Page 2 of The First Deal

If the man signed with me, he could end up ripped away from her. If he let things go to his head, he might end up in the same boat as all of my other solo artists. Alone.

With fame came money, but there were also girls and substances, things that could break even the strongest of connections. They’d need to decide where their priorities should be. Career, or love.

When the bar began to thin out, people heading out along the seafront singing and swaying, I got to my feet, slipped my jacket back on, and headed to the bar just as the man I had come to see disappeared towards the men’s room.

“Your man, he’s good. I’m sick of all of these twenty-something kids with their bouncy love songs, no offence,” I said to the owner, but I was focused on the barmaid beside her. The stunning young woman’s cheeks turned the most beautiful shade of pink as I smiled at her.

The owner ignored how I was looking at the girl beside her. “None taken. What does this mean then?”

I drew my attention back to the owner just long enough to explain what would be happening next. “It means that I’ll call in the week. No promises. But he’s good. I just need to have a few discussions before I can offer anything. Oh, and this place”—I gestured around the bar—“it has potential. Fix it up and I’ll see if I can throw some better names your way. Your sister was right to push me.”

The owner thanked me, and I nodded her way, barely paying any attention now. My gaze locked with the barmaid’s, and before I could stop myself, I was reaching over the bar and gently grabbing her wrist, urging her close enough to whisper in her ear.

“How’s your memory?” I asked.

“I work in a bar, and I make the most tips, how do you think it is?” Sassy. I liked it.

“Let’s see if you can remember this. Zero seven five one three eight two one nine five zero,” I whispered, taking my time with each number, then pressed my lips to her pink cheek and released her.

My back was turned on her before I could register her expression. I’d know how she felt if she contacted me. I’d give her a week, and if I was met with silence, I’d forget her.

I left the bar before the singer came back from the bathroom. The car that had brought me here was still waiting at the top of the road. I sucked in one heavy lungful of fresh sea air, then climbed in, closed my eyes, and settled in for the journey back up to London.

When I arrived home well past 1 am, all I had managed to think of was the barmaid.

I knew that I needed to get into my business head and try to come up with a plan of how to approach Lynda with my new find from tonight, but that could wait until morning.

For the time being, I was going to jump in the shower, let the hot jets of water cleanse and ease my aching body as I lathered the spiced-apple soap I favoured over every inch of me, imagining that my hands were hers until I could take no more. And only then, when it was too fucking much, would I take my cock in my hand, rest the other on the grey tiled wall, and jerk myself off as the water hammered down.

I didn’t even know her fucking name, but the raven-haired girl had captivated me. I thought of her lips, her hair, her smooth, porcelain skin, and fucked my hand until I was painting the shower wall and cursing through gritted teeth.

And in that moment, I realised that I might actually be disappointed if this one didn’t call.

2

Those eleven numbers had played over and over in my head for days after he had left. I had typed them into my phone straight away, but still, they echoed through my thoughts—chanting, taunting me, making me wonder why the fuck he had given me his number and then never fucking replied to my text.

I sent him a message the following morning, not wanting to seem too eager, but also not wanting to wait. If I had learned one thing about older men in the last year it was that they didn’t play games. Games were for little boys who wanted their girlfriends to play the role of Mummy, something I was so far from it was almost laughable. I never wanted a life where I was responsible for a man or a child.

Grown men didn’t need someone to mother them. Well… actually, some of them did, and that was why, as a rule, I preferred men with money. Well-dressed business-type men who could survive without me, who could stand on their own and only take a woman because they wanted to, not because theyneededto. I was drawn to those men.

I wanted to be wanted.

It helped that I had always found older guys attractive. At the age of sixteen, when my friends were all into cute boyband members, I was into the musicians that my dad liked, the ones whose hair had begun to turn grey, and whose skin had stories inked and etched into it.

The first crush that I remembered was Jon Bon Jovi. Closely followed by George Clooney. And then there was that weird week where I was obsessed with Tom Jones, but that passed quickly. Perhaps it’d had something to do with his accent.

Anyway, I dreamed of a life with a man who could treat me right and treat me too. Not that I was materialistic. I’d never owned anything worth more than a day’s work, and I never craved shiny, expensive things either. I didn’t want a man to pay for me to change my appearance or anything like that, but I did want one who would buy me flowers just because, or grab the cheque at dinner. Things that likely to him seemed like nothing, but to me meant so much.

So I was feeling frustrated when three days had passed since I had texted Shane Hudson and had received no reply. I sent a simple message, telling him that it was me, giving him my name, and asking if he’d like to get together for a drink sometime.

Maybe I had been too forward, but the man had given me his number without even learning my name. If anyone was forward, it was him. The older man with his royal-blue suit, tanned skin, and salt-and-pepper hair had grabbed me and whispered those numbers in my ear, he hadn’t written them down, like it was some kind of challenge, so why the hell had he gone silent?

Surely it wasn’t anything to do with me, right? He had been interested, that much was clear. So it had to be ahimthing. Maybe he was married, he wore a lot of gold rings, but from what I had seen there hadn’t been one sitting on his left ring finger, unless he had taken it off.

Or maybe he was having second thoughts. He knew my name now, he could have tracked me down on social media and realised how young I am. My boss, Juno, had told me that if asked most people would place me anywhere between 18 and 30, depending on the day and how I had chosen to present myself. But my usual look, the one I wore the night he had come in to check out my boss’s lover, would probably place me as a little older than I am.

Twenty-one to his fifty, it wasn’t exactly conventional, and it was quite possible that he wasn’t okay with it. Plenty of people thought it was inappropriate to have such a big age gap, but I liked it. I had liked him, and not even just because of his name, something that I came to learn the following day when I had pushed my boss to explain to me why he had been talking to her about Nate.

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