Chapter Three #2
next was, “Okay, decent.” And I turned to her and saw she’d thrown on a robe.
I also saw she was staring at the door with big eyes and
lips parted.
I looked again to the door and then I had big eyes and
parted lips.
Oh hell.
Marcus Sloan dipped his chin to Chardonnay and looked to me.
“Daisy, may I have a word?” he asked.
No, he could not.
“I’ll just—” Chardonnay started.
“You can stay here,” Marcus told her. “Daisy and I’ll go to
Smithie’s office.”
No, we would not.
“I don’t think—” I began.
I got no more out because his eyes came to me.
He’d never looked at me without sunglasses on.
He had blue eyes.
They were gorgeous.
They were also more.
Those eyes had seen many things. Not a lot of them good. And
quite a number of those not-good things were very bad.
I got that. Boy did I get that.
But there was even more.
Another person might find his eyes frightening, that seen it
all and didn’t give a shit about any of it look that wasn’t cold and
impersonal, just cynical and sly.
I did not find it frightening.
I found it captivating.
He took a step into the room but lifted his arm to the side
to indicate the door and said in an invitation that wasn’t exactly that, it was
more a command, “Daisy.”
There was something about the mix of his gentlemanly manner
and his commanding tone (and, let’s face it, presence) that made me lift my ass
off the chair I was sitting on and move his way.
He was not an obstacle to getting out the door so he didn’t
move.
However, he did move after I cleared it because he
followed me.
Then he put his hand light on the small of my back.
No pressure. Just a touch.
Even at “just a touch,” I felt my shoulders get tight. But I
didn’t want to expose my reaction, give him something to read about me, make
him think I was afraid or protecting myself, especially after what he knew
happened to me and the fool I’d made of myself at Wash Park.
And as we walked down the hall, into the club, and toward
the stairs that led up to Smithie’s office, my tension at being touched became
something else as the feel of the touch penetrated.
He wasn’t pushing me. He wasn’t guiding me.
He was a gentleman walking a lady through a strip club the
way a gentleman should, regardless it was a strip club in which she was a
stripper.
I started feeling funny again.
His touch left me as we climbed the stairs and I was
embarrassingly aware that I was still slightly stiff from what had happened to
me, not to mention my ass might be in line with his eyes.
I motored right through that and stopped at the top landing
outside the door, looking down as he climbed the last two steps.
He put his hand right to the handle and murmured, “Smithie
isn’t here.”
He pushed the door open but didn’t move.
He waited there and did it with his eyes on me.
It was then I realized he wanted me to go in before him.
He’d opened the door.
For me.
I started feeling funnier and quickly walked into the
office.
I didn’t go far, stopping in the middle and turning to him.
He didn’t go far either, but oddly, he stepped away from the
door and moved across the space.
In other words, he wasn’t barring me in. If I wanted to
leave, I had a straight shot. He wasn’t in my way.
Oh my.
“We have plans.”
I focused on him and not my thoughts.
“Pardon?”
“Lunch. Today. You. And me. We have plans.” The words were
short. Impatient. But even so, not unkind.
I didn’t know how he pulled that off but I didn’t put too
much thought into it.
I had to get this done. He was my boss (kind of). He was
also an important man. I didn’t know that outside of the fact I knew
that and I couldn’t forget it for a second.
So if he wanted “a word,” I had to give it to him.
And then get away.
“No we don’t.”
“Our last meeting didn’t go as I’d hoped but I had thought
I’d made my intentions clear,” he replied.
I didn’t know how to respond to that because he had, I just
didn’t get it nor did I want it.
All of a sudden, a change came over him, and even though it
softened his features, warmed the cynicism clean out of his eyes, I still felt
the tension in my shoulders increase.
“Are you okay?” he asked quietly.
“Uh, yeah,” I answered normally.
For some reason he looked to the floor, beyond me, then
again to me.
“You’re here.” Now his voice wasn’t quiet, it was soft with
inquiry and concern.
Here.
Where, out back, I’d been raped just over a week ago.
God, I needed to get away from this man.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I’m here.”
“Should you be?”
“Chardonnay had a wardrobe question,” I explained.
And again his expression changed. This time it didn’t hide
he thought I had a screw loose.
“I’m sorry?”
“Chardonnay. She had a wardrobe question,” I repeated. “And
her roommates are bitches. Totally judgey about the
stripper thing so she couldn’t model at her place because she has to show me
her moves in her new getup and they’re there. She couldn’t come to mine. So
we’re here.”
“Why couldn’t she come to yours?”
I couldn’t tell him that. I couldn’t tell him it was because
the place was filled with daisies and I didn’t want to answer the questions
that might bring. I didn’t want to tell Chardonnay or anyone not only where
those daisies were coming from but that, in my worst moments, their bright,
happy beauty was the only thing that was seeing me through.
So I didn’t say anything.
“Does she know what happened to you?” he asked gently.
I nodded.
His mouth grew hard, and probably because of that, his words
were terse. “She should be more sensitive.”
“I’m okay, Mr.—”
“Marcus,” he clipped.
“Right. Marcus. Sorry,” I muttered.
“Smithie isn’t here,” he informed me.
He’d already shared this intel so I didn’t know why he was
repeating this to me.
“Okay,” I replied.
“This means you’re not here for any reason unless Smithie or
Lenny are here, and if you need to be here and neither of them is available to
be with you at all times, you call me. I’ll put a man on you.”
At all times?
He’d put a man on me?
I stared at him.
He reached into the pocket inside his suit jacket, took out
a silver card case, flipped it open, and extracted a card. He flipped it shut,
returned it, and walked to me, stopping not close (thankfully).
He held the card up between us, offering it to me with two
fingers extended.
Lord, this man was fine. Even offering a business card!
“I don’t…I don’t…” I swallowed, ignoring the card, “need a
man on me.”
His eyes turned hard too, and at their glinting fury, I
finally started to be scared of him.
I fought taking a step back.
“They haven’t found him,” he whispered.
“I know that,” I whispered back.
And that made me shiver.
I wasn’t thinking about that. The fact the guy who violated
me got away.
Smithie said he was taking care of it. Detective Jimmy
Marker, who talked to me at the hospital when the staff called the cops after
the ambulance took me there, said he’d do everything in his power to find him.
I was thinking only about that.
“You need to be safe. So you’re going to be safe,” he
decreed, lifting the card up higher between us.
“You need to stop sendin’ me
flowers,” I didn’t exactly decree because my voice was kind of shaky, but I
hoped he’d get my message.
“I will, if you go to lunch with me tomorrow.”
“You need to stop asking me to lunch.”
“Fine. Then go with me to dinner tomorrow.”
“Mr. Sloan—”
He leaned into me, his face close, I could smell his
expensive cologne, and I snapped my mouth shut.
“Marcus,” he whispered.
“Okay,” I breathed.
“Dinner tomorrow.”
“No.”
He ignored me.
“I’ll pick you up at seven. You won’t be on show. But you
will be safe from anything you perceive might make you unsafe, including me. I
simply want your company at dinner. That’s all, Daisy.”
“Please, stop doing this.”
His brows went up. “Why?”
“You have to ask?”
“Daisy,” he said gently, reaching to me, grabbing my hand
and pressing the card in my palm. Closing my fingers around it, he continued to
hold me lightly and I didn’t pull away because I didn’t want to share what that
would expose either. “You were harmed. You were hurt. But what happened to you
didn’t make you stop being who you are or make it so you shouldn’t live your
life and enjoy doing it.”
“I’m not talking about that.”
“All right, so explain to me what you’re talking about.”
“I don’t feel like it.”
He nodded once. “Fine, so explain it to me over dinner
tomorrow night.”
“Marcus—”
“I’m not going to give up.”
This was beginning to make me mad so I shared crankily,
“Well, that doesn’t make me feel real peachy.”
His fine lips twitched and he asked, “Do you not find me
attractive?”
Was he crazy?
“Of course I find you attractive. You’re all—”
I cut myself off then because I wasn’t paying attention to
what I was saying, mostly the fact I shouldn’t be saying it.
Those fine lips of his curled up.
Oh Lord.
“I’m all what?” he pushed.
“Can you let me go?” I snapped.
To my shock, he let me go, and not only that, he took a step
back.
You will be safe from anything you perceive might make
you unsafe, including me.
I started breathing funny.
“Would you like me to explain why I don’t wish to give up?”
he asked.
Hell no.
“No,” I answered.
He let that slide and told me, “I want to be clear. I don’t
want to come on strong.”
“Well, you’re failin’,” I shared.
At that, he smiled.
I felt my throat close.
With that smile, the cynicism and sly went right out of his
eyes.
They were twinkling at me.
Twinkling at me.
“You mistake me,” he said softly. “I don’t want to come on
strong. I don’t want to take this at a pace you aren’t comfortable with. Not
with what happened to you, but you should understand, I wouldn’t do that even
if that hadn’t happened to you. So you’ll set the pace. Just as long as there is
a pace.”
“And if I don’t want there to be a pace?”
I asked.
“Then I’d like the courtesy of you sharing why you
wouldn’t.”
“And I’d like the courtesy of you not makin’