Chapter Six
CHAPTER SIX
Saff
I’d been nervous about the tour with Soren. Mostly because Bass couldn’t mind his own business and decided to show up to lecture me about how I should and shouldn’t behave.
I didn’t see him dyeing his hair at eight in the morning, then slipping his feet into mile-high heels so he didn’t look like a little girl playing at being a boss babe.
Alright, fine. I didn’t greet Soren right at first. But he’d surprised me.
I mean, how much of my little argument with Bass had he seen? Or, worse yet, heard?
He showed no signs of suspicion, though, as we moved through the dark, dirty building, each of us occasionally making comments about the changes that would need to be made to get things up to code.
“Do you really think there’s enough room back there for an elevator?” I asked as I came up to the edge of the stage. I was way too short to just hop up there like Soren had done.
“Let’s see, shall we?” Soren asked, leaning down and holding his hands down toward me.
A cool, calm, collected businesswoman wouldn’t allow a man to literally pick her up, would she?
That said, it also seemed rude to ignore him.
The little quirk of his brow—something I took as a challenge—settled the debate for me.
I slipped my hands into his, ignoring that same sizzle I’d felt when we’d first shaken hands, even as it snaked up my arms, across my chest, then downward.
Soren’s hands tightened on mine, and then he was pulling up.
When it came to stature, I certainly looked like the kind of woman who would be picked up. Personality-wise, though, I would probably knee a guy in the groin if he tried.
I’d always been secretly insecure about how short and slight I was. It was hard being a woman in a violent, male-dominated field. It was harder still being a small woman in it. I was underestimated constantly. I had to be twice as tough to get half the respect.
I wasn’t an idiot; I knew how my colleagues talked about me and my “temper.” But they conveniently forget that it’s not until I throw a fit—or a pool ball—that I’m taken seriously.
Somehow, though, nothing about Soren lifting me up off my feet and onto the stage felt uncomfortable. Or like he was judging me.
I was just thinking that I wouldn’t mind if he picked me up by my ass and carried me to bed when my feet landed on the stage.
The problem was that (A) I was distracted and (B) I temporarily forgot I was wearing heels. So when I put my weight down, it landed wrong, and I wobbled. Hard.
Soren’s arm shot out, going around my lower back to stop me from falling. But he’d overestimated his strength, knocking me right into his chest.
All my air rushed out of me. At his nearness, at the breadth of his chest against me, his strong arm around me, his leather and tobacco scent overpowering me.
My heartbeat tripped into overdrive as a flush crept across my chest, up my neck, and bloomed over my cheeks.
My gaze flicked up to his, finding him already watching me intensely.
On my hip, his fingers tightened ever so slightly.
I knew I needed to move away, to put professional distance back between us.
In the end, though, it was Soren who came to his senses first.
“A bit like a newborn foal in those things, Miss Amato,” he said, the warmth in his eyes tamping down the knee-jerk irritation that always bubbled up when someone teased me.
“Saff,” I corrected.
“Saff,” he repeated. And we just weren’t going to talk about the way a little shiver moved through my insides at the sound of my name from between his lips. “Is that short for something?”
“Saffron,” I admitted before I could think better of it.
Why did I just tell him that?
I never told anyone that.
No one in the family knew that.
I’d had it legally changed to Saff years ago, so no one would ever find out.
“Saffron,” he repeated. As much as I hated that name—and the woman who gave it to me—I found I didn’t mind it so much when he said it. Actually, it was kind of nice. “That’s an unusual name.”
“Yes, well, my mother was an unusual woman.” Just the mention of her was enough to let me slip back behind my defenses. I didn’t even have to pretend to be an ice queen. Memories of my early childhood made me plenty bitchy for real. I moved away from him. I put two arms’ lengths between us. “Though, I’m not sure you can speak, Soren .”
“It means ‘stern’ or ‘severe,’” he explained. “Seems fitting.”
It seemed he had his guards too.
They were firmly in place as he moved down the small wing to the side of the stage.
Good.
That was good.
If we both had our walls up, the chances of us doing something as monumentally dumb as fucking up against the wall in an abandoned building were much lower.
“This is plenty of room for an elevator,” he declared after moving around. “Care to test walk the path with me?”
I’d almost reminded him that he’d already done that, but Renzo’s voice popped in my head, reminding me that he needed this deal to go through and I needed to check my attitude for that to happen.
“Sure. After you,” I said.
“I insist,” he said, holding a hand toward the exit.
“I have to lock up,” I said, reaching in my pocket for the keys.
“As you wish,” he said, going ahead of me but holding the door until I was outside.
I liked to think that I didn’t care for manners. That I genuinely just wanted to be treated like one of the guys. But I could admit just to myself that I kind of liked how he held doors, insisted I go first, and waited to sit until I was seated. It was nice. Respectful in a different way than I was used to.
“This is going to need security of some kind. No woman is going to want to walk through here at night. Even if she has her own detail.”
“I’m hopeful that I can talk the building owners to putting up a gate. It would be in their best interest not to have a dark alley where anyone could hide out and do all kinds of things anyway.”
We moved out of the alley, both of us looking up and down the street.
“What’s this area like at night?” he asked.
Now we were talking my language. Because if there was anything I knew, it was my neighborhood.
“Honestly, it’s a mix. You’ve got an indie coffee shop there. And a bookstore a few doors down. That draws a quieter crowd. But that building over there,” I said, nodding my chin toward it, “that’s where a local street crew operates out of. They deal mostly party drugs, though,” I said. I knew. Because I got a cut of all their sales. Which was why I was quick to turn my back on it. The last thing I needed was for someone to recognize me, come over, ask about my sudden hair and clothing changes, and announce they would be late with their payment or something equally as damning.
“Party drugs that people heading to a club might be interested in buying.”
That was… interesting.
I’d expected him to pull the typical “Drugs are bad” thing.
My confusion must have been on my face, because Soren shrugged. “You can’t be in the nightclub business without knowing that drugs are used and shared liberally outside and even inside the venues. I figure so long as no one is getting drugged without their knowledge and consent, it’s not my place to tell grown adults what to do with their bodies.”
“You’re… not what I expected,” I said before I could stop myself.
“You either, Miss Amato.”
“Saff.”
“Saffron.”
There it was again, that little shiver.
“It’s actually—legally—Saff.”
“And in mixed company, it can continue to be,” he said, leaning down closer so when he spoke again, his breath was warm on my cheek. “But between the two of us, it’s Saffron.”
Before I could even wrap my head around the instantaneous surge of desire through my system at his words, his nearness, his… Everything, he turned away, pulling open the door of a waiting black sedan.
I didn’t—couldn’t—drive.
But I knew enough about cars to know that his one likely cost five years’ worth of my rent. And I didn’t have a cheap apartment.
I didn’t usually find dick-measuring symbols—nice cars, fancy jewelry, megayachts, which hot girl you could pull—attractive.
Somehow though, Soren’s kind of understated, quiet wealth was a lot hotter than it had any right to be.
“What’s this?” I asked when Soren came back with a white box, holding it out to me.
“A partnership present,” he said. “If we are going forward with the deal, that is.”
“We are. But you didn’t have to get me a present.”
But I really, really liked presents.
No one knew that. It was a closely guarded secret because I knew it would come with follow-up questions about why. And I wasn’t about to tell my coworkers that I’d never gotten presents from my mom as a kid. And I definitely hadn’t gotten them in my foster homes. Or when I was living on the streets.
So as much as I knew I needed to turn him down, my pulse was already pounding; the excitement was skittering across my nerve endings, making me feel electric.
“I insist.” He pushed the box closer to me.
A girl could only resist so much.
It would be rude to turn him down.
Or, at least, that was what I told myself as I slid a nail across the little golden sticker seal, then pulled up the lid.
I realized too late that I probably should have just thanked him and opened it later in private.
Oh, well.
Too late to go back.
I reached in, pulling apart the tissue paper to reveal…
“Wait,” I said, my gaze and smile—surprised, maybe even charmed—directed at him. “Is that…”
“The same mug as I have at my office. You said you liked them.”
“I did. I do. And it’s—“
“Covered in strawberries,” he said, something dancing in those deep eyes of his. “Kind of like you.”
He said that last bit so softly that I was sure I’d misheard him as my gaze went to the mug again, this time as I pulled it out, testing its perfect weight in my hand.
“This was really thoughtful,” I said, surprised by the rush of wetness in my eyes. For once, I was glad for my short stature. It allowed me to rapidly blink that nonsense away without Soren noticing. “Thank you.”
I slipped it back into the box, then took the box from his hands.
“If we’re both ready to move forward, I’d like to get the paperwork drafted up to sign. I can send it over to your attorney by mid-week.”
Right.
An attorney.
Had Renzo set that up yet?
If not, he had to get on it. Or, I guess, I did. Did we even have an attorney? Or would it be better to have someone completely outside our circle?
“I’ll have Bastian send that information over to Teresa,” I told him.
“Perfect. Then we can set up a meeting to discuss the next steps.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
“Have a good day,” he said, leaning closer for just the two of us to hear, “Saffron.”
With that, he slid into his backseat, closed the door, and the driver pulled off.
While I stood there watching the car disappear for an embarrassingly long time before shooting off texts to Renzo and Bass, and decided I needed to go home and fall into a good book to avoid thinking about Soren Vale.
So, yeah, it had to be a book heavy on the stabbing and low on the spice scale.
But it was hard to focus on all the bloodshed when I kept picking up his annoyingly thoughtful mug to sip my coffee with, thinking about what he’d said when he’d given it to me.
Covered in strawberries. Kind of like you.
Even just the memory of it sent another little shiver down my spine.
I needed something, anything that would tamp down the desire that was burning through my system.
“Come on,” I grumbled at my book, “gut someone or carve an eye out or something.”