Page 13 of Bastard Prince
It was exactly as I remembered it from last week, rows of little cubicles dotted around the space, each with their varying themes and decorations. Most of the booths were still empty this early in the day, but the place was filling up fast. Lexi and I headed straight to her workstation, where she grabbed her tablet and immediately began bringing up numbers.
“I’m pretty happy with our initial roll out, to be honest,” she started, jumping right in. “Considering we are only a few days into advertising, I’d say this is better than we expected. I’m hoping that a solid month of concentrated ads will provide us with a pretty steady influx of new users. After that, word of mouth may be our best asset, so we need to make this month spectacular.”
“Oh, don’t you worry about that, babe,” drawled a deep voice, and I turned to see D’Andre standing behind us, his dark eyes dancing. “I guarantee you’ll be impressed.”
“I have no doubt you can deliver, D’Andre,” I said, smiling. “Have you prepared your theme?”
“Yes, ma’am. You better believe it.” He patted the backpack he had slung over one shoulder. “I’m gonna knock it out of the park.”
“Dude!” Derek jogged down the aisle behind us, slapping D’Andre on the back and grinning from ear to ear. “Can you believe it? This is where the magic happens, ya know? My cousin Grady would give his left nut to be standing where I am right now. We don’t have nothin’ like this back home in Alabama. No way, no how.” He scoffed. “Can you imagine what those stuck-up biddies at my mama’s church lunches would say if a place like this moved into town? Shit, they’d probably hold an exorcism or somethin’.”
“Well,” I said, trying to not to smile at Derek’s wide-eyed wonder, “it’s a good thing we’re here in Sin City, isn’t it?”
“You bet your pretty little ass it is,” Derek replied with a wink.
“What did you just say about my wife’s ass?”
Derek spun around, his steps faltering at the sight of Enzo stalking across the room toward us. The glower on his face was enough to tell me about his mood, and I sighed, realizing I was probably in for a fight.
And, fuck, was I excited about it.
“Enzo,” I jumped in, trying to save Derek’s life. I could only imagine the shit that might come out of his mouth if he tried to defend himself. “I didn’t know you were coming in today.”
In fact, I had hoped he wasn’t. It wasn’t that I was trying to hide this from him; far from it. I was proud of the things Lexi and I had accomplished, as well as the things we still had planned. I was just hoping that I would have a few days worth of revenue on the books before I had to present our idea to him.
After all, money talked.
“Well, you left so fast this morning I didn’t get a chance to tell you my plans,” he said, shouldering past a still stuttering Derek to stand close to me. He kept his hands in the pockets of his pants, but that didn’t stop a shiver from running up my spine. Even just being in his presence seemed to be enough to turn my thoughts to static. “Honestly, Francesca,” he murmured low enough that only I could hear, “sneaking out while I was in the shower?” He shook his head. “That was not a smart move.”
I bristled at the implication that I couldn’t make my own choices, scrunching my face into a glower of my own. “I wasn’t aware I needed your permission to leave the house, Enzo,” I answered, my voice not quite as quiet as his had been. I noticed Lexi and the guys moving away, awkwardly trying to be anywhere else.
Enzo smirked, that dark look in his eyes letting me know exactly what he thought about me asking him for permission foranything. Horny bastard.
“You don’t, of course,” he replied smoothly, his words belying his expression. “But considering all the things we have going on, you’d think you’d be a little more cautious.” His face turned serious, making me realize this wasn’t just about his wounded pride at being left out of the loop.
He was worried about me, and that brought me a wave of guilt that I hadn’t been expecting. The weight of that emotion settled heavy in my chest, but before I could respond, Enzo spun to face Lexi.
“Now, does someone want to tell me why there are men on my sales floor?”
“Your brilliant wife noticed a gap in our product offerings.” Lexi chuckled, her fabulous blue hair dancing across her shaking shoulders. “These two young studs are here to...fillit.” She said it with so much innuendo there was no mistaking her intent, and I cringed.
My darling Lexi.
“What gap?” Enzo asked, seemingly genuinely curious as to how he could have possibly missed a way to make money.
“Women,” I supplied with a shrug.
Enzo seemed confused. “I have lots of women here, babe.”
“I meant content for women. Offering an opportunity for women to see the men they want doing the things they ask them to.”
Enzo turned, once again eyeing up Derek and D’Andre, actually assessing them for the first time. Derek looked like a kicked puppy, somehow both shy and eager at the same time, while D’Andre stood stoic, not threatening, but not timid either. He was taller than Enzo, and broader as well, as only a man who played college football could be, but there was no aggression in his stance, and Enzo seemed to understand that.
After a moment, he looked again to Lexi. “What are the numbers?”
Lexi snapped into business mode. “Initial reaction appears good, but this is our first day. Projections look to be on par for a solid increase month to month. We’ve already got over twenty-five hundred subscribers, and we haven’t even gone live yet.” She was practically beaming. Her strategically placed ads had drummed quite a bit of curious interest, making our new site seem exclusive and mysterious and desirable.
Enzo seemed to process that information, calculating what she had told him with what he knew about the rest of the business. Finally, he nodded.
