Hannah worries at her lower lip, her gaze casting off to the side as she thinks.
I add gravy on top. “I’ll give you a fifteen-thousand-dollar signing bonus up front.”
Her gaze slams back into me, eyes wide with surprise. “Awful lot of money for a whore,” she murmurs.
Fuck… I just actually made her a whore if she accepts this. But I press on.
“Again, your word, not mine. Besides, you can—”
She beats me to the punch. “Say ‘no’. Yeah… I heard you. But if I say yes, then that makes me a whore.”
She sounds glum, and I wonder if it’s because I’ve basically given her a guilt-free way to accept this deal or maybe because she doesn’t have the willpower to say no to me.
“How about I hire you as my full-time house manager?” I add, hoping to add some legitimacy to the offer.
“What the hell is a house manager?” she gripes.
“You’d manage my home. Keep it clean, well-stocked, make meals, handle my dry cleaning. Stuff like that.”
“And go to the Wicked Horse with you.”
“We could stay in at my apartment some nights,” I say with a mischievous grin.
She doesn’t smile back.
Instead, she gives me an apologetic grimace. “As much as that sounds like an amazing deal for any woman, I’m afraid I’m going to have to say ‘no’.”
The emphasis she puts on the word ‘no’ isn’t lost on me. She’s showing me that she has resolve.
I step into her, causing her to back up against the dirty stucco exterior of the building. Putting my hands near her head, I dip my head so my face is near hers. “You’re being stubborn, Hannah. But I like it.”
Her mouth curves in amusement.
I bring my lips near her ear. “Besides… I’m quite confident you’ll change your mind.”
She snorts, and her hands go to my chest to push me away from her. Giving her a wink, I turn to leave.
I look left and right as I walk away, considering it safe to cross the road back to my car. Holding my hand up, I wave at her, knowing without even glancing back that she’s staring at me.
Raising my voice slightly, I say, “Call me. I’ll be waiting.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” she yells, and I chuckle.
Yeah… she’ll change her mind.
By the time I get in my car and start it, Hannah has already disappeared into the bar. A message notification comes up on my dashboard screen, which is synced to my phone through Bluetooth. I press a button on my steering wheel. After a soft tone, I say, “Play voicemail.”
There’s a short pause as I back out of my parking spot, then I hear my father’s voice. “Asher, call me. I think you’re making a mistake on the Tyndall property. There’s no way you’ll get investors to bite at it. It’s going to fall flat, and you’ll look bad. If you look bad, Knight Investment Group looks bad. So call me.”
Rolling my eyes, I press the button on my steering wheel to delete the voicemail. I make my way back toward the nicer part of town to my apartment. As I drive, I consider what to say to my dad when I call him back, and have no doubt, I will call him back. No one disregards a summons from Carlton Knight.
My dad and I have always had a strangely unusual relationship. He’s arrogant, self-centered, and ruthless when it comes to business. I’ve been told by many that I’m just like him, but perhaps a tad more ruthless.
We get along fine because our worlds are centered around making insane amounts of money. When my father passed on the mantle of CEO of Knight Investment Group to me, it didn’t mean he was going to keep his opinions to himself. It means nothing to him that I’ve doubled our wealth and holdings since I’ve taken over. He’s still going to give me advice whether I want it or not.
He’s lucky I usually want it, because I respect his entrepreneurial acumen. It doesn’t mean I’ll always follow it. Regarding the Tyndall property, I’m absolutely going with my gut instinct on this. It’s the one significant difference between us. I’m willing to take risks he never would have in business, and it’s hard for him to understand that about me.
Regardless, I respect the man greatly, which means he still has tremendous influence over me.
But I choose not to call him back tonight. I don’t feel like butting heads with him. It will totally ruin my surprisingly good mood after spending just moments in Hannah’s company.
Instead, I call someone who is usually a pleasure to talk to.
My twin sister Christina.
She answers on the third ring with an affectionately irreverent greeting. “What’s up Ash-hole?”
“You know, after twenty years, that nickname is a bit overused,” I reply drolly.
Christina’s laugh is husky and mischievous, and it sounds just like our mother’s laugh, which causes my chest to ache. While I’m everything like my father, Christina took after our late mother. She’s kind to everyone and focuses all her free time on philanthropy.
Like me, she’s ivy-league educated—I went to Penn, and she went to Yale—but she disappointed Father and forever endeared herself to Mother when she decided to become a public-school teacher.
“Are you back in town?” she asks as she munches on something crunchy, which crackles loudly over the phone connection.
“Just flew in a bit ago. Headed home now. Just thought I’d check in and see how you’re doing.”
“I’m good,” she replies with more crunching in the phone. She does it to annoy me as only a good little sister—younger by almost three minutes—can do. “Met with the venue manager this morning, and everything is a go.”
I smile. “That’s good. Need me to do anything?”
“Got it covered,” she replies, which makes my smile wider. She’s like Dorothy Knight incarnate, able to put on a charity gala that will cater to the Vegas wealthy elite, yet be relaxed enough to crunch on whatever the hell she’s eating while she talks about it.
And this is no small affair. It’s been renamed in honor of our late mother—the Dorothy Knight Charity Extravaganza for the Benefit of Children’s Hospital. There will be over one hundred in attendance for a dinner that costs one-thousand-dollars a plate to raise money for the hospital. It was a project my mother was passionate about, which my sister took over without any hesitation.
“Listen,” she says after swallowing her food loudly—also to annoy me. “I’ve got someone who would be perfect for you to take to the gala. She’s a new teacher at my school, and she’s—”
“Forget it, Christina,” I say curtly before she can get another word out. “I’m not interested.”
“But she’s so sweet and really pretty. I think if you—”
“I said forget it,” I say with a little more bite than I’d intended. Christina is the person I love most in this world. I don’t like to hurt her, but I also don’t want her overstepping her bounds. She can get a little crazy with her notions of wanting me to find love again.
“Asher,” she says quietly, a slightly chiding tone to her voice. “It’s time to move on.”
Ignoring her, I wrap our conversation up. “Listen… call me if you need any help and I’ll be glad to step in.”
She sighs into the phone, sad I won’t talk to her about the most terrible and horrific thing to ever happen to me. My sister wants me to move on, but how can I get over the fact that my wife killed herself and it’s all my fault for not stopping her?
“I’ll talk to you later,” I mumble, then disconnect the phone before I start feeling too guilty for cutting my sister out. I know she loves me and only wants to help, but I don’t want her to be disappointed in the fact I can’t be fixed.
Nor do I want to be.
CHAPTER 6
Hannah
I pull up in front of Nelson’s house, a red-tiled, five-thousand-square-foot stuccoed monstrosity that he kicked me out of when I asked for a divorce. Which was fine. I never liked its formality anyway. There was too much blank space to feel cozy.
> Still, it irritates me just a little that he continues to live in splendor, has my daughter almost exclusively, and takes child support from me, not because he needs it but because he wants me to suffer.
None of that compares to the bitterness I must swallow daily when I think of the way I got hosed in Hope’s custody hearing. My attorney was decent, but I could have had the best in the world and it wouldn’t have mattered because the judge was one of Nelson’s golfing buddies. He tried to make it seem like he fairly considered all the facts but when he awarded full custody to Nelson, granting me weekend visitation with alternating holidays, I knew that the judicial system was anything but unbiased.
When it boiled down to it, Nelson’s connections, money, and influence swayed the court, not what was in Hope’s best interest.
It’s been hell watching him raise her with me having so little say in what happens in her day-to-day life. Our moments together are so fleeting. It makes me feel like she’s slipping away from me.
It’s unbearably frustrating that my economic situation is what is holding me back from playing on a level field with Nelson.
My mind drifts briefly to Asher and his incredibly ridiculous offer, and there’s a moment of wistfulness as I consider what that bonus could do for Hope and me.
Pushing that out of my head, I turn the rearview mirror my way to take a quick peek at myself. I didn’t get home from work until about three AM, and I couldn’t get to sleep weighed down by my worries about Hope and Asher’s bold offer to be his “house manager”.
Ridiculous.
I sigh, disregarding the black circles under my eyes and the fact I didn’t even bother to put on makeup this morning to cover them up. Pushing the mirror back into place, I get out of my car, taking only my keys with me.
After I lock the car, I cross over Nelson’s perfectly manicured lawn to the large portico. I trot up the steps, ring the doorbell, and step back to wait for him to make his way through the cavernous house to greet me. Sometimes, I’ll hear the patter of Hope’s feet as she races to the door in excitement to start our short weekend together.
Right now, I get nothing but silence.
I ring the doorbell again.
When no one comes, I finally hit the button repetitively, hearing the gong of the bells inside over and over again.
Nothing.
“Fuck,” I curse under my breath, stomping off the porch and back to my car. I unlock the passenger door, reach into my purse, and pull my phone out, angrily tapping on the screen to pull up Nelson’s number.
I dial him, and he answers in a breezy tone. “Hello?”
“Where are you?” I growl. “I’m here to pick up Hope.”
“She’s on a camping trip,” he replies with a smirking undertone. “I texted you about it yesterday.”
“You did not text me about it,” I grit out, my voice quavering with fury.
“I did,” he insists, and I can see the smug look on his face in my mind. If he were here before me, I’d claw it off him. “It’s not my fault you’ve got a shitty phone. It probably didn’t come through or something, but when I didn’t hear back from you, I just assumed it was okay.”
“You are an asshole,” I screech. “You know I wouldn’t have agreed to it. I get so little time with her, and I would not have let her go.”
“She really wanted to, Hannah,” he chides me. “You know, it’s not all about you. You have to let Hope do stuff without you.”
My body starts shaking over the unfairness of what he’s saying—as well as the little bit of truth within.
Sucking in a breath, I let it out slowly. “Fine. Then I want her on Monday and Tuesday night to make up for it.”
Nelson laughs through the phone. “What are you going to do, Hannah? Have her sit up at the bar while you serve drunks?”
My free hand balls up into a fist, and I squeeze my eyes shut. I can’t even fucking have my kid on a weeknight because I have to work to be able to support her. It’s fucked up and incredibly unfair.
Tears spring to my eyes. I blink furiously to battle them back. It doesn’t work, and they slip down my cheeks.
“Listen,” Nelson says dismissively. “I’ve got to go. But I’ll make sure to tell Hope when she comes home tomorrow that you don’t want her to go on any trips with friends in the future. I’m sure she’ll love you for that.”
“Don’t you dare,” I hiss, but all I can hear is dead air.
The asshole hung up on me.
“Goddamn motherfucker,” I scream as I turn and slap my hand against the hood of my car. The shock reverberates through me, causing my bones to ache.
The anger starting to swiftly turn to depression, I make my way around to the driver’s side and throw myself into the front seat. Just as I start my car, a text chimes through. I have an insane thought that perhaps Nelson has had an attack of conscience and is reaching out to make things better.
When I look down at my phone, I’m hit with another punch of despair to my gut.
It’s not from Nelson, but from Toby, my brother.
There’s a Fender guitar at a pawn shop that’s an incredible deal. Can you loan me $200?
A maniacal laugh comes unbidden, and I think I might be cracking up under all this stress.
From the weight of all the things pulling at me.
No, I write back.
It’s a short, curt response from me, and he quickly responds. No worries. Thanks anyway.
He even puts a kissing face emoji.
I had a hand in raising Toby and Frank because my mom worked herself to the bone to be able to afford rent, utilities, and food. She waited tables at a honky-tonk bar in rural South Carolina where the pay was horrible and the tips even worse. I admire the hell out of her for it.
I toss my phone back in my purse, then head back across town to my house where I suppose I’ll spend a lonely day laying on my couch watching sad movies.
I’m strangely blank as I make the fifteen-minute drive, refusing to let my mind obsess over my shitty situation. If I had to put a name to the numbness starting to creep through me, I might even label it as “giving up”.
“It’s okay,” I tell myself gently. “You can give up this hard fight. No one would think badly if you did. It’s not winnable anyway.”
Maybe I should give up. Move away. Hope might be better off without such a mother in her life. What could I possibly give her? What lessons could I even teach her when I can’t even support her or myself?
I come from a family that has always slogged through hard times. Perhaps I should move back to South Carolina to live with my mom. There’s no shortage of bartending jobs there.
I’m beyond mired in depression by the time I pull up to the curb bordering the small, dusty front yard that is my abode. It’s in a terrible section of town, but the rent is affordable, which is all that matters.
I dejectedly haul myself out of my car, so lost in my own misery I don’t hear the vehicle pull up behind me.
It’s not until someone says, “Excuse me… are you Hannah Madigan?” that I snap out of it and turn that way.
My stomach cramps as I see an overweight man heading toward me from the tow truck that just pulled up to the curb. He’s carrying a clipboard. Even though I don’t acknowledge his question, he goes on to say, “I’m here to take your vehicle.”
Just fucking great.
I snatch my purse out of the car, then set it on the hood. Without a word to the man, I get in the backseat, unlatch Hope’s car seat, and yank it free. After I set it on the ground, I close the door with a bump of my hip before angrily removing the car key from the key ring. When it’s free, I toss it at the repo man. It’s an unexpected move, and he drops his clipboard as he tries to catch it.
I don’t look back at him, though. Instead, I grab my purse and the car seat, then move across my yard to my house.
Yes, it would be so easy right now to just give up on everything.
Instead, as soon as I step over the thres
hold and close the front door behind me, I call Asher.
He answers, not with smug anticipation but rather a guarded question. “Have you changed your mind?”
“I have,” I respond smoothly and with a confidence that shocks me since I was contemplating throwing in the towel just moments ago. “I accept your offer on the condition that I have weekends off.”
“That wasn’t part of the deal, Hannah. I want you at my beck and call, and that means whenever my fancy strikes me.”
“Then find another ‘house manager,’” I say with quiet sarcasm that I should bear such a ludicrous title. “Because I need weekends off. It’s non-negotiable.”
I’m not giving up one more minute of my time with Hope, and I’m going to use that crazy signing bonus to hire an attorney first thing on Monday. I’m going to fight Nelson for joint physical custody, and I’m not going to stop until I succeed.
Even if that means I have to suck Asher’s cock Monday through Friday.
Although I grudgingly admit it doesn’t really sound like a chore to me.
Regardless, I have a new plan of action. I’m going to make this work for Hope and me.
He’s quiet, and I panic for a moment that the deal might be blown. My mind scrambles to find a middle ground with him, but it’s not needed.
Asher’s words are nonchalant. “Be here at eight AM on Monday.”
“I’ll be there,” I clip out with a modicum of geniality in my voice. He is my employer after all. “But I need to have Monday afternoon off to take care of something personal.”
“Fine,” he mutters. “But you’re going to the club with me Monday night.”
“Fine,” I snap.
“Fine.” This time, he adds a low, sexy laugh. “Maybe we can work out some of that aggression you seem to be harboring right now. I like a little rough, angry sex. Don’t you?”
A shiver tickles up my spine at the prospect. My sex life wasn’t overly adventurous with Nelson, so I have no clue if I like it rough or not.
Wicked Knight Page 4
