I existed in a state of permanent irritation any asshole with a brain could diagnose as blue balls, because I couldn’t fuck the two people I wanted to fuck. One was a faceless username, and the other drove me so crazy, I didn’t fully understand why I wanted her.
I just knew I did.
Admitting it felt like holding my arm up to a dog and asking it to bite me. (An actual dog, like a Belgian Malinois or a Rottweiler, not a Rosco. Rosco’s teeth would probably fall off if he tried to bite me, and then he’d be hairless and toothless.)
Unlike the dumb-fucks that enjoyed teeth play, my masochistic tendencies didn’t include physical pain.
And it fucking pained me to admit I’d kiss Emery again.
Repeatedly.
For days.
Jesus, are those teeth I’m feeling?
Delilah lapped up the sight of construction workers from her desk. They left the kitchen a goddamn pigsty. Loud drills reverberated to my side of the penthouse. Randell carried in a section of the countertop with ease, whereas his son Bud knocked the cabinet door cradled in his arms into everything.
Delilah: You should have hired Chip and Joanna Gaines.
Setting my phone down, I tossed her a water bottle from the mini-fridge built into my desk. “Who and who?”
“Seriously?”
“You’re not sparing anyone by texting.” My voice never wavered. If anything, I raised it. I cracked open my bottle and chugged half of it in one gulp. “If you think Randell and Bud are fucking up, just say it.”
“Nash,” she hissed. “What is up with you today?”
Two words—blue and balls.
I leaned back in my executive chair, eyed the scratched wall, and beckoned Bud with two fingers. The lanky kid ambled over here with the grace of a newborn giraffe learning to walk.
“Bud, define nepotism,” I ordered, wondering what the design crew was doing downstairs.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d worked up here, but I had to supervise the kitchen, considering I had half a mill stashed in the safe, and the construction crew had drills, hammers, and saws.
“Um…” His calloused fingers gripped my desk, leaving wood residue. Bud’s eyes darted to Delilah. “When someone hires a person because of whom they’re related to?”
“Continue.”
He snuck a glance at Randell, who watched him suffer with a chuckle. “And, um, it’s a…favor?”
“Keep going.”
“And… the person hired is… um…”
“Fucking hell,” Delilah muttered. She scrawled her signature and set down her pen. “Nash, the kid’s sweating enough. This is painful to watch.” She put Bud out of his misery. “Bud, what Nash is trying to say is, you and your dad both work for us, which poses the question of whether or not nepotism was involved in the hiring process. People will think so if you continue to make mistakes without learning from them. Can you be more careful from here on?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Bud nodded at me and Delilah a second before fleeing. Even the back of his head appeared relieved.
“Mother Teresa,” I shot at Delilah. Pulling up an account, I wired a few thousand dollars to the company I hired to move the sculpture from my Eastridge home to the lobby. “You chose the wrong job for mercy.”
“I chose the wrong job in general.” She closed her laptop, rested her chin on her knuckles, and stared at me. “Is there a reason you asked for the sudden rush on the kitchen? You could’ve given me a heads up. I would have slept in.” Her pointer finger twirled in a circle. “I can’t work with this noise, and Rosco hates wearing his puppy earplugs.”
“Chill. First, the rat will survive. They live in sewers, for fuck’s sake.” I peered at the foot of Delilah’s desk, where Rosco curled into a ball on a Louis Vuitton four-poster miniature pet bed. Orange faux fur-lined earmuffs covered the two Dumbo flappers sprouting from his head. “Second, the crew has been at it for hours. They’re almost done. The cleaners will be here in,” I eyed my watch, “twenty minutes give or take.”
“You didn’t answer the question, which in itself is intriguing.” Delilah repeated, “Is there a reason for the rush job?”
“They already had the cabinets drilled in, the flooring placed, and the appliances installed.” I tapped my fingers over my keyboard, double-checked that the word bribe had been replaced with a show of gratitude and friendship, and pressed send on a memo to a Singaporean diplomat. “You act as if they’re creating a kitchen from scratch. It’s just the counter and cabinet doors.”
“You still didn’t answer the question.”
“Is this what we’re doing now? Playing Twenty Questions instead of working? If so, I’ll start.” I closed my laptop and blanketed her with my full attention. “What’s that word called when you dismiss an employee from her job for failure to work?”
She hit me with an unimpressed eye roll. “I detect an unusual and entertaining level of defensiveness.”
Of course, I was fucking defensive.
She would be, too, if her first kiss in over fifteen years went to a girl who talked more to the sky than she did with actual goddamn humans, and whispered made-up words to herself, and snuck into other people’s beds and showers as if she owned the world, and possessed a level of stubbornness that would make hostage negotiators quit, and wore the same outfit every day with a different ‘magic’ word on a fucking shirt manufactured by the pathetic bastard responsible for Dad’s death.
And every time Emery mouthed something to the sky, or muttered a word, or showed up somewhere uninvited, or declined food she clearly needed, or wore one of those stupid fucking shirts, my lips wanted to devour her, followed by her body, and finally her mind.
It drove me goddamned nuts.
Clearly, I didn’t disclose any of this. For a lawyer, Delilah had the tact of a socially unaware toddler when it came to me.
I exited my browser and focused on her. “What happened during your trip to Cordovia that makes you flush bright pink every time I mention the country?”
Her cheeks flamed.
Called it.
All I knew about her trip to the tiny European island was, she left single and ended up with Kingston Reinhardt VII, second in line to the throne, as her husband.
Delilah greeted the cleaning crew to save face, giving me her back.
“Thought so,” I muttered.
Emery
I MOVED CLOSETS last night.
It shouldn’t have made me sad, but it did.
Like leaving a relative you saw once a decade. In theory, you weren’t supposed to get attached in so little time, but it happened. Next thing you know, you’re crying into a bottle of pinot, promising to see each other soon.
Or, in my case, running around the hotel, putting out fires. Bags lined my eyes. I wore my t-shirt backward, but the energy required to run to the restroom and flip it convinced me backward tees could be the new trend.
I zipped up the hoodie I wore to cover my shirt and set out to find Cayden. Two floors later, I spotted him arguing with the foreman.
“You look like shit.”
“I feel like shit.” I unsaddled bags of dresser knobs from my arms and shoved them into Cayden’s. “You were supposed to help me arrange carpets on the fifth floor.”
The foreman yawned before sacrificing Cayden to deal with my wrath. I’d spent last night sneaking my things three floors up to a closet on the 19th floor, because the 16th floor would get its finishing touches in a few days.
With the project further along and expensive furnishings involved, hotel security had beefed up. It made me paranoid. I lunged from door to door, dodging shadows in the hall. No one caught me, but I panted by the time I lugged my t-shirt printer to the corner of the new space and passed out.
“Sorry. I forgot.” He scrubbed at his face, blinked away the lethargy, and sifted through the knobs. “Mr. Prescott requested a rush on his room, so I had to reassign the construction crews and find replacements.”
Cayden handed the bag to someone.
I trailed him to the elevators. For a fleeting second, excitement energized me. “We’re getting a centerpiece.”
“I know.” He pressed the button for the lobby.
“Already? How do you know?”
“It’s downstairs.” He leaned against the wall and kicked one ankle in front of the other. “Near the entrance. Come on.”
I followed him out of the alcove of elevators. “What’s it of?”
“Not sure. It’s covered in thick canvas. We’re not supposed to remove it until the grand opening of the hotel. Look.”
He jerked his chin straight ahead. I pivoted and took in the monstrosity. The architect had gone with one-hundred-foot ceilings, which spanned the equivalent of about seven stories. Thick canvas covered something that descended from the ceiling and hit the floor.
The sheer size of it struck me, rendered me speechless, and had my eyes darting left and right to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. For the life of me, I had no clue what it could be. I wouldn’t put it past Nash to mount a giant middle finger in his hotel lobby and call it a day.
The press would somehow spin it into Nash making a statement against the pervasive evils contributing to world hunger. They loved him that much.
“We’re not allowed to unveil it.” Cayden tapped the heavy canvas material. It didn’t budge. “Mr. Prescott was adamant about it.”
“Why?” I wanted to rip it off and feast my eyes. “How are we supposed to design if we don’t know what we’re designing around?”
Sometimes, I thought Nash did these things to fuck with me. Like—yeah, I’ll make this deal with you, but even when you get what you want, you’re not going to enjoy it.
“I don’t know, but it’s massive.” Cayden overextended his arms, a poorly done ballet pose. He settled for pointing from one end of the centerpiece to the other. “If anything, we need to focus on simplicity now, since the sheer size of it will take up so much attention, anything else comes off as eclectic. I’ll set up a meeting in two days to discuss. The whole not-knowing-what-it-is thing makes it a challenge, but I’m up for it. Plus, I’ve been told by Mr. Prescott that it’ll go with everything.”
I shook my head and made my way to the elevators. “I’ve got this.”
“Where are you going?” he called.
“To find Nash fucking Prescott.”
