10. Chapter Ten
Chapter Ten
Roman
Leave it to Adrian to keep me waiting for the dinner he invited me to. It was supposed to be a celebratory meal, but with two more employees resigning by the end of the day, I wasn’t in the mood to party. Still, it had been a while since I’d sat down for a meal with my youngest brother.
So, I’d shown up—just to sit at his desk while he dealt with an issue out on the floor of his club, MHC. It had been over two months since I’d been here, and that hadn’t been to meet my brother.
I shook my head before I got lost in the memories of that night. It had been my first time using Adrian’s app, and the experience had blown all my expectations out of the water.
Goldie…
Jesus.
It would be some time before I could partake in anything like that again, and I really fucking doubted anyone else would live up to her . By the time I could come up for air and have a little fun again, Goldie would be long gone. I’d deleted my profile so I wouldn’t be tempted to talk to her again, but she was never far from the back of my mind.
“Knock, knock.” Adrian’s assistant, Samantha, leaned her shoulder on the doorway of his office. “Fancy seeing you here.”
Tall, blonde, gorgeous—Samantha was what men probably imagined when they fantasized about the things that went on in a high-end sex club. But my brothers and I had known her most of our lives. She and Adrian had always been best friends. None of us saw her as anything other than a goofy, bubbly girl who’d been taller than us our entire childhoods. We’d finally surpassed her in height in our teens, but she was still just as goofy and bubbly. How she put up with Adrian’s serious, downright black moods was beyond me. But she was the only one, outside of his brothers, who could.
“Does my brother ever give you time off?” I asked.
She scratched the side of her head. “Time off? What does that mean?”
Laughing, I got up and crossed to her, giving her a hug and a peck on her temple. “It’s been a while, Sammie. Are you going to dinner with us?”
“Not tonight. I have plans.” She poked my chest. “You never replied to my email, you know. I wanted to see your reaction to that little message.”
I cocked my head. “Email? I didn’t get an email from you.”
“Two weeks ago, my guy. I sent it to your Wells Brothers address.”
“Ah.” I shoved my fingers through my hair, giving it a hard tug. “My assistant sorts those out for me. She might’ve put it in the slush pile.”
Samantha gasped and clutched her chest. “You mean emails from me aren’t top priority? I’m shocked, Ro.” Then she gave me another poke. “Hope those emails don’t get automatically deleted. I don’t think you’ll want to miss this one.”
Curious, I took out my phone and opened my email app. “Give me a hint. What was the topic?”
She gave me a cat-that-caught-the-canary smirk. “Goldie.”
My breath hitched. “Goldie? From room ten?”
“Mmmhmm. She called for you. I emailed you her message and phone number. You should really do a better job sorting your emails—”
I blanked out on everything else she said, falling backward until I landed in a chair out of sheer luck.
I found the email, every single word glaring at me on my small screen.
From: [email protected]
Hey, you!
I’m passing along a message from your sweet little Goldie you met in room ten. She wants me to tell you:
The worst happened, and I’m happy with the result. Call me if you want to talk about it.
Her phone number is: 555-235-6662
Good luck, Ro-go!
xoxo,
Sammie
P.S. Goldie’s real name is Shira!
Black dotted my vision.
Fuck. Shit. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
It couldn’t be. There was no way Shira was Goldie from room ten.
Goldie…Goldman…Christ was I stupid.
Just to be sure, I checked Shira’s contact information on my phone, confirming what I already knew I’d find. That was her phone number. There was no question my Goldie was Shira Goldman.
Goldie: It’s been a really long time for me.
WhenInRome: I won’t take it easy on you.
Goldie: I don’t want you to. I want you to do anything you want to me.
WhenInRome: Are you a dirty girl, Goldie?
Goldie: I think I am, but I’m too shy to ask for what I want. I just want someone—you—to take it—take me.
WhenInRome: Oh, I can do that. Send me a picture. Show me what I’m getting.
Goldie: No faces, right?
WhenInRome: No faces, no names. The anonymity makes it all the more fun, shy girl.
Her headline had said, “Shy, but I want you to use me,” and I’d been too intrigued to resist messaging her even though I was only supposed to be checking out the app for curiosity’s sake. Then she’d sent me pictures of her body, all petite and delicate with the most luscious curves, and…wow, that had been Shira. The best night of my life, bar none, had been with Shira Goldman.
Samantha kicked my foot. “Hey. Why do you look like you’ve seen a ghost?” She leaned over me, running her sharp nail along the message still on my screen. “What does ‘the worst happened’ mean?”
“If the worst happens and you need to get in touch…”
“I’m sure it’s fine.”
“I had a good time with you. Did you?”
“Yes,” she whispered so sweetly, a foreign pang twinged inside my chest. “It was everything I wanted.”
“Me too.”
Flashes of the past few weeks played out in my head. Shira, pale, dark bruises rimming her eyes. Racing to the bathroom when I mentioned Greek food. Falling asleep at her desk. Her clammy forehead. Running late for meetings—for the board meeting where I’d ambushed her. Passing out in the hallway.
She was pregnant. With my baby? All signs pointed to yes. Holy hell.
I looked at Samantha, though she barely registered. “I have to go.”
“Okay.” She straightened, giving me room to stand on shaky legs. “What should I tell your brother?”
I rubbed my forehead, trying to clear out my mess of thoughts. “Tell Ade I had an emergency. I’ll call him later.”
I found Shira’s address in GoldMed’s files and was at her door in less than thirty minutes. I had no game plan other than to find out if it was true—if she was really pregnant with my baby. Once I knew for sure, I’d begin to unravel the layers of fucked-upness I was dealing with.
I took a deep breath before I pounded on her door, forcing myself to stay calm. Going in guns blazing wasn’t the move here. This woman had just been hospitalized yesterday. The last thing she needed was the man she couldn’t possibly like very much throwing a fit on her porch.
Shira wasn’t the one who swung the door open, though. A blue-haired woman who looked like a goth Marilyn Monroe with soft curls and a fluffy black dress stood in the doorway, her hands on her rounded hips.
“Yes?”
I cleared my throat and tried to peer around her. She wasn’t especially tall or wide but managed to block everything out behind her.
“Is Shira here? I’m Roman W—”
“Oh, I know who you are, and I can’t even begin to fathom what you’re doing on my friend’s doorstep. Did you come to take something else from her? Humiliate her some more? Sorry, but you’ll have to wait at least forty-eight hours after her last hospitalization.”
“I’m not here to antagonize her, but I do need to speak to her.”
She arched a brow. “About what?”
“Look, I get you need to protect your friend, but what I need to talk to her about is personal.”
“Not gonna happen, buddy.” She stared me down, folding her arms over her chest. If I’d wanted to, I could have picked her up and set her aside, but the chances of coming away with both hands were undoubtedly low. “Move along.”
I decided to try a different tactic. “If you won’t let me see her, can you pass along a message for me? Then Shira can decide what she wants to do. Tell her Wim is here.”
Her eyes narrowed, and for a moment, I thought she would slam the door in my face. In the end, that was exactly what she did, but first, she told me to wait while she spoke to Shira.
My head was a riot of thoughts and a tangle of emotions, none of which I could firmly latch onto. The blue-haired woman kept me hanging on Shira’s porch for so long I was on the verge of giving up and forming a new game plan when the door swung open again.
This time, it was Shira in the doorway.
With her ribbons of ebony hair spilling around her shoulders, bare except for the thin straps of her tank top, I recognized her immediately, not as Shira but as my Goldie. I felt like an utter idiot. In all the time we’d worked down the hall from one another, how had I not seen it?
I said the first thing that popped into my head. “Heeyyy, Goldie.”
Eyes rounding in panic, her hands flew to her mouth as she gagged, then she spun and ran away.
Guess I know how she feels about the news.