Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Say something, Jewel.” Gareth’s tone is soft and cautious, and I hate it.
“Viking.”
“Something else.”
“Buy me out. I’ll have my attorney work on Gardon first. We can communicate through her, and I’ll sign as soon as the docs are ready.”
“Do you at least want to know how much money this place makes before you bail on it?”
“There isn’t a number high enough.” My eyes burn, but there are no tears verging. They ache like I’ve been walking through the desert for a week with no sunglasses. Like I’ve stared directly into the sun.
“How long were you partners?”
“The club is only two years old. We’d never worked together before. There was a need for a place like this here. We saw a void in the marketplace, and we filled it. It was a risk that paid off, and it keeps paying. And I’m not sorry.”
“Didn’t ask for an apology.”
“You and I would work well together, Jewel. And you deserve this.”
“To be kept in the dark? Lied to? That’s what I deserve?”
“I never lied to you. Stability and security. That’s what you deserve, and this place can provide it.”
“My job provides plenty.”
“Not like this, sweet girl.”
Don’t you fucking dare call me that right now.
“I thought you brought me here the other day to put a layer of distance between us, because we were getting too close too fast, but that wasn’t it at all, was it?”
“No, I don’t want distance between us. I brought you here because I wanted to tell you before you saw it in black and white, but I couldn’t make myself do it.
I was afraid you’d walk away, and I wasn’t ready to let you go.
I’m still not, but I couldn’t keep being a coward about it.
When you first stepped into my office, I thought this was why you’d come.
To confront me about being partners with him.
When I realized you’d come for an entirely different reason—. ”
“That’s what you thought? When you looked at me and said you thought I’d come to confront you, I thought you meant about what happened in your kitchen when I was seventeen. If I’d known about this, I’d have never come to see you.”
“Christ, I thought you were going to confront me about all of it, Jewel.”
He runs his hand through his hair like he might pull it out by the fistful.
“We’re here. Might as well go inside. If you still want nothing to do with it after you see the club on a Friday night, I’ll buy you out.”
“Why him, Gareth? How?”
“I ran into him in a similar place in Vegas. What are the odds, huh?”
I think that was an attempt at a joke but I’m not laughing. I glare at him, and he sighs before he goes on.
“Obviously, we recognized each other. A few weeks later, I got a phone call. He requested a meeting, showed up with market research, numbers, and projections. He’d done his homework, or had it done for him, but the information was solid.
It made sense from a purely business perspective. We were not friends.”
“He didn’t have friends. All he cared about was owning and earning, and I was just another possession. His dirty fucking money protected him from every consequence he should’ve paid for taking me, for what he put my mom through all those years, for the trauma I suffered when the truth came out.”
“I know. This is a legitimate business. I promise.”
“Seems to me like I’m going to be a rich woman when the ink dries, regardless. Why would I want to keep this place and deal with the headaches of owning a swingers’ club? Fetish club? Sex club? What’s the preferred term, Gareth?”
“Maybe you’d like owning this place. Maybe you’d have good ideas about how to improve and expand it.”
“Or maybe it’s in trouble financially. Maybe you can’t actually afford to buy me out.”
“I understand why you’d be skeptical, but you have access to all the financials. And I can absolutely afford to buy you out. I just think you should know the potential here before you make that decision.”
“Fine. Fuck it. Let’s go in.”
He follows close behind me, but I make sure to stay a few steps ahead, too far away for him to rest his hand on my neck or at the small of my back.
The tension in my body is unlike any I’ve ever dealt with before.
No better place to find a release than this one, right? He wants me to enjoy the club, I will.
There is a woman behind the glass checking guests in tonight. Two guys who look like bouncers stand behind her, and one is posted at the second door.
Dear God, the level of testosterone is stifling in this small space. Gareth’s hand brushes my hip, and I flinch. The woman behind the glass recognizes him, smiles and calls him sir.
Sir Lying Shithead.
A woman and man in front of me have to sign a waiver of some sort before they’re given a keycard.
When the inner door opens, I catch a glimpse of a woman on the circular stage. She’s bound to something, but I can’t tell what it is before the door sweeps closed again. The bouncer reopens it as soon as Gareth steps forward.
No words are spoken but respectful nods are exchanged between them. Exactly the way people treated my father.
The bondage show has a pretty full audience, and they all seem to be enjoying it, but seeing a woman wearing a blindfold only exacerbates my anger.
I know she’s wearing it willingly, and it’s not keeping her from knowing that the man who is touching her is harboring a giant fucking secret that would knock her whole world off its axis, but it still feels like a personal taunt.
I want to climb onto the stage and unmask her eyes. And then shove it down Gareth’s throat until he chokes on it.
We don’t go through the same door we took last time. He leads me to the back corner of the room and through a door that is camouflaged with wallpaper to look like a continuation of the wall.
It requires a keycard but the woman up front didn’t give him one; he already had it in his wallet. The door opens into another room, smaller and without a stage. There is a bar along one wall and couches and chairs grouped throughout, some hosting people already engaged in sex acts.
I walk to the bar and order a Gordons and tonic. Gareth walks up behind me and his reflection in the mirror nods at the bartender. An answer to a question I’ve missed.
“What was that?” I ask. “Did he just ask you for permission to serve me? Like you fucking own me, and I can’t have a drink unless you say so?”
“I’m the owner. He was checking to see if I wanted my usual. That’s all.”
“Well, apparently, I’m an owner, too. Maybe someone should let your boy know that a dry G&T is my usual.”
“Hey,” Gareth’s tone loses all softness. “You want to be a brat to me right now, that’s fine. But you will be polite to the people who work here. He’s doing his job. If you’d like me to announce your role, I’d be glad to introduce you.”
“No. There is no point in making things complicated for your employees.”
“Our employees.”
“Stop.”
A silver fox sidles up next to me, and even if I wasn’t spoiling to piss Gareth off, this guy would’ve pulled my attention. Close-cropped hair and beard, broad chest, Superman arms, and tight abs under a black tee. Tight ass under black jeans, too. Ex-military, I’d bet anything.
Not really my type, but he’ll do nicely for my purposes tonight.
Hello, Daddy.
Gareth leans in closer. “You’re a grown woman. If you want to fuck him, go for it.”
“Are you testing me?”
“Who’s testing who, Jewel?”
I step closer to the stranger, touch his bicep and trail lightly over his pirate ship tattoo.
“Hi,” I say. “I’m Jewel.”
Gareth’s grimace doesn’t go unnoticed in the mirror.
Black t-shirt guy sizes me up, and nods like I’ll do for his purposes as well.
“Apache.”
Shit. I forgot people don’t use their real names in here.
“Let me guess, helicopter pilot?”
He smiles. “Clever girl.”
Right, like that was a hard code to crack.
“Should we sit?” I ask.
“We should do something.”
Before I take a step, Gareth has a hold of my upper arm, and he’s pulling me away.
“Get your hands off me.” I try to twist out of his grasp but he’s too strong.
He pushes me through another door, and we are alone in a short, narrow hallway. His body presses me into the wall, and his hands pin my wrists above my head. His eyes blaze, and he opens his mouth like he’s about to yell but he stops before the words fly. Kisses me instead.
It’s an aggressive, angry kiss, and he’s hurting me everywhere he’s touching me. I hold stone-still, refuse to kiss him back, act as if he’s having no effect on me at all.
“You want to hate-fuck me?” I ask. “Is that what you want?”
“I’d be out of luck if I did, seeing as how I don’t hate you.”
“That’s okay. I hate you enough for both of us.”
“No, you don’t. You might wish you did, but you don’t hate me, sweet girl. And if you’re going to try to fuck away your emotions right now, it’s not going to be with somebody else.”
“I’m a grown woman, remember?”
“Oh, I am well aware.”
“We’re business partners.” I attempt to push him away. “This is unprofessional.”
“File a complaint with HR.”
He picks me up, tosses me over his shoulder, and carries me to the end of the hall where he yanks open another door that takes us into a stairwell. The door slams behind us.
As soon as he sets my feet on the ground, I try the doorknob but it’s locked. “Are we trapped in here?”
He shrugs.
I start up the stairs.
“Where are you going?” he asks.
“To the next level so I can get out of here.”
He follows me, laughs when I try the second-floor door and find it locked, too. “Huh,” he says. “I guess we are trapped in here,”
“Use your card.”
“On what? You see a reader anywhere?”
“I’m not going to spend the rest of the night arguing with you in a goddamn stairwell, Gareth.”
“That’s not at all what I had in mind.” He closes the space between us in two steps and presses his forearms against the wall, caging me between them.
His face is inches from mine, and the heat waves radiating off his body are practically vibrating the air.