I WOKE to the sound of the bedroom door opening and the feel of someone watching me from its threshold. My eyes opened but immediately closed again, sensitive to the light coming through the bedroom windows.
“Who opened the curtains?”
“I did–forty minutes ago. Now get up.” Walker’s voice tore through the subtle calmness of my morning. Not just his words, but his tone demanding my attention.
I groaned. “What?”
“I said get up.”
My fingers wiped the sleep from my eyes as I sat up. “I heard you,” I mumbled, dropping my hands to clutch my blanket as it pooled at my waist. I checked him out as he leaned against the doorframe, already dressed in his business attire. I doubt I’d ever tire of seeing him in a suit. “But why? I assumed after last night, you were going to go back to trying to pretend I didn’t exist.”
“Your existence isn’t one I’d forget.” He cocked an eyebrow at me, and though he was trying hard not to stare at what I presumed to be the mess he’d left on my neck, he’d have to try harder for me not to notice. “Now, would you get the fuck out of bed and get dressed?” He was silent for a beat before adding, “Please?”
“Are we going to talk about last night?”
“No.”
“Then what’s going on?”
I’d fallen asleep after… what’d happened between us. He didn’t want to speak of it, but I wish he’d still have stayed the night beside me. I’d be in the new room tonight, and he’d be in here. Alone.
Agitated, he said, “You want a job or not, kid?”
“What I really want is for you to stop calling me kid when it suits you,” I complained, raising my elbows and fluffing up my bed hair before giving him a pointed stare. “You’re serious?”
“As a heart attack,” he replied dryly. His jaw ticked when I didn’t make a move to get out of bed, but he just lifted his chin towards the en-suite. “You’ve got twenty minutes. Fucking chop-chop.”
Despite the sleep in my eyes, unlike last night, I noticed what appeared to be the shading of a bruise along the edges of his jaw. “Has someone hit you?”
I didn’t want to pry, so I didn’t chase after him demanding answers when he left the room without a reply and nothing but a scowl. Being shut down once was enough for one day. And ignorance wasn’t new to me, being my father’s daughter. Instead, I fumbled out of bed and into the bathroom, stripping from my sex infused clothes as I moved and leaving them in a scramble on the floor.
My nose scrunched at the state of my hair in the bathroom mirror. I brushed my fingers through my untamed mane, my brown and blonde balayage looking worse for wear. I needed to find a hairdresser, pronto. And then my eyes turned wide at the red and purple bites on my neck. It would take me at least fifteen minutes to cover them up.
After loading my toothbrush, I stepped into the shower and brushed my teeth. I bathed myself in hot water, clearing away the events of last night’s rough sleep from both my skin and my mind. Initially, I got a good few hours, but the thunder throughout the night had only made me restless. And without Walker to snuggle into, I couldn’t seem to relax.
Spitting the minted foam down the drain, I stepped out of the shower, opened the bathroom drawer, and reached for my medication. Droplets of water ran from my skin and spilt over the floor while my fingers probed a pill from the foiled packet. I placed it on my tongue, then stepped back into the water and aimed my head upwards into the steady stream. Opening my mouth, I let the hot water veil my tongue as I swallowed back the one thing that kept my anxiety at bay.
Maybe this was what Walker meant when he asked what set me up for the day. This was my equivalent to him working out every morning.
Twenty minutes later, I walked from my en-suite with my towel wrapped around me, feeling a fraction lighter than when I stepped into my shower. I found Walker sitting on my unmade bed with his head in his hands, his suit pulling tight against his muscular back.
He looked up at me when he heard me approach. “I said you had twenty minutes, not twenty minutes to shower.”
“Sorry, I guess.”
I walked in the direction of the closet, and once I stepped inside, I began fingering through my clothes hanging on the rail, unsure what to settle on for my first day of… work. The task of having to move all my clothes down the hall later and into my new room, I couldn’t bear thinking about.
Popping my head out of the walk-in closet, I gave Walker a timid smile. “So do you know something I don’t?”
He looked at me, dumbfounded.
“Has my appeal been declined?” I clarified. It had to be the reason he was giving me a job now and not days ago.
“No, the opposite. If you want to go back to Duke, you can. Do you”—he paused, searching for something in my eyes as I stepped back out of the closet and into the bedroom—“want to go back to Duke?”
“Not if I can do what I want to do working at The Lagoon. Can you guarantee me a permanent position? Can you guarantee that you’re not going to take it away from me? Could we have some paperwork drawn up or… I don’t know… have you spoken to my father? I have a feeling he’s not going to like this. At all.”
Tension was visible in his shoulders. “Slow down, and I’ll explain,” he said, clicking his neck from side to side. “I’ve filled out the application to enrol you into Duke’s Apprenticeship Programme. Instead of what you’d previously signed up for, once a month, if you want to do this”—he raised a brow—“then you’ll attend Duke for a face-to-face with a tutor, but you’ll complete the rest of your degree online while working for-”
“How?” I interrupted. “I mean, when did you arrange all of this?”
“This morning,” he grunted. “Before and after I worked out.”
Figured.
“Are you going to tell me why?”
Did last night change things? I wondered. Though I was too nervous to ask him that out loud. What could change when neither of us knew what this even was?
He ground his teeth against his jaw, and then, as if he was mentally ticking things off in his head, he said, “The media hate us. No matter what we do or what The Lagoon does, they always have something bad to report. If you can get even a handful of media outlets to alter their views on us by creating a positive media campaign, it’s worth a shot. Second, your name is already associated with the club. And third, if you’re there, I can keep my eye on you. I employ the best staff, so I know they won’t bother you. And if by any means you happen to piss someone off, I can see to it that you’re reprimanded.”
“Reprimanded?”
“That’s right.” He licked his full bottom lip. His eyes dropped to the bottom of my towel, and his head tilted as if he wanted to look at what was underneath as I pulled on a strand of my wet hair.
I was too busy considering what he’d offered to say anything. Why did it seem too good to be true?
“My name is on the building. I guess it makes sense to associate myself, right?”
His eyebrows raised like it was the most obvious choice as he nodded and quipped a dry “Yes,” but wanted to say duh.
“And what about my dad? You know we don’t have much of a relationship. He won’t agree to this.”
“I’ll handle that.” He looked to the floor, then back to me, not meeting my eyes. “Considering it’s been five days since your little stunt in my office, I think we’ve already established your threat holds no intent. You said as much last night.”
I leant the side of my head against the door jamb of the closet. “You seem to have it all worked out. So why do I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me?”
“There’s a lot you don’t know. A lot of things that don’t concern you,” he replied. His tone was complex and cold while he fiddled with the clasp of his watch.
“So you admit it, then. There’s something you’re not telling me?”
“There is something I haven’t told you yet that I suppose is deemed important.”
My lips pursed, and I watched as he clicked his fingers one by one. When he got to his ring finger, he stopped and moved his attention back to his watch. My line of sight moved back to his face when I felt his gaze on me.
“I’ve hired someone to mentor you. Someone with experience. You’ll meet her later, and then the two of you can do whatever you need to do to paint The Lagoon in a better light.” He shook his head, more to himself than me, then released an exasperated sigh.
“That’s it?”
“Get dressed. And cover your neck.”
I didn’t move. I stayed exactly where I was. I didn’t mind a mentor. I knew I couldn’t learn everything I needed to learn without one. It was another reason Duke appealed to me–the tutors there had first-hand experience in the industry I wanted to be involved in. It’s the way he’d handled it that upset me. The way both my father and Walker figured they could dictate my life. If they told me to jump, I was expected to jump. If they told me to sit, I was expected to sit.
Well, I expected him to say more, but he remained quiet. Meanwhile, resentment coated my tongue like tar.
“What will you tell my dad?”
“Technically, even with the Apprenticeship Programme, you’re still enrolled at Duke, so we don’t necessarily have to tell him anything.”
My eyes narrowed. “You want to lie?”
“Lying is a stretch. I’m merely withholding information.” He smirked. “Besides, I’m sure you’ve lied to him yourself about worse things, considering how under wraps he keeps you.”
I ignored the latter. “When I spoke to him yesterday, he said your emails were few and far between.”
His eye twitched as he focused back on his watch. “There’s been nothing to tell him. You’ve settled in, minus the hiccups. What more can I say?”
“Maybe the truth.”
He hesitated, then stood to his feet. “The truth, huh?” he asked, taking steps towards me.
I lifted my head from the wooden frame of the doorjamb as he approached.
“The truth would be telling him how I made his little princess come with my thumb on her clit.”
His response was unexpected, and he chuckled low in his throat as I inhaled a lengthy breath through my nose.
I could feel the heat of a blush as it appeared on my cheeks.
“I don’t mean that truth,” I said on an exhale. “Why don’t you just tell him that instead of studying at Duke five days a week, I’m working at The Lagoon… for him? For you? And attending Duke once a month? If anyone can make him believe that I can handle myself in his world and not the one he created around me, it’s probably you. Given that it’s coming more from a business standpoint and not a personal one.”
“He doesn’t want you of all people involved in his affairs. Especially The Lagoon.”
“Why? I’m already here. And I’m eighteen in a few days, so he can’t exactly drag me back home unless I go kicking and screaming. If you just spoke to him, then maybe….” I tipped my shoulder. “Maybe he’d be more inclined to listen.”
“Blue,” he said, pocketing his hands as he stood before me. “Your father is a businessman. Has been all his life. Sometimes it can be hard to step away from business when you invest all you are into your work. But he did. He stepped away from the mess of The Lagoon and into safer territory because a good portion of the public perceived The Lagoon to be this big criminal organisation, what with the nightclub and the gym combined. Some people hear the words ‘martial arts’ and think of it as a violent sport. Some of those people don’t understand that the sport is competitive. Our fighters aren’t outside kicking each other to death on the street. Still, there are people out to get us. To shut us down. To shut the whole building down because our USP is out of society’s norms. It’s not the life your father wanted for you.”
“My father doesn’t want any life for me.”
“That’s a little far-fetched. He doesn’t want any harm to come to you. He loves you.”
“I never said he didn’t.” My brows pinched as an awkward silence fell over us like an old stiff blanket. “Is this the reason you’re so cold? Because you invest all you are into your work?”
“I am what I am,” he said quietly.
I dwelled on that for a moment, watching his every action as he arranged himself to stand less than a fraction away from me. I felt the heat from him on my exposed skin. I smelt the freshness of his shirt and the subtle touch of his cologne. My heart seemed to stop when he raised a hand from his pocket and tucked a strand of my wet hair behind my ear.
His usual frown told me he was brooding over something.
“That’s what you think of me?” he asked, eyes mapping out my face before pinning his gaze on mine. “You think I’m cold?”
“Truth or a lie?”
He moved his hand from my ear, placing his knuckles on the door jamb beside my head.
“Truth.”
“Yes,” I said, my voice breathy. “I think you’re cold.” Even as I admitted the words, I couldn’t seem to break from his glacial stare. So, to distract myself from the gravity of the moment, I weaved my hands under the lapels of his suit jacket and pressed my palms against his hard chest. He didn’t detest. We stood fixed like stone; his head tilted down so our only line of sight was each other.
How was it the man kept his cool when from the outside it felt like his heart was going to burst?
I felt him pulling away as he worked his jaw. And then he admitted, “You’re right. I am cold.” He drew back from me then. All I could do was pull my bottom lip into my mouth and chew on it in an effort to keep my lips sealed.
He might not have realised it, but I liked who he was. Because despite the coldness in him, I’d witnessed his warmth. He first gave it to me when he held my hand on the plane and again when he gave me his room. When he let me snuggle against him on the couch. When he carried me to bed, gave me pleasure, yet didn’t fuck me.
The feel of my teeth against the cushioned skin of my lips made me think of our kiss, reminiscing about the way I’d pressed my lips to his and the way he’d pulled my bottom lip into his mouth. It had my heart in overdrive. I wondered if we’d do it again. I wondered when.
“What, now you disagree?” he questioned.
“What makes you think that?”
He didn’t falter. “The hearts in your eyes.” He leant into me, forcing me into the closet until I took steps back, hitting its mirrored wall. He placed his knuckles on either side of my head, and they cracked as he pushed his fists tight to the reflective glass. He scrutinised me and then allowed his gaze to peruse the length of my body. “If I asked you to drop your towel, you would.”
I swallowed, feeling his words in my core. “Yes.”
“It wasn’t a question.” He closed his eyes. “The line between us is blurry.” When he opened his eyes again, they shone with lust. “I want to do things to you I shouldn’t.”
“And? What if I want you to do them?”
“No.”
“You don’t make any sense,” I said, placing my hands back onto his chest and digging my nails into his shirt. His eyes followed, seeing the soft creases of petite half-moons I’d created.
“None of this fucking does,” he replied, dropping his fists from the mirror and stepping back. He avoided my eyes as he turned to leave through the closet door. “Get dressed.”
I stopped him before he was gone entirely from sight. “Nate.”
“What?” he grumbled.
“What should I wear?”
He brushed a hand back through his hair as he glanced an annoyed look at me over his shoulder. His gaze fell to my legs. It sounded like it pained him to say it, but he mumbled something I could just make out.
“Clothes.”
WALKER
“WHAT IF I want you to do them?”
Blue’s words were all I’d thought about on the drive over to the club. She didn’t understand what she was saying.
Finley’s eyes had darted from me in the backseat to Blue in the front as he looked between us–the two of us staring out through our windows, utterly ignorant of each other. I’m sure our body language conveyed that we’d fought to anyone who didn’t know what was going on between us. Not that I truly understood it myself. But maybe I was done questioning what was happening, and perhaps I was done feeling the way I did over something that happened years ago.
Since we arrived at the club over two hours ago, I’d hidden upstairs in my office, finalising everything for Friday’s fight night. I’d told Blue to “get acquainted” with the staff. Olivia–the social media expert I’d hired to work alongside her, was due to arrive later today. Together, I’d leave them to do whatever they could to bring the media and public back on our side.
I knew Blue wanted to impress me, and I wanted to see how she’d go about it. What was the worst that could happen?
For the past fifteen minutes, I’d been watching her from my office window, speaking with Louis, my barman, while helping him shine the bottles behind the bar. I twisted a rogue pen between two fingers, trying not to snap the plastic in half every time I saw Louis check her out when he believed she wasn’t paying him any attention.
I’d told her to wear clothes, and given that her choice of attire was usually minuscule, I shouldn’t have been as surprised as I was to see her in a pair of daisy dukes. There was no point reminding her that this was England and not the magic city. After all, the comment she made in the kitchen on her first day here–when I pointed out her little school skirt–had come back to me in full force when she’d referred to me the same way this morning.
“I like the cold.”
Only now, I wanted to inject those words into my veins like a junkie would crack. No doubt they’d feel good at first, but like the drug, probably wouldn’t bode well.
Addiction wasn’t the correct term for whatever this was. I wasn’t addicted to Blue Sterling or her idea of me.
Although my office windows were tinted to those outside my office, Blue kept looking up. There was no way she could have known I’d been watching her. In fact, it was something I found myself doing more often than not in the time she’d been living with me. It was all in an effort to figure her out, though I still wasn’t much wiser to her as a person. But what I did know of her, I liked. And that alone somehow felt like a lie. Just like addiction, like also wasn’t the right way to describe whatever this was. What we were. I still had no fucking idea what word I’d use to describe the way I felt and if there was more to it than the typical lust. Lusting after a seventeen–almost eighteen-year-old–didn’t feel right. Still, it seemed to be more than the need to get myself off, but less than the need to do more about it. Seventeen-year-old girls were rarely written into the lives of thirty-four-year-old men. And when they were, I imagined they weren’t written into them the same way I was.
The noise of the elevator pulled my attention away from Blue, and I spun around to catch Noah stepping into my office, watching how his gaze was drawn to the bruising on my jaw.
“You don’t look as bad as I imagined,” he said. “The Liberty made out it like it was a KO.”
“No images, and still, you believed the media’s bullshit?”
He sucked his teeth. “Of course not. I know it’s rare that they ever print the real version of any story. So, you gonna tell me what the fuck’s going on?”
Dropping my head back, I closed my eyes to the ceiling and rolled out my shoulders. “Short version?”
“I’ll take anything.”
“I showed up at the townhouse last night to hand Sophia our divorce papers. Only I ran into Wez leaving the property. It turns out, it was him who Sophia had been shagging behind my back for the last twelve months.”
“Wez? But–”
“But what? His mental health issues?” I sniggered, opening my eyes and giving Noah a pointed stare. “They likely stemmed from his guilt or her crazy. Maybe both. Either way, he got a little heated when he realised Sophia wasn’t fully invested in him as he was her. He caught me in the jaw with his left hook.” I tipped my head to the side so he could get a better look at my face.
“Is it broken?”
“Does it look broken, you dopey cunt?”
He held his hands up. “Fuck, forgive me for being worried about you, man. You’ve been all over the shop recently.”
Shaking my head, I muttered, “I’m good.”
His eyes moved from me to the window, where he lengthened his neck to get a better look at Blue below us. “And the girl? Is something going on?”
My shoulders hiked up as I cleared my suddenly dry throat. He couldn’t know. She’d covered her neck with enough make-up to hide every bite I’d inflicted on her skin. “What?”
“Why is she here again?”
“Apprenticeship.” My body seemed to relax, knowing he hadn’t caught on to whatever the fuck was developing between me and ‘the girl,’ but something else was brewing in my gut. A new surge of protectiveness that wasn’t quite there before. And this was Noah I was talking to. My brother. A man who wouldn’t wound me on my worst day. Perhaps it stemmed from last night. Sophia. Wez. Or maybe I was just fucked in the head, feeling things that didn’t make any sense for me to feel. Things that validated and unvalidated everything I now felt for the girl who was no more than three years old when I was just nineteen.
“Nate.”
“What?” I swallowed.
“You look ill. What the fuck is wrong with you, man? Are you pissed?”
“Am I pissed?” I repeated with somewhat of a laugh. “I’m living in a permanent state of stress, little brother. Unless you have any good news to sprout, go make yourself useful downstairs where you’re sought after.”
He scowled and brushed a hand back through his curls. “If you want to take a few days off, I can handle this place. I can have everything ready for fight night by Wednesday.”
“I don’t doubt it.” I walked around my desk and sank into my office chair, placing down the pen I held onto my desk before I snapped it. “But I’ll have it ready by tomorrow.” Lifting my chin, I hesitated before I said, “Terminate Wezley’s contract and have someone else take his place. I don’t want him anywhere near my club.”
He rubbed his palms down his face. “If that’s what you want.”
“It is. Oh and before I forget, we have a new employee starting later today, so make the introductions. Olivia Blake. She’s going to handle all our social media. Blue is going to be working alongside her. I’m hoping it’ll aid in tidying up our reputation.”
“Anything is worth a shot at this point,” he agreed.
I woke up my computer and clicked on my emails. No doubt there was a new email waiting for me from James, especially with it being his daughter’s birthday tomorrow. And I was right. His name sat at the top of my mailbox.
“Is there anything else you need me to do for you?”
Looking up at Noah, I shook my head. Not to be a dick, but I’d almost forgotten he was there. “Nope.”
He tapped my desk twice and then left me alone to wallow in whatever awaited me in James’s email today. But before I did that, I chose to open and respond to any emails related to Friday’s event.
Weigh day was Thursday, which meant vendors were prepping the events arena and everything surrounding fight night over the course of the next few days. And, of course, the stage was due to be set up for the ceremonial weigh-in. A lot of people failed to recognise that UFC fighters weighed in twice. Once in the morning, the day before the fight–which was when their official weight was announced. And once in the evening–the ceremonial weigh-in. Which, in short term, was a little show for the press, staff, and the fans. In truth, I found it a total ball-ache, and I probably wouldn’t bother hanging around for the both of them. It was the official weigh-in that was deemed the most important. And the last thing I wanted was a microphone in my face and questions about my not-fight with Wez. When they realised he was no longer listed as our backup fighter, the chances were they’d only get more ruthless.
Closing an email from a vendor, the following email I opened was from Olivia with written acceptance of the job I’d proposed just hours ago. I’d never hired someone so quickly. Between the early hours of this morning and now, the paperwork was settled, and she was due to arrive in just a few hours. I found myself wondering why I hadn’t hired a social media manager sooner. Because after finding her on LinkedIn, I was sure her skills would only benefit the club.
It was only when I was done responding to work-related emails that I opened the email from James, completely surprised to find documents attached to his email, including a valuation and buyout agreement for The Lagoon.
My attention piqued. “Well, shit.”
I hadn’t expected it so soon. But then, that was James. When he wanted to do something, he did it. There was no second-guessing. No going back on his word. There’d never once been any qualm between us when it came to business. Unless we factored Blue into it, and in this case, I supposed she was the main factor in our business dealings, if not the only factor. And James was still under the impression that both me and Sophia were taking care of her. I wondered how long I could keep up the false pretence. I wondered if it was possible to tell him part of the truth, like Blue had suggested. Perhaps I should have never kept news of mine and Sophia’s failing marriage from him. I couldn’t even recall my reasoning except for embarrassment. And then there was the incident where I accidentally got Blue suspended.
Not my finest moment.
And since then, I’d only fallen further down the rabbit hole.
I’d touched her.
James trusted me to take care of his daughter, and as her guardian, I’d gone and broken that trust. I was building lies on top of fucking lies. And at the risk of losing everything I worked for in my life, telling him the truth seemed like the most brainless idea. I only hoped he wouldn’t lose every inch of respect for me once he found out the whole of it. Better yet, perhaps there was a way to keep it from him. All of it.
Clicking off the documents, I read over his email. He’d planned to fly to London today and had arranged a dinner date for the four of us tomorrow. A celebration for Blue’s birthday.
The four of us.
But as I dragged my trackpad through the rest of his email, that moment of panic shifted to relief when I read he could no longer make it. Still, the reservation stood, and he insisted the three of us would still attend without him.
My hands flew to the back of my head, where I locked my fingers together and attempted to stretch my tense muscles. Sophia was no longer in the picture, so dinner for three was absolutely out of the question.
It seemed I had two choices.
Come clean, or take Blue out for a birthday dinner.
Just the two of us.
It shouldn’t have felt like a dilemma, but that’s precisely what it was.
If I fucked up–if James’s didn’t like how I’d lied to him–he could withdraw the buyout agreement before we finalised the contract. And on the other hand, when it came to Blue Sterling, I felt nothing but a weak man.
What was one more lie?
I’d already told enough of them.
I dropped my hands from my head and emailed him back.
It’ll be our pleasure.
