Ethan froze when he came out the back door and saw the red rose resting on the lid of the trash can.

He stared at it before scanning the alley behind Saron, his gaze probing the shadows, searching for a watchful figure. Like the dozen times before, he saw no one. He hesitated before carefully picking up the stem.

The flower was wrapped in cellophane and had a note attached. Ethan didn’t have to read it to know its contents. It would be the same anonymous message of admiration and thinly veiled lust he’d received since the beginning. When he found the first note on the club’s mahogany counter at the end of a shift four months ago, Ethan had put it down as a prank by one of the staff. A week later, he discovered another note carefully tucked behind the bar.

His unease had slowly grown as more notes materialized. Though he’d subtly questioned the doormen and other bartenders, no one had ever seen the person who’d left him the messages. It wasn’t until the day a letter appeared in his mailbox back at his apartment building that Ethan had finally grasped the chilling truth: he’d gained himself a stalker.

He’d considered contacting the cops and even discussed the matter with his accountant and the latter’s brother, a detective in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. Though the man had been sympathetic to Ethan’s plight, he’d made it clear that they couldn’t take any action unless there was a clear threat to Ethan’s life.

Ethan had wondered briefly then whether he should bring Joe into the loop. But the thought of having to rely on the man he so clearly wanted but who continued to reject him left too much of a bitter aftertaste in Ethan’s mouth for him to seek his help. Besides, Ethan had his pride. He wouldn’t lower himself in front of the bastard he’d fallen in love with at first sight almost a year ago and who had frustrated the hell out of him every single day since. And what Joe would make of his lies, if he ever uncovered them, was not something Ethan took lightly.

Truth was, he’d misled Joe when he’d walked into Saron and demanded that bartending job. Ethan hadn’t flunked business school. He’d fucking aced it, graduating summa cum laude and top of his class at Stanford. At the age of twenty-eight, his stocks and shares portfolio pretty much guaranteed him a lifetime of luxury.

But rather than live the decadent existence of a millionaire, Ethan chose to donate most of his money to a bunch of charities and other philanthropic enterprises, his biggest contribution going to a nonprofit organization that supported street kids around the world.

It wasn’t his family’s wealth that had landed Ethan a place at Stanford. It was the scholarship he’d worked his ass off to get while still doing evening shifts as a busboy in the dive bar where his aunt used to waitress that had given him a chance at a better life.

Ethan had never known his parents. His mother had died from late childbirth complications when he was barely a week old, and from what his aunt had deduced, he was the result of a one-night stand. His aunt had never been able to drag out the identity of Ethan’s father from her own sister before she passed away.

Though they had been dirt poor, life with his only living relative had been loving and fulfilling. Ethan couldn’t have asked for a better upbringing and it was thanks to his aunt that he had grown to be the successful, levelheaded man he now was. She’d even realized he was gay before he became aware of it himself and had helped him embrace his homosexuality to the fullest. Although Ethan had had to put his foot down when she started slipping gay sex guides under his pillow.

Shortly after Ethan made his first million, he’d forced his aunt to take early retirement and bought her a mansion in Baja California. They still saw each other every Thanksgiving, even after Ethan’s move to Tokyo, and he couldn’t have been more thrilled when she finally settled down with the retired college professor who lived down the road from her.

Ethan had been considering returning to the States to be closer to her when life had thrown him a curveball, also known as Joe.

To this day, Joe still thought their first meeting was the time Ethan walked into Saron and asked for a bartending job. He didn’t know Ethan had come there a couple of months before with his accountant and had fallen head over heels for the brooding club owner the moment he saw him walk into the bar.

Heads had turned and the noise level had fallen when Joe strolled down the steps and headed casually across the club. The sexual thrill that had coursed through Ethan as he stared at the tall, hard-bodied, dark-haired man with the hooded hazel eyes and sexy stubble had had his dick throbbing for the rest of that night. Ethan had had plenty of bed partners over the years. But never before had he had the gut-wrenching, animal reaction he had experienced with Joe with any of them.

He’d been back to Saron several times after that and realized that what he was feeling for Joe was more than just lust. And so, like every goal he’d ever set himself to accomplish in his life, Ethan had gone after what he wanted with his usual energy and zeal, crafting a careful plan to infiltrate Saron and capture the club owner’s heart.

From what his accountant had told him, Joe was the type to fuck them and leave them. Although Ethan wanted nothing more than to be in Joe’s arms and under that rock-hard body, there was no way he intended to become another notch in that magnificent man’s bedpost.

His accountant had choked on his iced latte when Ethan first told him his intentions. Though he’d warned him against it, Ethan had still gone ahead with his plan to pursue Joe. It’d helped that he’d bartended to pay his living expenses while he was attending Stanford and even won an award for his skills.

Eleven months after his first shift at Saron and Ethan was nowhere closer to getting in the man’s pants. The fact that Joe stringently adhered to his no-mixing-business-with-pleasure rule and refused to lay a finger on any of his patrons or staff had not discouraged Ethan. Sure, it meant he spent most of his hours at the club horny as hell and had jerked off to the mental image of Joe so many times the guy’s name ought to be tattooed to his dick, but it had not dissuaded him from his program of action, which was to tempt the hell out of Joe until he snapped.

The fruit, when it finally fell, would be all the sweeter—that, Ethan was certain of.

The only thing that had the potential to throw a wrench in the works was the discovery he’d made a few months back. That Joe still did the odd job for Madame Claude, the owner of the notorious Le Secret chain of upscale escort clubs. The fact that Joe clearly wasn’t doing it for the money was what had infuriated Ethan the most. It indicated that the woman had some sort of hold on Joe that Ethan didn’t know about.

And, now there’s the stalker too. When it rains, it fucking pours.

A chill ran down Ethan’s spine as he studied the flower and the note. He crushed them both and shoved them in the trash can.