CHAPTER 5
Asher
After having been gone on a business trip the last three days and having just disembarked the redeye from Los Angeles to Vegas, I really should be heading home for a good night’s sleep.
Instead, I leave the airport, turning not toward my downtown luxury apartment but rather to a local bar called Joe’s. My assistant easily obtained Hannah’s second place of employment along with the address, which I put into my navigation system. It’s in an area of town that’s not quite used to seeing a three hundred-thousand-dollar sports car, and I worry slightly it might get boosted. I hope the car alarm is enough to dissuade some would-be criminal, but it’s hard to tell.
It’s not a worry that’s big enough to thwart me, so I park in a darkened lot across the street. Besides, it’s why I have insurance.
When I open the bar door, I’m hit with a wave of smoke and realize I must be obsessed with Hannah. Why else would I come to this stinking pit when I could easily just call her?
When I spy her behind the bar, pulling a mug of draft beer, my body tightens with need. It’s all it takes to have my answer.
I simply want her again, and I want her more than my common sense should allow.
Music from a jukebox blares, forcing the patrons to scream to converse, and the air is hazy with smoke. I grimace as I wind my way through a light crowd of early drinkers—it’s only about nine—and make my way up to the bar.
Hannah doesn’t see me. Once she serves the draft beer to a customer, she turns and asks the next person what they’re drinking. There’s another female bartender working at the other end, slinging drinks as fast as Hannah.
It’s busy and decidedly not glorious work. Hannah is tipped a pittance for her efforts, but I can tell she tries to make it up in serving volume, efficiently moving from customer to customer.
When she finally glances my way, there’s a curt smile on her face that she has in place for everyone. Her mouth parts to ask what I’m drinking before she fully gawks at me in shock.
“Hello, Hannah,” I say in a voice loud enough to rise above the din as I tap my finger against the scarred wooden bar top.
“What are you doing here?” she asks, equally as loud as she positions herself directly across the bar from me.
I jerk my head toward the door. “Can you take a break?”
Hannah stares at me a moment, clearly undecided. Here she stands in a dirty, smoke filled bar, looking amazing in a tight tank top with tattered daisy duke shorts, and I don’t think I’ve ever been more attracted to a woman before.
She holds a finger up to me to say she needs a moment, then walks to the other end of the bar. Her head inclines toward the other bartenders. They exchange words, then Hannah is headed my way. Pushing away from the bar, I walk to the end to meet her at the pass-through. After she exits, I escort her to the door that leads out, my hand on her lower back. It’s completely reminiscent of the way I escorted her through the Wicked Horse five days ago.
When I had what was the absolute best sex of my life.
Which sort of blows my mind and freaks me out at the same time. It was nothing over the top. Totally vanilla—outside of the fact we were in a sex club—but Jesus… how many women have I fucked missionary style in my life?
Too many to remember… and so many occasions that were forgettable.
But Hannah has opened something inside of me that I didn’t even know existed. While it scares the fuck out of me, it’s too intriguing for me to ignore it.
I push the door open. My chest brushing against Hannah’s shoulder shoots a ripple of pleasurable awareness through me. She continues, and I wonder if she’s as affected by that touch as I am.
I follow her to the corner of the building, far enough away from the door that we can have some privacy from customers going in and out.
She turns, faces me, and pushes her hands down into the pockets of her jean shorts. Tilting her head quizzically, she asks, “What’s up?”
She doesn’t say, God, I missed you.
Will you take me back to the Wicked Horse?
Thank you for the best sex of my life, Asher.
Fuck, I need to quit thinking those thoughts. I absolutely do not want Hannah beholden to me in any way, and that includes having an insatiable need for sex from me. Because I’m afraid I’d be too weak to resist that temptation.
Okay, that’s a lie. I would not say no to that, which is proven by the fact I’m standing here in front of her.
While I’d rather just kiss the fuck out of her, possibly pull her to the side of the building and fuck her up against the wall because I’m insanely turned on being in her presence right now, I decide to play it cool. “I want another night with you.”
Just as I expected might happen, her cheeks glow pink with embarrassment, which turns me on even more. Her expression turns bewildered. “Why?”
“Because I enjoyed fucking you, Hannah,” I reply matter-of-factly. This is, after all, really a business deal. “And I think you enjoyed it, too. So I’d like you to be my companion—”
“Your companion?” she exclaims with a mirthless laugh. “What does that even mean?”
“I want you to be available to accompany me to the Wicked Horse on certain nights of my choosing,” I tell her.
Hannah just stares at me, her eyes turning blank for a moment before she bursts into laughter. “Your sex companion? Tell me you’re joking.”
I lean into her and murmur, “I never joke about sex. And I’d pay you well to accompany me there.”
She blinks, and there’s an iciness in her tone that wasn’t there before. “You want me to be your full-time whore?”
Through my locked jaw, I grit out, “I never used that word, nor would I ever. But if it eases your conscience, you are free to tell me ‘no’ at any time we are inside that club. It will totally be your choice.”
Hannah crosses her arms under her breasts, which pushes them up against the low cut of her tank top. I refuse to let my gaze drop there.
“Let me get this straight,” she says with a hefty dose of suspicion. “You want me to go with you to a sex club in the evenings, for which you will pay me money. And if I don’t want to have sex with you, I don’t have to.”
“That’s the gist of it,” I mutter.
“You don’t think I have the power to say no to you, do you?” she accuses with her lower lip stuck out. It makes me want to bite it.
Even though that’s exactly what I think, I don’t admit it. Instead, I just stare at her.
Wait her out.
Finally, she sighs and drops her arms. “Doesn’t matter, anyway. I work nights at Joe’s, so I can’t be your companion.” She holds up air quotes to emphasize her offense at the word. “I can’t give this job up.”
In my mind, I thought it would be cool if I could have access to Hannah a few nights a week. I figured that would appease this insatiable need for her that I’ve developed somehow. But now a different sort of thought takes hold.
“I’ll pay you double whatever you make at all three of your jobs combined. If you quit them, then you’re available to me.”
Hannah’s mouth drops open into a perfect “O,” and I have a clear fantasy of what I’d like to see filling that space one evening.
As if she could read my lewd thoughts, she narrows her eyes. “You’d pay me double what I’m making at all three of my jobs, just to accompany you to the Wicked Horse on some evenings where I have the right to say ‘no’ to your advances?”
My lips curl up in an evil grin. “No. If I’m going to pay you double what you’re currently earning, I expect you to quit all three of those jobs and be at my beck and call, not on ‘some’ evenings, but ‘all’ evenings.”
Hannah worries at her lower lip, her gaze casting off to the side as she thinks.
I add gravy on top. “I’ll give you a fifteen-thousand-dollar signing bonus up front.”
Her gaze slams back into me, eyes wide with surprise. “Awful lot of money for a whore,” she murmurs.
Fuck… I just actually made her a whore if she accepts this. But I press on.
“Again, your word, not mine. Besides, you can—”
She beats me to the punch. “Say ‘no’. Yeah… I heard you. But if I say yes, then that makes me a whore.”
She sounds glum, and I wonder if it’s because I’ve basically given her a guilt-free way to accept this deal or maybe because she doesn’t have the willpower to say no to me.
“How about I hire you as my full-time house manager?” I add, hoping to add some legitimacy to the offer.
“What the hell is a house manager?” she gripes.
“You’d manage my home. Keep it clean, well-stocked, make meals, handle my dry cleaning. Stuff like that.”
“And go to the Wicked Horse with you.”
“We could stay in at my apartment some nights,” I say with a mischievous grin.
She doesn’t smile back.
Instead, she gives me an apologetic grimace. “As much as that sounds like an amazing deal for any woman, I’m afraid I’m going to have to say ‘no’.”
The emphasis she puts on the word ‘no’ isn’t lost on me. She’s showing me that she has resolve.
I step into her, causing her to back up against the dirty stucco exterior of the building. Putting my hands near her head, I dip my head so my face is near hers. “You’re being stubborn, Hannah. But I like it.”
Her mouth curves in amusement.
I bring my lips near her ear. “Besides… I’m quite confident you’ll change your mind.”
She snorts, and her hands go to my chest to push me away from her. Giving her a wink, I turn to leave.
I look left and right as I walk away, considering it safe to cross the road back to my car. Holding my hand up, I wave at her, knowing without even glancing back that she’s staring at me.
Raising my voice slightly, I say, “Call me. I’ll be waiting.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” she yells, and I chuckle.
Yeah… she’ll change her mind.
By the time I get in my car and start it, Hannah has already disappeared into the bar. A message notification comes up on my dashboard screen, which is synced to my phone through Bluetooth. I press a button on my steering wheel. After a soft tone, I say, “Play voicemail.”
There’s a short pause as I back out of my parking spot, then I hear my father’s voice. “Asher, call me. I think you’re making a mistake on the Tyndall property. There’s no way you’ll get investors to bite at it. It’s going to fall flat, and you’ll look bad. If you look bad, Knight Investment Group looks bad. So call me.”
Rolling my eyes, I press the button on my steering wheel to delete the voicemail. I make my way back toward the nicer part of town to my apartment. As I drive, I consider what to say to my dad when I call him back, and have no doubt, I will call him back. No one disregards a summons from Carlton Knight.
My dad and I have always had a strangely unusual relationship. He’s arrogant, self-centered, and ruthless when it comes to business. I’ve been told by many that I’m just like him, but perhaps a tad more ruthless.
We get along fine because our worlds are centered around making insane amounts of money. When my father passed on the mantle of CEO of Knight Investment Group to me, it didn’t mean he was going to keep his opinions to himself. It means nothing to him that I’ve doubled our wealth and holdings since I’ve taken over. He’s still going to give me advice whether I want it or not.
He’s lucky I usually want it, because I respect his entrepreneurial acumen. It doesn’t mean I’ll always follow it. Regarding the Tyndall property, I’m absolutely going with my gut instinct on this. It’s the one significant difference between us. I’m willing to take risks he never would have in business, and it’s hard for him to understand that about me.
Regardless, I respect the man greatly, which means he still has tremendous influence over me.
But I choose not to call him back tonight. I don’t feel like butting heads with him. It will totally ruin my surprisingly good mood after spending just moments in Hannah’s company.
Instead, I call someone who is usually a pleasure to talk to.
My twin sister Christina.
She answers on the third ring with an affectionately irreverent greeting. “What’s up Ash-hole?”
“You know, after twenty years, that nickname is a bit overused,” I reply drolly.
Christina’s laugh is husky and mischievous, and it sounds just like our mother’s laugh, which causes my chest to ache. While I’m everything like my father, Christina took after our late mother. She’s kind to everyone and focuses all her free time on philanthropy.
Like me, she’s ivy-league educated—I went to Penn, and she went to Yale—but she disappointed Father and forever endeared herself to Mother when she decided to become a public-school teacher.
“Are you back in town?” she asks as she munches on something crunchy, which crackles loudly over the phone connection.
“Just flew in a bit ago. Headed home now. Just thought I’d check in and see how you’re doing.”
“I’m good,” she replies with more crunching in the phone. She does it to annoy me as only a good little sister—younger by almost three minutes—can do. “Met with the venue manager this morning, and everything is a go.”
I smile. “That’s good. Need me to do anything?”
“Got it covered,” she replies, which makes my smile wider. She’s like Dorothy Knight incarnate, able to put on a charity gala that will cater to the Vegas wealthy elite, yet be relaxed enough to crunch on whatever the hell she’s eating while she talks about it.
And this is no small affair. It’s been renamed in honor of our late mother—the Dorothy Knight Charity Extravaganza for the Benefit of Children’s Hospital. There will be over one hundred in attendance for a dinner that costs one-thousand-dollars a plate to raise money for the hospital. It was a project my mother was passionate about, which my sister took over without any hesitation.
“Listen,” she says after swallowing her food loudly—also to annoy me. “I’ve got someone who would be perfect for you to take to the gala. She’s a new teacher at my school, and she’s—”
“Forget it, Christina,” I say curtly before she can get another word out. “I’m not interested.”
“But she’s so sweet and really pretty. I think if you—”
“I said forget it,” I say with a little more bite than I’d intended. Christina is the person I love most in this world. I don’t like to hurt her, but I also don’t want her overstepping her bounds. She can get a little crazy with her notions of wanting me to find love again.
“Asher,” she says quietly, a slightly chiding tone to her voice. “It’s time to move on.”
Ignoring her, I wrap our conversation up. “Listen… call me if you need any help and I’ll be glad to step in.”
She sighs into the phone, sad I won’t talk to her about the most terrible and horrific thing to ever happen to me. My sister wants me to move on, but how can I get over the fact that my wife killed herself and it’s all my fault for not stopping her?
“I’ll talk to you later,” I mumble, then disconnect the phone before I start feeling too guilty for cutting my sister out. I know she loves me and only wants to help, but I don’t want her to be disappointed in the fact I can’t be fixed.
Nor do I want to be.