by KB Winters
Henry maintained his smile, but it was starting to fracture. “It’s not quite that simple, Mr. Rosen,” he interjected, his tone snagged as he said my name. “What I want to do is completely re-brand the museum. Give it a facelift to maximize the new business and launch it into a new stratosphere on the profit charts.”
He flicked to a new slide, and while I kept a neutral face, my eyes nearly bugged out at the dollar amounts displayed on the screen. I’d managed to bring the business my father started from a hobby, only found in local magazines and a few travel website listings on obscure websites, to a full-fledged tourist attraction. Sure, things had grown and expanded quickly, but the figures on the screen were ten times higher than anything I’d ever dreamed up for the future.
“As we talked about, on my visit a few weeks back, I have a passion for aircraft and aviation. You’ve done a great job, and I’m ready to invest and take it to the next level.”
“All out of the goodness of your heart, am I to assume?” I tossed back, chuckling as a few members of the meeting concealed their own smirks.
Henry gave a sharp glance around the table before locking his fierce gaze with mine. “I’m making you an offer, Mr. Rosen. I’m willing to buy your business, in exchange for a rather handsome lump sum, in addition to a percentage of future earnings for the life of the business.”
He clicked another button and a new slide popped onto the wall. This time, I did gag back a gasp at the figure. Henry grinned like the Big Bad Wolf. He’d huffed, puffed, and was ready to eat. “As you can see, it’s quite a generous offer, and with a percentage of the revenue, it would actually be more…lucrative.”
My resolve to hold onto the business wavered for a mere second as the outlandish figure on the wall added onto the other numbers that had already been displayed.
I swallowed hard and reminded myself that the business wasn’t for sale. If I let Henry buy it, and “re-brand,” I would lose out on a lot more than just a pile of money. I would be losing out on the legacy that my father left behind for me—and that was way more important than dollar signs with a bunch of zeros.
I met Henry’s gaze. “I’m flattered, Mr. O’Keefe,” as I said his name, it struck me as how twisted the path that had led to that moment had been. We’d gone from brawling in a parking lot over an old plane to verbally sparring across a board room over the fate of my entire life. “However, the museum is not for sale, and I’m not interested in re-branding at this time. I apologize if I’ve wasted your time.”
Henry’s eyes darkened as he stared me down. His fixed smile twitched.
“Gentlemen, can we have the room?” Henry said, looking around the table, flashing what was left of his tightly wound expression.
Everyone jumped up and hurried away from the room.
When the door closed, Henry dropped his pretense. “I get that you don’t like me. I’m not a fan of yours either, but this is a smart business move for both of us.”
I shrugged. “Well, you already think I’m a bullheaded idiot. I’d hate to disappoint.”
Henry sank into the chair at the head of the table and steepled his fingers in front of his face, taking a moment to consider me. “What is it you want? If not money, and not women, then what?”
I laughed and shook my head. “Dude, are you even for real right now? Fuck…I’ve heard money can blind you, but I didn’t realize it could make you deaf too. I don’t want your money. I don’t need the leftover hookers you’re looking to retire from your rotation. I can get real women just fine. And money? Hey, I’m cool there too. I’ve never been afraid to get my hands dirty.”
I stood up from the table and leaned forward. “We’re done here. Don’t try to call me again.”
“Before you go…”
I turned back and watched as Henry pulled an envelope from his breast pocket. He opened it with a slow smile and lay out the contents on the table. I shook my head at the pictures of the side of Henry’s face after our altercation in the parking lot. “Your museum is mine, one way or the other, Rosen. Either you sell it to me, make a mint, and move on. Or I’ll take these to the police, have you arrested for assault, and then sue you for damages. You’ll have to liquidate just to pay the legal fees it will take to get you through the court process. My team can be…relentless.”
He leaned back in his seat, a self-satisfied smile on his face. “The choice is yours. The easy way or the hard way. Surely, even a—how did you put it? Ah, a bullheaded idiot, such as yourself, can see the choice is obvious here.”
Even as an expert poker player, I couldn’t get a read on him. I couldn’t get an answer from my gut to know if he was bluffing or not.
And if I called, and he wasn’t…
But I wasn’t about to bend over and take it.
“Let me ask you this,” I started, folding my arms over my chest. “How do you think the public would perceive this if word got out that your company was trying to blackmail a decorated, Naval officer, into selling a significant portion of the business his deceased father created? A man who was not only one of the best fighter pilots in the world but was also awarded the Medal of Honor for his service and bravery during the Viet Nam war.”
I suppressed a smirk as the haughty smile sagged from Henry’s face.
“You may think you have ammo, and hey, maybe you do. But I have something better. With a snap of my fingers, I can rally support that a slime ball mogul like you can only dream about. I’ve given my life to this country, and I can guaran-damn-tee that if I need their support, I’ll get it. So, you can drag me to court, and I’ll drag you through the media circus that nightmares are made of.”
I braced my hands on the table and leaned in to give him my final piece of advice. “I told you from the moment we met…
Don’t.
Fuck.
With.
Me.”
I shoved off the table and stalked from the room, letting the door slam behind me as the period on the end of my statement.
10
My battle won; I drove back to Holiday Cove. I headed straight to Harvey’s Bar and Grill, my favorite little dive for those nights I needed a bottle of American beer, a pile of deep fried food, and a bevy of hot, semi-drunk women who would be all too happy to take my mind off my troubles.
Or, in the case of tonight, celebrate well into the wee hours of the morning.
Walking through the front doors was like a homecoming, and half a dozen cheers landed on me, some from regular patrons in addition to the two bartenders holding down the happy hour crowd.
“Hey Stacy,” I drawled, dropping my ass into a seat at the long bar. Stacy and I had hooked up months back, but she was the type of girl who didn’t care when she didn’t get a call back the next day. She smiled as she set my favorite brew in front of me and I smiled gratefully at her.
“How’s it going, trouble?”
I shrugged as I took a long pull from the ice-cold bottle. The foam slid over my tongue and loosened the last hints of stress from me. “Couldn’t be better,” I answered.
“Hungry?”
“Not yet,” I took a look over my shoulder to survey the room. “At least, not for food.”
Stacy scoffed and playfully rolled her eyes. “All right, Rosen. I’ll keep 'em coming till you find new entertainment.”
“Excellent.” I winked at her and spun all the way around, propping my elbow back on the bar to keep myself steady as I lounged on top of the stool, drinking and checking out the assortment of ladies.
A good fuck was exactly what I needed to clear my mind of all the bullshit with Henry.
My attention landed on a top heavy blonde who was shooting pool with some guy who was clearly several leagues below her.
Not that it stopped him from checking out her tits every time she leaned over to line up her shot.
I smiled and shook my head.
“You took my advice,” a familiar voice purred.
I turned and found myself eye to eye with Talia. Sh
e’d slithered into the seat beside me without so much as a sound. I groaned and threw back the rest of my beer. I sat the empty bottle on the bar and signaled to Stacy for a new one.
“What are you doing here?” I looked around the room. “A little out of your neighborhood, wouldn’t you say?”
“I followed you here. From the meeting.”
“I should have known.” I gave a hollow laugh. “Damn. You’re really something else, you know that?”
“Aaron, please—”
I held up a finger, silencing her. “Does Henry know you’re here?”
She shook her head. “No, he doesn’t. We haven’t spoken in…a while.”
“Tragic.”
She scoffed and tossed her dark hair over her shoulder. She stared ahead for a moment. When she shot a sidelong glance at me, I had to fight off a guilty feeling at the sad look in her eyes. “I’m done with him.”
“I still don’t even know what you were doing with him in the first place. You haven’t exactly been open about that.” I took another swig from the bottle in my hand. “Not that it matters now, I guess.”
She turned in her seat, her knees pressing into the side of my thigh. “I was his…beneficiary…”
“What the fuck does that even mean?”
She cringed. “He bought me. I got into some financial trouble a few years ago. He bailed me out, in exchange for my…services.”
“And at some point he decided he wanted you to service me? You told me that night, when we met at the bar, you didn’t know who I was. Was that a lie?”
She hesitated long enough to answer my question without a word.
I pounded back the rest of my beer. “God, you must have really thought I was an idiot, huh?”
She sighed and raked her hair out of her face. “No! I didn’t, Aaron. I know it doesn’t matter now, but I really like you.”
“How touching.” I shook my head. “That’s a real sad story, Talia, but it doesn’t excuse what you tried to do. You played me like I was a fucking game. I mean, what the fuck was all that? Were you trying to make me fall in love with you? Is that what he told you to do?”
The notion was laughable.
Aaron Rosen didn’t fall for anything.
“Henry thought that if I could get you to care for me, then when we were at the museum, I was supposed to switch and act like he beat me or something. He wanted you to want to save me. That way, when he offered me to you in exchange for the plane, you’d take the deal.”
“But he didn’t want the plane, Talia. He wants the whole goddamned museum.”
“I know.” She nodded. “The plane was just the first step in his plan. A way to get into the room, so to speak. I don’t think he anticipated you being so stubborn.”
I shrugged off her comment. I’d been called worse. “And what’s the rest then?”
“After he got the plane, he’d pitch you the idea of buying the museum.”
“Why? I don’t buy his whole I’m into aviation bullshit.”
Talia shook her head. “I just figured that out. That’s why I wanted to see you.”
She had my attention. I set down the fresh beer that Stacy had brought me and turned to face her. “What is it?”
Talia sighed. “He can’t get permits to build the high rise he wants to build. So, he needs a large piece of land to build it. And, where the museum is located, would be the perfect spot. The view is the best in the whole town anyway. He’d probably make even more money.” She shook her head in obvious disgust. “Once you signed the contracts, he was going to bulldoze the museum and your house and build the resort there—keeping the airstrip. His lawyers would have crafted a convenient loophole into the contract. That way, all he’s out is your initial lump sum, which, to be honest, is chump change for him.”
Rage boiled up inside me, spilling into my veins and seizing every muscle. “Holy shit.”
“Yeah. When I found out that part, I told him I was done.”
I shifted my eyes to hers. “So, what happens now? With your deal?”
“I have to pay him back for breaching our contract if I want to avoid a legal battle. Obviously in the contract, it doesn’t state what my actual…position was…so he can basically say whatever he wants. Either way, I’m screwed, but…that day, in your office, things changed for me. It was this moment of clarity where I saw how little he actually cared for me, even after the years we spent together. We traveled together, he bought me nice things, and kept me happy. Most of the time. But, I saw at that moment, how much of myself that I’d lost in all that…stuff.”
The picture she painted was grim, and I could understand her feeling trapped. Still, it didn’t excuse her lies and the ways she had tried to use and manipulate me into joining Henry’s game.
“Well, luckily for us, we’re both free. I didn’t sign his bogus contract, and you’re on your own too.” I clinked the tip of my bottle to her glass of ice water. “Cheers to that.”
“Aaron, do you think we could…” she floundered for a moment, trying to find the words. “Do you think we could start over? I’d like to get to know you. You know, outside of all that.”
I chuckled and finished the beer. I signaled to Stacy to bring me my check and then returned my gaze to Talia. “I don’t play games, Talia.”
“I don’t—”
I pushed off my stool and her excuse died on her pretty lips. She was still one of the sexiest women I’d ever seen in my life. I knew there was no chance in hell I’d forget about her anytime soon, but I also knew that she was trouble and not worth one more night of steam between the sheets.
“I’d say see ya around, but I really hope I don’t.”
I crossed the room and didn’t look back as I made my way to the pool table, where the blonde and the geek were finishing up. From the looks of it, she’d kicked his ass. I set a stack of quarters on the edge of the table. The blonde looked up from lining up her final shot and grinned.
“I got winner,” I said, returning her seductive smile.
“You’re on,” she said, returning her eye to the cue ball, her breasts shifting under her thin dress.
As she took her shot, I glanced over my shoulder and saw that Talia’s place at the bar was now occupied by a new ass, and a strange mix of relief and sadness rippled through me.
I felt sorry for her. She’d clearly tangled with the wrong man, gotten in over her head, and had seen me as a ticket out of the madness. But I wasn’t that kind of guy. I’d thought I’d made that pretty clear, but it didn’t take the sting away from pitying her situation.
I shook it off and loosened my shoulders before selecting a stick from the display on the wall. I chalked the tip and congratulated the blonde, as the eight ball sunk into her declared pocket. The geeky guy took the hint that he’d been cut from the conversation, and moved on, mumbling something to the blonde in passing.
From the look on her face, she hadn’t even heard him.
Her bright blue eyes were locked on mine, and I knew by the end of our game, she’d be in my car, headed back to my place, and I’d be stripping her of much more than just the twenty-dollar bill she’d laid on the table.
They didn’t call me Player for nothing…
11
“Hey handsome, thanks for the good time.”
I grinned at the message scrawled across my bathroom mirror in pink lipstick. “I like your style,” I mused, rubbing a hand down my stubble-coated jaw. I’d woken up minutes before, surprised to find an empty place in the tangled sheets beside me.
Last night was spent with a very…enthusiastic…blonde named Kimberly. I’d picked her up at a bar over a game of pool and had her screaming my name before my buzz had fully evaporated. Afterward, I’d crashed out across the mattress before I could figure out the right exit strategy to get her in a cab back to her car. Wherever the hell it had been parked.
Apparently, she didn’t need any prodding.
With a grin still on my face, I got into the shower a
nd relived the highlight reel from the hot night. Those tits, damn. A man could get lost…
I stepped out, toweled off, and paused at the sink long enough to use the steam from the shower to scrub away the lipstick message with the corner of the towel in my hand. I stalked—bare ass naked—out into the bedroom, not caring that the blinds were up on the large picture windows and went to my dresser. I dug through my drawers and threw on the same damn thing I wore every day. Jeans, tee, and my black leather jacket. It was comfortable, familiar, and worked to amplify my badass persona. I slid my work boots on and headed out the door.
A few minutes later, I was next door at the warehouse that occupied most of my property. The Rosen Air Museum. My inheritance. My business. My life. I strolled through the warehouse as everyone rushed around to open for another busy Saturday, nodding as my employees called out their morning hellos as I passed by.
“There you are!” Lana, my assistant, raced up to my side.
I glanced down at her clunky shoes, wondering if they were doctor ordered, or she just had a thing for big ass, grandma shoes. I thought about asking but then thought again.
Lana had a not-so-secret crush on me, and while I wasn’t even in the same realm of feelings, she was a good worker, and I wouldn’t want to lose her over a crass joke about her fashion sense.
Or lack of.
“Damn girl, A crisis already? I haven’t even had my coffee.” I rolled my eyes.
“No, no. Nothing like that,” Lana assured me, batting her eyelashes up at me as she took two steps for every one of mine to keep pace with my long strides. “The F-4 is here!”
“Shit! Already?” How had I forgotten? Oh yeah, I remembered. Blonde. Tits. Ass made for spankin’…
Lana nodded furiously. “I called you earlier.”
My hand automatically went to pat the back pocket of my jeans. Shit. I’d left it over at the house. Or at the bar. Who knew? After the night I’d had, I was lucky I wasn’t reeling from a hangover. I’d thrown back a few more beers than I normally would have after my unsettling meeting with Talia.
