Chapter Three
CHAPTER THREE
Soren
“What’s the appointment at three?” I asked my receptionist, leaning in the doorway of my office.
The note on my calendar said simply S.A.
“Your meeting with the owner of the Brooklyn property,” Teresa said as she rose from her desk to make her way to the coffee station. Sure, she’d just brought me a cup an hour ago. But knowing me as she did—and she did, that was why she got the salary she did—that cup was already long gone.
“Right. Why the letters?”
“Her name,” Teresa said, coming back with one of the ten identical sixteen-ounce mugs with the square handles she knew I preferred. And collected all day on my desk.
“Her?” I asked, the mug half-raised to my lips.
“Yes, Mr. Vale. Women are allowed to own property now,” Teresa said, shooting me a smirk that made her smile lines deepen. “Crazy times we live in.”
She must have been a complete heartbreaker in her twenties because she was still a knockout now, with her long black hair, bright blue eyes, and tall, lean frame.
She had a man who’d seen what he had, and stuck a ring on her finger on their fifth date.
Now, Teresa was a no-nonsense mother of three teen sons with a thick Long Island accent. She was brass, opinionated, sarcastic, and not afraid to stand up to me. And when you were rich and influential enough, that was rare to come by. I liked having someone in my inner circle who could call me on my shit, tell me I was being a dick, or confirm that I was right when I got a weird vibe off a potential client or business partner.
I let out a snorting laugh at her as she pulled off her gray suit jacket and draped it around the back of her chair.
“So what do you know about her?”
“Well, contrary to your beliefs, I am not the FBI. I didn’t run a background check on her.”
“A name would be nice,” I said as she sat back down and pressed the butt of her pen on the desk, making it pop.
“Her name is Saff Amato.”
“Saff? That’s her full name?”
“It’s what was on the paperwork for the building. Shall I call her assistant back and ask for a copy of her driver’s license or birth certificate?” she teased in that deadpan voice I’d grown to appreciate over the years. “Knowing you like I do,” she said, tapping at her clacky keyboard with her acrylic nails that made the sound even clackier, “I did try to do a quick search of her online and on social media. I got nothing.”
“Nothing? Who, under the age of eighty, has no digital footprint?”
“You,” Teresa said, raising one of those dark, arched brows of hers.
“Fair enough.”
“And even if she is eighty, so what? Experience recommends a person. Look at my Marty.”
Marty, Teresa’s husband, was twelve years her senior. He’d been a rough-and-tough union ironworker at the time they’d met and for many years afterward. Until he had a hard fall that fucked up his back. After that, the two of them switched roles—with Marty at home with the kids and housework, and Teresa doing the corporate thing.
It was a flip that seemed to suit them best, with Teresa loving her job and Marty developing a strange obsession with how to load the dishwasher and what materials to put together in the washing machine.
“Me? I just shoved it all in,” she’d told me once, shrugging a shoulder. “Clean is clean. But I appreciate a man who knows how to wash the delicates, you know what I mean?”
“Yeah, how’s that bird-watching camera you got him for your anniversary treating him?”
“Get this,” Teresa said, throwing out a hand. “He started uploading the videos to the damn app the kids are all using? What the hell was it called? Doesn’t matter. Anyways, he’s racking up millions of views. Now he’s suddenly making money off of those silly little bird videos and is talking about treating me to a trip to Italy. Can you believe it?”
“I believe you deserve that trip.”
“But just not when this project needs so much oversight, right?” she asked, eyes bright.
“You know me too well.”
“Well enough to know you are going to need something to eat before that meeting, or you’re gonna be an asshole. So I’m gonna run to snag you a turkey club from that deli ‘round the corner. Want anything else? And don’t you dare say a coffee. You got that ridiculously expensive shit you import right over there,” she said as she collected her purse and phone, waving one hand toward the coffee machine.
For a second, I could see her at home, saying something like that to one of her boys. No, we’re not ordering in. I got a lasagna in the fridge. What am I, made of money?
“You’re a saint among women, Teresa,” I said.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Show your appreciation in diamonds, not words.”
With that, she was off, leaving nothing behind but a whiff of that amber scent of her perfume.
I had to admit as I made my way over toward the coffee machine that my stomach actually was objecting to its emptiness. And, somehow, a turkey club was exactly what I was craving.
If I believed in that kind of thing, I’d think Teresa was psychic.
Because by the time I had the food in my stomach—and maybe two more coffees in my bloodstream—I was feeling a lot more optimistic about the Brooklyn club.
Did I like working with partners? No.
I could be an uncompromising man. I knew this business better than anyone else. And I didn’t want to fight with someone over color palettes or what kind of drinks to stock in the bar.
That said, this was the city. Real estate that worked for a club could be hard to come by. The people who held the deeds usually knew what they had and used that as leverage to get more of a say in the business than I liked.
But I’d been here before.
And no one could be worse than that idiot investor from the Bronx who thought stone columns and Greek murals would be the ‘next big thing in discotheques.’
Yeah, the man actually said ‘discotheques.’
I wish I was kidding.
But I’d gotten through that—with the damn Greek murals only in the bathrooms, where they promptly got covered with much more stylistic street murals from the local clientele.
And I could get through whatever this old-as-dirt Saff woman wanted me to compromise on for the Brooklyn club.
I glanced over as Teresa brought in a silver tray with four glasses and a pitcher full of water and lemon and lime slices, giving her a nod in gratitude, then turned back toward the windows that overlooked the front of the building. And the sidewalk below.
A car pulled up out front, double-parking to a chorus of horns as the other cars had to swerve past.
The back door opened a few seconds before the front passenger, but the guy in the front rushed out, dragging the door open, then seeming to start lecturing the backseat passenger.
She popped out a second later, hand throwing up in the air, then poking him in the chest as she spoke rapidly.
It was the kind of interaction I’d seen between Teresa and her boys or husband. All attitude. Lots of talking with the hands. And despite the loud voices, no real heat in the words.
I was about to turn away and go over my folder full of blueprints for the building when the woman suddenly turned and looked right up at me.
Well, she was looking at the building.
I was looking at her.
I was damn near ready to tell Teresa to cancel the meeting so I could run my ass down there with the hopes of catching her number. Or, if she was willing, pull her into one of the many conference rooms the building sported, spreading her out on the table, and spending a hot, sweaty hour together.
I don’t remember the last time I had such a knee-jerk reaction to a woman. Possibly never. Pretty was a dime a dozen.
And she was that.
Pretty.
Gorgeous, even.
From what I could tell from my vantage point, and compared to the man hulking over her, she was short and slight, but with curvy thighs beneath those ugly slacks she had on.
Her dark brown hair—that I swore almost had a blue tint to it as the sun caught it—was sleek and framed her delicate heart-shaped face. I couldn’t make out what color her eyes were from so far away, but she had a dainty nose with a little ring and pouty lips I was having a hard time not imagining wrapped around my dick.
“Christ,” I said, sighing as I shook off those thoughts.
Down on the street below, the car that had dropped them off drove away as the man made a show of doing an exaggerated bow as he waved out a hand. After you, ma’am.
The woman shook her head, slapped the guy on the back of the neck, then charged into the building.
“What is it?” Teresa asked. “Haven’t seen you staring that hard at something since you got your gift from me last Boss’s Day.”
“You sent me… flowers.”
“Yeah, what of it? I heard somewhere once that the only time a man gets flowers in his life is at his funeral. That’s sad. I got you some before you’re dead. Sue me,” she said, setting out leather-bound notebooks and expensive pens that we bought in bulk for these occasions. “What were you looking at?”
“Who.”
“Who? Was it a woman?” she asked, straightening, eyes bright.
“Don’t start.”
“Start what? It’s good to know you can still appreciate a good-looking woman. When’s the last time you had one? Months? It’s not good, that’s all I’m saying. A man needs a woman.”
“Does a woman need a man?” I asked.
“Fuck no,” she answered immediately, then shot me a big grin. “Unless, of course, they can find themselves one like my Marty. In that case, yes. Even if he can’t brew a decent pot of coffee to save his life. Okay. That’s probably your three o’clock,” she said.
Teresa, amongst her many other talents, seemed to have superhuman hearing—that she often called ‘mom-hearing’—and always knew the elevator was about to stop on the floor well before it dinged.
Sure enough, just as she slipped behind her desk, the soft ding rang through the waiting area.
I glanced over as the doors slid open, expecting a stooped woman with a pinched face and rheumy eyes.
But out walked a tall man in a nice suit—and I knew my suits.
Half a step behind him was the woman from the street, her gait tight in her stiletto heels. Almost as if she wasn’t accustomed to walking in them.
My breath felt constricted in my chest as my heart started to attempt to break free from my ribcage.
It was like I’d summoned her.
That is, of course, until the duo approached Teresa, who shot them her customer-service smile—tight lips and no crinkle near her eyes.
It was the woman’s companion who spoke, though I couldn’t make out any of their conversation from so far away.
The woman seemed like she was about to offer a hand in introduction. The man, though, leaned closer to Teresa, stealing all her focus as he reached back and pushed the woman’s hand back down.
What was going on there?
Before I could try to figure it out, Teresa was walking toward the conference room doorway.
Her voice, as always, carried.
“Mr. Vale is expecting you.”
Expecting them? No.
Wanting to kick the guy out so I could bend the woman over the conference table? Absolutely.
“Mr. Vale, Miss Amato is here,” Teresa said, eyes bright, knowing, seeing too damn much, as they always did.
Miss Amato?
This was the woman who I would be working with on the nightclub project?
I was suddenly a lot more optimistic about it.
“Miss Amato,” I greeted her, extending a hand as she moved closer.
Her gaze flicked to her companion, but he was a stoic figure standing up against the wall of windows.
So her arm lifted, her hand sliding against mine.
I was pretty sure I wasn’t the only one who felt the sizzle at the touch, judging by the way her pupils blew wide.
Brown.
Her eyes were light brown, but seemed to have a little gray starbursting through the iris.
And, fuck, where was that strawberry sweet cream scent coming from?
Her hair?
Neck?
Sprayed between her breasts?
I wanted nothing more than to lean in close and find out for myself.
“Mr. Vale,” she said, gaze unflinching. And I’d been told that my steely gaze could make a billionaire mogul cower. “I hear you want to open a nightclub with me.”
Oh, there was a long list of things I wanted to do with her.
But, sure, we could start with the nightclub.