Chapter Four – Nixon

I stare down at my chrome desk and chase away the impulse to smudge it up. Sometimes my perfect office and my orderly life piss me off for no apparent reason other than that they're ultimately boring. It's all my futile attempt to control everything. Because if I'm in control, I don't have to experience those pesky emotions that I don't want to feel. Since I fell into the pools of chocolate brown masquerading as Marcella Castillo's eyes, I've been roiling in them.

Lust.

Want.

A damn yearning for flesh so strong that I've been forced to give myself a happy ending in the shower every time I've gone inside the frosted glass.

The door flings open after a curt knock, and I snap my head up as Troy strides into the office. He pauses a moment to admire the breathtaking view from my floor to ceiling windows. It's eight at night, and the lights twinkling on the strip are providing the magnificent backdrop to Sin City.

"Working overtime again, boss? I half expected that you wouldn't be in here this late. I should have known better."

I give a stilted little laugh. We've been friends since grade school, and Troy knows everything about me. Even the things I wish I could forget. We've been through it all together. Troy's from the wrong side of the tracks with a crack addicted mother and a father still wearing prison orange. In spite of it, we became fast friends and blood brothers, pricking our thumbs with contraband pocket knives and smashing them together behind my dad's first casino. We'd do anything for each other.

"As I said the other day, her name's Marcella Castillo," Troy says, stopping only long enough to slap a manila folder down on my desk. "Her brother's a dealer here. They had a little spat because the brother apparently has a poker problem. Thinks he's way better than he is just like most amateurs, wiling away their precious hours in online outfits and on gaming apps. Apparently, the little shithead gambled away the rent money."

My heart throbs against my ribs, and I almost don't want to look inside. Once I go down this road, I can't go back. I'm a hard and unfeeling man underneath my smooth veneer, where I can already tell that Marcella is all softness and light. What if one interaction with my steel venom robs that vulnerability away from her, replacing it with frost? The last thing I'd ever want is for a woman with her whole life ahead of her to end up dead inside like me.

"What's inside, Troy?" I ask, stalling.

He moves to stand in front of the windows, giving me his back. I know something's coming that I won't like because he's avoiding looking in my eyes when he spills it.

"The Mona Lisa is looking especially gauche tonight."

I don't appreciate his effort to delay, but I tolerate it. From him, I'd tolerate anything. If any of my other employees were standing in this office, I'd be barking at them to tell me what I want to know. "Doesn't it look that way every night? It looks like Clark Griswald's house in 'National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.' I'm surprised it doesn't cause a citywide blackout."

"No shit." Troy chuckles. "Fucker has too much money. A man with that much money always gets up to something. Rarely anything good."

"Agreed."

After several tense moments, I realize he's not ready to tell me, so I open the folder and glance inside. The first photo, the one laying on top causes me to hiss in a breath, and I see red. White hot dots of unexpressed rage dance before my eyes. I don't even really know this woman, and I want to go to the trailer park and blow that piece of shit she's living in sky high until it's reduced to prefabricated ash. After I torch it, I'd grab Marcella in my arms and carry her away to my private suite, like the prince in a Disney movie.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

"She lives in this shithole?" I ask, even though I already know the answer.

"It gets worse."

"Fuck me."

Troy turns back around, and I expect to see pity on his face. He already knows I'm harboring tender feelings for this stranger. He probably knows my emotions before I can identify them. But he's not judging me for it. It's why I love him like a brother. I never have to be anything other than myself when I'm with him. He takes all of me. The good the bad and the ugly. And since my father died, there's been far more ugly than anything else. Hitting my knees in gratitude for his unending friendship, support, and loyalty wouldn't be misplaced.

"She graduated at the top of her high school. National Merit Scholarship and all that fancy shit. In fact, she got awarded a number of scholarships. She even got accepted to Hunter College in Philly, but she declined and then was forced to drop out of the local community college a few months before she graduated. She declined a fucking full-ride scholarship because her worthless brother keeps stealing all her money for gambling. She's got nothing. I doubt she even has enough money to eat or put gas in her car. And don't even get me started on that piece of shit. It shouldn't even be on the road."

I clamp my eyes shut, anger slicing through me. If I were a bottle rocket, I'd explode off my platform and shoot so far into the sky I'd be reduced to nothing but a flaming trail of rage. I want to stalk down to the casino floor, grab her wastrel brother by the back of the neck, and shake him until he gains sense. But I won't. There has to be another way to save her from him. When I open my eyes and look down at the folder again, Troy's taken a seat across from me. I ruffle through the photos and documents, each one painting a bleak picture of a woman with promise being denied the opportunity to soar.

"This is not right," I say, needing to break the awkward silence as if I might be able to say something that would make this situation better. But I don't have a magic fucking wand. I do have a hotel. And a hotel has jobs. Tons of high paying jobs for proud women who are too intelligent for their own good.

"It's a sad story for sure. Her parents were illegal immigrants who died a few years back. The brakes went out in their ancient vehicle, another one that should have been relegated to the scrap yard. Marcella was left to deal with the fallout even though she's the younger sibling."

Minutes pass, and I picture myself saving her. The illicit fantasy leaves me standing in front of her, holding my heart in my hands, beseeching her to take it. But she doesn't. I can already tell a woman with her obvious brilliance won't appreciate or accept a handout.

When I've finished reviewing everything inside the folder, I shut it, and the dark cloud envelops me again. A sliver of light peeks through only when I have a challenge, something I'm working toward. If I take this woman on as my project, I'm afraid I might fall even further into the darkness if she rejects me. There's nothing good in my life right now outside of my family and the Armónico. Maybe it would be good for me to have something else to focus on. Something that would inspire me to step away from this God forsaken desk. Something that breathes life into my spirit.

Reaching over, I click the intercom and tell Carol to get Manuel Castillo up to my office.

Troy smirks. "Carol left three hours ago."

"Shit. You're right. I guess I was just talking to myself."

Troy tents his hands in front of his face and gets that pensive look. He's about to become the fucking voice of reason. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to put the fear of God into her brother for starters. I can't even imagine stealing from any of my brothers. Can you imagine what Mom or Dad would have done if we'd turned on each other like that? Shit. My mom was so fucking American she named all of us after presidents."

Troy laughs, a deep, rumbling sound that almost makes me feel normal. "Yeah, your mom was a great lady. Back to Marcella. Didn't you see that information about her internship?"

I open the folder back up and rifle through. Stopping at the community college transcript, I run my finger down the text but don't notice anything strange or intriguing. "What?"

"She did an internship this past year. As a para."

I narrow my eyes and squint until I find it. Sure enough, Marcella's counselor approved her to work as a para for a learning disabled child as she worked toward being a occupational therapy assistant. From what I could tell, her next goal was to attend Hunter to pursue being a therapist.

"I see it now," I say, pissed at myself for missing something so important. Lust has overtaken leave of my senses because Marcella just dropped herself right into the lap of a lascivious wolf.

Troy looks at me as if I've lost my mind. Probably because my cock has been hard since I first saw the beauty, and all of my brain cells have traveled straight south.

"Didn't Linc's therapist just quit to go back home to Iowa?"

Since I gave the search for the new therapist over to Carol, I'd completely forgotten about it. Marcella would be perfect to work as an aid under the direction of a therapist. That way, I can keep her close at hand and look my fill, even if I can never touch her.

The thought pisses me off, and I pull out her high school graduation photo. Her chocolate eyes are so big and innocent. I try to keep my body calm as I take in her smiling face. Most kids get professional photos taken by local photographers. Marcella's is some cheap face shot from Wal-Mart. Shit, I wish I could get somebody from Hollywood to fly into Vegas and make that right. Her fuckwad brother probably stole the money that was earmarked for photos. I bet she never even had a party when, with her accolades, she should have been gifted the gala of the decade.

"Great idea. I think that's the perfect way to make it work so she'll actually accept the job. Pride and all that. What if we bring Manuel up here and offer to pay off all his debts if he can get his sister to take the job? Seems she still has a soft spot for the little pecker. Doing it that way will keep it all business and give them both a fresh start."

Because all I want to do is make it personal. So fucking personal I can think of nothing else but marking her as mine.

Troy snorts and leans back in his chair, causing the leather to squeak under his considerable bulk. "I'm calling bullshit on you, Caldwell. I don't think your interest in Marcella Castillo has anything to do with business, although Linc does need someone right now, so it's a win-win. I won't call out the real reason you're sniffing around because I'm actually happy about it. You're getting too prickly and crabby. You could use a good lay."

I sweep the photo from my mind. "She's a baby, Troy. She's not a hooker."

"She's twenty-one."

I scowl. It might have been better if she was still in her teens because that would have made her totally off limits. If she can drink in a bar, she can ride my cock.

Calm down, Caldwell. She's not for the likes of you.

I tap the folder. "Make it happen." I have full confidence that he won't balk.

"What if the brother creates a problem?" Troy asks, thinking of everything. But then again, that's what I pay him to do. He's good at it. Better than me.

"We'll make him an offer he can't refuse," I say, puffing my chest out like Marlon fucking Brando in "The Godfather" because nothing is going to stop me from getting Marcella Castillo into this hotel.

"Shit, Nixon. Don't play like that. You sound like that mafia bastard Dante, and you're better than that."

Am I? Most days I doubt it. Troy still thinks I'm a good guy, but he doesn't realize that most of my soul got sucked out of my body the day my father took himself deep. My friend's crediting me with more goodness than I deserve.

"Get it done by tomorrow. I don't care what it takes."

He nods and slips out of the office, leaving me alone with my hardening dick, my tumultuous thoughts, and the folder that will haunt me all fucking night long.

Everything is in motion now, and I've never been more eager to have my orders carried out with precision. I have to take a deep breath to calm myself because my need for her has bubbled too close to the surface. I can't tamp it down. I've found a way to keep her close and save her at the same time.

Bringing my dark fantasies to fruition will make me a selfish bastard, almost like I'm buying her just like I buy everything else I want. But I don't care. I've spent my life pushing everything and everyone away, but one look at her and it's all over.

For some reason I can't articulate, I was immediately drawn to her, and no one will ever protect this woman like I can. No one will treat her better than I will. I will make her troubles disappear. It's only a matter of time.