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My pussy was throbbing with need. It wanted me to take him up on his offer. My brain was screaming danger, danger. God, what should I do?
1
Ash – Earlier that week, Wednesday
Yeah, baby, I thought as I reviewed the profit and loss statements for each of the Raven Industry owned clubs. Clubs were often like fire; there was a big flash of heat and excitement, but over time, the flame burned down and eventually died. Studio 54, the hottest club in New York during the disco era was a theater today.
Fortunately, I knew what I was doing, and all of our clubs were hot spots whether in New York City, Los Angeles, London or any other city around the world.
I saved the statement for Jet last. It was the first club I ever opened, and the one I owned with my childhood friend, Ben McAdams. The club was still the top performer out of all the ones I managed. But seeing the success in its numbers was bittersweet. Ben fell off the radar over the last few years. The club we imagined and designed the summer after we graduated from college was a hit, but he wasn’t around to enjoy it. I knew his father had been ill, so I didn’t push it and instead hired a manager to run the place in his absence. His father had died recently and figured he’d need time to manage his estate. In the meantime, I continued to send him his share of the profits.
Thinking of Ben invariably made me think of his sister Beth, which always filled me with a torrent of emotions. Even after six years, I felt a profound loss at having to leave her. I was older now and could recognize how young and naïve we were, but the feelings, my love for her, that was real. Based on how much I still longed for her, they were still real.
But along with the sadness was anger. My father had forced me to leave her. He said we were too young and had other more important things to do than waste our time on love. He punctuated his statement with threats that could ruin me and Ben’s plans for the club.
I’d been too young and lacked the courage to stand up to him, so with my heart breaking, I acquiesced. And then the bastard changed the rules on me. Recently he decided that his all-business strategy wasn’t working, and so he decided to enact a new inheritance plan that required my brothers and me to marry and have kids. If he hadn’t made me leave Beth, I’d probably be married and we’d have a kid by now. Maybe even a couple. Fucker.
I was so happy for my brother Chase when he found Sara, and Hunter with his Grace, but looking at them made me relive my loss every fucking day, and it was driving me mad. Of all my brothers, I was probably the quietest and least volatile, but my resentment for my father was palpable. I should have told him to go to hell when he said he’d pull out his financial help for the club if I pursued a relationship with Beth six years ago. How the hell he knew about it, I didn’t know. We hadn’t told anyone, not even Ben, my best friend. But I was ready to tell him and hoped he’d see that I loved his sister.
I’d nearly told my father to go to hell. Ben’s father was lending him startup money and perhaps we could start a little smaller and be a success without my father’s help. But then Ben and Beth’s father showed up, joining in the discussion, saying he’d withdraw his support as well. Beth had plans and he didn’t want me derailing them. I knew her plans and supported them. Princeton was close enough to New York that we could still see each other while she went to school.
In retrospect, I wish I’d told them both to go to hell, but I hadn’t had the courage to stand up to our fathers. Today, age and experience had given me the strength and knowledge I needed to succeed without them. Six years ago, as a twenty-one-year-old college graduate, I was uncertain and didn’t want to fuck up the plans Ben and I had worked so hard on. I wasn’t brave enough to stand up to the two most powerful men I knew, nor was I smart enough to figure out how to have it all; the club, my friendship with Ben, and the love of my life, Beth.
I shook my head to clear all the feelings and focused on the numbers lying in front of me. A knock on my door pulled me away from the reports.
“Come in,” I called.
My father’s admin, Alex, poked her head in. “Hey Ash, you have a visitor. She’s not on your calendar.”
