Bass assaulted my ear drums, practically rattling my teeth. A vague stench of stale sweat hung in the air. Blinding strobe lights flashed in the dark as smoke poured out of machines around the corners of the dance floor. And with every second step I took, the floor was suspiciously sticky.
The day had taken a steady downward trajectory. First, I failed to make a move on Thayer in the bathroom this morning when I had the chance. Her face had ‘kiss me’ written all over it. Actually, it had ‘fuck me’ written all over it, but I did neither because I was an idiot. An idiot who choked. Because Thayer had some kind of detrimental effect on my ability to perform basic cognitive functions, like thinking and forming coherent sentences.
And after what happened with Nina before dinner tonight, I’d probably never have another opening again. That run-in was the kiss of death. Like the flip of a switch, Thayer had gone straight back into ice queen mode. Sure, she’d played the part during our meal with everyone, but I could tell the difference between when she was faking it and being genuine with me, and she had been firmly in the former camp. After chipping away at her walls over the past couple of days, the sudden reversal was more than a little frustrating…in several ways.
Now I was trapped in a bad cheesy movie where the dude bros surrounding me were twenty-five going on fifteen, and they were doing shots of cheap tequila while ogling women who were still in college. At least, I hoped the women were that old. I couldn’t say for sure.
I’d wasted all evening watching Adam engage in borderline inappropriate behavior without doing anything I could use as blackmail material. It was too noisy to record any of the sexually suggestive comments he’d made, and while Quinn would probably frown upon him dirty dancing with other women, he hadn’t done much more than that. I needed something solid, like a kiss I could capture on camera, and I didn’t get it. Even so, I’d seen enough to be confident Adam didn’t behave nearly as well when I wasn’t around. But without hard evidence, I wasn’t going to bother going down that path.
“Have you submitted your final plans to the city yet?” Adam leaned closer, practically yelling into my ear, but he was still barely audible over the DJ announcing the next song.
At this point, he was treating me like an old pal instead of a business competitor. This was by design. I’d pretended to forgive my sorry excuse for a family member for two reasons: the obvious one being my deal with Thayer and my ultimate end goal of closing Callaghan, who’d finally rescheduled for dinner upon our return.
But making nice with Adam provided the secondary benefit of the whole, ‘keeping your enemies close’ thing. The drunker he got, the greater the chances of something useful slipping—and he was pretty drunk.
No harm in leading him a little bit astray.
“Not yet,” I lied. “Ran into some structural problems with the design.” We’d submitted the plans three weeks ago, and they were in review with the planning and development department, but Adam had no way of verifying that information. That’s why he was asking. He was as cutthroat as I was, he just wasn’t smart enough to be sneaky about it.
Plus, he was overconfident at the best of times and letting him think we were experiencing difficulties would feed into that. Cocky tended to equal careless, in his case, and a careless mistake would be a good thing for me.
He nodded. I could practically see the gears turning in his brain, albeit slowly just like him. “Muller Engineering?”
“Yeah.” Another lie. The last thing I needed was this asshole knowing who our subcontractors were.
“I’m sure you’ll sort it out. You always seem to rise from the dead.” A smug smirk played on his lips, sending off alarm bells in my head. His statement was odd, given this was the first time I’d ever been in such dire straits. Unless he knew how badly his departure had harmed Flux. Either way, something was off. I made a note to dig into the books again when I had the chance. My gut said I was missing something; I just didn’t know what it was yet.
Adam tipped his beer bottle toward mine, clinking the necks together. “May the best project win.”
“I’m sure it will.” In other words—mine.
I pulled out my phone, pretending to read a message while checking the time instead. Only twenty-two minutes had passed since I last looked. I had tolerated a few hours of this shit, but I was at my breaking point. I wasn’t sure what Thayer and the girls were up to, but I’d rather go back to the room alone than stay here any longer. Maybe take matters into my own hands while I was at it, since I obviously wouldn’t be getting laid any time soon.
“I’m going to take off.” I clapped Adam on the back with a little more force than was friendly, wishing it was an uppercut to the jaw instead. Thanks to his booze-addled brain, he didn’t seem to notice.
“So early?” He gestured to the group of barely clothed women gathered around us as if they represented a reason to stick around. But if anything, it was the opposite. I wasn’t dumb enough to hook up with someone else and botch this entire deal—least of all in front of Adam. There was also the fact that the only woman I was interested in fucking was back at the resort, even if she had zero interest in that happening.
Then again, Thayer had looked about as happy as I was at the prospect of me hitting this club tonight. I wanted to say it’s because she cared on a deeper level and felt sorry for me, but I suspected it was merely that she didn’t trust me not to screw things up.
Louis made a face. “Come on, man. It’s not even midnight.”
Yeah, and he was hoping I would stay and screw things up. Louis wasn’t exactly on board the Thayer-Bennett ship.
“Getting a headache,” I told them. Figuratively speaking, this was true. I had ninety-nine problems, and Adam was only one of them. I had something more important to deal with.
THE HALF-HOUR CAB ride back to the resort flew by in the blink of an eye. I was lost in my thoughts, consumed with trying to decipher the situation with Thayer. Just when I would think I had her figured out, something else would happen and send me straight back to square one. We were alternating between abiding by the agreement and pretending it didn’t exist. It was like playing snakes and ladders on steroids.
Instead of heading back to our room like I’d intended, I made a detour at the last minute and cut across the resort to see if the bridal party was still at the tiki bar. I didn’t know when I’d become ‘that guy’—inserting myself into a girls’ night out like some clingy boyfriend—but the hot/cold, push/pull dynamic was gnawing at me relentlessly, like a splinter stuck under my skin.
And while Thayer might be pissed about me crashing the party, she was already unhappy with me, so it’s not like I had much to lose. Plus, I didn’t give a flying fuck about what Quinn and her friends thought.
A few minutes later, I stepped into the open-air bar. Fans breezed overhead in the raised ceiling while I passed the hallway that led to the bathrooms, pausing to scan the array of tables. As I came to a halt, someone turned the corner and plowed into my shoulder.
Someone half my size. Someone who smelled like heaven, mixed with brown sugar and coconut-scented sunscreen.
Thayer.
The instant I saw her, my reaction was immediate; visceral. A rush that I couldn’t even put into words.
If it hadn’t been for this moment, I might have thought I was broken. Because every other attractive woman I had laid eyes on all evening had elicited exactly zero response from me. Not interest, not curiosity, not even appreciation. But this one blew me away.
It was a good news, bad news scenario. The good being that I wasn’t broken, the bad being that I was in way too fucking deep and there was a decent chance I was the only one.
THAYER’S glossy lips parted slightly as she looked up at me, wide-eyed with surprise. Our gazes locked, and I felt a smile tug at my lips, impossible to fight. She blinked slowly, returning my smile, and cautious hope took root within me. Then she seemed to remember what happened earlier, and her half-smile faded, crushing my hopes with it.
If I couldn’t get past her walls for more than a millisecond, I was about to make an epic fool out of myself.
“Bennett.” She took a step back, smoothing her long hair. “What are you doing here?”
“Thanks for the warm reception,” I said dryly. The fool outcome was looking more and more likely. Too late now, though. I was already here, and unfortunately for us both, I had tunnel vision once I had my mind set on something. I was going to see this through no matter how badly it might go.
“That’s not what I meant.” Her tone softened. “I just thought all the guys were still at the bar.”
“They are.”
From across the bar, Quinn and the rest of her friends broke out into a fit of hysterical laughter. None of them had noticed us talking, which afforded us some small degree of privacy.
Thayer stole a glance in their direction before returning her attention to me. She adjusted the strap of her light blue dress and lowered her voice, worry across her face. “Is something wrong? Why did you leave?”
“Several reasons.” Taking a chance, I reached over and placed a hand on her waist. Her posture softened, leaning into me. “Mostly you.”
Thayer’s brow creased. “Me?”
“We need to talk.”
I didn’t know what I was going to say, exactly. All I knew was, I was fucked. Because the instant I saw her tonight, something deep inside of me said, ‘mine.’ Then my brain kicked in and said, ‘you wish.’ Now I was on a mission to do something about that or go down in flames trying.
Her teeth snagged her lower lip. “I can’t just leave.”
“Sure, you can. You can blame me. Everyone will believe that.”
Before she could protest, I steered her through the room, back over to their table. By the time we made it over there, she seemed to have gathered her wits again.
“Look who I found,” Thayer said, gesturing to me. All the heads at the table turned and their eyes landed on us, curiosity ill-concealed.
“Did the guys come back with you?” Quinn’s voice was so hopeful that it almost stabbed at my cold, dead heart. Almost.
“Not yet,” I said. “I don’t think they’ll be too late, though.” Who knew if that was true, it just seemed like it would wrap up this conversion in a tidy little bow, so I could get the hell out of here.
“Is my fiancé behaving?” Quinn asked in a kidding-but-not-really tone.
I was certain she knew more about Adam’s antics than she let on, and I was less convinced than ever that she had a clue about her father’s investment in Adam’s company. How to best leverage those facts to my advantage was still unclear, however.
“As much as can be expected.” I grinned like I was joking, but it was clear neither of us were. “Speaking of behaving, do you mind if I borrow my fiancée? We had a little tiff earlier, and I have some groveling to do.”
Millie threw some heavy-duty side-eye in our direction. Quinn made an ‘aww’ face, mirrored by her other two friends.
And Thayer looked like she was going to go drown me in the ocean.
