Chapter 4 - Blair
The bass thumping against my ribs feels like a second heartbeat, one that’s significantly stronger than the shriveled, pathetic thing currently residing in my chest.
Red Rum is exactly the kind of place I shouldn’t be.
It smells like expensive leather, a mix of colognes, and alcohol.
The lighting is low, casting everything in shadows of deep crimson and black.
It’s the sort of establishment where people come to disappear, or to be seen by the exact right people while pretending they don’t want to be seen at all.
Normally, I’d love it here. Tonight, I just feel like an imposter in a dress I can no longer afford to dry clean.
“You’re doing the thing with your face again,” Harper says, sliding a martini glass toward me across the polished black table.
I blink, tearing my gaze away from the condensation dripping down the side of the glass. “What thing?”
“The thing where you calculate how many hours of work that drink costs,” she says, taking a sip of her own cosmopolitan. “Stop it. I’m buying. Tonight is about forgetting that Ryder Hollis exists and spending time with your stunningly beautiful bestie.”
I wrap my fingers around the stem of the glass. It’s cold. “That’s not what I’m doing. I’m strategizing.”
Harper raises a perfectly arched eyebrow. “Strategizing how to get a refund on a relationship? Because I hate to break it to you, B, but the return policy on narcissists is nonexistent.”
“No,” I say, my voice dropping lower even though the music is loud enough to drown out a confession of murder. I lean in over the small table. “I’m strategizing how to make him pay.”
Harper pauses, her glass halfway to her mouth. She knows me. She knows I don’t make idle threats. She also knows I’m currently desperate, humiliated, and fueled by a dangerous cocktail of rage and exhaustion. “What are you thinking?”
I take a long swallow of the martini. “He took everything, Harper. My clients. My reputation. My coffee maker.”
“He took the coffee maker?” Harper’s eyes widen. “Okay, that’s actually evil. But still, the best revenge is living well. Success. All that bullshit.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “Success takes too long. I want to hurt him now. I want to take something from him that he cares about.”
I look up, scanning the room until my eyes land on the raised VIP section in the back. It’s roped off, guarded by a bouncer who looks like he eats compact cars for breakfast. But through the gloom, I can see them.
The booth is occupied by three men who everyone knows are at the top of the food chain in Emerald Hills.
One is Cohen Astor, lawyer to the richest of the rich in the Hills. He’s leaning back with an amused expression on his handsome face.
Next to him is a man I only know by reputation and the hushed whispers that follow him around town.
Cole Callahan. The guy who owns this place.
The guy who runs a lot of things people don’t talk about in polite company.
He’s leaning forward, saying something to the other two with a smirk on his face.
And then there’s him.
Gabriel Hollis.
He’s sitting in the corner of the booth, nursing a tumbler of amber liquid.
He isn’t talking. He’s just watching the room with that terrifying stillness that makes him look like a predator waiting for a gazelle to limp past. Even from here, the power radiating off him is palpable.
He makes Ryder look like a boy playing dress-up in his father’s clothes.
“I’m going to sleep with his dad,” I say.
Harper chokes on her drink. She coughs, slamming her hand against her chest, and stares at me with watering eyes. “I’m sorry. I think I’m having an auditory hallucination. Did you just say you’re going to sleep with Gabriel Hollis?”
“Yes.”
“Blair.” She puts her drink down. “Have you lost your mind? That man isn’t a rebound. He’s… he’s the grim reaper in a three-piece suit. People are terrified of him.”
“Ryder is terrified of him,” I correct. “That’s the point.”
“Everyone is terrified of him!” Harper hisses, glancing over her shoulder as if saying his name might summon him. “Look who he’s sitting with. Cole’s in the Savage Society, Blair. Those aren’t just businessmen. They’re the kind of men who bury problems in the woods.”
I look back at the booth. Gabriel is saying something to Cole now. His profile is sharp, carved from granite. He looks hard. Unforgiving.
“Ryder told me his dad thought I wasn’t good enough for him. He thinks I’m trash.”
“So your plan to prove you aren’t trash is to bang his father?”
“My plan is to make his life miserable. To sit at the head of the table while Ryder realizes he’s nothing. To become his brand new stepmom, and by the time I’m done, he won’t even be in the will.”
Harper stares at me for a long moment. “You’re serious.”
“Dead serious.”
“He’s going to eat you alive. You know that, right? Ryder is a golden retriever with a personality disorder. Gabriel is a wolf. He will chew you up and spit out the bones.”
I finish my drink in one long gulp. The alcohol hits my bloodstream, mixing with the adrenaline. “Let him try. I’m not the same girl I was last week, Harper. That girl played by the rules and got destroyed. I’m done with rules.”
I watch the booth again. Movement catches my eye.
Cole Callahan stands up, clapping a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. Cohen follows suit. They’re leaving.
Gabriel isn’t moving.
He stays in the corner, one arm draped along the back of the leather booth, his fingers toying with his glass. He’s alone.
It’s a sign. It has to be.
“I’m going over there,” I say, standing up. My legs feel a little unsteady, but my resolve is iron.
“Blair, wait—” Harper reaches for my hand, but I step out of reach.
“I have to do this, Harper. If I go home to my empty apartment and stare at the empty spot on my counter, I’m going to scream until my throat bleeds. I need to do something.”
She searches my face, looking for hesitation, but all she finds is scorched earth and zero fucks left to give.
She sighs, dropping her hand in surrender.
“Fine. Go burn it all down. But turn on your location sharing immediately. If that dot disappears, I’m not calling the cops—I’m coming in through the window with a tire iron.
I support your revenge arc, just try not to get murdered in the process. ”
“Deal.”
I turn on my location sharing, then walk toward the VIP section before I can talk myself out of it.
Every step feels heavy. My heart is slamming against my ribs, a frantic rhythm that warns me to turn back, to run, to hide. I ignore it. I smooth the front of my dress and lift my chin.
The bouncer moves into my path as I approach the rope. He’s massive, a wall of muscle in a tight black shirt.
“Guest list only,” he rumbles.
I don’t look at him. I look past him, straight at the man in the corner.
Gabriel is looking right at me.
He hasn’t looked away since I stood up. His gaze is heavy, a physical weight that presses against my skin. There’s no surprise in his eyes. No confusion. Just a dark, simmering intensity that makes the air in my lungs turn thin.
He lifts two fingers, a small, commanding gesture to the bouncer.
The wall of muscle steps aside immediately, unhooking the velvet rope.
I step through.
The atmosphere shifts as I cross into the VIP section. The noise of the bar fades away back here, dampened by the architecture and the distance from the main floor. It feels intimate and vulnerable.
I stop at the edge of his table.
Up close, he’s overwhelming. He’s bigger than Ryder, broader and more muscular, with a presence that sucks all the oxygen out of the immediate vicinity. His suit jacket is unbuttoned, revealing the crisp white shirt beneath, the top button undone.
God, he’s sexy.
He doesn't say a word. He just watches me, his gray eyes tracking every breath I take, every twitch of my hands. He looks at me like he knows exactly why I’m here. Like he’s read the script and is just waiting for me to say my lines.
My mouth goes dry. The brave, reckless speech I prepared in my head evaporates.
“Mr. Hollis,” I say. My voice is steady, thank God.
He takes a sip of his drink, his eyes never leaving mine over the rim of the glass. He sets it down on the black table with a soft clink.
“Miss Ashby,” he greets me. His voice is a low, gravelly rumble that vibrates straight up my legs, settling between my thighs. “You look like a woman on the warpath.”
“Do I?” I manage, my fingers digging into the soft leather of my clutch until they start to ache. “If I am, it’s your son’s fault.”
Gabriel leans forward, resting his elbows on the table. The movement brings him closer, invading my personal space without even standing up. “My son is a fool.”
The admission catches me off guard. I blink. “He said you told him to dump me. That I wasn’t good enough.”
Gabriel’s lip curls. A cruel, beautiful expression. “I told him he didn’t deserve you. There’s a difference.”
Oh.
The air shifts, thickening until it begins to crackle.
His gaze drops to my mouth, heavy and unblinking, stripping away the last of my hesitation.
With a rough shove, Gabriel pushes the table aside.
The legs scrape against the floor as he widens his stance to clear a path.
I take the invitation. I step forward, moving until I’m standing right between his spread knees.
It’s reckless. It’s insane. It’s the edge of a cliff I’m more than ready to jump off.
“I want to ruin him,” I whisper. The truth spills out before I can stop it. “I want to make him regret the day he met me.”
Gabriel looks up at me. His eyes burn with a wild hunger that threatens to swallow me whole. My survival instincts demand I run for the exit, but my body refuses to listen. I stay right where I am, rooted to the spot by the heat of his stare.
He reaches out, his large hand wrapping around my wrist. His grip is warm, firm, possessive. He runs his thumb over my pulse point, feeling the way my heart is trying to escape my body.
“Careful what you ask for,” he says, his voice dropping to a rough whisper that scrapes against my nerves. “You might find that revenge is a very expensive hobby.”
“I’m willing to pay,” I say.
He tugs on my wrist. Not hard, but with an inescapable force that leaves me no choice but to follow. I land right where he wants me—straddling his lap.
My breath hitches as my knees hit the bench on either side of his hips.
The hem of my dress rides high, hiking up my thighs to expose skin that suddenly feels feverish in the cool air.
But it’s the heat beneath me that incinerates every rational thought.
Through the expensive wool of his pants, I feel him—thick, big, and hard as a rock.
A shock of desire strikes the marrow of my bones, violent enough to nearly buckle my knees.
The logic of my plan—Ryder, the revenge, the ruin this will bring down on us—disintegrates the second his body presses against mine.
My hips betray me, grinding forward to chase the friction from his body like it’s the only thing keeping me breathing.
This isn’t anything like what I felt for his son.
This is a feral, starving ache that I didn’t know existed until he touched me, an unsettling realization that I’ve been hungry my entire life and he’s the only thing that can feed me.
Gabriel doesn't let go of my wrist. Instead, his grip tightens, anchoring me against the unyielding ridge of his erection. He leans in, his mouth grazing the shell of my ear. I can smell him—subtle cologne, expensive scotch, and pure, unadulterated power.
“If we do this,” he murmurs, his breath hot against my skin, “we do it my way. And once I start, I don’t stop until I’m finished.” He pulls back enough to look me in the eye, his gaze dropping to my lips and staying there. “Are you sure you want to play this game with me?”
I look at the scar near his ear. I look at the ruthless line of his jaw. I think about Ryder laughing at me in my kitchen.
“I’m not playing,” I say.
Gabriel’s hand slides from my wrist up to my elbow, then higher, his fingers digging into the bare skin of my arm.
“Good,” he says. “Because neither am I.”