Chapter 14

Beck

“Is this weird?” Sela asks as she smooths down the dress at her hips with nervous hands.

“No, and quit fidgeting,” I tell her as I guide her into the ballroom by the elbow.

“It seems weird,” she maintains.

“It’s not weird,” I tell her for about the hundredth time. “And we don’t have to stay long. Just enough to make an appearance and then we can go.”

“See, I told you it was a waste of money to buy this dress,” she complains as we walk toward the bar. “Silly, since you only have to stay for a little while. I should have just stayed at the condo and waited for you, and you could have saved yourself a pretty penny.”

I laugh and squeeze her elbow. “Ever-practical Sela.”

God, her practicality is fucking adorable. When I told Sela at lunch a few days ago that The Sugar Bowl had another mixer that I needed to attend, she first got jealous on me. Oh, it was barely perceptible…a tightening of her jaw, a spark in her eye. I wanted to call her out on it but knew it would embarrass her, so I quickly let her know that I wanted her to go with me as my date. I assured her that I just had to make an appearance and that we wouldn’t stay long.

So after lunch that day, we then went shopping for a cocktail dress. I let Sela pick out what she wanted, and while the boutique I took her to didn’t have anything that cost less than a thousand dollars, I was surprised she picked a more sedate dress. It’s champagne-colored silk with sleeves that sit off her shoulders, a snug-fitting bodice, and a skirt that falls below her knees. It’s actually quite elegant and not at all something a Sugar Baby would wear, which means I loved the fuck out of it.

Tonight she paired it with a pair of high heels in the same champagne color and put her hair in a tight twist at the back of her neck. She looks like she could be attending a fancy charity dinner instead, and I realize as we walk into the ballroom that my chest is actually puffed out a little with pride in the woman that is with me.

We step up to the bar and a bartender swoops in on us taking our drink orders. I offer an empty stool to Sela. How she so gracefully gets on it with that tight skirt is beyond me, but when she crosses one leg over the other and a long slit appears running up her thigh, I immediately understand. I can’t help myself…placing my fingers on her bare skin and running them up high until the material comes together again.

“You are the sexiest woman in this room,” I tell her as I tilt my head to the side and kiss her bare shoulder. She shivers and lets out a tiny gasp of pleasure.

I pull back and grin at her, finding her looking at me with confusion.

“How do you do that?” she asks in amazement.

“Do what?”

“Make me feel like some high school girl with a crush on the cutest boy in the class and he just looked at her and made her go all silly inside,” she replies.

“I know the feeling,” I tell her softly, and she smiles at me.

A rare, genuine, full smile from Sela with nothing else hidden underneath. It captivates me and everything else in the room melts away. Our eyes lock and hold. I feel an almost electric current pop between us, as if I’ve just had an epiphany of some sort.

But then Sela’s gaze wavers and slides past my left shoulder, narrows for an instant, and then fills with disgust. I turn my body that way, look over my shoulder, and immediately see what caused that look.

The bar is curved like a horseshoe and JT is standing at the end about six stools down from Sela and me. He’s got his arm around the back of one of the stools that holds a scantily clad and huge-chested blond girl, early twenties as best I can tell, and he’s whispering into her ear. She’s clearly his target for tonight.

JT takes his hand, drops it to her waist, and then slides it up her ribs. She giggles, shifts in her seat and moves her arm giving him more access. He slides it higher and his fingers brush the outside of her breast. She now turns coy, bats his hand away, and laughs again. JT doesn’t laugh though and puts his hand right back at her ribs.

It’s a classic show of dominance, and I’ve seen it so many times before.

“He’s really got the moves, doesn’t he?” Sela murmurs beside me.

I don’t turn to look at her but continue to watch JT in almost mesmerized disgust. “I take it that’s your sarcastic voice, right?”

She laughs. “That obvious, huh?”

JT goes for another touch to the woman’s breast and she again pushes his hand away, but laughs flirtatiously as she does it. I want to tell her she’s doing nothing more than pissing him off, but what good would it do? Any Sugar Baby in this room with the exception of Sela isn’t going to pass up a chance with JT.

Our bartender returns with our drinks, dirty martini for Sela and scotch for me. I hold my glass out to hers and we tap the edges together. “Cheers.”

“Cheers.”

Sela pulls the toothpick out loaded with three olives and pulls one off with her teeth. It’s a sexy move and I’m fascinated by it until she points the toothpick now holding two olives at JT. “You know…I have to wonder, do you see any good in your partner at all?”

It’s not a strange question, but her tone has an odd inflection. Almost combative in nature. I know Sela doesn’t like JT, and shit…I don’t like him much nowadays, but it seems a bit personal to Sela. I look over at him, start to turn back to Sela to tell her the truth of my feelings when I watch the blonde push up off the stool and grab her purse. She goes on tiptoe, whispers something in JT’s ear, and then heads off toward the bathroom. JT watches her for a moment, his eyes pinned to her ass, and then he turns back to the bar. Reaching inside his left breast pocket, he pulls something out.

He does it so swiftly and assuredly I almost don’t believe what I’m seeing. He casually holds his hand over the woman’s drink and a white powder floats down into it. He looks quickly at the bartender, whose back is turned, and then picks up the drink to swirl the powder until it’s dissolved.

“Did he just—” Sela starts to ask, but I’m already pushing away from the bar like an enraged bull.

I stalk toward JT in angry strides, watching as he stares at the drink that he’s now set onto the bar with a satisfied smile. Just when I’m a foot away from him, his head comes up and makes eye contact with me. He smiles at first in welcome, but when he sees the look on my face, it slides right back off.

I grab the drink, step up on the foot rail at the bottom of the bar, and lean over it, pouring the drink out into the sink on the other side.

“What the fuck?” JT says with indignation.

I slam the glass down and my hand shoots out, grabbing a fistful of JT’s shirt and tie. I haul him away from the bar and start pulling him toward the exit. People scramble out of our way, most with looks of surprise that the two owners of The Sugar Bowl seem to be on the verge of a fistfight.

He tries to shrug me off but I hiss at him, “You follow me the fuck out of here right now, asshole, or so help me God I’m going to call the police over what you just tried to do.”

JT immediately goes still and I give him a hard shove toward the exit as I release my hold on him. He goes stumbling for a moment, then catches his footing. He looks around at everyone staring and holds his hands up, “Nothing to worry about, folks. Just a friendly tug-of-war over a Sugar Baby.”

He gives a smarmy grin, and the closest people who heard that laugh nervously. I don’t laugh and give him a rough push to his shoulder, sending him stumbling again. That gets JT moving and we walk quickly out of the ballroom. JT doesn’t look at me but walks directly to the men’s bathroom. I follow him in and he turns to face me. I can tell by the quiet of the room that it’s empty except for us and I lunge at him. Now grabbing fistfuls of shirt, jacket, and tie, I push him back across the tiled floor several steps until his back slams into the wall and he grunts from the pain.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Beck,” he says, and I pull him away and slam him back again.

“You sick fuck,” I snarl at him. “You just fucking tried to roofie that girl. What in the ever-loving fuck is wrong with you?”

I am so furious right now I almost feel like I could kill JT. I see the glaze in his eyes from drugs and alcohol, imagine what he would have done to that girl tonight, and I see my entire empire starting to crumble down around me. I see nothing of the man I thought I knew within his fogged gaze. A man that I thought was just like me, but I’m starting to realize was nothing more than a foolish pipe dream.

“Relax, bro,” he says calmly. “It was just to loosen her up.”

“You goddamn idiot motherfucker,” I yell at him, and drop my hands away. I raise one up, point to him, and see it’s shaking. “You are going to bring us down, JT, and I’m tired of this shit. I want you out of this company. I want you gone and you can go do whatever sick, perverted shit goes on in that head of yours away from me, but I’m not about to let you pull me down with you.”

“You can’t force—”

I cut him off by grabbing him again, pulling him away from the wall, and slamming him back into it. His eyes go wide with fear. “Just shut the fuck up. Now I want you to walk your ass out of this hotel and get in a cab and go home. If I see you go back in that ballroom, I’m calling the cops and it’s over for both of us.”

It’s not an empty threat this time. I’m now prepared to do whatever I need to do, ideally to get JT out of The Sugar Bowl, but at the least do what it takes to protect that woman tonight.

“Fine,” he rasps out, and my hands drop. “Fine, I’ll go.”

“You be at the office tomorrow at eight a.m. and be ready to iron this out,” I tell him as I run my hands through my hair in frustration. “This shit is done, JT. I’m not kidding.”

“Fine, okay…whatever,” he says, holding up his hands in surrender. “I’ll get it under control. I promise.”

I point toward the door. “Go home, JT. Now.”

He grabs onto his jacket at the lapel, pulls on the material to straighten it out. He then straightens his tie and nods. He turns toward the door and starts to walk out.

I remind him. “Tomorrow…eight a.m., JT. We’re settling this.”

“I’ll be there,” he mutters, and then he’s gone.

I take a few moments, collect my thoughts, and take a few deep breaths, but I’m still shaking with anger and frustration as I head back into the ballroom. Sela sits at the bar, her eyes locked on me with worry the minute I walk back in.

When I reach her, her hand comes to my chest and she asks, “Is everything okay?”

I huff out a sigh, pick up my drink, and take a healthy slug. Setting the glass back down, I scrub my hand through my hair again and shrug. “I don’t know.”

Sela’s hand grabs on to mine. She stands up from the stool and gracefully places her feet on the floor. Tugging at me, she says, “Come on…let’s dance.”

I don’t want to fucking dance.

It’s the last thing in the world I want at this moment, but I don’t want to drop Sela’s hand either, so I follow her in almost a trance out to the dance floor. When she reaches the middle and turns into my arms, I realize a song with a slow beat is playing. Sela steps into me and one of my arms goes automatically around her waist; the other takes her hand and brings it to my chest.

She curves one hand behind my neck and strokes me softly as she whispers in a reassuring voice, “Just relax and cool down.”

I look down at her as she stares up at me with earnest eyes filled with concern. My heart rate immediately takes a nosedive as I feel her hand on my neck and smell her peach lotion. I let out a huge pent-up breath of frustration and then give her a tired smile. “Sorry you had to see that.”

She shrugs and steps in closer to me. Her eyes are round, clear, and filled with respect. “Honestly…what you did. How quickly you reacted. It was the most amazing thing I think I’ve ever seen in my life.”

I try to make light of it, because the way she’s looking at me both embarrasses and humbles me. “I was just trying to impress you so you’d sleep with me tonight.”

She gives a tinkling laugh, her eyes bright with amusement. “That was already a given, Mr. North.”

I can’t resist. I lean down, capture her lips with mine, and give her a slow kiss. She sighs into my mouth and my arm around her waist tugs her in tighter to me.

Feels so fucking good holding her like this.

Dancing.

Kissing.

Just magical.

I pull my lips from hers and before I can even comprehend what I’m doing, I tell her, “Let’s do away with the agreement.”

Sela jerks in surprise and her lips draw down in dismay. “You want to end things now?”

“God, no,” I tell her quickly with a nervous laugh, reeling her back in close. “I mean…the time frame. It was only for a month. Let’s do away with that.”

“You want me to stay in your condo?” she asks hesitantly. “Like move in for real?”

“Well, yeah…sure,” I say, now not completely positive what I want or if this is the right thing to do. “I mean…your stuff is there, why not?”

She rolls her eyes at me. “Well, gee, Mr. Romantic…how can a girl pass up that offer?”

I laugh, give her a quick kiss, and then tell her, “Sorry. That wasn’t very suave. What I mean is that I don’t want you to leave in two weeks when the agreement is over. Okay?”

Sela’s blue eyes go a shade deeper as she stares at me in solemn consideration. Finally, she tips her head in agreement. “Okay. I can do that.”

“Excellent,” I say, and then bend down to kiss her again.

Sela rests her head against my shoulder and for a few moments we just sway back and forth to the music. Another thought strikes me. “Next week is Thanksgiving. My sister and niece are going to visit for a few days.”

“Want me to go back to my apartment while they’re here?” she asks quietly.

“What?” I ask startled as I push her away from me. Peering down at her I give her a chastising look. “I want you to meet them. I really want you to help me cook Thanksgiving dinner. I most certainly don’t want you going back to your apartment.”

She smiles at me again.

First in relief.

Then with happiness.

One of those unfiltered, genuine smiles where she gives me 100 percent of Sela Halstead.

And it’s fucking brilliant.