Cade
THE CLUB IS smoky and packed to the gills with writhing bodies, but the only thing I see is Stone’s curvy backside as she walks away from me.
Her hair is down and long in the back, the sleek strands like a cascading waterfall. God, I sound lovesick. My fingers itch to pull her head back against my chest and put my mouth on her neck. She’d taste like coconuts and summer, and I inhale sharply at the rush of adrenaline flooding my veins.
I want her.
She doesn’t want you.
“Go after her,” Trent hisses in my ear and gives me a nudge toward the door. Of course, he and Chas had been texting tonight, hence the reason we’d ended up at the same bar.
“She’s almost gone,” he says to me. “It might be your last chance!”
I want to go after her. I want to follow her out and beg her to forgive me for not doing more to stop Marv and his stupid shenanigans.
But I can’t.
My body tightens with tension. “No. She hasn’t forgiven me.” I force myself to shrug nonchalantly. “She’s moving on anyway to New York.” I clear my throat. “Which is great for her. Fucking great.”
I slam my drink and signal the bartender to bring me another one.
I want to feel numb.
Chas, who’s been shimmying to the music, takes a seat at the bar and pats the one next to her. “You look down, Star-Lord. Come here and talk to Mama Chas. I’m a good listener.”
I manage a smirk. I don’t acknowledge the Star-Lord comment but know it has something to do with Stone.
“Trying to psychoanalyze me?”
“Naturally, darling. My aunt LouVerne lived in Little Rock, but she was a New Orleans gypsy.”
“That so?”
“She said I inherited her gift. Come on, sit your hot ass down and show me your hand. Let me tell you what it means.”
I heave out a long breath, suck down the rest of my drink, and plop down. “Alright, lay on the bullshit.”
“Right hand, please.” She nudges her head at my hand, and I place it on the bar.
With a serious expression, she studies my palm, her long mocha fingers drifting and tracing over the intricate lines.
Trent is fascinated and hovers around us. “Do you read tarot cards too?”
“Sure, honey. I do it all,” she says, without looking at him. “Fortune-telling, tea leaves, astrology, crystallomancy, feng shui—”
I pop an eyebrow. “You’re part Chinese now?”
“I sense a hostile vibration,” she says.
I roll my eyes, and Trent pops me on the arm. I chuckle, the alcohol kicking in. “Okay, okay. Just get it over with.”
Chas points to a line at the top of my hand. “See this here? It’s a long fate line, which means lots of happiness . . . although here you have an interruption.”
“Is he going to die?” Trent gasps.
Chas’s lips twitch. “Don’t freak . . . he has a long life line, but sadness and heartbreak have plagued you recently. You made a mistake . . . a tiny one . . . and it hasn’t been rectified. You must fix this or never have happiness again.”
“Dude. That sucks,” Trent says, giving me a sympathetic look. “You can’t leave things unsettled. Think about Dad. I mean, we aren’t perfect—never will be—but things are better.”
I exhale. “Okay, what else?”
Chas peers at my hand, tracing the line near my thumb. “This is your love line.”
I smirk. “I bet it’s horrible.”
She ignores me, intent on her reading. “You love deeply, but you’ve been hurt in the past.” Her heavily lashed eyes flick up to mine.
My mouth tightens. “Hasn’t everyone?”
“Maggie Grace, aka Lying Bitch,” Trent exclaims. “She walked out on him when his knee was busted. Didn’t even leave a goodbye note and then goes and tells everyone she’s his fiancée. Crazy ass—”
“That’s enough,” I say.
Yes, she’d left me, and it had stung. But it was nothing compared to watching Stone march out of my office.
Chas nods, her voice low and serious. “Fear of being hurt and a mountain of pride are keeping you from getting what you want. There is someone you care for very deeply—not your ex—and you must tell her or nothing will ever be right again. If you want something, you must fight for it.” Her knowing gaze sweeps over me. “You feel me?”
Even though my bullshit meter is going off, a tingle goes down my spine, and my heart thuds. I am a fucking fighter. Always have been. But when it comes to Stone, she’d walked away from me. So. Fucking. Easily. I have my pride, and if a shit ton of phone calls and texts aren’t enough . . .
I jerk my hand away from Chas.
“She gave up, not me.” Picking up my drink, I take a deep swallow. It burns going down, and I’m glad. I need it.
With my index finger at the bartender, I order another one. He quickly obliges.
Trent gives me a concerned look as he watches me suck it down. “Bro, you okay? I haven’t seen you drink this much—”
I cut him off. “I’m fine. Bathroom break.” I stand, weaving for half a second until he straightens me.
“Want me to go with?” he calls as I walk through the crowd to get to the back of the club. I raise my hand up and flip him off without even looking.
Making my way down the narrow hallway, I find the restroom, shoving open the door with my palms. Thank fuck it’s empty. I grip the sink and peer at myself in the mirror. My face is ashen and there are bags under my eyes from lack of sleep. It isn’t because of work or the gala or Trent.
Stone, fucking, Stone.
And right there, I allow myself to process what she’d said.
She’s going to New York and going on to a hell of a lot bigger things than being in car commercials in Houston. She isn’t just walking out of my office . . . she’s walking to another part of the goddamn country.
A wave of nausea hits me, and my knuckles whiten as I hang on to the sink.
“Get yourself together,” I mutter.
I’m going to be sick because I drank too much.
That’s a lie—I’m sick because of Rebecca Fieldstone.
My chest tightens at the thought of her. I straighten my shoulders and roll my neck, needing to alleviate the pressure.
Suck it up, Killer. Move on.
Right.
That ship has sailed.
Trent pops into the room, his nose wrinkling. “Damn, this place reeks.” He shudders. “I hate public restrooms. Can’t use them.”
“What do you want then?” I bark.
He smirks and takes my arm. “Simmer down, princess, I’m rescuing you and getting you out of this dump.”
I let him lead me out. “Where we going?”
He pats my arm. “I’m taking you home and tucking you in.”
“I don’t want to go home.”
“If you don’t want to be alone, I’ll sleep over.”
I don’t say it, but it’s scary how he reads me.
We weave through the dancers, and I wonder how we must look, me the six, four bulky guy being lead around by the lean and much younger Trent.
I reach over to ruffle his hair and my words are a bit slurred. I focus on enunciating. “I might be drunk, so disregard anything I might say, but you’re my favorite brother.”
“You are definitely drunk, and I’m your only brother.”
“Thank God.”
He beams. “I love you, too.”
Chas is on the dance floor and waves us air kisses as we pass her and head to the exit. “Come by the apartment,” she calls. “I have a crystal ball . . .” The rest fades out as we exit and Trent calls us an Uber. The ride home is a nightmare, and I find myself staring out the window, fighting with my roiling stomach.
When I finally get inside my apartment and get into bed, I can’t sleep, which is the whole reason I drank. The room spins, and I close my eyes, digging for solace. All I see is a spunky blonde.
Stone. She’s got me tied up in a knot and the only way out is to—fuck, I don’t see a way out.
The rest of the weekend passes excruciatingly slow. I wake up with a pounding headache and an uneasy stomach. Ditching my run, I spend Saturday morning in bed with Killer watching pregame football shows. More times than I care to admit, I find myself studying the lines on my hand. I am a fighter, I keep telling myself, but when the car commercial with Stone comes on, I turn it off. I don’t even want to see her face.
If she’s leaving . . . then that’s the end of it.
By the afternoon, Trent calls about our Sunday get-together at the movies. I drag myself out of bed, shower, and head to meet my family at the local cinema to see Guardians of the Galaxy 2. Star-Lord . . . I’m not him. I’m right here on this planet wanting her.
That night, I toss and turn, my body wired and on edge. I finally sleep when I flick on the TV and the monotonic drone lulls me under.
By Monday, I’m still feeling dark though, mulling over the weekend as I dress in a Tom Ford suit and head to work. I arrive earlier than usual, and the lobby is empty except for a page dropping off some mail. I mumble out a greeting and stalk to the sports den. My grouchiness is heightened when I can’t even find a pen that works on my desk. With a growl of frustration, I stomp to the supply closet.
It’s the low throaty moan that gives me the first clue something isn’t as it should be, and it’s confirmed when I fling the door open. I don’t know what I expect to see—maybe the cleaning lady had gotten locked inside overnight—but it sure isn’t the sight of Savannah on her knees with Marv’s skinny dick in her mouth.
With the backdrop of copy paper, toner, and boxes of pens, she’s deep throating him and he’s pumping between her lips, a blissed-out expression on his thin face. He eeks out his orgasm, and she swallows it down. I steel myself not to barf. They haven’t even seen me yet.
I open the door wider and clear my throat. “Morning, party people!”
She chokes.
He screams like a girl.
His expression is part horror, part ecstasy.
I shake my head and say, “Well, well, well, this explains a lot.”
Marv shoves a disoriented Savannah off him, and she falls down and screeches. Her shirt is off, and her tits flop around. Ignoring her calls of protest, he quickly zips his pants and tries to buckle them.
“This isn’t what it looks like, Cade, not at all. What about you and Rebecca? I heard there was some heat there. You know the game.”
I bark out a harsh laugh. “Fuck you, Marv. You don’t know shit. Stone’s my co-worker. Savannah is your employee. Big fucking difference.”
I open the door a bit wider when I hear the familiar female voice that seems to be talking to someone on the phone.
Marv starts, his eyes darting past me into the hallway. “Let’s just forget about this, okay? We don’t need anymore disruptions at the station.”
“Oh, I have to disagree.” My smile is tight.
One part of me is pissed as hell, knowing I’ve just exposed the entire reason Savannah got the anchor job in the first place. The other side of me is fucking thrilled.
Blocking the exit in case he decides to run, I call over my shoulder. “Vicky? That you?”
“Yeah?” Her voice is questioning. I assume she’s staring at my back and wondering why I won’t turn around. “What’s going on? You find a big hairy spider?”
I shrug. “You could say that.”
Her steps increase. “Let me have a look. I might need to go get my flyswatter . . .” Her voice stops as she reaches me and gasps. With wide eyes, she sputters, obviously struggling to find words.
Marv flounders around, still trying to get his belt latched, and Savannah is scrambling to tuck her boobs in her bra. But it’s too late. It’s plain as day what’s happening here.
Disbelief combined with a dawning realization settles on her face. “You and Savannah? At work?” Her voice rises, shock morphing into anger. “Do you have any idea what the board will say?”
I chuckle and look at Vicky. “Oh, I have a really good idea what the board will say, and I’m heading up there right now to hear it.” I salute Marv and smirk. “Good riddance, Marv.”
I turn and do a little dance as I head toward the elevators.