Chapter Four

Blake

I never knew my father. According to my mother, he was from a prominent Spanish family that was closely tied in with the Franco regime. Due to political unease at the time, his father sent him to the States for college, which is where he met my mother. They started dating at the beginning of their senior year and married shortly after they graduated. My mother’s family was in attendance, but my father’s couldn’t make it. They couldn’t make it because they didn’t know about it. They didn’t know about it because my father failed to inform them. A year later, I was born. A year after that, four armed men showed up at our home and physically dragged my father away. Rumor had it that when my father’s father discovered that his only son was shacked up with a woman in America, he lost his mind. So much so that he flew his security detail to the U.S. on his private jet with the strict orders to bring his errant son back to Spain. Rumor or not, my dad was gone. My mother was left heartbroken and without a husband, and I’d lost a father.

After my father left, my mother was forced to move in with her parents. Instead of turning to drugs or leaving me to go off and party, she got a full-time job and gave me the best life she could. My grandparents helped when needed and I never lacked for anything. Nor did I miss not having a father. Mom made sure of that. She rarely spoke of him—I think because it hurt too much. For years she refused to date—I suspect because a part of her was waiting for my dad to return. At some point, she hired an attorney to look into the marriage, only to discover that because my father wasn’t a US citizen, there was no marriage.

When I was twenty-one and already enlisted in the army, Mom met Hal. When she told me they were getting married, I wasn’t sure what to think. He sounded like a good guy, but she’d met him on an on-line dating site. The guys and I joked about that shit all the time. To say that I was skeptical of Hal would be putting it mildly. I never told Mom, but before I gave my blessing, I had a friend check him out. Hal had been divorced for years, had a sixteen-year-old daughter named Cathryn, made a decent living, and had two speeding tickets. That was it. As it turned out, he was the best thing that ever happened to my mom. Not only did he love the shit out of her, but he gave me a sister. A sister that, at the moment, I wanted to strangle.

Hadley Jacobs had arrived.

I knew this because I was awakened at 7 a.m. with a text from Cathryn, asking me to stop by Sazerac’s in order to welcome her friend Hadley to Charlotte. Shortly after this, Zane called. Apparently, Hadley’s arrival was more important than Lena’s training; something that Zane was responsible for. After months of trying to lure her away from Dragonfly, she’d finally accepted his offer and now he wanted me to train her...on my fucking day off, no less...the first day I’d had off in months. At my mention of this, Zane promised me two days off. Two things stopped me from telling him to go fuck himself. One, I could use training Lena as my excuse not to stop by Sazerac’s. The second was the fact that Hunter was the world’s shittiest trainer. Not just that, but he had a thing for Lena. Lena, however, had a serious boyfriend. Hunter in charge of her training would guarantee that she’d quit before the day was up. For various reasons, that couldn’t happen. Because of this, I hauled my ass out of bed, a bed I’d planned on spending most of my day in and headed for the shower.

“Fucking hell,” I muttered, as I strode into Whisky’s and spotted Hunter and Lena in what appeared to be a standoff. I hadn’t even had coffee yet and they were already at each other’s throats. “Problem?” I asked, on approach. Lena’s eyes flitted to mine, and she smiled. I wasn’t stupid. Nor was I blind. With skin the color of toffee, a flawlessly perfect face, and a killer body, Lena was a breathtakingly beautiful woman. She was also smart as shit and didn’t put up with dick. Hunter hadn’t given details about what had gone down between them, but clearly it wasn’t good.

“Please tell me you’re going to train me,” she muttered under her breath, while still smiling. Hunter’s scowl deepened.

“That’s the plan,” I replied. With a whispered “Fuck,” Hunter walked away. Lena’s eyes followed after him, and if I wasn’t imagining it, they held a note of sadness in them. “You okay?” I asked.

“Yes,” she wistfully replied. Yep, something had definitely gone down between those two. I made a mental note to see if I could get more out of Hunter later.

As expected, Lena proved to be an extremely apt pupil. Within a few hours, she had the basics down and before I knew it, we were heading up to the rooftop for a lunch break. It was there that Hunter joined us. It was also there that he deliberately ignored Lena, rudely talked about his latest snatch, and carelessly brought up Hadley.

“Who’s Hadley?” Lena asked.

I opened my mouth to answer, when Hunter said, “Cat’s college roommate that Blake nailed at her wedding.” Okay, so clearly Hunter knew that I’d slept with Hadley. Lena’s eyes shifted to me and widened in surprise.

In effort to deflect, I glibly replied, “Hunter’s just jealous because she chose the better man.”

Laughing, Hunter replied, “Shit, that bitch was locked up tighter than my ninety-year-old granny. If I’d known all it took was a little Jack and some naughty Spanish, I would have given you a run for your money. Eh, conquistador?” he asked, smiling at my glare. What the fuck? There’s no way he could have heard that. The fucker was passed out on the sofa...in the other room.

“What’d you do, plaster your ear to the door?” I angrily growled.

“Naughty Spanish?” Lena asked through a bark of laughter.

“I didn’t have to,” Hunter answered. “The bitch woke me from a dead sleep begging for her Latin lover to speak Spanish to her. The best part,” Hunter snorted, “was when Blake told her he didn’t speak Spanish. She didn’t believe him, so he,” Hunter paused for more laughter, “told her he loved her tits, wanted to lick her pussy, and called her a crazy bitch...in Spanish. I swear, I thought I was going to piss myself.” Both Hunter and Lena howled with laughter. Hunter and I liked to joke around with each other. It’s what we did, but this time he’d gone too far. As if sensing this, his laughter abruptly died.

Slowly, I stood from the table and quietly addressed Lena. “You’ve got the basics down. Hunter can take it from here.”

When I hit the stairs, Hunter called out, “C’mon, man! I was just messing with you!” I answered him with my middle finger. Then I headed down to my car. Fuck Hunter. He was pissed at the situation and decided to take that shit out on me. He could train Lena, and if she quit, he could explain why to Zane.

On the drive home, my anger slowly fizzled into worry. If Hunter knew I’d slept with Hadley, did that also mean that Zane and Cat knew? Is that why Cat kept giving me those looks every time she mentioned Hadley’s name? Fuck! Paranoia getting the best of me, I turned the car around and headed for The Mitchell Hotel and Sazerac’s.

Wayne immediately spotted me on entry into the bar, and called out in an irritatingly screechy voice, “Rico Suave is in the hoooooouse!” All activity ceased as everyone stopped to see who he was shouting at. Fucking Wayne. I scowled in his direction and he let out a shriek of laughter. While annoyingly comfortable in his gayness, Wayne thrived on making others feel uncomfortable. Others meaning me. Cat said it was because he had a crush on me, but I was pretty sure it was because he got his rocks off on making me squirm, which was something I tried damned hard not to do in his presence.

“You made it!” Cat called out from across the room.

“Jesucristo, mi hombre es muy guapo!” Wayne shouted from his station behind the bar. That’s another thing he did that annoyed the fuck out of me. He insisted on trying to speak Spanish to me. Ignoring his humor-filled cackle, I made my way across the room towards Cat. When I noticed Hadley sitting next to her, I mentally tripped over my own feet. Wearing white pants and a silk blouse that perfectly accentuated her tits, Hadley Jacobs was even more beautiful than memory had served. Her dark hair was twisted up in a fancy knot, but a few strands fell loosely around her gorgeously perfect face. Images of me kissing her mouth while stroking in and out of her body flipped like pages of an X-rated novel through my brain, and my anger from waking and finding her gone that next morning, flared back to life. Her point was made when she ran, so why in the hell was she back? I’d chalked that night up to a bad memory, and here she was, sitting before me with a look in her eyes that I couldn’t read. The fact that I even gave a shit was beyond frustrating.

“Blake, you remember my friend Hadley,” Cat introduced with a knowing gleam in her eyes.

“Hadley,” I said with a nod of my head.

“Hi, Blake. It’s good to see you again,” she replied in the same husky fuck-me voice that sucked me into her vortex at my sister’s wedding. A voice that apparently my cock both remembered and liked, because he suddenly jerked to attention.

So not to embarrass myself, I dropped down onto the chair opposite of Cat, and asked where Zane was. She was just about to answer when her phone rang.

“Excuse me, but I need to get this,” she said.

“He’s in a meeting upstairs,” Hadley answered, as we watched Cat walk out of the room.

Once Cat was well out of sight, I brought my eyes back to Hadley, and asked, “What are you doing here, Hadley?” Her expressive brown eyes leveled on me and flickered with unease. Christ, but she was beautiful. Tasteful highlights filtered through her dark hair. Just a touch of makeup accentuated her big brown eyes. Her full lips were glossed, not painted. Her clothes were classy without being overdone. Every inch of her body—and trust me, I knew—was real. It wasn’t just one thing about her that made her attractive, but everything.

“I...uh...didn’t Cat tell you? I work here now,” she hesitantly answered.

“What are you doing in Charlotte?” I clarified. The unease behind her eyes bothered me more than I was willing to admit.

“Oh,” she said. “Well, I finished my culinary degree and Cat made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. It’s not easy to land a gig as a head chef straight out of school and Sazerac’s seems like a really promising place to start. I hope that’s not a problem?” When I didn’t respond, she started back up. “Blake—”

“Look, I don’t know why you’re here. Truthfully, I don’t care. I do, however, care about my sister and her feelings. What happened between us happened. Cat and Zane aren’t aware of it, but since you’re here and we’ll be working together, I would appreciate it if you not tell them. It would only make things awkward.”

“What happened...happened?” she asked, her voice tinged with anger and what sounded a lot like hurt. Our eyes met and held, and I wondered what she had to be hurt about, because clearly, she was.

“Heeeeey, baby,” a familiar voice called out behind me. Hadley’s eyes jerked up and over my shoulder. I closed mine and took a deep breath. Fucking hell. Just when I thought this day couldn’t get any more jacked up...it did. Soft hands wrapped around my shoulders and squeezed. Hadley’s gaze seared through me. I had nothing to feel bad about. I wasn’t the one who ran. So why was I feeling guilty?

“Belinda, you remember Cat’s friend, Hadley, from the wedding,” I introduced.

“Yeah, the Bon Jovi chick,” Belinda greeted with an edge to her voice.

“Nice to see you again,” Hadley replied, narrowing her eyes on me as Belinda’s lips grazed my neck.

“Can we talk...in private?” Belinda whispered in my ear. I didn’t want anything to do with Belinda. It had been months since I’d seen her, and even longer since we’d slept together, but Hadley didn’t know this.

“Sure,” I replied. She lifted her hands from my shoulders and I stood. Glancing over at Hadley, I said, “It was nice to see you again, Hadley.” Then, placing my hand on Belinda’s back, I steered her toward the office.

“I wouldn’t do it!” Wayne shouted after us.

Once behind closed doors, all pretenses were dropped. “What did I tell you about touching me at work?” I asked. The come-hither smile on her painted red lips faded into a pout.

“I don’t like the way she was looking at you.”

I didn’t want to make a production out of it. I just wanted it to be over, but as I stood there staring at her, I was struck by how shallow my life had become. Belinda was one of three women I fucked on a regular basis. None of them I cared dick about. None of them slept in my bed. I didn’t want anything other than sex from any of them. What happened to the guy who’d once wanted a wife and kids? What happened to the kid who’d longed for permanency?

“You know you want me,” she whispered. Her words scored through me like a red-hot poker, as if she’d suddenly poured acid on an open wound. A wound I didn’t even know was there...until now. My lip curled in disgust.

“No, I really don’t,” I stated in a clear and concise manner. A confused look appeared on her face, and I explained. “Look, Belinda, I didn’t want to do this in front of an audience, but this is over. It has been for months, now. I need for you to stop calling me. I want you to stop pretending we’re together. Zane wants me to help manage things here for a while. This means that you will be working for and with me. If you can’t handle this, you’ll need to find yourself another job.”

Her jaw dropped and her eyes widened in surprise. “What?” she whispered.

“We’re done,” I repeated.

“B-b-but why?” she stammered.

I thought about what to say and decided to give it to her straight. “Because I’m no longer interested.” Her eyes flashed with anger.

“So what, you’re just discarding me?” she snapped.

“If that’s how you view it, then yes,” I answered in the same concise manner. Before she could respond, I started for the door. When I reached it, I held it open and waited.

“Are you serious?” she screeched.

“Very,” I replied. This got her moving. As she clacked past me in her ridiculously high heels, she hissed, “No one cuts me loose.” I didn’t bother to respond. I simply closed the office door behind her.

It wasn’t lost on me that I’d just dumped a sure thing for a woman I’d spent one night with...a woman who wasn’t my lover or my girlfriend. Had I lost my mind? The answer was debatably yes, but I couldn’t deny that I felt as if a weight had been lifted.

One down. Now, only two more to go. I was cleaning house. And then what? I had no fucking idea...