Chapter 25
Leonard’s is one of those downtown bars I tend to avoid. It’s nice enough—has an old world feel to it. Brick or glass walls, brass fixtures, properly uniformed staff, all the details to make you think it’s worth paying through the nose for a decent whisky drink. Thing is, it is worth paying it if you’re a wannabe corporate attorney. The accessible connections alone are worth the fee.
But I don’t require those kinds of connections and desperation hangs in the air like expensive cologne.
It’s full of young-to-middle-aged people, all looking for the hookup. Either for work or for pleasure. The bartenders are swamped, too. No sense in remembering all the details of a shady business deal or a bathroom blowjob. If you’re drunk, then you have plausible deniability. Each of the patrons is dressed as though they’ve just come from the office. Wall-to-wall suits and skirts.
All of them but me.
I’d hoped to see June at her apartment, so I’d changed into something a bit more casual. Black leather flight jacket, gray cashmere sweater, and jeans, black leather boots, something that hopefully says, “Responsible man not trying to continue to screw you over.” If I’d worn my suit, she might think I was trying to appear intimidating.
Strange to overthink an outfit, but this whole situation has me overthinking.
Scanning through the crowd, I wonder if she lied. I don’t see her anywhere. It’s not as though she owes me the meeting. She is the one who is owed, not the other way around. Couldn’t blame her if she took a spot of revenge on me by lying about her location. It’s not more than I deserve.
But then I see her. She’s tangled up with some blond and a crew of suitors. Of course, June is surrounded by men. Not as if she has a reason not to be. I’d imagine men swarm her wherever she goes. She has all the options in the world.
Getting to her is a task and a half. The place is packed like sardines, and her group sits near the bar itself. Easier for them to get drinks, but harder for me to get to her. Once I reach her, I’m relieved to see she appears to have no interest in the men around her. In fact, she is ignoring them. One in particular wears a dejected glare whenever he looks at her.
Good. June Devlin deserves more than some stuffed shirt corporate attorney. She looks incredible. Blue jacket over a black on black ensemble. She outshines every woman in here. When she feels eyes on her, she glances up from her phone.
I nod toward the back, hoping to extract her from the group. This is not a conversation for anyone else to hear.
But instead of following my lead, she leans back on the bar, arching a little. Her jacket falls open, revealing the black blouse beneath is a tight lace. Open enough to see a hint of her black bra, but not enough to be indecent.
How she does not have men on their knees before her, I will never understand.
The confident anger in her eyes sends an aching heat to my balls. I swallow hard, trying to form thoughts again when all I want to do is bend her over the bar and make her see God. Clearing my throat, I lean in. “You don’t want anyone else to hear what I’m about to tell you.”
Recognition lights her eyes from within. “Ah. Fine.” She grabs her purse, whispers to the blond, who looks me over. Then June says, “Come on, then,” and parts her way through the crowd.
I follow her lead. It’s easier than trying to maneuver through there myself. Besides, following means I get to watch her ass in those tight little pants.
We find our way to a corner that offers the kind of shared privacy found only in loud bars. It’s so loud that no one else will hear us, yet it’s so public that no one would assume the contents of our conversation. If staying here makes her feel better about meeting with me, so be it.
“No chance we could speak outside, eh?”
Her surliness curls her lip at me. “No. There isn’t. You wanted this meeting, Anderson. What’s all this about?”
“I know you’re angry with me?—”
She cuts me off with a haughty laugh. “Oh, am I? Please tell me more about me.”
I take a breath to get past that. “It’s been days since I should have called you. I’m sorry about that. I was trying to figure out some way to get through the red tape I am facing, and it galls me to admit that I failed. If?—”
“Why have you failed, Anderson? You’ve always been the guy who could do anything he wanted, but now, suddenly, I am the one thing you can’t buy?” She laughs bitterly. “I find that impossible to believe.”
“Yes, well, my history of buying whatever the fuck I want is precisely why. My father thinks I spend recklessly, and he may be right about that, but that does not change the fact he’s interfering with money that is rightfully mine.” I huff. It pains me to say any of this out loud, but especially to the one woman I would like to impress. “He is the reason my accounts are frozen. I cannot get them unfrozen until I prove I am not some careless kid with too much money.”
“Good god. That is one hell of an excuse. I would have thought you had more pride than to come up with a cover like that. You know, maybe something like, the government has frozen your assets due to some … I dunno, charge against your father. Or you were involved in espionage.” She giggles at me. “You could have told me you were a spy, you know. Something good and fun, not that your father is running the show. How pedestrian.”
Then it hits me. “You still think this is some kind of prank?”
“Well, what else would it be? This is you, Anderson. Am I supposed to take your word at face value?”
I should have gotten a drink before I started this conversation. “Fuck. Um, I guess not.”
“I’m not an idiot?—”
“Never thought you were. Far from it, June. You were at the top of the class for a reason.”
She frowns and tilts her head. “You remember that?”
“I remember everything about you.”
“Right, well then, you remember that I’m not the kind of girl you fuck over. I’m tired of this cat-and-mouse thing you’ve been playing out, and prank or not, this is getting old. I’d like my money so I can move on.”
“And I would like nothing more than to give it to you.”
She arches a brow and smirks.
“The money.” Although if she wanted me to give her anything else, I’d do so happily.
“Then why don’t you tell your dear old dad that you owe a debt and need to pay it?”
“Because sums of money that large raise questions neither of us want to answer publicly, let alone to our parents.”
“So, lie. You’re a lawyer.”
I laugh. “True as that is, I don’t like to lie to the old man. And I can’t figure out a good enough lie on my own for him to unfreeze my accounts. I have to give him a reason to want to do it.”
June thinks quietly for a moment, and part of me wishes she would land on the idea herself. If it’s her suggestion, she’s less likely to deny it. “What kind of reason would be good enough for him to unfreeze your account?”
Damn. I take a breath to steady myself, because I’m about to swing for the fences like Ted Williams when he came back from the war. “I have an idea, and I’m going to need your help.”