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“Have you decided?” He asks after a few long seconds and I set down the menu.
“I’ll have this,” I point to the most complicated salad I’ve ever seen. There are a thousand ingredients, and it costs a ridiculous forty-five dollars, but it’s the cheapest thing I can find.
He stares at me. “That’s what you want?”
“Why?” I ask cautiously. “What’s wrong with it?”
He sets down his menu to study me. “Miss Taylor, I hope you’re not pinching pennies for my sake.”
I press my lips together and look away. However, I can see from the corner of my eyes that he’s struggling not to laugh at me.
“I love salad,” I say, sinking deeper into the plush leather of the booth.
“Mr. Middleton?” A surprised voice comes from the side, and I thank the heavens for the interruption.
The voice belongs to a man in a pleated suit and golden-wired glasses. He has a stringy figure with a bald head and a pleasant smile.
“Dixon.” Mr. Middleton nods at him, accepting the handshake. “I see you have time to roam around but not to return my call.”
The words are almost gentle, but the threat behind them makes me shiver. Mr. Middleton’s dark eyes deepen, and I see Dixon, the man, offer a nervous smile.
“I was busy with some personal matters.”
Mr. Middleton smiles at him. “Well, it’s fortunate that I saw you here then, wasn’t it? I was considering paying you a personal visit.”
I’ve never seen a man lose color so fast.
“I assure you that won’t be necessary,” the man stammers. “If you want, we can talk right now.“
“I have a guest with me right now. As a matter of fact, it’s a little rude that you didn’t acknowledge her sitting here.”
I give the terrified looking man an awkward smile, and he looks at me as if just noticing my existence.
“Good evening, Miss,” the man says as he offers his hand to me across the table.
“Pull your hand back,” Mr. Middleton orders in a deep baritone voice. I’m not sure which of us he’s addressing, but Islowly put my hand back beside me and offer Dixon an awkward verbal greeting instead.
“Nice to meet you.”
“I expect to see you tonight,” Mr. Middleton tells Dixon. “Otherwise, I’ll rearrange my schedule.”
I wonder if this poor man is going to faint.
“I’ll be there,” he barely gets the words out.
I watch him leave, wondering if I’ll see this Dixon person at the club later, and when I turn my attention back to Mr. Middleton, he’s looking through the menu, totally unfazed.
“Why was he so scared of you?” I blurt out without thinking. “Are you going to hurt him?”
When he sets down the menu and looks at me, my heart nearly stops, and I quickly say, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know my mouth was moving. It does that sometimes.”
“One day, that pretty little mouth of yours is going to get you into a lot of trouble.”
I gaze towards the door where Dixon exited and consider everything I know about The Blue Whiskey and just how little I know about Mr. Middleton.
At first, he was just a legendary fixture. A man who owns the place where I work but a man I never saw. I know that he has a lot of connections in Los Angeles, enough that he can make any awful thing that happens in the club disappear– even bodies. I also know that he’s a well-known figure in the business community and filthy rich.
And then there’s the other side of him.
