Chapter 15
The sting of her palm lingered for hours.
I went home and tossed and turned the whole night. I kept thinking about the first time West asked me to keep an eye on her. It was the first time he’d left town for an audition and he was more worried about Everleigh than the audition. Some guy at school had his sights set on her, just one in a long line of many.
‘Look out for her, Theo. Nobody is good enough for her. Even you…’
West’s words had echoed in my head ever since. And once my feelings for her grew, they were the reason I kept those feelings a secret.
Everleigh was a firecracker. Fucking with her was like playing with fire.
Did I know I was going to get burned so badly? Yeah, I guess I did. She was known to occasionally explode.
My sleepless night left me weak and exhausted the next morning. I sought refuge in my work, locking myself in the office with the books again, hoping to put a dent in my workload.
If I didn’t find a way to increase profits, I’d have to give in to Rian’s suggestion of allowing more members. I wanted to keep membership low. As far as I was concerned, we needed to keep our circle tight right now. But that didn’t mean we didn’t need more money. I’d been pouring over investor portfolios for weeks, but so far, nobody seemed to be the right fit.
The clock was ticking, though, and I needed to find a solution fast.
My intention was to drown myself so deeply in work that I wouldn’t have time to think about anything else, especially Everleigh.
But she wasn’t going to allow that.
I’d been in the office for merely an hour when she called.
I considered ignoring her for a moment. But I never could resist her. “Hey,” I answered, after a moment.
“I need to see you.” As usual, the sound of her voice took my breath away. And as usual, she made demands with no regard for what I was doing.
“Everleigh, I told you — this isn’t a good idea.”
“Oh, shut the hell up. I’m not talking about what happened yesterday. That’s water under the bridge.”
What a way to put it. For fuck’s sake. I couldn’t let her know that her comment gutted me, though. “Then what do you need? West is still out of town.”
“I know that.”
I paused, waiting for her to explain herself.
“Meet me at Float.”
“The coffee shop?”
“Yes, we need to talk.”
“Everleigh, we are talking.” The last thing I wanted was to sit across a table from her and have to look at her. Just hearing her voice was bad enough.
“I need to see you in person. Be there in an hour.”
She hung up, certain that I would obey. Not like I had an important job to do or anything, for fuck’s sake. The woman was impossible. She thought the entire world revolved around her. She thought I’d just drop everything, that she was more important than anything else that may be going on in my life.
As I made my way out to my car, I cringed because she was right.