Chapter 10
Des closed his fingers around the vodka tonic in front of him, and sipped it while the waitress laid a scotch at the empty place setting across from him.
She was a little slip of a girl with a thin nose and close-cropped red hair, barely old enough to serve alcohol.
He raised his drink to her in thanks before she flushed and scurried away.
The restaurant was oddly empty that afternoon.
Despite it being the awkward period between lunch and dinner, Les Retrouvailles was usually close to full.
As one of the highest rated and priciest French restaurants in the LA area, it was situated in Beverly Grove, far enough out that people near the beach didn’t mind the traffic, and close enough to downtown LA to pull in the big shots.
The vibe was a little much for Des’s taste, but his business partner enjoyed it to the point it bordered on obsession.
Gabriel Sanz was a well-dressed and perpetually single Puerto Rican man in his mid-forties.
He spotted Des almost as soon as he stepped into Les Retrouvailles, a crooked grin on Gabriel’s face.
He lifted a hand in a wave, but stopped to let the maitre’d take his sports jacket before weaving through the tables to Des.
As he lowered into the chair across from Des, he raked a hand through his thick, black hair, graying a bit at the temples.
“Ah, you ordered my scotch.”
“I hate it when you make me drive all the way out here,” Des sighed. “We have a perfectly good office to talk business in.”
Gabriel waved off his complaint, taking a sip from his scotch. “I was hungry. Besides, there’s no point sitting around the office waiting for the phone to ring. Anybody worth talking to has my cell number. Are there apps on the way?”
“The porcini tartlets and the cheese thing you like.”
“Oh, fromage fort,” Gabriel exclaimed, clasping a hand over his heart. Des rolled his eyes. “My arteries are clogging already, but it hurts so good.”
“You have a problem.”
Gabriel paused in the middle of spreading his napkin over his lap to meet Des’s gaze. “And you will, too, if you don’t pick up the pace with the Paragon Plaza project.”
Des’s mouth tightened. He’d known Adrien would follow up. He knew their business and did his job well enough to sense when their client was reaching the end of their rope. “Did they call again?”
Gabriel nodded and pushed his scotch out of the way so their returning waitress could lower a plate of mushroom tarts in front of him. He winked at her as she finished up and disappeared again. “It wasn’t the assistant this time but Adrien himself.”
Oh, shit.
Des and Gabriel had been running Calogistics, their settlement facilitation company, for over seven years.
After Des had dropped out of med school during his intern year, he’d fallen in with Gabriel, the uncle of one of his classmates.
A contract lawyer, Gabriel had made a name for himself in the California business sector long before Des came into the picture, but he’d been looking to expand his horizons.
He’d seen in Des the potential for something different, and different had been exactly what Des needed.
So he’d signed on, and in the years they’d been working together, Des had come to know that the only time their affluent clientele wanted to chat was when there were papers to sign… or when they were angry.
Frowning, he took a tartlet and eyed it skeptically. “You gave me a month. I know this one’s taking longer than expected—”
“Because you’re dragging your feet, Des.” In the time it had taken Des to pick up one tartlet, Gabriel had devoured three, plus one of the cheesy bread things that had materialized on their table. “I don’t know what your problem is, but you need to get over it, post-haste.”
“Nobody says post-haste anymore,” Des grumbled.
“Tout suite, then. You know this is a big one for us. We can’t lose it.”
Des hesitated, setting his tartlet down. He didn’t know how to make it any clearer to Gabriel that he took this project seriously, that he wanted it to succeed. “It’s a big one for me, too.”
This deal was the one he’d been working toward for so many years.
He wasn’t hurting for money, and never had been, but he’d come out of that disaster with Madilyn with something to prove.
His family had been so disappointed when he’d dropped out of med school.
As far as they were concerned, there was nothing as worthwhile as medicine, and certainly nothing that would set him up with a financial future like surgery.
The Blakes worked for what they had, even when they had enough that they didn’t need to.
The Paragon Plaza project was the first one Calogistics had signed that, upon completion, would give Des a bonus bigger than his dad’s substantial annual salary.
When the deal closed, he’d have proven he could be just as successful as a Chief of Surgery without all the baggage and long hours.
Gabriel sighed, setting down a half-eaten fromage fort. “I know. But that month is down to three weeks. So what’s the hold up? What can I do to help?”
For a moment, Des considered telling him about Cami. About how there was a beautiful blonde who worked at one of the stores they were helping shut down. About how he liked her, but she thought he made sex toys for a living.
He didn’t.
“Lenny Seaver doesn’t want to sell, is all.” He shook his head, waving his hand as though dismissing the problem. “We might need to increase the offer, but I’m still coming up with a plan of attack.”
“Two stores haven’t signed yet. Who’s the other holdout?”
“That would be Rodger.” Now that the conversation had turned away from Sex on the Beach, the tension eased from Des’s shoulders.
It was an uncomfortable situation, one that he was still figuring out how to deal with, but he couldn’t disappoint Gabriel on this.
He couldn’t botch this like he’d botched his medical career.
“The guy with the family-run convenience store?”
“Right.” Rodger ran the store closest to the road. He was the last hold-out besides Lenny, and Des was seeing him later this week. “He’s been stalling because one of his sons wasn’t on board, but I’ve got an appointment with Rodger on Monday morning. He’ll sign.”
Gabriel grinned. “That’s what I like to hear.” He pushed the plate of cheesy bread toward him and Des reluctantly took one. “Then you just have to get Seaver on board. How long do you think that’ll take?”
Des forced a casual shrug, attempting to look more concerned about the fromage fort than about Lenny selling her store. “Not much longer. A couple weeks.”
“Des—”
“I know. Adrien wants this finished.” Truth be told, so did Des. This situation was making his vodka taste more bitter than usual. “But if I push too hard, she’ll shut me down. She wants to sell. I can feel it. I can’t figure out what’s holding her back.”
“So you’ll find out what it is,” Gabriel nodded, “and fix it. Or I’ll have to fix it for you. We don’t want to lose this client.”
“You gave me 30 days. You have to give me at least another week before you start breathing down my neck, okay?” He was making progress but he had to use a gentle touch if they wanted to get anywhere.
“Alright.” Gabriel sat back in his chair. “Keep me posted, and keep your eyes on the prize.”
It was a humid afternoon, and the strides of Holmes, Lenny’s Great Dane, were much longer than Cami’s.
So when she returned to Sex on the Beach at the end of her lunch break, she panted, swiping sweat from her hairline with the back of her hand.
The dog pushed his way past her into the store, and, opting not to get dragged behind him any longer, she let go of his leash.
Holmes trotted over to the sales counter and flopped behind it, happy to avail himself of the store’s air conditioning.
She, on the other hand, leaned against a free spot on the wall, tilting her head back and trying to reinflate her lungs.
“You survived!” From the stockroom, arms laden with boxes, waddled Tristan. He squeezed behind the counter to set the boxes down and tripped over Holmes, who only offered an irritated whuff in acknowledgement.
“You okay?” Cami asked, not moving from her spot.
“Fine, yeah. Thanks for the warning.” Tristan popped upright and gave her a pointed glare and a fist shake.
He was a bulky guy in his early twenties, the surfer type, with sun-streaked blond hair and matching scruff on his jaw. He refused to grow a full beard, no matter what Lenny said, on the grounds that ‘guys with beards shouldn’t work at sex toy stores.’
“It’s your turn to walk the dog next time.” Feeling like she could breathe again in the cooler, thinner air of the store, Cami meandered around the outskirts of the shop, checking for misplaced products.
Lenny took Holmes with her when she went out, but not when she went grocery shopping.
It involved using public transit and going inside places that had a lot of great-smelling food, and people tended to get testy when giant dogs took their seats on the bus or slobbered on their glass deli display cases.
So, on those days, Holmes hung out at Sex on the Beach.
Tristan complained, but he loved that lazy dog.
“Any big plans for tonight?”
As if on cue, Cami’s cheeks flushed. She glanced up into one of the reflective anti-theft panels, catching Tristan kneeling to unclip Holmes’s leash.
“Um… nope.” She sounded more strangled than normal, and tried to cover it up with a cough.
Truth be told, her upcoming not-a-date with Des had been on her mind pretty much non-stop all day.
Hell, all week. The morning had dragged by, and the afternoon seemed set to stay on trend.
She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.
On one hand, the more time she had beforehand, the less nervous she was.
On the other, just remembering the heated glimmer in Des’s eyes as he bought that stupid vibe made her body hum like one of the toys he’d promised to use on her.
She must not have sounded convincing because when she turned around, Tristan was staring at her with one cocked eyebrow.
“I just… I have a test on Monday. I’ll be studying.”
Tristan was well-acquainted with her attempts to juggle work and school. Lenny had hired him when Cami started her Computer Science program so that she’d be able to take time off for classes and homework.
The test part was the truth. One of her Scripting instructors had been dropping serious hints about a pop quiz first thing back from the weekend. But she wasn’t all that confident she’d be able to focus enough on her coding texts to study.
Whether that improved after her visit with Des tonight remained to be seen.
She didn’t have much faith. Des was distracting enough when he’d never seen her naked.
After he had, she doubted she’d be able to function at all.
At least her grades were high enough to take the hit of one failed pop quiz.
It would be a shame to miss out on her associate degree because orgasms melted her brain.
Of course, there was nothing guaranteeing actual orgasms.
It was probably stupid of her to hold out hope. She was twenty-four, and she’d been sexually active-ish since she was nineteen. Five years, and not one person she’d slept with had managed to get her off.
Then again, she supposed she couldn’t blame them. She couldn’t even get herself off. How could she expect Des to get her off if she couldn’t do it herself?
She’d never faked an orgasm. It hadn’t occurred to her to try. It seemed dishonest, and with all the lying she’d grown up with, the thought of adding to the pile made her nauseous. Maybe she couldn’t orgasm, but she could at least be honest.
Still, when she thought of Des rolling a vibrator along her skin, trying his best to coax an orgasm out of her... the last thing she wanted was to disappoint him.
“Where did you go just then?” Tristan asked, his voice a gentle intrusion into her troubling thoughts.
She sighed and cast him a sheepish smile, then wiped her finger along a glass shelf to check for dust. “Oh, you know. Pre-test panic land.”
Tristan nodded. “That’s why I decided not to do the college thing.
I don’t test well.” He gestured over his shoulder toward the door that led to Lenny’s office.
“It’s pretty quiet out here. You’ve got your laptop upstairs, right?
Why don’t you head into the back and study for a bit? I’m sure I can hold down the fort.”
She tried to keep her work life out of school, and vice versa, but the idea of getting some studying in—and taking her mind off Des and his sex toys—was appealing. “You sure you don’t mind?”
“Nah, I’ve got this. Besides, maybe some hot lady toy seller will come in and flirt with me.” He winked.
“Oh, shut up.” She rolled her eyes, and, as she strode past Tristan, shoved him in the shoulder. “You’re more than welcome to take a whack at Des if you want him.”
“No thanks,” Tristan laughed. “I’m not sure I could handle that much manpower.”
“You need to give yourself more credit, buddy.” She faced him, took his shoulders in her hands, and looked into his eyes. “You are strong and resilient. You could handle The Rock if he wanted to bang you.”
Tristan’s mouth tightened in consideration at her words, his eyes glistening with sincerity. “Thank you for your support, Cami. I appreciate it more than you know.” Then with a laugh, he shrugged her off. “Now go get your laptop and get out of my fabulous hair. You’re a bad influence.”
“I’ve never been a bad influence on anybody before!” she called as she bounded up the stairs to her apartment.
Maybe Des was rubbing off on her.