10. Delilah
Delilah
Now?
Now?!
“You’re kidding, right?” I said, more in disbelief than amused. “You, the CFO of the most powerful casino entity in Vegas right now, have nothing—”
“I have nothing that cannot be rearranged,” Adrian said.
Throughout the entire call, he’d sounded on his heels, sounded like a man surprised that a woman could ensnare him in tough questions—up until about the last five seconds.
“And in any case, even if I were to miss an important meeting for this interview, is that really your concern? Does it matter to you how I spend my time?”
I suppose that no, it did not. Adrian would not have been the first major politician or businessman to skip an important meeting to say a few words to me. Some truly had good reasons for it; others couldn’t help the ego stroke of thinking they were controlling the media message.
But this was the first time where I began to feel like I wasn’t in as much control as I would have liked to be.
Sure, as a journalist, there was always going to be a bit of an imbalance in that the subject had knowledge I did not, and I couldn’t always offer good press in return. But this was different.
This was extremely different.
“It does not,” I said.
That was another difference. For Adrian, clearing off whatever might be on his calendar was a personal decision, one that likely had, at most, a marginal impact on the business, if any.
For me, the opportunity to have an in-person interview with the King of Diamonds required dropping everything short of a life-or-death emergency.
And even then, I’d probably try to show up at his office with medics treating me.
“Then I will see you here whenever you arrive,” he said. “Do try to make it prompt. And don’t worry, I’ll make sure you’ll get here easily.”
“I—”
But the line went dead. My knuckles whitened on the office phone I had called Adrian from. I took in a breath.
I had control of the interview, but Adrian had that damn trump card of being the interviewee, not the interviewer. And on top of that…
He could see the internal turmoil I felt speaking to him, being around him. He might have been a man of power who used his title and position to sleep with other employees, but he wasn’t an idiot. In one respect, I agreed with him—luck was actually a minimal role in getting to where he was.
It was a weird thing to say for a guy who could be a domineering asshole, but he was actually a great listener.
He just used that skill for selfish, wicked intent.
What might be, I wondered, if he ever found someone worth using that skill of listening for more selfless, more altruistic reasons.
It was never really a question if I was going to Adrian’s office.
I could hem and haw about how bad an idea it was, how I’d need to be my utmost professional, how I needed to expect Adrian to try to seduce me, but at the end of the day, as a business journalist, you always went where the heat and pressure were the greatest. If you couldn’t handle it, that was fine, there were plenty of other careers for it.
I found myself just outside his office within thirty minutes. I braced myself for Adrian to give some glib remark about how I had taken so long, how if I really cared about the story, I would have camped outside Ruby and been there within ten minutes. But instead, I found something interesting.
Nothing.
As in, Adrian wasn’t there at the moment, so I had nothing to do but sit in some chairs outside his office.
His secretary was very nice, an older woman with graying hair, probably in her early fifties, but she spoke little and had clearly been well trained not to speak beyond general courtesies and delivering basic information.
I gave up asking questions about the first follow-up; I had to save myself for Adrian, and in any case, the secretary of a CFO was not a great source.
Especially an employed secretary.
I waited there for a good twenty minutes.
It was getting to the point where I wondered if Adrian was playing a mind game, making me wait outside his office as long as he’d waited for me to arrive.
Except I never heard him moving in the office; I didn’t see any movement of shadows that suggested there was someone inside.
I didn’t hear any phone calls or conversations inside, not even a keyboard typing away.
I wasn’t rude enough to stand up and look in myself, but I strongly suspected Adrian wasn’t even in his office. If he wasn’t there, then—
“Ah, Delilah Reyes.”
I turned and gulped. Gone was the professional outfit Adrian had worn at our last meeting, a gray suit with a white button-down. In fact, he didn’t even have a button-down on; the diamond cufflinks were probably in his office or his bedroom somewhere.
In their place were a black polo shirt and gray pants, showing off an extremely well-developed and honed physique. Veins ran down his biceps and made spiderwebs across his forearms, and though he had a shirt on, his pecs and broad shoulders were so much more clearly visible with what he had on.
Inappropriate thoughts of what those muscular arms and hands could do to me bounced around in my brain.
I tried to clear them away and remind me that Adrian could have shown up shirtless and I’d still be a professional…
but if my body was reacting like this to simply seeing his forearms and half his biceps, I shuddered to think how I’d behave if I saw more of his clothes off.
No, do your job, Delilah! You are better than this.
“I see that you don’t believe in casual Fridays,” he said with a chuckle. Too confident a chuckle. He’d already gotten what he wanted, seeing me in person.
“I always dress for my job, you never know where you’re going to have to look presentable,” I said.
I had on a red sports jacket, black pants, black shoes, and a white button-down.
I wasn’t lying. I always wanted to be the best-dressed person in the room so that no one could accuse me of trying to seduce anyone.
Funny how the motivations differ, but you and he share the same interest for desire.
“I see,” Adrian said. “I know I said come to my office. But we already did that. I want to do our next interview elsewhere. Come.”
It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t even a command. It was just an obvious statement, like saying gambling was legal in Las Vegas. There was no option to obey or defy, only acknowledge the reality of the next step.
“And where is elsewhere?”
“You will see,” Adrian said.
We got to some elevators after going down a couple of different hallways.
Adrian held his hand out, as if escorting me into the open elevator doors.
I stepped through and put my back against the far wall; I knew there was a decent chance I’d be touched, and I wanted to delay that moment as long as possible.
Still, I couldn’t help but notice I gradually moved forward as the elevator rose.
By the time the elevator stopped—which took several seconds, enough to make me think we’d gone to the top of Ruby—I was inches away from Adrian.
He looked back at me, smirked, and then stepped forward.
Immediately, the cool winter air of Vegas made me wish I’d brought a thicker jacket. So we were… outside?
“Welcome to my penthouse, Delilah,” he said.
“The four brothers get four directions. Cassius gets south, overlooking the majority of the Vegas Strip. I get east, towering over Las Vegas Boulevard. Dante gets north, facing the rougher parts of town. And Lucas gets west—a direction he specifically requested so that he could think. Curious, but ultimately it works for all of us.”
“Four penthouses,” I said, “four brothers. And you guys had no fighting over who got what?”
“There was some minor bickering, but we’re all happy with what we have.”
Was he? Knowing how Adrian had reacted to the questions about King of Diamonds, I had my suspicions that wasn’t quite true.
But I could barely think before Adrian put a hand on the small of my back and guided me to the railing. It wasn’t so low as to be inappropriate, but it definitely wasn’t the patronizing yet ultimately innocent touch many older men put on me.
“What do you think?” Adrian said, keeping his hand firmly on my back.
“I think it’s a nice view,” I said. And it was—arguably the best view of Vegas I’d ever had. Being on top of the Stratosphere was pretty good, but that had always been temporary. To live here…
Adrian turned to me and raised an eyebrow. I swallowed.
“I will remind you why I’m here, Adrian,” I said. “I asked you a question about the lines between your professional and personal behavior, and you insisted on doing this in person. Fair enough. I have met my end of the bargain. Now it is time for you to meet yours.”
“Of course,” Adrian said, way too comfortably.
He snapped his fingers, and from seemingly out of nowhere, some servants came by and put a table by the railing.
Two glasses of wine were also placed down and filled quickly with a red wine that I did not recognize.
“You will forgive my hospitality. It is, as you know, the industry that I work in.”
“There’s hospitality, and then there’s bribery,” I said.
Adrian laughed at that. It wasn’t intended as a joke, but I didn’t mind it being interpreted as one. If it put Adrian in a better mood, all the better.
For professional purposes, of course. A more cheerful Adrian made for a better interview. That was it.
“Now then, cheers,” he said, grabbing his glass and holding it out. I was happy to oblige.
“What are we giving cheers to?”
Adrian shrugged.
“To us, to a lovely evening together.”
Sure, I thought, not willing to say anything that could be twisted in a certain way.
Not willing to show that his words had a certain effect on me, a certain pleasure that I didn’t care to acknowledge to myself, let alone to him.
“Now then, my questions,” I said after I’d taken a gulp and centered myself.
“But of course, you are here on work,” Adrian said. “I would just remind you, Delilah, that you don’t always have to be on work. A good journalist does build relationships. And if you are professional twenty-four-seven, it’s difficult for relationships to build.”
Professional relationships, Adrian. Professional. And yet no amount of thinking or rationalization would deny the fact that his words affected me like no other’s had.
“You’ve been accused of blurring the line between professional behavior and personal desire,” I said. “What comment do you have?”
“A fair question, especially considering our meteoric rise,” Adrian said.
I realized then another reason he’d requested to do this in person.
It had served as an effective stall to give him time to think.
I’d have to think of different buttons to push.
“I would simply say that I never acted in a violent or cruel manner, and that if there was someone I was attracted to, that the feeling was always mutual. I am aggressive in getting what I want, but I am not rapacious.”
Well, that was good to know, at least. Strongly worded, ethical, all that good jazz. But also not particularly revealing.
Maybe it was the ridiculousness of being served wine in the penthouse of the CFO, maybe I was just tired from it being Friday night, maybe it was a combination of other factors I didn’t care to ponder too deeply, but I wasn’t willing to play this game for long. Clear the game out of the way.
Get to the truth.
“Is being aggressive in getting what you want include taking me, a reporter, to the top floor of your penthouse with some wine?”
Adrian smiled, raised an eyebrow, and sipped his wine, all the while never letting those hauntingly powerful brown eyes leave my gaze. I had good practice at this game of stare downs, but fuck, it was difficult to keep my composure. And worse, he was doing the same thing that I did so well.
Keep silent until the other person speaks.
“Are you going to answer my question, or are you going to just stare at me?”
“I will repeat to you what I said on the phone earlier today, Delilah,” Adrian said before taking another sip of his wine.
“You want to see the real me? You want to see the details of my life? You’ll only see them this way.
And you should be flattered—no other journalist has gotten this level of access. ”
“So this is the real you?” I said. “Charming women with wine? Flattering them with praise?”
“No,” Adrian growled. “‘Charming women’ implies that I see all women the same. That I don’t see you, Delilah Reyes, but instead just a beautiful woman.”
He stood up from his chair, leaned over the railing, and then turned back to me.
“I am no saint. I am even willing to admit I am not the best man there is. But I am the King of Diamonds. I know a queen when I see one. And you, Delilah Reyes?”
The whole time he spoke, he moved around the table, gradually coming closer and closer until he was standing over me. Had this been anyone else, I would have asked them to stop or simply stood up and backed off.
But just as Adrian said I wasn’t just a beautiful woman, he was not just a handsome man.
He was the King of Diamonds.
He extended his hand. Almost unconsciously, almost without a single thought, I took it. He lifted me up.
And then, his hand was on the small of my back. We were inches away from each other. Those fierce brown eyes had set on one thing and one thing only.
Me.
All other thoughts of my work… of my questions… of what this meant… they faded away. Thinking became a distant concept. Enraptured in the moment, I drew in a deep breath, unable to look away. Those eyes… God, those eyes…
He gently pushed me until my body pushed up against the railing. He had me pinned against the glass wall, the Las Vegas Strip behind and beneath us.
“You are my queen of diamonds, Delilah,” he said. “You want answers? I said I would show you. Now watch.”
He waited half a beat.
His eyes closed. He leaned forward.
And my eyes closed as I let happen what came next.