CHAPTER 16
Zander
Zander scoops his eggs out of the frying pan and onto his plate. Then grabs his bowl of oatmeal off the counter and sits down with his breakfast. He digs in trying to forget about the fiasco with Ember and hope that she is finally calming herself down enough for him to talk to her. But he knows it’s going to take some time. He will just let her be for now.
But he can’t help thinking that he should have gone after her. Why did he just let her storm out without really explaining himself? But then again would she have listened? Would she have actually listened to him right then? It was unlikely. She had made up her mind that he was a dog and she wanted to convince herself that she was right. Zander did not consider himself the world expert on women by any means, but he had been around the block a few times. He had learned that women rarely want solutions when they are upset about something. As a man, he wanted to offer help to remedy a situation, even a situation that he may have inadvertently cause, but when she was running high on anger and confusion it was not the best time. He just needed to wait a bit to let her stew over it and calm down. Hopefully she would realize she was jumping to conclusions without getting the full story.
From what he could gather she’d woke up early and heard him on the phone. She heard him talking about the girls and trying things out and completely got the wrong message. It had taken him several times of reliving the phone call to understand exactly what he said that set her off. Now looking back, he could understand her view point.
He was talking to Harrison about possibly expanding the business model of Club Privaat. They had great women but they could get even better ones, especially with the kind of money that was already flowing into that place and the kind of money that could be generated. Harrison wasn’t really too keen on his idea of taking things to that level. It was going to be a problem. But he was hoping with talking some more sense into Harrison then they would reach an agreement, an understanding.
But then there was Ember. Last night had been even more incredible than the first night they had spent together. It was not a question anymore; he was falling head over heels in love with her. He had never believed in the idea of a “soulmate” or any of that lame lovey crap, but it was like overnight his mind had been changed and he wanted to be with this woman.
And now he might have blown it.
Was she going to be this insecure about him running this club? If club Privaat was going to cause that much of a riff in his life and mess up his relationship with Ember, if it hadn’t already destroyed it, then he was willing to walk away right now.
His heart sank a bit at the possibility, but then again, he did not need this club. It was a fun idea and something he knew would be awesome under the right guidance and the right devotion which he’d been prepared to offer, but he was trying to see things from Ember’s point of view. If he was working with all of these amazing women all the time and he was going to be actively involved in the selection process for the auction (this was the only way it would work) then she was always going to feel jealous. Any woman probably would. It was just in the biology. If the roles were reversed he knew that he would be feeling a bit jealous of her. He laughed at himself. He just realized that he had never been close enough with a woman to really feel jealous of her or the other men she might have been involved with.
He was really changing, wasn’t he? And he knew what he had to do now. It was going to set Harrison off into a storm of a psychotic rage he knew (which was actually kind of fun) but this was the best way for him to be able to show Ember that he cared for her and that if something he did was going to make her uncomfortable and have her constantly questioning his motives then he was not going to do it.
Zander grabbed his phone and made the phone call. Harrison picked up on the third ring.
“Hey, you are just full of ideas this morning, aren’t you?” Harrison said.
“Did I catch you at a bad time?” Zander asked.
In the background, he could hear what sounded like a locker room on Harrison’s side of the phone.
“Nah, I just finished up a workout. You know I gotta stay sharp looking for the ladies.”
“Ah, the mouth game isn’t working for you anymore?” Zander joked. He was hoping that by making a few jokes he could smooth this whole thing over a bit.
“No, but I do like to keep the energy and the stamina going. What can I do for you?” Harrison asked.
“Well, I’ve decided that due to other commitments I have I won’t be able to come aboard the Club Privaat train after all.”
The line was silent for a moment. Then Harrison spoke. “Are you kidding me?”
“No, I’m not. I appreciate the offer man, but I am just not going to be able to give it my full attention.”
“So, over the past few hours you just totally changed your mind? Hell, you called me at five o’clock this morning bursting at the seams with ideas and now you are just backing out. Color me puzzled.”
“I would rather not go into the details, but circumstances have changed. I wish you the best of luck with the club though.”
“No, no, no.” Harrison was getting angry. “You listen to me. We had a deal. I’m not going to let you come in and learn everything about my club and then just walk away to develop your own thing with it.”
“Calm down,” Zander said. “That is not what’s happening. I’m not moving in on your turf.”
“The hell you aren’t! Do I look that stupid to you? Have you forgotten who I am? You think I don’t know that you suddenly got some other investors on board to open up your own club—hell, your own club franchise from the sounds of things—and that you are going to screw me over again? No, that is not going to happen. You and I made a deal!”
“We haven’t even had the contracts drawn up yet. We had a handshake, that is all. I am not doing this and from the sound of things I definitely made the right call.”
“You know I will destroy you. You keep forgetting all the things I can do to you!”
Zander laughed. “Have a good life.”
He disconnected the call and went back to his breakfast. He was suddenly aware of just how psychotic Harrison really was.