Chapter 4
Four
CALEB
T he last thing I wanted to do at the end of my day of shit was go to a client appreciation reception for cocktails and hors d'oeuvres with my face looking like it did from being smacked by Janice’s Valentino.
All day long I’d fielded the concerned inquiries from people who weren’t assholes along with the jokes and harassment from the people who were most definitely assholes.
I don’t think many of them bought my lie about slipping in the shower and colliding with the marble soap dish.
What they didn’t know was I couldn’t care less what they thought of me in my personal life.
As long as they respected me in business, I was good.
I could make money grow from just about anything.
So what if I had terrible emotional skills when it came to relationships with women.
I just didn’t feel anything for those women like I probably should if I cared about them for more than sex.
But I’d never felt anything beyond an admiration for their beauty, along with the desire for some shared pleasure if they were interested in the same.
I wasn’t stingy, either. Before we were done, I made sure they were well satisfied.
I didn’t know how to operate any differently, and until I figured my shit out, I should just stay away from women altogether. It made the most sense.
The fact it was my father’s law firm hosting this gathering was the only reason I’d stepped foot inside the door.
There was a part of me that still wanted to make him proud, even though I’d made my own successful career apart from his.
Now he was gone, I’d taken on his business as well, and I knew his peers were watching closely to see how I would do.
My brothers had their own interests and money, as well as a share in Dad’s holdings, but they weren’t involved in the day-to-day management like I was.
Lucas lived like a hermit on the island, designing game systems, and Wyatt was in New York doing his thing, which nobody seemed to know much about.
Being the oldest child, followed by identical twin brothers, and then five years later by another set of twins, but this time girls and fraternal, I was the odd man out.
Willow was engaged to her Ivy League professor, and Winter was in grad school, so everyone was focused on their own goals as they should be.
My mother was very proud of the fact she’d given my father five children and only suffered through three pregnancies. And Mom made sure we all knew it was suffering of the worst kind to give birth to every one of us. Maybe that was why she resented me. All that effort only produced one baby—me.
My relationship with my mother was just the start of my women troubles.
I’d had a not-so-pleasant conversation with her on the phone earlier today.
Janice had gotten to Mom quickly, crying out a sad tale of disrespect and broken promises on my part.
I didn’t tell her that within five minutes of leaving me, she was deep-throating James Blakeny.
Thinking my mother didn’t need that visual, I didn’t say much in response except that Janice wasn’t the girl we all thought she was, and she definitely wasn’t going to be anything more than a friend of the family to me from here on out.
Mom then took the opportunity to tell me I’d made things very difficult for her friendship with Janice’s mother.
I offered her the advice that a generous donation to their nonprofit would probably smooth things over.
I suppose she didn’t care for my suggestion because she ended our call quickly after.
I would give this thing two drinks max before I was outie.
Nodding and saying the right things, I shook hands with the colleagues who’d known my father and accepted condolences from others. I made a mental note of the people who’d made the effort to mention his name to me, and I would write them down with the event and date as soon as I got home.
I’d worked my way through the room, as I had been taught by my dad—by the best to ever work a roomful of potential deals—when I decided I’d accomplished what I’d set out to do tonight.
It was time for me to go. After setting my glass down on an empty table, I started for the door. ..until I saw her .
Just like that. She appeared in my line of sight and I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
The beautiful girl from this morning at the Starbucks on Hereford Street.
I knew it was her because how could anyone forget those sexy boots?
Her blonde hair wasn’t down like it had been this morning, though.
She’d pulled it back into a sleek ponytail…
but she was serving at this event? I’d seen her go into that design studio next to Starbucks.
She probably had two jobs. Industrious. Beautiful. Sexy.
I quickly returned for my half-empty glass and snatched it up from the table. I suddenly felt like an appetizer or two.
She saw me approaching and moved closer with her tray.
“What are these called?” I asked without sparing her tray a second glance.
Bad move on my part, but I was too busy taking in her golden eyes and hair, and everything else I could now see up close.
Perfect skin, dark lashes that framed spectacular eyes, and a scar along the hairline of the right side of her face.
Something had hurt her at some point in the past, and I found it utterly insane that I was disturbed by it.
She rolled her pink lips together as if she was trying to suppress laughter. “Well, they’ve told me it’s something called a meatball . Very unusual gourmet creation. You should try one. They’re said to be quite delicious.”
That voice of hers was…fucking beautiful.
“Okay.” I picked up a meatball and popped it in my mouth. Didn’t taste a thing. I could have been chewing slaughterhouse by-products and I wouldn’t have known. My brain had shut off everything except her beautiful voice.
“You are either messing with me or that blow to your head must have been devastating. I would wager you’ve had a meatball before.”
“I am.”
She lost her smile. “You are messing with me?”
“No, I am devastating—I mean devastated —by the blow to my head.” What in the mother fuck was I even saying to this girl? I sounded like Rain Man minus the IQ. I needed to stop talking.
“I’m sorry to hear that. It looks painful.”
“It doesn’t hurt me now.” I think I smiled and shook my head but couldn’t be sure. Just call me the village idiot because I knew I was acting like one. I did love the sound of her voice, though.
“Another rare and precious meatball?” She offered her tray and studied me this time. She had to be disgusted by my appearance and turned off by my behavior, but she didn’t show it if she was.
“Yes, please.” I took another meatball but I didn’t eat it. “You are British.”
“You are American,” she said with a fast wink, before turning away to serve other guests.
I watched her walk away from me and felt the pounding of my heart vibrating throughout my entire body.
Something had just happened to me.
I wasn’t completely sure what exactly, but I was crystal clear on the reason.
Her.
I did not leave as I had planned to do.
I stayed in that ridiculous meet and greet so I could stalk a girl I did not know.
I, Caleb Blackstone, became a stalker in that moment and was not in the least apologetic about it, either.
Oh, for the next hour or so I put on a good show and kept schmoozing with people I hardly paid attention to, so I could watch her walk around the room, serving meatballs in her tight skirt and fuck-me boots.
I even managed to paint an image of her wearing nothing but those boots in my head.
My thoughts were downright filthy, to the point my cock wanted in on the action.
Badly.
This wasn’t happening to me in a roomful of business associates. My dick was not getting hard from watching a pretty girl offer up food.
Yes, it was.
I also figured out I wasn’t the only one looking at her, and those boots weren’t exactly helping her fade into the background at an event like this one, made up of mostly men thinking about sex once every fifty-two seconds. Seeing her, it was impossible to think about much of anything else.
“I’d take my time tapping that tight ass nice and slow—with the fucking boots on.”
Kevin Aldrich was a dipshit investment banker with a receding hairline, an expanding waistline, and a big trust fund inherited from his old-money grandfather.
He also had a wife, two or three teenage kids, and a drinking problem.
The sad truth was he probably did get beautiful women like her to fuck him because he had the money to help them get over the fact he was a complete and total douchebag.
I said nothing, but I felt my blood start to boil. In that instant I truly understood the meaning behind the expression, “it made my blood boil.” Mine was going nuclear.
Aldrich lifted his drink and all but drooled in her direction to call her over. She noticed him and came forward with her tray of what I knew were individual shrimp cocktails. I’d not make the same mistake again.
“Shrimp cocktail strike your fancy, gentlemen?” she asked pleasantly.
“You strike my fancy, sexy boots,” Aldrich said with an obvious leer. Okay, the guy was worse than a disgusting douche. He was a moron with the social skills of a cockroach.
“Clever. I’ve only heard that fourteen other times in the last hour and a half,” she said smoothly. “Can I offer you a shrimp cocktail?” she repeated, clearly not amused and her golden eyes showed it.
Aldrich was either too drunk or too stupid to catch the clues, however. “How about your number instead? I’ll take you somewhere where we can eat all the shrimp we want.” He flicked his tongue at her, and I just about lost my shit. Forget my boiling blood, I wanted to kill him.
“No fucking way, Aldrich, you did not just do that!”