Chapter 3
3
NIKO
The Frosty Mug has been in my family since before my father was born. It was handed down to him at eighteen and then to me at the same age. I never wanted it.
At eighteen, I was a father to a two-year-old boy. Running a bar was not on my list of shit to do, but it was either take the responsibility or live with the guilt of knowing that I’d let my family’s legacy go to a stranger.
What fucking legacy? That’s the question I should have been asking myself.
I was in the back office trying to figure out how the hell this place was going to afford to host another Christmas celebration when Matty came to get me.
“There’s a woman here for you, Niko. She’s real pretty,” he’d said.
A grunt was my reply. It wasn’t until he came up and tugged my notebook away and pointed at my calendar on the wall in front of me that I remembered who she was. I’d been anticipating this meeting for days now. But when I work, I go narrow-minded, lost in stress and planning.
My blood begins roaring in my ears. I feel the pulse of every heartbeat in my groin. Matty leaves me, and I stand abruptly enough for my knees to smash into the edge of my desk, rattling the contents.
With sweaty hands, I leave the room and plow through the back door, coming face to face with my son’s ex-girlfriend.
Gorgeous Ivy Bell with the heart-shaped face, kind emerald eyes that shine a bit brighter during Christmastime, and a rounded body that appears in my dreams far too often.
She’s short with grippable hips and thick thighs, bright blonde hair that hangs over the swells of her large, heaving chest, and the same deep red lip gloss that I’ve scrubbed off wine glasses and coffee mugs.
I know too much about this woman. Twenty-one to my thirty-seven, she’s a fantasy and nothing more. The kind that gets buried deep down and only comes out when my willpower grows paper-thin.
My body is completely still, every muscle I have strung tight as she drags her eyes up the length of my body with a bravery and fascination that makes my cock stiffen.
If she knows it’s me, she’s hiding it well. It’s more realistic to assume she doesn’t. Her email two weeks ago asking for today’s meeting was too warm and gentle to be knowingly sent to her ex-boyfriend’s father. I may not know the details of their breakup, but I know my son, and there’s no doubt in my mind he was the cause of it.
Too fucking slowly, her eyes meet mine, and the interest in them is snuffed out, replaced with pain.
“Ivy?”
“Mr. Shaw?”
Our words overlap. She clears her throat and tips her chin back, blinking away the pain I saw in her stare.
“Niko,” I grunt, correcting her.
“I didn’t know you owned this place, Mr. Shaw.”
It’s less surprising than her sharp tongue.
With a glance around the bar, I signal for Matty to distract the gawkers at the bar and focus back on Ivy.
“We can talk somewhere more private. Follow me.”
She hesitates. With a glance at the gift bag on the table, she freezes in place, only moving enough to chew on her bottom lip. I wait for her to work through whatever it is she’s contemplating with my mouth shut.
Finally, she swipes the bag and purse from the bar, along with her coat, and strides to where I’m waiting. I feel like a fucking giant beside her, the same way I did when I met her, as she comes to stand beside me, the top of her head reaching my shoulder.
I palm my thighs and lead us through the swinging back door to the dim hallway. The kitchen is to the left and the bathrooms to the right, but I focus on the office door at the end of the hall. It’s locked, so I jam the key in the doorknob and push inside.
The window beside my desk lets in natural light, but it’s frosted up enough you can only make out the white cast of snow beyond it.
She reaches for the back of a chair at the small table beneath the window, but I snap my arm out and do it for her. I feel the weight of her narrowed eyes but don’t stop.
Leaving the door open a crack, I take the chair across from her, my weight making it creak.
“I can pull out my own chair,” she says before sitting.
Her things fall to the table, and my interest piques when she pulls the Christmas bag close to her, as if shielding it from me.
“I’m sure you can. Doesn’t mean I won’t do it for you.”
She chuffs. “You should have taught your son how to do that.”
I don’t back down from the blow. It hits me right in the chest.
“Yeah, suppose you’re right.”
“I wasn’t expecting you today,” she reveals, staring everywhere but at me.
The crowded, messy desk, my single bed that I use when I can’t be bothered to make it back home after work, and the empty glass on the table beside it with a thin layer of bourbon in the bottom.
For some reason, it pisses me off not having her attention. It’s impossible not to give her mine.
The gloss on her lips shines beneath the natural light, and she rubs them together before peeling them apart with a soft smacking sound.
My chest constricts, and I sit a bit straighter, pressing back against the chair.
“Disappointed?”
“No. Surprised. Were you expecting me?”
“I only know one Ivy Bell.”
Her eyebrows jump in understanding before she finally looks at me. The way my heart reacts to such a simple look is nothing but fucking trouble. I’ve been ignoring the way her closeness makes me feel since the first time I met her. The same day my son did.
Like someone’s held an electric paddle to my chest and groin and keeps triggering the shocks, I spark and burn beneath my skin.
She’s too young. Travis’s ex-girlfriend.
Ex .
Maybe if they hadn’t hit it off the way they did that day, or I had made more of an effort to speak with her before he swooped in and stole her?—
Fuck. He didn’t steal anything. Ivy was never mine to begin with. If I repeat those things to myself enough, maybe they’ll start to get through my thick skull.
Ivy crosses her legs beneath the table. “You don’t think it’s unprofessional for us to work together, considering how we know one another?”
“No. We’re adults.”
Narrowing her eyes into a fierce glare, she asks, “Travis hasn’t made you believe I’m an evil cunt? Or has he, and this is your way of getting back at me? By sabotaging my new job?”
I flinch, and her glare softens slightly around the edges.
“No. And don’t call yourself a cunt.”
She shifts in the chair, obviously uncomfortable. Her thick black lashes flutter as she stares out the frosted window, sighing heavily.
“Do you know why we broke up?”
“No.”
“Are you sure? Because if you do, I . . . I don’t think we can work together. I’ll have to excuse myself from the project.”
The pain in her voice has me on high alert, my protective instincts flaring. I hunch over the table and fix my gaze to her cheek, silently begging her to look at me again.
“What did he do to you?” I ask tightly, my jaw straining with the effort it’s taking not to let my anger show.
She shakes her head once, still avoiding looking at me. “He’s your son.”
“That doesn’t give him a free pass.”
“To most parents, it would.”
“I’ve never been most parents.”
And maybe that’s why my son turned out to be such an asshole. I let him get away with too much in an attempt to get him to choose me over his mother. Even after everything I gave, he still chose her. I raised a man who takes the world around him for granted because I was immature and reckless myself. The opposite of the kind of father I wanted to be.
Ivy turns her head, and our eyes catch. My head empties of everything but one simple word.
Mine .
The way it should have been all along.
She sniffles, and I zero in on the tear hanging from her lower lashes before it’s wiped away with the pad of her thumb. Her tongue slips along her bottom lip, wetting it. I clench my hands beneath the table to keep from reaching for her.
“He—Travis, he would text his friends things about me.”
“Like what?” I grit out.
Her cheeks turn so pink I can see it through her makeup.
“We don’t have to talk about this. If you don’t know, then we can still work together. I brought a folder of all of my ideas, and we can?—”
She reaches for the purse on the table, but I move quicker. Flinging my hand out, I wrap it around hers, the warm weight of her fingers soothing something inside of me. Her lips part on a silent gasp as she focuses on where we connect.
I slide my thumb over the ridges of her knuckles, entranced by her smooth-as-silk skin. I’d never have dreamed of touching her this way months ago, but now . . . fuck . I’m horny for a simple hand holding with a woman sixteen years younger than me. What kind of man does that make me?
Regardless of the answer, I don’t release her. I tighten my hold and lean as close to her as I can with the table between us.
“Tell me what he said so I can tell you he’s wrong.”
Her throat works with a swallow. “He wasn’t wrong about everything.”
“Explain it to me.”
“Are you sure? We only have an hour.”
I almost laugh, but I trap it beneath a few lowly spoken words. “We have as much time as we need.”
She still doesn’t believe me. I can see it in every twitch of her mouth and the tapping of her finger against my palm.
“Do you like beer?” I ask.
Blinking away her confusion, she shakes her head just once. “No.”
I only asked to be polite, but I’m glad I did. I’ve seen her drink it on occasion with Travis, but I hide my confusion behind a blank stare.
“What do you like?”
“Daiquiris.”
I give her hand a squeeze before releasing it. “I’ll be back.”
“Where are you going?” she asks quickly, her hand hanging suspended in the air for a moment before she brings it to her lap.
“To make you a drink, Ivy. You’re welcome to watch.”
“You know how to make a daiquiri?”
A laugh bangs at my chest but doesn’t escape. “I’m a bartender.”
“Right,” she whispers, chest flushing above the struggling top button of her blouse.
I leave her there before I give in to my impulses and tug at the fabric to encourage it to open. A flash of her cleavage would bring me to my knees faster than a kick to the balls.
Matty is filling a glass with whiskey when I slide behind the bar and get to work on Ivy’s drink.
“What are you making?” he asks once I’ve added ice to the blender.
“Don’t you have work to do?” I grunt.
“Nah, not right now.”
“Find some.”
He chuckles. “But this is far more entertaining.”
I crouch and open the small freezer beneath the bar to grab a bag of frozen strawberries. They go in with the ice.
“Make yourself useful, then, and get me the rum and syrup. The top-shelf shit.”
“You got it.”
When he sets them in front of me, I don’t bother with measuring before pouring in the right amounts of each of the liquids. I add lime juice and then turn the blender on.
Matty stares at me with an annoying smile as I scowl and wait for the blender to finish. He doesn’t look away the entire time, and the moment I flick off the blender and silence falls again, he’s filling it with his voice.
“I’ve never seen you make a special drink for someone before.”
“I’m a fuckin’ bartender.”
I search for a cup, wishing I had something better for her than a plain beer glass. Something more fitting for the woman in my office.
“Bartender, yeah. Romantic? I didn’t know you had it in you.”
“I’m not bein’ romantic. I made her a drink ’cause she doesn’t like beer,” I argue, even if he is right.
Matty watches me pour the frozen drink into the cup and then hands me a straw still wrapped in paper. I nod in thanks and wrap my hand around it.
“You don’t have to deny it, Niko. I’m happy for you. I’ve waited years to see you panting after a woman.”
I open my mouth to deny it, but the words don’t come out. Yeah, I’m more than aware that I’m panting over her.
It’s not the first time, and I’m certain it won’t be the last. I’ve just got to make her pant right back.