CHAPTER THREE
Before the Rescue
Byron
“I don’t understand why you won’t settle down and get married,” my mom said over dinner one night.
I was at my parents’ house in Virginia. I’d been raised in DC, but they’d moved to Middleburg, Virginia several years ago to have room to fulfill Dad’s goals for the security firm.
He’d converted a large estate and horse farm to suit his needs for living, a headquarters for the firm, and a training ground for new security agents.
It was an extensive property.
I continued to eat but glanced at Mom. “I’m just not ready yet.”
“Bullshit.” Dad’s expression was unreadable as usual, but his tone was not. “You’re in love with the Salazar girl, and she doesn’t want to settle down. Ever.”
He wasn’t wrong. I sighed and put down my fork.
“I mean… yeah. That’s it in a nutshell.” There was no reason to deny it.
Both of my parents had known for years that I had a thing for Carmen.
Dad was close enough friends with Carlos that the two of them talked about it.
I knew they’d both love a match between our families.
But it didn’t seem likely to happen.
Carmen was like no other woman I’d ever met. She knew what she wanted and went after it. Then she got it. Every. Single. Time. What did she not want? A husband. Kids. A house with a white picket fence and a couple of dogs running around.
When she’d seen the success of Nico’s nightclub Bailar, she’d started researching the club scene.
Then she’d gone to him with the proposition for Salazar Nights.
They’d become business partners, made her plan a reality, and had turned that club into the premier society hotspot to host events and parties in West Bay.
Together, she and Nico had planned out the group of clubs that comprised their exclusive gentleman’s club.
Now, club membership meant you had access to Saffron, a spa and gym; Sugar, a very upscale strip club with VIP rooms; Cayenne, West Bay’s infamous and popular sex club; and Cinnamon, a traditional gentleman’s club where men, and women, met to talk, discuss business deals, and unwind.
Well, Cinnamon was traditional downstairs.
Upstairs was an auction room where women, called Cinnamon Girls, were auctioned off to the highest bidder in a ‘sugar baby’ style auction.
It had become insanely popular with the very wealthiest men in West Bay. It was held once a month.
It was almost a status symbol now for an uber wealthy West Bay man to have a Cinnamon Girl as either a girlfriend or a mistress.
The girls? Like all of the women who worked in Salazar establishments, they were gorgeous, handpicked by Carmen, and stood to profit a great deal by signing an auction contract.
It was a mutually beneficial situation. The men got a gorgeous woman to fuck and have on their arm at events for a certain number of months, and the women got money, houses, cars, jewelry, and their student loans paid off.
It was how Reynolds had met and married Nadine.
Another hostess from Sugar named Daisy had met tech and gaming billionaire Jack through the auction.
They, too, had gotten married. Paolo had lusted after Jelly, who’d also been a hostess at Sugar, for months before winning her in the auction.
They would be getting married soon, too.
Carmen was starting to complain that she didn’t start the auction as a marriage market.
She didn’t want the women to see it as a chance to marry a rich guy.
But the bottom line was that I was in love with a woman who would rather run a sex club than get married and have kids.
And I was a traditional kind of guy in many ways.
I didn’t want to sleep around, and I’d been ready to settle down and get married for years now.
My parents knew. I was pretty sure almost everyone I was friends with knew.
My mom gave me a sympathetic look. “Baby, maybe it’s time to put away your feelings for Carmen as best you can and move on.”
“You make that sound easy.” We were sitting around a huge dining table in an exquisite, and huge, room.
There were just the three of us, and it felt ridiculous.
It also felt like I was in a British period drama.
I knew my mom was a huge fan of the Bridgerton book and television series, but I was starting to wonder if she was taking her feelings a bit far.
“It’s necessary, son. It’s not like you’re going to get Carmen Salazar to move to Virginia, anyway. And I need you here.”
I sighed. This was a bone of contention.
I was happy in West Bay. My best friends were there.
I’d grown up spending as much or more time at the Salazar’s home during school breaks than my own.
It just felt like… home. I was putting off talking to my dad about moving.
I was his only child, and he logically assumed I’d take over as director of the security firm soon.
“I’m still watching Reynolds and overseeing the agents at the Salazar properties.
” Those were big accounts. The Salazar account itself was huge.
And Reynolds was a billionaire mayor of one of the biggest cities in Georgia.
But even if you considered the two accounts together, they weren’t big enough to justify me staying in West Bay.
Dad and Mom knew it and so did I.
“Look, can we just talk about normal things at dinner for once?”
My dad looked like he wanted to say more, but Mom gave him a look.
“Of course. I saw Stephanie the other day. She’s divorced now, you know? You could ask her out while you’re home.”
Jesus. It was going to be a long weekend.