Dalton
The steam room in Bachelor Tower is infamous. I heard stories for years, even before I earned my apartment. Frameworks for major legislation had been drafted. A multi-billion-dollar merger of two major insurance companies was brokered there. It’s just one of those places where important people feel compelled to make big decisions.
I make it a point to go once a week, even though I’m not into hanging with a bunch of dudes sweating and occasionally flashing their junk when they cross and uncross their legs. But I go because it’s too damn profitable not to.
I usually toss my head back, close my eyes, and listen. When an opportunity arises, I cut my way into the conversation if there is a benefit to me. It’s how I secured the partnership with one of my latest suppliers. Or I simply listen. Sometimes that can be just as advantageous.
The business being discussed today? Getting Penny, or the broad in 1421, as they call her, out of the building. Maybe it’s the steam, but these guys look more red-faced than usual. I knew they’d be worked up, but not to this level. I arrived late to the conversation but I pick up on the fact that they’ve sorted out who Penny is. They know her sister Kylie by her reputation but say they aren’t impressed. They say it more than once, which means they aren’t impressed, they’re nervous. If they wait until she returns from China they’ll lose their advantage. Penny is the vulnerability they need to exploit.
“Her sister is nothing,” Luther Green scoffs as he pushes back his mop of salt-and-pepper hair and adjusts his towel. If I didn’t know he was worth a couple billion dollars, I’d wonder how a bird-nosed jackass like him gets women from downstairs to even look his way. But everything he touches turns to gold. I can’t stand him, but I do respect he’s a force in the boardroom. “My people have looked into her already. She walks dogs, teaches yoga, sells jewelry. She has nothing to her name. I say we offer her money. A woman like that would probably do anything for cash—anything. I bet she’d sell out her sister in a heartbeat.”
I open my mouth to interject then snap it shut quickly. Was I seriously about to defend Penny? In a roomful of my peers, was I really about to pussy out and stick up for the set of perky tits that moved in next door? I don’t know her. These men, like me, are titans in their respective fields. I’m not about to go to war with them over a piece of ass—not even the perfect one Penny has.
Paul Winslow chimes in, crossing his legs and flashing his junk in my direction. If his father wasn’t a notorious criminal court judge with a reputation for taking it easy on his son’s friends, I’d already have punched him in the face a hundred times. I’m not a criminal, but I bend the law here and there. Winslow and I have an unspoken understanding. I don’t call him out for constantly being a douche, and he talks me up to his dad. “Brockton’s niece must be stopped. Before you know it, she’s going to have a nail salon in the lobby. They’ll probably open a gynecologist office on the top floor. This isn’t about equality. It’s about preserving the integrity and sanctity of this place. They can sell their tampons across the street. We need to come out strong and show women they don’t belong here by pushing this one out quickly.”
Yeah, he’s a dick even by my standards.
“I agree,” Luther replies through gritted teeth. “Brockton fucked up big time when he left the place to his niece. I say we go after her too. She probably doesn’t even want to own the building. She’s screwing with it because she’s got nothing better to do.”
“Yes, we should take down both of them,” Paul grunts as he pounds his fist into his palm. “Get me the lease she used, and my lawyers will find something to tie them up in court.”
“That’ll take time and more effort than we need to spend on this,” Luther says, and the other men around him nod their agreement. Something I’m sure he’s used to. “The woman living here is the weak link. We get her out before her sister returns, and then we deal with the niece. We’ll start small and take it as far as we have to.”
I don’t know what the fuck that means, but it doesn’t sound good.
“Yes,” Paul agrees, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “I still want her lease agreement. Someone needs to get close enough to Penny to find out dirt on her and her sister. Dalton, you think you could handle that? Flash those pretty eyes at her?” Paul delivers the punch line, and like usual, he’s the only one laughing at his joke.
“No,” I say firmly. I’m not in this.
“You fuck anything. There’s a path worn in the carpet from the bar downstairs to your apartment door. Don’t pretend you have standards now. Go in there. Get the lease. Get out.” Paul looks at me with the serious expression he’d have if we were hashing out a business deal. It’s pathetic. I’m no fan of the building changing, but there are levels even I won’t sink to.
“No.”
“I’ve got a guy,” another man chimes in as he leans forward to join the conversation like we’re planning some secret mission. “He’s a hacker. I bet he can get the lease right off the server.”
“She’s your neighbor, right?” Paul asks me, clearly not ready to move on from the idea that I want in on this. “Someone said he saw you talking to her the other day.”
“Again. No. I’m not in on this.” I stand and adjust my towel as I head for the door. Someone’s on my heels, and I’m ready to tell them to back the fuck off before I realize it’s only Ben Simons.
“Those guys are freaked out,” Ben says, as the door closes behind us. He pushes his fogged-up glasses higher up his nose. I’m his only friend in the building, and I don’t even like him. Doesn’t say much for him. “You’d think this woman was carrying the plague. I don’t see what the big deal is.”
“Then you don’t know much about women.” I head into the locker room and grab my clothes. “If she stays, everything good about this place will change.”
Ben is a good kid. I glance at him briefly. Not a kid, he’s in his twenties, but God he’s young. He’s one of those guys you want to take out and show how to get laid. Rule number one: never look that eager—about anything.
“So you think they’ll break into her apartment and steal her lease?” Ben’s eyebrows are raised high as if he is challenging my ethics. He’s trying to figure out what kind of man I am, but I’ve got a poker face.
“They’re too smart for that.”
Ben shrugs and spins the combination on his locker. No one locks their shit up here. Just him. There’s no point in stealing each other’s stuff when we make the money we do. It’s one more reason I ask myself how the hell a guy like Ben made the cut and got an apartment in the first place.
“Go have a drink and forget what you heard.”
“Nah,” he says coolly. “That bar is not my scene.”
“You have a scene?” I shouldn’t have asked, because I opened the door to personal shit I really don’t give a fuck about. But he doesn’t belong here, and I’m mildly curious how he pulled it off.
“Not really. I work. A lot. At least I used to. My startup was bought by a major player in the music streaming industry, and I made a fortune. The apartment was thrown in to sweeten the deal. I hadn’t heard of this place but now that I’m here, I get the appeal.”
I’ve known guys who tried for ten years to get in. Some had to do despicable things to make the cut. Maybe it’s a good thing he doesn’t hang out in the bar and talk. They’d probably kick his ass or try to screw him out of his money. I almost tell him to be careful but stop myself.
This is why I don’t fucking talk to people. His problems aren’t mine.
I shower and dress in my usual suit and tie. When I finish and step into the hallway, he’s there in jeans and a shirt he’s probably had since high school. Shit, he waited for me. I’d walk past him, but he’s smiling at me like I’m not the total dick I am, and I feel sorry for him. An inconvenient feeling I stuff away. “I’m heading to the cigar lounge.”
“I don’t smoke,” he says, as if that were the point of going there. “Besides, I have a project I need to finish.”
I can’t help myself, I have to know. “What are you working on?”
“Just a new software program. I’ll build it, someone will swoop in and buy it, and then I’ll move on to the next thing. You?”
I can’t imagine he knows anything about the importing of commercial goods so I say, “The usual.” This isn’t the dick-measuring contest that often occurs here. How’s your portfolio surviving tanking oil prices? What are you driving? Saw your company’s stock price dropped two points today. Powerful men can be sharks sniffing for blood, but it doesn’t usually bother me. I don’t bleed because I don’t care. This however is different. Ben is making conversation like he actually wants to get to know me. Poor kid.
Ben pockets his hands in his jeans. “Hey, I respected what you said back in the steam room.”
“What?”
“No,” he replied simply. “You shot them right down. They needed to hear someone stand up for that woman.”
“I didn’t stand up for her.” I rub a hand over my eyes. Get me out of this conversation.
Ben ignores my protest and keeps trying to align our motives. “I told them I thought she was nice, but they don’t take me seriously.”
I can’t imagine why.
I start to walk away, and he trots to keep up with me. “But seriously, how far do you think they’ll go to get that woman out?”
“I have no idea.” I don’t want to think about it. I don’t owe anyone in the building a damn thing. The whole point of living here is, at least for me, not having to play nice. I’m no one’s hero. Women don’t belong here. Period. Done.
In true guy fashion, Ben and I don’t say another word as we part ways at the end of the hallway. Finally, some peace.
I head toward the bar. Maybe that blonde will be there. Rebecca? Rachel? Whatever her name is. She’s always downstairs. Last time I saw her she said she’d been practicing this spinning while fucking move, and she knew I’d be strong enough to pull it off. That was far more enticing than the back and forth it would take to get Penny in my bed. Right?
Just that, the flashing thought of Penny in my bed is enough to have me gritting my teeth. I know when I go back to my apartment she’ll be one wall away. The pent-up lust in me is eating at my sanity.
If being with her before had felt like it might complicate things, the conversation I’d overheard in the steam room had driven that point home. I don’t do complicated.
Getting involved with Penny on any level is asking for trouble.
Why isn’t that enough to keep her from invading my thoughts throughout the day? It’s rare that I don’t know what to do, but I have to put an end to what is beginning to feel like an obsession.
That might involve fucking her.
No chance in hell sex with her will live up to what I’ve been imagining. We should just do it and move on.
Or I could avoid her.
Yeah, like that’s going to happen.