Eleven
SOMETHING IN HIM beckoned to her. The mystery of it pulled her deeper. Without a doubt, he was one of the most confident men she’d ever met. Befriending arrogance: always a mistake. It stifled her. Eventually, a competitive edge would raise its head and her needs would be marginalized.
Male ego could be fragile. Impugning it in any way wasn’t usually well received. None of the men from her past could handle it. Lomond, somehow, was different. She teased him and he didn’t back down. He didn’t wilt or retort in anger. He didn’t fight her, he played with her.
Staying near him, being alone with him, wouldn’t be a good idea. Except she didn’t have a choice. The contest put her in his path. Her girls would want an explanation if she forfeited. But making friends with an international jet-setting billionaire wouldn’t end well.
As though he came to the same conclusion in the same moment, he boosted himself away from the bar, freeing her from his cage.
“This is the last night you’ll have to yourself,” he said, standing in front of her, absorbing every nuance. “You’ll meet the documentary crew tomorrow.”
Roxie licked her finger clean. “We’re going to Boston?” she asked, low and quiet. They were alone, yet she spoke as though someone might eavesdrop. He nodded. “That’s a shame, I haven’t seen anything of Vegas yet.”
He slid onto the stool next to hers. “We’ll be back here.”
Twisting her seat to face him, she propped an elbow on the bar to support the fist she lodged under her jaw. “You know, I was thinking, owning a few clubs wouldn’t get you this kind of lifestyle.”
“The money again.”
“If I thought you’d talk about it, I’d ask about how your mom died and how you feel about her. I’d ask about your grandfather’s passing… or about your dad. If you knew him, if you ever looked him up, if he knows what you’ve made of your life—”
“I invest,” he said, confirming her assumption that he didn’t want to talk about his family.
“I own shares in a large number of successful companies. Crimson is the top tier as far as the clubs go. The jewel in the entertainment network crown. We also have interest in liquor companies, make our own whiskey, and have hundreds, thousands of bars and clubs under the Rouge umbrella. Of course, there’s the resort.
I own a minor record label and we finance movie production. ”
“Geez…”
“The movie production happened through Collier. I’m not hands on.”
Her simple question had a complex and impressive answer. “You couldn’t be hands on with that many balls in the air.”
“My property portfolio is vast. There’s the sports stadiums and concert venues, rent from those makes a mint… and we own a private airline network.”
“We?”
“Rouge,” he said. “It’s the parent company of all my ventures. And the diamonds, I for—”
“Stop,” she said. Her fist dropped from her jaw, so her palm came to rest over the back of his hand. “Forget I asked! You’re making me feel so unaccomplished.”
“Comes with a cost too… A personal cost.”
Yeah, she couldn’t begin to imagine the complications in his life. He’d called her complex. Compared to him, she was as simple and straightforward as people came.
Her fingers curled, their tips stroking his wrist until her nails met skin. Without breaking eye contact, she straightened her fingers to repeat the action, caressing the same few inches over and over.
As his eyes grew heavier, the light around them seemed to dim.
“Are you going to the club tonight?” she murmured.
“Do you want me to go to the club?”
“Your club, your call. Toria and Jane are excited, but you don’t have to put us on the list. If you’re going to be there, I would understand why you wouldn’t want us to crash. I wouldn’t—”
“You’re on the list. LA was an oversight on my part.”
“You took care of that,” she said. “I didn’t know that you… I didn’t see you on TV or know that you helped everyone out.”
“It’s not a big deal,” he said, reaching over the bar for the cocktail shaker. “Another?”
As he tipped the shaker, she put a hand over her glass, stalling him. “You don’t like praise,” she said, noticing how he’d tried to change the subject.
“Baby, I drink it up.”
“No, you don’t,” she said, relieved and intrigued to see the more human side of him. “Maybe you drink it up on TV or in your clubs when your fans are around, but here, one on one, you don’t like it.”
But that swagger wouldn’t yield. “I just don’t recognize it from you,” he said, smirking. “You’re not usually so pleasant.”
“Must be the alcohol,” Roxie said, giving him a break. If he wasn’t comfortable, she wouldn’t push. He’d shown a glimmer of his human side, it wouldn’t hurt to show hers too. “Can I ask you something?”
“Yes, I am God’s gift.”
She exhaled a quick laugh and pushed his arm. “Okay, but not that.”
“What do you want to know?”
When her hand left the glass, he topped it off, diverting his attention.
Studying him was easier while he was occupied.
The angle of his jaw, strength of his brow, his warm complexion.
People could see him as a thing because the view was so damn good.
Those people didn’t get close. She could smell his cologne, see individual strands of hair, watch him breathe. He was real and right in front of her.
“What do I tell my friends about you?” The question just came out. He paused, then slowly set down the cocktail shaker. “I didn’t tell them that we met. I should have. I don’t like being dishonest, but… they like you and I don’t want—”
“It’s about boundaries,” he said, sliding a flat hand along the bar until his fingers twined between hers, their palms on the cool marble.
“You set them early and stick to them. Your friends are a good place to start. If they truly are your friends, they won’t push you.
The docu crew will push you. Decide your boundaries and no matter what, under all circumstances, stick to them. ”
“You know a lot about this.”
“I’ve been doing it a long time.”
“Your whole life is this,” she said, glimpsing his perspective. “People, expectation. How do you know who to trust?”
“You get a nose for it,” he said. “For those who are insincere, and there are a lot of them. It takes a while and no one is right a hundred percent of the time.”
“It’s a horrible way to live, to be suspicious of people every minute.”
“I think of it more as protecting those who are important to me,” he said.
He didn’t have family to protect. Talk at Sunset came to mind.
Roxie moistened her lips. “You’re friends with Knox Collier.”
“Mm hmm.”
“Protecting him?”
“And others.”
There were people that he cared about. More evidence that there was a human behind the unshakeable suave facade.
“What do boundaries look like?” she asked.
“You decide the limit of what you’ll share or facilitate.”
“You don’t introduce anyone to your famous friends, that sort of thing.”
He snickered. “If I didn’t introduce people, half the world wouldn’t make a living.” Flashing his arrogance… again. Calling him on it with a head tilt got only a half-smile response. “I don’t introduce the people I care about to anyone I don’t care about.”
Closing one eye, she tried to figure that out. “So there’s a difference, professional and personal, is that what you mean?” He nodded once. “But Drew Harvey on the talk show said you were responsible for some famous marriages.”
“My network is complicated, and my rules vary depending on my relationship with a person,” he said.
“If I think people are suited, I’d speak to both of them individually before introducing them.
Likewise, if someone asked to be introduced to another person, I would check before facilitating that meeting.
I never give contact details without permission either. ”
She smiled and leaned a little closer. “Bet you don’t give them even with that. You’d have Slick do it.”
“Slick?”
Roxie shrugged. “The young guy who works with Astrid, wears too much gel in his hair.”
By the twist of his lips, it was clear her observation entertained him. “I get it,” he said, chuckling. “That’s Tibbs.”
She’d sort of guessed that, though it had never been confirmed. “You should leave the house every morning assuming someone will run their fingers through your hair.”
“That’s your rule?”
“Just smart. Think about it, if a woman’s close enough to run her fingers through your hair, you don’t want her mind to be on how soon she can wash her hands.”
“No,” he said. “I guess you don’t.”
The intriguing slant of his mouth drew her in. “Why do you do that? Look at me like I’m strange.”
“Not strange, unique,” he said. “You look at things in a way… Sometimes I think I’ve heard everything.”
“You must meet all kinds of people. From all over the place.”
“Mm hmm.”
The longer they sat there, assessing each other, the more Roxie wished she was in her Lola pajamas. The ease of the intimate mood suited a cozy night in rather than one on the Vegas Strip.
“I should go,” she said, but stayed put.
His brows rose. “Mm hmm.”
Neither of them moved. “The girls are waiting.”
“Yep,” he said, waiting another few seconds before sucking in a breath and letting go of her hand to straighten up. “I have a meeting in Henderson.”
“A meeting?” she asked as he got to his feet and leaned over the bar to retrieve something from the other side. “At this time of night?”
“In my line of work, more business is done in the dark than by daylight.”
He held his hand up and opened his fingers. A shimmer of light cascaded down from his fist, bouncing back on itself, swinging side to side.
Roxie steadied it to identify what it was. A large emerald cut diamond set on a pendant. “I don’t think you should call the woman you give this to a ‘meeting.’ Are you averse to the word ‘date’?”
“The guy I’m meeting is a third generation Vegas billionaire. Not a date,” he said, opening the chain to loop it over her head. “He can buy his own jewels.”