CHAPTER SIX #2
“And how do you know she’s lonely?” The breathiness of that query is a sorry alternative for my traditional boldness.
“Most of us are,” he says simply, and I think I believe him that hospitality moguls and poets are the same.
Did you know my mom? Do you know what happened to her? Tell me you weren’t involved. Or tell me you were so I can dismiss this attraction and do my damn job. Fuck.
“Like ‘Eleanor Rigby’?” That’s great, Zara. Woo him with your name-those-lyrics trivia.
He laughs, gliding his hand over his mouth and perusing the bar. “I think The Beatles often had profound ways of viewing the world. So, yes.”
Now we’re getting somewhere. Talk to me. “Are you lonely?”
“I am never alone. And I am not lonely.” He swallows, his Adam’s apple rolling in a declaration of vulnerability. “That suggests a perpetual state. But I’m human, so I feel loneliness. I’m too much of a dreamer to stay there though. Like John Lennon’s ‘Imagine.’ ”
His use of music reminds me that his mom was a singer here. I saw her picture with a plaque about her at the Corpse Reviver Cabaret last night. It must have been my subconscious answering in song. At least part of me is centered.
“You’re a dreamer?” My pulse goes haywire, and I’m not even sure why. Maybe it’s discovering something that could never be noted in a file. “I wouldn’t have thought that.”
“Most wouldn’t.” He sips his drink, his unexpected perspective falling like slow-motion dominoes.
“People assume businessmen are analytical, which is fair. But the best of us are also visionaries. It keeps me humble. My mother wanted me to be humble. She was a hopeless romantic, enthralled by how big the world was.” He slants his head, studying me. “What about you, Zara? Do you dream?”
“Not lately.” Or ever. Dreams are dangerous, but I don’t volunteer that. “I’m in between dreams, I guess.”
“Ahh. And when you aren’t between them, does Beck contribute to your dreams?”
There it is. An invitation.
“Beck is busy with his own aspirations.” My chest heaves, like I’m fleeing from a completed mission when we’re only getting started. “But he was telling me a bit—ambiguously, of course—about the membership. He’s leaving in a few days, and I …”
“You want to stay?” he surmises.
“Need to.” I gather some of the sugar from the rim of my champagne flute and swill my cocktail, feigning more nerves than what I actually have. Deception is an easier cloak to wear. “I mean, it’s not dire exactly. I’m hoping to hide out from my father for a while longer.”
“La Lune Noire makes a good hiding spot. Beck is okay with you staying behind without him?”
A second inquiry. Persistent. Interested. Good—for the mission. Exhilarating—for that girlish part of me that is swept up for some inexplicable reason. Maddening—for the voice of reason inside me that is rolling her eyes and huffing at my pitiful crush.
“We’re just friendly”—a fluttering in my ribs steals my response for a beat when the slightest trace of relief washes over him—“so he doesn’t have much of an opinion about it.”
“But you need to stay?” Intensity rolls off him with that request for confirmation, a glimpse of what I imagine would pale in comparison to the possessiveness he has over his people. He’s probably protective.
“Yes,” I assert.
He grips my chin with his thumb and forefinger, a gruff demand imprinting my skin even though the dominant move is gentle. “You’re not in danger with your father, are you?”
Did he stay away from me to devise a game plan and show up armed? If so, he’s brilliant. The authenticity and compassion in that question wreck me. And his touch? Obliterating.
My breath blasts out as I shake my head, forcing him to release me. “No, not in danger. He adores me, and he’s a good dad.” I pause for a second to gauge whether he knows my father, but he’s a statue of composure. “Too good maybe. He has plans for my life that aren’t what I want.”
Axel’s ash-brown hair dusts his temple, skimming the specks of silver there as he hums, processing. “Have you told him?”
“It’s complicated.” Being honest is taxing, but also liberating.
He nods, his timbre husky and his gaze undressing me. “It always is.”
Gulping down the lust loitering in the minuscule gap between us, I steer us back to the discovery portion of this encounter. “And you know this from being a son or a father?”
“Both.” There’s something akin to an apology in the way he voices that, but he moves on too fast for me to probe further. “So, you’re seeking refuge from your well-meaning father. I sympathize, but the membership approval process is extensive, not something that can be granted in a couple of days.”
“I assumed as much.” I pack up my book, finish my cocktail, and decide to be the one to end the night.
He stands from the table, doing that dashing one-handed-button move on his suit jacket and waiting expectantly for me to slide to the end of the booth. “I’ll walk you out.”
When he briefly takes my hand to help me up like a perfect gentleman, there is an undeniable spark and a swoop in my stomach that I will be pretending I didn’t feel. I school my features to unaffected poise. He guides me through the lounge, and all eyes track us.
“You can’t stay somewhere else in New Orleans?” he asks when we saunter into the lobby. “We can recommend some lovely accommodations.”
Disappointment lashes me, which means I should bolt to my suite and brainstorm how to get myself out of this.
The disappointment should be for a roadblock on my mission.
But it’s because I foolishly thought he was enjoying my company.
I’m sure that’s what everyone believes. He’s charismatic, the kind of man who makes someone feel seen.
But I’m not everyone. I don’t fall for charm, power, and panty-dropping grins.
Kill or be killed. That’s what this is. I will not get sidetracked.
“My father knows I’m here.” I peer at him beneath my lashes to embellish this with a splash of innocence. “It’s not somewhere he’d visit, which is why Beck offered to bring me along, but out there …”
“Our reputation precedes us, I see.” He spins his roulette wheel on his watch as he strolls with me toward the South Tower, going through the motions of escorting me. “And work? You don’t have responsibilities?”
Unable to be completely forthright with that one, I go with, “I’m between responsibilities.”
“Like your dreams,” he muses, splaying his hand over the small of my back and ushering me into a dark alcove, not far from the elevator I’ll take to my room. “Interested in a job?”
I did not see that coming. “Working here? How would that help me?”
He keeps us hidden from view when the elevator doors ding and a throng of couples gets off and waltzes by, prattling about their evening plans.
Once they’re gone, his intensity shrouds us again.
“I have a suite in the other tower that I can put you up in as a temporary perk, but until the membership is approved, you’d need to contribute to earn that perk. ”
I glance around the small, shadowed space. It’s like we’re engaged in a dirty secret. “And how would I contribute?”
“I could come up with several ideas.” He delivers that with a delicious come-hither threat before self-correcting. “But how about as my assistant? Or how many languages do you speak?”
He’s fishing, but I will not bite. Unless it serves me.
“You don’t have an assistant?”
“Technically, I do. How many languages, Miss West? I have businesses all over the world. I could use someone on my team who could translate for me.”
He’s Trojan-fucking-horsing me. Slipping past my barriers with an elaborate guise to be my savior. My father’s angle makes more sense than ever. The best way to fuck with him is to not hold back on being me.
“I’m fluent in thirteen.” Like a top-notch assassin, though I keep that snark to myself and opt for my own version of Trojan. “Does that please you, Mr. Noire?”
“Thirteen? Wonderful.” He clears his throat, probably because he’s got a semi now.
Impressed by my skill and aroused by my eagerness to please.
So easy.
“And this is for your personal assistant?”
“Not exactly.” He braces his forearm on the wall behind me, caging me in and attempting to get me sloppy drunk on his fragrance of duplicity. “I have several assistants, none of them personal, and you’re overqualified, but you’d be working directly with me on special projects.”
I sidestep the compulsion to twist special projects into a double entendre and settle on gaining more intel. “Why don’t you have a personal assistant?”
His focus flicks to my lips. “I don’t trust many people or want them in my space.”
“And you trust me?”
“Certainly not.”
A laugh escapes me because he’s screwing with me, but honest. “You want me in your space though?” I phrase it as a question, but no matter what game he’s playing, it’s evident that’s the case. “Why?”
“I live by two rules in life, Miss West.”
“Wisdom from an older gentleman,” I quip, angling my chin so our mouths are mere inches apart. “Do tell.”
“Older, yes.” He grazes my cheek with his knuckles, an uncanny expression of melancholy mantling his features. “We both need to remember that.”
“Is that the rule?” I tease, though it’s evident our age difference is an issue for him.
“No.” He straightens, flattening his tie and allotting me some breathing room. “One is never to give someone all the information.”
“A rule I live by as well,” I admit, suspecting where he’s headed. “And the second?”
He winks, flashes his dazzling smile, and swaggers away with a wave. “Have a good evening, Zara. Bernard will get you set up.”