Brodie

I’ll be damned.

My auction date, Nara, had actually beaten me at my own game. I’d seen the text from her assistant when we’d been out for drinks, and it was clear the whole “emergency” thing was a set up. She’d needed an escape hatch in case I turned out to be a dud. I can’t blame someone for planning for the worst, but damn. A true first.

I still couldn’t believe I’d fallen for my own trick.

On the way to work that morning, I got a call from Trudy. The band that had rented all the top floor penthouses had party number one underway—so named because they never left it at just one party—and there were naked girls running around the halls. They’d been up all night long.

I was normally inclined to let them do what they wanted to on their rented floors out of sight of other guests, but it seemed one of the girls had given a bellman delivering food a blowjob in front of an audience. One of the maids had seen it and ratted him out. Personally, I didn’t care about the kid getting his dick sucked as long as everyone involved was a consenting adult. But when a party went beyond the confines of its rented space, I had to step in and make sure no one ended up naked in front of other guests, especially ones who were inclined to call the cops.

Sometimes, I felt like a babysitter for rich, grown-up kids. But those overgrown brats spent a lot of money at my hotel, and they attracted people who spent even more.

Can’t live with them. Can’t live without them.

Accompanied by two of our beefiest hotel security men, I headed up to the penthouse to pay a visit to our latest rowdy guests. After letting them know they needed to keep the party contained, everyone seemed happy. ’Course, the presence of the security guys helped keep the negotiations friendly. Hell, one of the guys from the band even offered me a line of coke. I didn’t take it—I’m not into that stuff—but I took that as a sign of skillful diplomacy. Everybody won.

As I returned to my office, Trudy said, “Brodie, one of the front desk girls was just up here looking for you.”

“What?” Needless to say, front desk staff did not spend much time in the management offices. “What did she want?”

Trudy raised an eyebrow and gave me one of those I wasn’t born yesterday looks. Shit, did she know about the blowjobs? “I don’t know what she was doing up here, Brodie. And I don’t think I want to know.”

Um. Busted?

“Yeah, well. We’ve flirted.” If you want to call it that…

“Do you want to see her and find out what she wants? I’ll call her up here.” She had her hands on her hips. She was all about the no-nonsense.

“Yeah, sure.”

Might as well get it over with.

Not five minutes later, Sonya—that was her name, right?—walked into my office. Damn, that hotel uniform looked good on her—snug enough to show of her great breasts, but tasteful enough for its purpose.

“Hi, Mr. Harcourt.” She blushed. Poor thing was nervous. Funny, she was all confidence when my dick was in her mouth.

“You can call me Brodie, like I told you. What can I do for you today?” I smiled to put her at ease.

She looked down. I wasn’t sure if the bashfulness was an act or the real thing. If I’d been open to playing, I could have had some real fun with it.

She was shifting around on her feet, and she kept looking at me, then looking away. “Mr. Har—I mean Brodie, I was wondering if…I mean…you know, we could um, get together again?” She continued to avoid my gaze.

Her request was endearing. Seriously. And I considered it. I really did.

But I leaned forward, placing my elbows on the desk.

“Sonya, I enjoyed our playing. I did. You are a beautiful girl.” Now she was looking at me. “But I, um, am seeing someone. I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

Shit. Did I really just say that?

* * *

An hour later, Trudy came in with my mail. “How’d your meeting go?”

“Huh? What meeting?” I asked, looking up from the reports I was reviewing.

“With the front desk girl.”

There was an undeniable smirk on her face.

“She had a question.” I took the stack of mail she’d opened. “Thanks for the mail, Trudy.”

She rolled her eyes and shut the door behind herself.

A strange invoice caught my attention. On close examination, I saw it was a bill for fifteen thousand dollars from a law firm I’d never heard of called Levin, Ross. It said:

Services rendered for dissolution of HWE Enterprises

What?

Dissolution of HWE…?

The partnership of Harcourt, Wooten, and Evershire…?

My business partners were dissolving our partnership…?

What. The. Fuck.

I dialed the number on the invoice.

“Levin, Ross. Pam speaking. You’ve reached accounting.” A keyboard clicked in the background.

“Hello Pam. This is Brodie Harcourt from HWE Enterprises. I just received an invoice from your firm that I need some more information about.”

More typing. “Certainly, Mr. Harcourt. Let me pull up your account right now. HWE Enterprises did you say? Here we go. Looks like you met with one our attorneys from our business law practice, about…here it is, a month ago.”

“Are you sure? Could you check?”

“Of course. Let me dig in deeper.” More clicking on the keyboard. “Oh, I see what happened here. The meeting was with Mr. Steven Evershire and Mr. Hardy Wooten. I see your name is here on the partnership documents. I guess that’s why the invoice ended up with you. Should we have sent the bill to a different address, Mr. Harcourt?”

“No, not at all. I just, um, needed my memory jogged. Thank you for the info.”

Unbelievable.

Steve and Hardy had engaged a law firm. Without me. About the dissolution of our partnership. The one I busted my ass for, day in and day out. The one I built the best hotel in New York for.

No wonder they wouldn’t talk to me about expanding to the West Coast.

They were trying to get rid of me.

* * *

I dialed my attorney, the one who’d represented me when everything went south with my father. His secretary knew me and sensed the urgency of my tone. She patched me right through.

“Brodie! Good to hear from you,” my attorney said.

“Joe, I need to ask you something,” I said.

“Sure, let me have it.”

I took a deep breath and described the invoice and my call to Levin, Ross.

“Whoa. You really stumbled into some shit. If you each own thirty-three percent of the company, the other two can band together and either offer to buy you out or dissolve the company, and then immediately create a new one you are not part of. They can’t take away your shares, but they can take away your job.”

“Holy shit. Now that I’ve got the hotel on solid footing, the fuckers want me out.” Throwing my chair out the tenth floor window would have felt good right about then.

My dad screwed these guys over royally. I wasn’t proud of it. But I’d been working my tail off to pay them back and then some.

“Brodie, do you want me to reach out to their attorney to see what’s going on?” he asked.

“Not yet, Joe. Not yet. I’m gonna think on this for now. Figure out my next move.”

Joe was silent for a moment. “All right, my friend. Keep me posted. And don’t do anything without speaking to me first. Please.”