Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
Hart
Sadie
Stop … you’re going to make me think I’ve found my future husband.
If I wasn’t with Eden and Beck, having drinks at the bar at Charred, I’d ask Sadie where she was so I could show up to the restaurant and make her come in the ladies’ room, returning her to her dinner with Bryn like I hadn’t just put my mouth all over her pussy.
But when I made plans with my siblings, I didn’t cancel them.
Still, I couldn’t fucking help myself; I needed her to know how much I ached for her.
Me
I want you.
I set the phone on the bar and looked at Eden, who was mid-conversation with us, discussing Walker’s reaction when we’d pitched him the Horned buyout.
“He’s stressed,” she said, dipping the straw into her vodka soda. “I called him a few hours after our meeting to check on him, and you know what he was doing?”
“I’m afraid to ask,” I replied.
“He was in the kitchen—at his house, not at the restaurant, which is something he never does in the morning, banging around, pans crashing, the fire alarm going off. I could barely hear anything he was saying.”
“Jesus,” Beck groaned. “He was really going through it.”
“He was two drinks deep, and it wasn’t even ten,” she added. “He didn’t end up going into Charred that night.”
“That’s not like him at all,” I said.
Sadie
You know you make me wet every time you say that to me.
Me
How wet?
Sadie
As if you were rubbing my clit—that wet.
Me
You’re fucking killing me, Sadie.
“Are you telling us this so we drop the idea of the buyout?” I asked her.
“No.” Eden’s hand paused on top of the straw. “I’m saying this because I think we need to let Toro open first. I think we need to let all those kinks get worked out, and then, once Walker can take a breath, we can slowly transition into the buyout of Horned. But doing Toro and Horned at the same time is going to send Walker over an edge that he might not return from.”
I looked at Beck. “That’s doable, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “I’ll reach out to our attorney, Troy Wolf, at The Dalton Group and have him draft up a contract. At least then, when we go to the chef of Horned, we’ll have the paperwork ready. She’s not in a rush to sell—I know that—and once the Gordons find out we’ve made an offer, I’m sure there’s going to be some negotiating and dancing back and forth.” He took a sip of his bourbon. “They’re going to show how big their dick is, and we’re going to show that ours is larger. We’ll win in the end.”
Sadie
Yeah? How badly?
Me
There was one thing I didn’t do to you when you gave me your body. I want that.
I want that right fucking now.
Eden sighed. “A love triangle. My least favorite trope.”
“There’s not going to be any love, Eden. It’s probably going to get ugly, and it’s going to get expensive.” Beck raised his glass. “We can afford it.”
“I fucking despise the Gordons,” I ranted. “Horned will be ours—there’s no question about that.”
Sadie
My ass?
Me
Yes.
Sadie
I’ve never done that before.
Me
I assumed … which means I’ll have to be extremely gentle with you.
“Are we really going to scale Horned to the size of Charred? Like we want to do with Toro?” Eden asked. “So, we’re going to have three major restaurant labels and clubs?”
I attempted a chuckle even though my fucking dick was hard and I found nothing funny at the moment. “When you put it that way, for some reason, it does sound like a lot. More so than when we pitched it to Walker that morning.”
“We’re going to need more staff,” she replied.
“We already do,” Beck countered.
“And we’re going to need a lot more buildings,” she continued.
“Jenner Dalton, the Spades’ attorney, can help with the commercial spaces,” Beck offered. “He’s brilliant at finding the lots where they build their hotels and an expert at zoning and working with city officials. Considering how large Toro and Horned are going to get, we should probably set up a meeting with him and discuss the areas we’re considering.”
Sadie
What if I hate it?
Me
What if I make you fall in love with it? To the point where you’ll be begging for anal.
Sadie
I love your arrogance.
Me
Tell me more.
Sadie
I just can’t believe you’re that confident. That you KNOW I’ll fall in love with it.
“And you’re going to do all of that after Toro opens,” Eden confirmed. “Remember, we need to get through the family and friends’ night and then the soft opening and then the first month before Walker can relax.”
Beck smiled, swiveling in his chair. “You really drive a hard bargain.”
“I’m always looking out for my brothers. It’s what I do. And when I know one of you needs something, I make it happen. This is what Walker needs, and I know you want everything yesterday, but a few more months isn’t going to kill you.” She looked at me. “Or you.”
Me
I think I’ve proven how confident I am.
I leaned back in my barstool and took a scan across the main lounge, noticing how full the dining room was tonight. The bar wasn’t nearly as packed, giving us some space from our guests—breathing room that I knew Beck appreciated. More often than not, he was approached in public for pictures and autographs, and when he came to our restaurant, he tried to keep it about family. But unless he wore a hat, which he didn’t have on tonight, he was easily recognized.
As my stare dragged back toward the bar, something near the center of the room caught my attention. Something that made me smile so fucking hard and rub my hand over my pant leg as the sweat instantly set in.
Not something.
Someone.
A gorgeous, black-haired woman with a grin that made me throb. Her face was lit up as she held her phone in front of her—I assumed she was typing a reply to my text.
Out of all places, baby, you came to mine.
Sadie
If that’s what you want, then that’s what you’ll have. I trust you. With every part of my body.
One of our waiters stopped at her table and delivered a plate, setting it between the two women. Sadie held her phone above it, appearing to take several photos before she placed her cell on the table. She then filled her grip with a knife and began cutting what looked like the fresh burrata.
I called over the nearest server and said to him, “Table twenty-one. There are two women sitting there. I want you to find out what they’re drinking, and I want you to send them a round. On me.”
“Got it,” the server replied.
As I looked back at my sister, she was also holding her phone in front of her face, her expression not one I liked.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
“Fuck,” she replied.
“Fuck?” I questioned.
She slowly turned the phone toward me.
There was a Celebrity Alert on her screen—some bullshit gossip site that was, sadly and unfortunately, accurate a lot of the time. They sent out notifications when they were tipped off about celebrity news.
In this instance, the words I was reading and the pictures I was viewing were some that hit personally.
“Fuck,” I mirrored her statement and glanced at Beck.
Once Beck finished reading the alert, he scanned the bar, looking at the faces that surrounded us before his gaze returned to mine. “If they notice me in here, they’re going to start asking questions about the Celebrity Alert—the one I’m sure they’re reading like every other goddamn person in this world—and I’ll get swarmed. I’ve got to get out of here before that happens.”
I patted his shoulder, trying not to show how fucking pissed off I was at the tip that had been aired. “That’s probably a good idea.”