Ember wanted to retreat and crawl back into bed but she forced herself to stay strong and stay right where she was. There was no turning back now. She had to find out what was going on.
“Well, if they want to do this that badly then they are going to have to play by our rules, right? It’s nice having everything coming to you for a change,” Zander said. “Club Privaat will go nationwide and then global, mark my words. You have no idea what a goldmine you have. That’s always been your problem. You won’t commit. Yeah, well maybe I won’t have to pay a hundred grand for the next one, but it was worth it. That one is so worth it. We can make so much cash off her.”
Ember swallowed hard as the tears welled up in her eyes. So, he was just all about the business after all. She was a goldmine, a cash cow. Is that really all she meant to him? It couldn’t be true. There had to be some other explanation. She was only hearing one side of the story, right?
But her mind was already made up. She’d been cheated on in the past and dumped like she was nothing more than once. It was precisely this sort of heart ache that had turned her a bit skeptical and bitter towards the dating scene to begin with. Ember did not like to talk about it much and it had taken a lot of prodding from Liza to get her to open up about any of her past, and there was still some secret pain in her past that she kept in the past. This was precisely why.
The tears were coming strong now as she tried to fight them back and began to gather her clothes. Standing in front of Zander’s full length mirror she looked at her nude body and hoped that Zander had got his money’s worth out of it.
Then she started to put her clothes on in a hurry. She hated to feel this way. She’d been used, plain and simple. Hell, she’d been used twice. How many times did Zander think he was going to be able to keep using her? He was just going to string her along until he decided that he was done and cast her aside? Was that it? Not for this girl. Twice was more than enough.
The door opened right then slowly and Zander was now standing there confused by the sight of Ember getting dressed. He flipped on the light and stepped into the room.
“What’s going on? I thought we would have some breakfast?” Zander asked.
“No, I’m not hungry,” Ember said. She stormed past him out of the bedroom and started walking down the hall towards the door.
“What’s wrong with you?”
Ember stopped and glared at him. “Gee, I don’t know. Could it be that I’ve been duped twice?”
Zander gave her a look that said he was utterly confused.
“What?”
“Oh, you’re good. You should be in movies,” Ember replied.
“Will you just talk to me? I have no idea what is going on.”
“The first time I could kind of understand. I mean it was an auction and you bought me fair and square. It was my own fault for feeling like we had a connection that was not really there. But this time I came at your beck and call. And you got what you wanted again.”
“Honey, I do care about you. Where is this coming from?” Zander asked.
He was really playing this part very well.
“You can’t keep doing this to people. Women are not disposable tissues that you can toss aside when you are done. But then again for a guy like you anything is disposable since you own the world, right?”
Zander was getting annoyed.
“What the hell are you talking about? If I’ve done something to upset you I’m at a loss. Just pretend I’m stupid and tell me.”
Ember laughed.
“I heard your little phone call. You were setting up your next victim. You are going to try out all the girls and pick the best one. I know exactly what you mean.”
Zander rolled his eyes.
“Honey, this is silly. You have no idea what I meant. You are overreacting to nothing, I swear. Give me a chance to explain.”
“I’m done giving you chances,” Ember said.
She opened the door, slammed it behind her, and got on the elevator.
Zander did not follow her as she expected he would, which lent further credence to what she already knew. If the guy really wanted to plead his case it seemed to her he would have tried harder. But he just half-heartedly asked her to wait, although his confusion did seem real. What was it about guys who are caught in lies exposing what pigs they really are that they can all become Oscar winners?
Ember was done with all of it. She did not need this distraction from her real life and she damn sure wasn’t going back to the auction anymore.
CHAPTER 16
Zander
Zander scoops his eggs out of the frying pan and onto his plate. Then grabs his bowl of oatmeal off the counter and sits down with his breakfast. He digs in trying to forget about the fiasco with Ember and hope that she is finally calming herself down enough for him to talk to her. But he knows it’s going to take some time. He will just let her be for now.
But he can’t help thinking that he should have gone after her. Why did he just let her storm out without really explaining himself? But then again would she have listened? Would she have actually listened to him right then? It was unlikely. She had made up her mind that he was a dog and she wanted to convince herself that she was right. Zander did not consider himself the world expert on women by any means, but he had been around the block a few times. He had learned that women rarely want solutions when they are upset about something. As a man, he wanted to offer help to remedy a situation, even a situation that he may have inadvertently cause, but when she was running high on anger and confusion it was not the best time. He just needed to wait a bit to let her stew over it and calm down. Hopefully she would realize she was jumping to conclusions without getting the full story.
From what he could gather she’d woke up early and heard him on the phone. She heard him talking about the girls and trying things out and completely got the wrong message. It had taken him several times of reliving the phone call to understand exactly what he said that set her off. Now looking back, he could understand her view point.
He was talking to Harrison about possibly expanding the business model of Club Privaat. They had great women but they could get even better ones, especially with the kind of money that was already flowing into that place and the kind of money that could be generated. Harrison wasn’t really too keen on his idea of taking things to that level. It was going to be a problem. But he was hoping with talking some more sense into Harrison then they would reach an agreement, an understanding.
But then there was Ember. Last night had been even more incredible than the first night they had spent together. It was not a question anymore; he was falling head over heels in love with her. He had never believed in the idea of a “soulmate” or any of that lame lovey crap, but it was like overnight his mind had been changed and he wanted to be with this woman.
And now he might have blown it.
Was she going to be this insecure about him running this club? If club Privaat was going to cause that much of a riff in his life and mess up his relationship with Ember, if it hadn’t already destroyed it, then he was willing to walk away right now.
His heart sank a bit at the possibility, but then again, he did not need this club. It was a fun idea and something he knew would be awesome under the right guidance and the right devotion which he’d been prepared to offer, but he was trying to see things from Ember’s point of view. If he was working with all of these amazing women all the time and he was going to be actively involved in the selection process for the auction (this was the only way it would work) then she was always going to feel jealous. Any woman probably would. It was just in the biology. If the roles were reversed he knew that he would be feeling a bit jealous of her. He laughed at himself. He just realized that he had never been close enough with a woman to really feel jealous of her or the other men she might have been involved with.
He was really changing, wasn’t he? And he knew what he had to do now. It was going to set Harrison off into a storm of a psy
chotic rage he knew (which was actually kind of fun) but this was the best way for him to be able to show Ember that he cared for her and that if something he did was going to make her uncomfortable and have her constantly questioning his motives then he was not going to do it.
Zander grabbed his phone and made the phone call. Harrison picked up on the third ring.
“Hey, you are just full of ideas this morning, aren’t you?” Harrison said.
“Did I catch you at a bad time?” Zander asked.
In the background, he could hear what sounded like a locker room on Harrison’s side of the phone.
“Nah, I just finished up a workout. You know I gotta stay sharp looking for the ladies.”
“Ah, the mouth game isn’t working for you anymore?” Zander joked. He was hoping that by making a few jokes he could smooth this whole thing over a bit.
“No, but I do like to keep the energy and the stamina going. What can I do for you?” Harrison asked.
“Well, I’ve decided that due to other commitments I have I won’t be able to come aboard the Club Privaat train after all.”
The line was silent for a moment. Then Harrison spoke. “Are you kidding me?”
“No, I’m not. I appreciate the offer man, but I am just not going to be able to give it my full attention.”
“So, over the past few hours you just totally changed your mind? Hell, you called me at five o’clock this morning bursting at the seams with ideas and now you are just backing out. Color me puzzled.”
“I would rather not go into the details, but circumstances have changed. I wish you the best of luck with the club though.”
“No, no, no.” Harrison was getting angry. “You listen to me. We had a deal. I’m not going to let you come in and learn everything about my club and then just walk away to develop your own thing with it.”
“Calm down,” Zander said. “That is not what’s happening. I’m not moving in on your turf.”
“The hell you aren’t! Do I look that stupid to you? Have you forgotten who I am? You think I don’t know that you suddenly got some other investors on board to open up your own club—hell, your own club franchise from the sounds of things—and that you are going to screw me over again? No, that is not going to happen. You and I made a deal!”
“We haven’t even had the contracts drawn up yet. We had a handshake, that is all. I am not doing this and from the sound of things I definitely made the right call.”
“You know I will destroy you. You keep forgetting all the things I can do to you!”
Zander laughed. “Have a good life.”
He disconnected the call and went back to his breakfast. He was suddenly aware of just how psychotic Harrison really was.
CHAPTER 17
Ember
“Are you sure you aren’t mistaken?” Liza asked. “You know how you have a tendency to blow things way out of proportion.”
“I do not have that tendency,” Ember said. “I am one of the most level-headed people you know.”
Liza laughed and Ember had to join in. She knew she could get a bit crazy at times. That was not exactly a secret. Ember shoved frozen yogurt into her mouth and enjoyed the sweetness.
The two girls had decided to grab some lunch, but after failing to decide on a good place they both chose frozen yogurt as a great back up. It was not technically lunch, but more of a lunch dessert. It was still amazing and it had definitely been too long since Ember had it.
She’d just finished telling Liza everything about her night with Zander and what she’d overheard on the phone. Liza being the more practical of the two had automatically jumped to the conclusion that Ember might have been mistaken. She hated to admit it but Liza might have been right; she usually was about such things. She hated that about her friend sometimes, but she was always glad later when she turned out to be right.
But not this time. Ember felt it in her bones that she knew what she’d heard.
“Are you sure you aren’t just letting your mind go there because you are scared?” Liza asked.
“Scared of what?”
“You know what. You told me yourself that you have been hurt before and starting a whirlwind romance this quickly, this intensely—that is the sort of thing that would scare any normal, sane person. And you are neither normal nor sane.”
Ember laughed and rolled her eyes. Liza always had that way about her that could make everything feel alright. It was just the sort of thing that you always searched for in a best friend.
“I know. I am scared, but I don’t think I’m letting fear get in the way of this. I don’t feel like I’m just searching for something to go wrong here. I woke up and there it was,” Ember said.
“You heard something very vague and your imagination ran wild with it. That is where the fear comes in.”
“When did you become Dr. Phil?”
“It’s always on in the break room at work; I must have picked some up.”
“I don’t know,” Ember said. “I just feel like I’m losing control over every aspect of my life sometimes, and it’s just so much easier to stop everything, you know?”
“I do know,” Liza responded. “That’s why I’m always trying to get you up off the couch and get you to do something. You have to get that blood flowing or your brain will rot.”
“I think the damage is already done,” Ember replied.
“You don’t think there is the slightest chance that you are wrong about Zander? Why don’t you talk to him?”
Ember sighed heavily. “I know there is a chance, but I also know my guts and my instincts. I want to run away from this. There have been too many signs and I can just see the writing on the wall.”
“Is that what it is? If you really think about it are you sure that you don’t want there to be something really wrong? Because that way you could just forget it all and say it’s not your fault.”
Ember groaned. “I don’t know. I hear everything you are saying and honestly, I’ve thought a lot of the same stuff, but there is this other side of me that is wrestling against it. I just don’t know what to do here. And that is scary because I always feel like I’m in control of my life, not the other way around.”
“I know you like to think that,” Liza said. She took a huge chunk of yogurt into her mouth and swallowed hard. A moment later she was grabbing her head with a cold headache.
Ember laughed at her idiotic friend. Liza had probably done this just to give her a giggle and it worked.
“So, what do I do? Should I call him and hear what he has to say? I mean what is to stop him from just lying about it? How will I know what is right or not?”
“You might not, but if what you guys have together is actually real then I think you owe it to yourself to give it a real shot. Your instincts are pretty good; I think if he is feeding you a line you will know about it.”
Ember took a sip of her soda. What was it about cold soda that made it suddenly warmer yet ultra-delicious when combined with frozen food?
Her phone vibrated right then. It was Zander. She showed the call ID to Liza.
“What are you going to do?” Liza asked.
Ember shrugged and waited until the voicemail picked up. It was then that she noticed her call history.
“Apparently that is the fifth call he has made today,” Ember said.
“Now, I’m not exactly an expert on guys, although I do consider myself knowledgeable, but I think that is a sign he really wants you to not be mad at him. If this was any guy then I might say he could be full of it, but this is Zander Michaels. He is model gorgeous, super billions in the bank, and he is a total alpha sex God. Why would he waste all this time and energy chasing after you if he just wanted sex, which he already got?”
Ember smiled. Liza had a really good point. She looked at her phone.
“Call him back,” Liza said. “But you have to do it here so I can listen,” she giggled.
Ember laughed as she picked up her phone and called Zander back. S
he put the phone on speaker phone so that Liza could listen in. It was a nice day so they were sitting outside and the place was relatively quiet. Ember didn’t think that anyone else around would be able to hear the conversation and she hoped that Zander wouldn’t hear anything that might tip him off.
“Hello?” Zander answered.
“Hey,” Ember replied. She wanted to play it cool. Liza gave her a thumbs up and a smile.
“Hey there,” Zander said. “I’m glad you decided to call me back. I hated the way we left things earlier.”
“Yeah, well so did I.”
Ember was silent now. She wanted to let Zander speak. He was the one who had something to explain after all.
After a few seconds of silence, he did begin to speak.
“Listen, what you heard on that phone call was not what you think you heard. As I tried to explain earlier you were only hearing one side of it.”
“Well, it sounded to me like you were talking business and I seem to remember you basically saying how you wanted to sample all of the girls and make sure they were to your liking. I’m all ears if you want to explain that.”
Liza’s eyes were wide. She seemed to think that Ember was being a bit harsh. Maybe she was right.
“I was talking business with the current owner of Club Privaat. I was telling him my ideas about expansion. When I mentioned sampling, I was telling him he needed to upgrade to the best liquor. Right now, he is serving medium shelf liquor and charging higher prices for it, as if he thinks that no one can tell. What he does when someone orders drink is start them with the good stuff and then after they are a bit under the influence he switches it out to something inferior and keeps charging the same price. It’s an unscrupulous practice I don’t want to be a part of in an establishment I’m going to invest in. So, I am telling him we will serve only the best. He is struggling with the idea because he thinks it will mean less revenue, but with the expansion that will take care of itself.”
Hunter (The Bad Disciples MC Book 2) Page 47
