Page 17 of Keep Him Like Secrets

But that wasn’t going to happen.

Teresa was right; this job was too important.

I mean, did Ineedthe money? No. But when you grew up with nothing, when you were intimately acquainted with the way an empty stomach would claw at you from the inside when you were trying to go to sleep at night, when you had to beg and steal to get basic necessities, you never lost that need to keep acquiring more, keep stockpiling resources for the next famine.

That hunger made me so good at what I do. It gave me the drive to push a project to the end, but also the prudence not to move too fast, risk too much, or make a decision that I would regret.

I ate my salad while lost in my thoughts. About all the other clubs, the business in general.

Until one startling thought burst out of nowhere, knocking the wind out of me.

I’d risk it all for her.

What the hell was that?

I didn’t even know the woman.

I wasn’t willing to risk the one club, let alone the whole business. For what? A tour of her sheets and a couple of orgasms?

That wasn’t worth everything I’d busted my ass building over the years.

No matter how gorgeous she was.

With that fresh in my mind, I checked my watch, then tossed the rest of the salad, grabbed my phone and the box on the table, and headed out.

“Enjoy your meat,” I called to Teresa as I passed.

“Yeah, if those vacuum cleaners I call sons save me any,” she said, starting to gather her things as well. “Go get that deal worked out. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“Didn’t you once flash everyone down at Mardi Gras?” I asked as I stepped into the elevator.

“That’s not all I did,” she said with a wicked little gleam in her eyes that hinted at the mischievous young adult she had once been. “What I’m saying is—”

“Do what you say, not what you do?”

“Exactly,” she agreed as the doors slid closed.

I slid into the back of my waiting car, ready to spend the next half an hour—if traffic was light, and let’s face it, this was New York; it never was—catching up on emails, reading club reviews, looking for ways to improve customer satisfaction and still keep overhead on the low end.

But as soon as we pulled off into traffic, I found my mind slipping away, slipping back.

To my office.

To a pretty face and a perfect body and that damn strawberry sweet cream scent I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about all weekend.

“Sir?” Calvin, my driver, called from the front seat, snapping me out of my thoughts.

“Yes?”

“We’re here,” he said, nodding toward the sidewalk where we were parked.

So we were.

I’d zoned out the whole drive.

That was… incredibly unlike me.

“Thanks, Calvin,” I said, reaching for my door, but he was somehow faster, rushing out and around the hood to pull it open.

---