, “we’re half way through this. I can’t go and find someone else.”
He’s right. “I’m going to see this through to the end, Ryder. I just get so frustrated. You make the job hard.”
“Is this about the job? Or is it about you and me?”
A cold hand squeezes my heart hard. “There’s no you and me.”
“Bullshit. I can think of a number of things from the other night that says otherwise.”
“That was a mistake.”
He finishes his martini and another one appears. I don’t know if it’s the place or the magic pull of Ryder that has the waitress so attentive. “No, it wasn’t. And that’s what this is about, isn’t it? We had sex and you punish me for my past.”
I breathe in fast and hard and wrap my fingers around the slender stem of my glass. “It’s not your past, Ryder. It’s who you are, bone deep, in your DNA.”
“I like you, Elliot. Beyond the attraction, the insane chemistry I wasn’t expecting; I like you. Do you know how rare that is?”
There’s a spark of something bright and light in me, but I squash it down flat because this is Ryder Sinclair and he’s not going to change. He might like me and I sure as hell like him, but anything else? No. He’s just talking like this because I’m the only access to sex he has for the now.
“I like you, too, Ryder, but that doesn’t change anything. And it doesn’t change the fact that no matter how well you handled it tonight, you’re a magnet to women and you like that role. Now, I need to go.”
And without letting him say another word, I get up and leave.
Before my resolve crumbles.
I ran away.
It haunts me because I don’t do that. But I don’t see how we can get past who and what he is, even if I was stupid enough to believe there was something there.
