Chapter 14 Delilah
Delilah
This was something I had no idea how to handle.
Which meant that it was almost certainly the biggest trap yet.
Except that I wasn’t even sure if that was the case.
When other rich men tried to seduce me, even when they went as far as Adrian and tried to act “normal,” they never cared about Delilah Reyes, the person.
They just saw me as a mouthpiece, a way to affect their reputation or destroy others.
Sure, they would feign nice, touch me, even offer me extravagant private flights or stays at luxurious hotels elsewhere, but none ever cared to probe deep into my motivations.
Adrian’s question had put me on edge, and I didn’t like it.
Well…
That wasn’t quite true.
I did like the game that we were playing.
My body clearly did have strong feelings about the game, especially in that Adrian seemed genuine about wanting to know me.
But still; this was Adrian Value, King of Diamonds, a Vale billionaire.
Such men did not so easily just hand over their interest in power for women.
Shit, even Sarah and Cassius had gone through a lot.
“I…” I began.
This might yet be his most sophisticated motivation yet. Did that mean this was the ultimate trap—or the honey needed to attract me to something sweeter?
We were alone.
Which was a real problem for parsing out the truth.
“I can’t answer that here,” I said. “But tomorrow. Coffee at a nearby shop. Your choice. Eight a.m.”
“You drive a hard bargain, Delilah,” Adrian said with a chuckle.
Too comfortable a chuckle. He knew he’d pushed me on my heels and was relishing it.
“But I’m happy to make that deal. So long as we do it off Strip. I can’t have anyone eavesdropping who shouldn’t.”
“Henderson?”
“Out near Nellis,” he countered. “I know it’s far. But I have to be away from anything associated with the Morrils.”
“Deal.”
Adrian stood back up. Only then did I realize I had never sat down, never let myself sink into the conversation. Even despite that, Adrian still seemed the most comfortable person.
“Bean Exchange,” Adrian said. “Nine a.m. tomorrow. Shake on it?”
“Shake on it,” I said.
Adrian extended his hand, and I mine. The hair on my arm stood up. It was such a simple gesture, especially compared to how he’d almost kissed me before. And yet…
The hands stayed together for a beat longer than they should have. I did not let go; I did not want to let go. Adrian didn’t either. What… what was about to happen?
My head was spinning. To do anything in this conference room… my God. Risking my job to let him take my body? That was incredibly stupid and incredibly arousing. All we had to do was prop me up on the table, push me against the glass wall…
I swallowed and withdrew my hand.
The longer I spent around Adrian, the more likely something was to happen.
It was like standing next to an active volcano; visit one day for fifteen minutes, and with proper preparation, nothing would happen.
Visit every day for two hours, regardless of the conditions, and not even perfect preparation could save you when everything erupted.
“I will see you tomorrow, then,” Adrian said. He got to the doorway before he paused. “And Delilah?”
He waited until he had locked his eyes on me, until he made sure I would not look away.
“No bullshit, either side. Only real.”
He smirked, then let his smile slip into something very real for just a split second, and finally left.
Was I going to meet him tomorrow as a journalist?
Or as something else?
I didn’t even know. I wasn’t even sure I could know between now and then.
Unsurprisingly, I did not sleep a wink that night.
I think I eventually passed out somewhere around three a.m., but I wouldn’t exactly call it restful. I dreamed about me and Adrian at that coffee shop, and in that dream… well, the plain and simple was he had me naked in the bathroom of that coffee shop, and things happened from there.
I refused to think about it in detail, in part because even if I decided to throw all my ethics out the window and fuck Adrian, I would not do it in a public bathroom.
In part, also, because even with that thought, Adrian just seemed to have some sort of effect on me that made all my prior promises to myself go out the window.
At least the public setting of the coffee shop would force a certain sense of decorum.
Adrian might still turn up the heat, and I might still find myself playing a game that I shouldn’t have, but there was a ceiling on how hot it could get.
And if Adrian persuaded me to go elsewhere?
I had time transporting myself to back out if necessary.
These were all likely lies I reassured myself with as I showed up at Bean Exchange, a coffee shop I had never been to, about ten minutes before nine.
I hadn’t intended to get here early, but with Vegas traffic becoming more of a problem with each passing year and having never been here before, I gave myself ample opportunity.
Plus, if it allowed me to settle in, all the better.
The first thing I noticed when I parked was a motorcycle right near the entrance. Slowly, memories of a warehouse out here that belonged to the crime lord King came back to mind; that syndicate had been eradicated, but individuals would still remain.
Then a man with shoulder-length brown hair, tattoos all over his body, and a “Black Reapers” club jacket walked out.
He gave me a short nod, one that indicated he was not there to cause trouble but had no interest in engaging further, and hopped on his bike.
I tried to steal a glimpse of his jacket; I thought I saw the name “Connor” but I couldn’t say for sure. Wonder what’s going on there?
I knew that there were other chapters in New Mexico and California that occasionally came by to visit and vice versa.
I hadn’t gotten the sense that any further street crime or petty warfare was nearby, but I suppose one never really knew.
Still, the man looked relaxed enough for a biker, and I thought nothing more of it as I walked inside.
“I see you are also a woman of prompt arrival.”
I jumped very visibly at the sound of Adrian’s voice. He was seated at a small round table, tucked just behind the entrance, such that he would have easily seen me, but I only could have seen him if I awkwardly turned as I entered. That fucker had picked that seat on purpose.
He’s still a journalist subject. Not “that fucker.”
Such thoughts, though, were rapidly fading as I began to accept that this was no ordinary journalist-subject relationship.
“It’s my job to show up beforehand,” I said. I opened my mouth to explain further but caught myself. “Let me order, will you?”
“By all means.”
Adrian leaned back. I took in his dress quickly; a white button-down with gray pants. A bit more refined than yesterday evening, but not as ostentatious as his usual King of Diamonds persona. Maybe he felt he’d delivered the message about his body with yesterday’s shorter sleeves.
Or maybe he’d just picked out whatever seemed right and quick.
I hurried to order a blonde espresso, and I stood by the counter the entire time that I had the drink ready. I thought about what I wanted to ask him; somehow, in all the craziness of the last thirteen hours or so, I hadn’t even considered what question I might ask him.
Then it hit me.
There was an incredibly obvious question, one raised from conversations from other sources, that I had not posed to Adrian yet. It might piss him off, but that was part of my job, was it not? And hadn’t I requested to be in public to ask questions?
The espresso came out, and I took a sip as I sat across from Adrian. He quietly watched—I swore he blinked maybe once—as I laid out my recorder, notebook, and pen.
“I—”
“Are you all set?” Adrian interrupted. When I nodded, he smirked. “Then you can answer my question from last night first.”
First?
“Why do you keep giving me chances?”
Oh, right.
That.
“And remember,” he said, “no bullshit. Don’t give me some glib answer about how it’s your journalistic duty. That may be true if we only spoke once every two or three weeks. But we both know that such an answer, at best, is partial bullshit.”
Right again. I swallowed, drew in a breath, and turned off my recorder.
“I cannot pretend I am not attracted to you, Adrian,” I began.
“I am sure that has something to do with that. But to be frank, you are not the first attractive man of power I have interviewed. Yet something about you keeps drawing me in, so much so that, well, I almost kissed you at your penthouse.”
“What do you think that something is?”
I didn’t like this. So much for the public setting giving us some leeway. It might have physically, but Adrian apparently couldn’t care less about verbally.
And why should he? A billionaire sleeping with a journalist was just a charming man. A journalist sleeping with a billionaire was a mercenary without ethics.
“I think you’re intellectually clever and push me in ways others don’t,” I said.
“You apply pressure and heat in an intelligent way. Most people put pressure on in such an obvious way, it’s remarkable that they haven’t been exposed publicly.
I’m not stupid. I know that everyone applies pressure. But you do it in a fascinating way.”
“And do you want to keep coming back to me?”
I sighed. No bullshit, right?
“Yes.”
Adrian drummed the table with his fingers, nodded, and then shrugged.
“Alright, you answered my question. Now, what do you have for me?”
What, I was supposed to flip the switch just like that? Just like that, I was supposed to pretend that all was answered, and that we could go back to professional mode?
If only it were that fucking easy.
I turned the recorder on, but my fingers were shaking. I’d just admitted to Adrian I wanted to come back for more. He had taken it with barely a shrug. What did that mean for both of us?
And what if I was asking the wrong questions?
Once again, why was I placing my professional well-being above my personal one?
I knew the rational answer—old habits died hard.
A smoker could try to quit and know smoking was terrible for them, yet the habit of a pack a day didn’t die just because of mere realization.
“Now then,” I said, taking a sip of my espresso, trying to ground myself.
“In an attempt to make this a bit more back on what I actually wanted to talk to you about. To be a bit more professional. A few years ago, before you became the powerhouse family on the Strip, you bought a family casino on the outskirts of Vegas. Rumors say you waged a dirty game to drive the business into bankruptcy when you bought it on the cheap. How do you respond?”
Adrian scowled. My heart rate, already high, rocketed up even further.
He looked down at my recorder, looked back at me, and grunted.
I was terrified about what was about to happen—and worst of all, I was terrified about what it meant for us.