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Row looked away, at the ground, his ruddy, high cheekbones flaring with heat. “I’ll take what you are willing to give me.”
I could give him just the sex part. I could. I didn’t need the boyfriend stuff. It would keep both of us protected. I nodded. “Okay.”
He hopped up to his feet, then offered me his hand and pulled me up.
“Dust the snow off, Dot. Now, how many Pop-Tarts should I make you?”
ROW
McMonster: Hi.
McMonster: You can’t be mad.
McMonster: I’m not even your boyfriend, I don’t need to tell you where I go and when I leave.
McMonster: London is lovely this time of the year.
McMonster: You should come visit sometime.
McMonster: You should also come, period.
McMonster: It would help loosen all this pent-up rage.
McMonster: I volunteer as tribute.
ROW
“Heaven’s sake, Ambrose, is that duffel from Target?” Tate Blackthorn, the CEO of GS Properties, leaned an elbow against his red Gulfstream G650ER, ripping his Ray-Bans off his eyes.
“Walmart,” I corrected. “Nice wheels.”
Tate scowled disapprovingly in his Tom Ford suit, fighting his gag reflex. “Yeah. Bill Gates owns the same model. His is older, though.” He yanked off his dark leather gloves one finger at a time. “He’s doing this whole green thing now. What’s it called?”
“Global warming?”
“Yeah, that liberal nonsense.”
I took a slow, calming breath and counted to ten in my head. At least he hadn’t called it a hoax. Although I couldn’t put anything past this man, mass murder included.
“Thanks for the ride.” I carried my duffel bag along the tarmac of the small, private airport outside of London. I’d spent the last couple of days checking in on the progress at La Vie en Rogue, my upcoming restaurant. A perfect excuse to remove myself from Staindrop and from Cal.
“I was in the neighborhood. Had business in Geneva.” Tate started up the stairs. “And you’re a hard man to pin down these days.”
“Got this pesky little thing called a day job.” I followed him up the stairway into the plane. “Takes hours of my time every day.”
“Unfamiliar with the concept. I specialize in empires, not ‘jobs.’”
Tate Blackthorn was a shark. The kind of New York, old-money asshole who possessed a second brain instead of a heart. He’d invested in one of my restaurants when I’d started out, and now he thought he owned my ass, even though I made him a shit ton of money. In Tate’s world, anyone who wasn’t born with a silver spoon and a trust fund was indebted to him if he paid them any kind of attention. And if all of that didn’t make him insufferable enough, he always struck me as a raging playboy. The type to have spawns out of wedlock in at least the double digits that he didn’t even know about and a string of exes who’d love nothing more than to attend his funeral.
Tate shouldered past a starry-eyed flight attendant. “Gotta say, I wasn’t expecting to be ghosted by anyone, let alone someone who’s about to receive a fat check from me.”
Didn’t surprise me. Tate was the kind of man who was sought after, not the one doing the chasing.
“That’s an observation, not a question.” I entered the plane, taking a seat by the window. The interior was lavish and in-your-fucking-face—just like its owner. Velvet burgundy seats, golden fixtures, a heavy wood bar. The place could moonlight as a brothel. Which, I had no doubt, sometimes it did.
“You want a question?” He fell into the recliner in front of me, scooting to the edge and lacing his fingers together. “Fine, I’ll give you one: What’s the holdup, and why don’t I have this damn contract signed yet?”
I normally liaised with Tate’s team—mainly because he was too busy to care about this side, bumfuck-nowhere project. But since it was just the two of us, I figured it was time to face the music. “I read your official proposal, dug into the plan a little.” I stuck my tongue into my inner cheek.
