20. Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty
Absinthe, Alliances + a Man on a Leash
Luca
Sunday night. The final few hours of my freedom before Aspen officially invades my home and my headspace. Not that she ever really left it. She’s been a phantom in the back of my mind since the day I lost her in Vegas. Tomorrow, the haunting becomes physical.
Naturally, I opted to come to the Supper Club.
In this town, the Supper Club is a legend whispered about in gated communities and high-rise penthouses. It is the crown jewel of Cinnamon Grove’s nightlife—high-end, members-only, and the kind of discreet that costs a mid-sized annual salary.
The main floor looks like a designer lounge, complete with a sleek bar, crystal decanters, and a velvet-roped VIP section. It’s a place designed to soothe or seduce, smelling faintly of sandalwood and expensive champagne.
But everyone knows the real Club starts on the fourth floor. That’s where the suites are. Rooms with gilded numbers and smoked-glass windows where silhouettes move behind half-drawn curtains. It’s known for serving far more than food, though I’ll be the first to admit their wings are spectacular.
Coming up through elite boarding schools, I learned early on that the world isn’t always run from mahogany boardrooms or brightly lit offices.
I spent my youth befriending the sons of men who owned zip codes and controlled currencies.
They taught me the most valuable lesson of my life: most important deals go down in the shadows.
That the most life-altering decisions are almost always made in the most debaucherous of settings.
And it’s exactly why I bought my way into the most decadent, yet discreet, sanctuary in the city.
I’m young, but I’m not naive enough to think I’ll be an athlete forever.
I want alliances that will carry my legacy long after I leave the pitch.
So securing a membership here was my very first move upon arriving in Cinnamon Grove.
I need a place that feels like the places I’ve come to frequent abroad.
Where the air smells like sandalwood, seduction and secrets.
It helps me think. It’s a place where I can connect with the kind of people who know exactly how to handle a career like mine.
Though, after watching some of the activities that go on behind these curtains, I’m realizing this place is even better at showing me exactly how I’m going to handle my wife.
A woman walks by wearing a skin-tight, silk black dress and a man on a leash.
It’s not even the most unusual accessory I’ve seen in this place, but it’s the only thing provocative enough to momentarily break my concentration away from thoughts of Aspen.
But it makes me wonder if she’d ever come to a place like this.
“Anything to drink for you gentlemen?” a waitress asks.
She’s dressed more like she’s headed to a gala than someone sent to serve cocktails, but that’s the Supper Club for you. Even the staff is part of the ambiance.
“The best a?ejo tequila you have,” Matteo orders, leaning back.
“I’ll have a red wine,” Declan adds.
I snort, shaking my head. “Fucking Italians. You lot can’t drink anything other than your pompous red wine,” I joke.
Declan doesn't even blink. He just deadpans at Matteo. “He’s not serious.”
“Oh, he’s serious,” Matteo says, grinning.
I widen my eyes at them. “What are you two wankers going on about?”
“You call my wine pompous,” Declan says, pointing a finger at me, “as if you aren’t about to order some fruity, over-designed drink perfected in elite restaurants where they only speak the Queen’s English.”
I bark out a laugh. “Fuck off.”
I turn back to the waitress, who is waiting with elegant patience. “I’ll have a…”
I pause, again, looking at my asshole teammates.
“Uh-huh. Go on. Say it,” Declan teases.
“Fine. Fuck it,” I mutter. “I’ll have a Sazerac, but instead of straight whiskey, I want a split base of rye and cognac. And skip the Herbsaint. Rinse the glass with Absinthe instead.”
Matteo and Declan exchange a look before bursting into laughter.
“Yes,” Declan says, toasting me with an imaginary glass. “Clearly, I’m the pompous one.”
Since I’m one of the few on the team with a key card, my teammates treat my membership like a golden ticket whenever they want to misbehave without the threat of a lens.
The Supper Club has one iron-clad rule: what happens behind the velvet curtains stays behind them.
It’s the only place in Georgia where a man like me can actually breathe without someone waiting for me to slip up and fall.
I learned the hard way that falling is expensive, and back in boarding school, one mistake nearly cost Croix and me our spots in the championship game.
Croix was the one who had my back then. Being from Ireland, he always said he had a deeper understanding of classism and racism than most Europeans, especially given the history between the Irish and the English.
Croix made damn sure the local kids knew I was never standing alone. He was always nearby.
I returned the favor the day four of them cornered him after school.
They were claiming Croix had been rude to some kid’s sister—a blatant lie.
Croix is the biggest protector of women I’ve ever met.
He was raised by a single mother and is the only boy among three sisters.
He doesn't have a disrespectful bone in his body.
When I saw we were clearly outnumbered, I decided to go full David and Goliath.
I spotted a pile of landscaping rocks and started pummeling the group.
I wasn't just throwing pebbles, either. I was aiming to take their heads off for messing with my friend. If one of the bystanders hadn’t eventually corroborated our self-defense claim, I would’ve been expelled.
I likely wouldn’t be where I am today. Even if, at the moment, I’m only getting there with a limp.
I promised myself I’d never get into that kind of trouble again. I’m just not sure if my marriage was covered in the fine print of that promise.
Tonight, the music from the lounge is a muted growl beneath the floorboards. I nurse my drink, trying to ignore the fact that in less than twelve hours, my “contractual” wife will be standing in my home.
I’d much rather have her sitting on my face. But we have plenty of time for that.
“You're brooding again, Captain,” Declan mutters, sliding a plate of wings toward me.
“I'm not brooding,” I lie, watching the amber liquid swirl in my glass. “I'm strategizing. And I’m not the captain, yet.”
Matteo’s attention drifts the second two women walk by. They clearly recognize him, flashing the kind of smiles only the most adoring fans can give—adoring and half-naked.
Matteo used to be pathologically shy, but ever since he broke things off with his girlfriend, he’s been making up for lost time by indulging in every distraction that crosses his path. He stands up without a word, abandoning Declan and me as if we’ve suddenly become invisible.
Since Declan is one of the only other men I know who survived a reality TV trainwreck and an accidental marriage, he’s become a necessary sounding board.
He seems happily married. Mostly. Even if his wife, Marlow, keeps texting him pictures of machetes, promising a very short future for him if he so much as looks at another woman.
I’ve heard the stories about Marlow Mills.
She has a world-class arm and a habit of throwing things.
Since I have no intention of pissing off a pregnant woman with a penchant for sharp objects, I do my best to keep Declan occupied.
I glance over just as he’s sliding his phone back into his pocket, the screen likely still glowing with a fresh threat from his wife.
“So. Married life,” I say, a nervous laugh escaping me. “It’s been good to you so far?”
He laughs, his Italian accent thickening, the vowels dragging now that the alcohol has begun to settle in.
“It is what we make of it, Luca. Marlow and me, we’re both insanely stubborn people who love fiercely.
She is nothing like any woman I have ever met before, but I knew she had to be mine the instant I heard her voice. ”
I take a slow sip of my drink, the absinthe-laced cognac burning a path down my throat. “I know the feeling,” I say. “Intimately.”
Movement catches my eye, and I turn just in time to see Matteo begin to drown in debauchery. He’s greedily kissing one woman while her friend takes two of his fingers into her mouth, licking and sucking them with an unashamed hunger that borders on feral.
I turn away, shaking my head. “Téo seems to be having enough fun for the both of us tonight.”
“What are you talking about? I’m having a great time talking to you,” Declan counters.
“Even while getting death threats from your wife?” I joke.
He laughs. “Keeps the sex more interesting.”
I raise a brow. “She’s pregnant.”
Declan laughs. “The sex is even more insane,” he admits.
“I’m sure,” I say, keeping the rest to myself. I don’t tell him that I wouldn't know anything about that. Not since I shut my wife out of my life, and along with her, the magnificent sex goddess she was becoming.
She was so good. She was so trainable and so workable. I was just starting to open her up.
“Who knew that on the other side of those walls in those Vegas pods were our undoing, eh?”
I let out a rough laugh. “Who knew?”
Declan catches my eye, a flash of shared understanding passing between us, and raises his glass. I raise mine back, the crystal catching the dim light of the club.
“To the voices of our angels,” Declan says, his voice dropping into a low, solemn rasp. “They carry all the power and the poison needed to destroy us, but we’re addicted to them all the same.”
“To our angels,” I say, toasting him.
And to my demon, I add silently.
The demon is the voice that’s been clawing at the back of my throat, reminding me that I never should have let her go. It’s the one that snarls at me for being a coward, for not fighting harder, and for letting a woman that spectacular walk out of my life.
Right then, as the amber liquid burns its way down, I decide to stop listening to logic and start listening to something I’ve never truly let guide me. Not since the night I said yes to her. My heart.
I was a coward. I can admit that now. I didn’t know how to balance the crushing weight of familial expectations and the rigid pressure of the team while trying to make her mine.
I cared too much about the optics and not enough about the woman who opened her heart to me.
But staring into the bottom of this glass, I realize I’ve run out of fucks to give.
I am in a precarious, beautiful, and utterly delicious situation. I have a second chance to win back my wife. The divorce isn’t final, after all.
As a man who once held a perfect-kick season, Aspen is about to learn the most fundamental truth about me: I don’t miss my mark. And I damn sure don’t lose.