My phone rang at eight exactly and I answered.
"I'm so sorry to do this to you, sweetheart," his voice came over the speaker and my heart sank. "Something came up and I'm not going to make it to your apartment. Will you do be the biggest favor and meet me there?"
"You're not canceling on me?"
"Not even if the world depended on it."
Relief washed through me. I'd expected him to cancel on me.
"Where must I meet you?"
He gave me an address.
"I'll see you soon." He hung up. I looked at the address I'd scribbled down. I grabbed a handbag, decided on heels instead of flats considering I couldn't ask him, and walked down to the road. I flagged a taxi and gave him the address.
The place was at the edge of town in an area I'd never been. The restaurant was classy and a seating hostess took me straight to a table when I mentioned Logan's name. He was already at the table, looking suave in a suit and tie. I hadn't seen him in anything other than jeans or leather and I had to admit he looked really good. The suit was dark, which made his eyes seem like bottomless pools of black, and his hair was actually combed to the side. If I'd passed him in the street looking like that I wouldn't have recognized him. He smiled at me when I sat down and I smiled back, already blushing. The look he gave me was exactly the look Joanne had suggested he would give me, given what I was wearing.
"Thank you for meeting me," he said.
"Thanks for not standing me up."
Chapter 8
Logan
When the seating hostess brought her to the table she looked like a blonde bombshell. She was stunning. She wore a black dress that made her look fantastic, emphasizing her curvy body in ways I could never have pictured when she'd worn her jeans earlier. That dress screamed for me to ogle her and I obliged. An erection punched into my zipper and I shifted, glad I had the table to hide my body's spontaneous reaction behind. She looked the part for the kind of place this was, too. She wore heels that made her legs look long and sexy. Her hair was loose and over her shoulders in beautiful waves of blonde that made me want to run my hands through it.
She sat down, all elegance and grace, and looked at me through dark eyes that made the blue look that much more striking.
"I would never stand you up." And that was the God-honest truth. Someone like Selena was way too special and I had the feeling that being allowed to be out with her with a privilege that few people got. "You look beautiful," I said to her when she sat down.
Her cheeks turned bright red and she looked down with a shy smile. It was impossible to think someone as attractive as she was didn't know the impact she made on men. "You look really nice, too."
She looked at my suit and tie. I felt completely uncomfortable in clothes that felt like it didn't represent me at all, but Selena wasn't the kind of person who deserved me meeting her in the same leather I wore for everything else.
I had the manuscript she'd let me keep and a thick red pen that I'd bought at a stationary store earlier. I wanted to go through it with her.
"What's that?" she asked.
"This is my opinion." I held up the pen.
She pulled a face. "It looks harsh."
I smiled. "It really isn't. Constructive, maybe, but not harsh."
She shrugged. A waitress named Maxine came to the table all smiles. She swung her hips and flipped her hair before glaring at Selena.
"What can I get you to drink?" she asked. She didn't look at Selena again.
"I'll have the usual," I said. "And for the lady, your cocktail of the day."
Maxine nodded and disappeared again.
"A friend of yours?" she asked, mimicking the words I'd used on her with the waiter at The Crepe Place. I grinned. She was too quick for me.
"I ah...I own the place."
Her eyes widened in surprise. She hadn't expected that one. "What?"
I shrugged. "Business is going well. I own a few things here and there. I have to admit it didn't start out with honest money, but it is now, and that's all that counts."
She looked around in the place and I imagined her seeing it in a different light. "It's really nice. Wow. Having something like this to your name has got to be the kind of stability every human being wants in life."
I shrugged. "Having a lot of stuff is great but I don't see that as riches. I think it's important to have someone to share it with."
"Isn't that the most cliché outlook on life?"
I laughed. It really was. I sounded like one of those billionaires in movies that would never be happy because they let go of true love. "It is, but it's true."
The drinks arrived. I thanked Maxine. She smiled at me and took out a notepad.
"What can I get you to eat?"
I ordered for us both the way a gentleman should for a lady. I let her choose from the menu. To my delight, she chose steak and not some fluffy salad.
"You're a woman after my own heart," I said after we'd placed our order. "Girls are usually so concerned about their weight."
"Oh, God. I should probably be, but I love food. My metabolism has been kind to me."
I shook my head. "You really don't have to worry about your weight. You're stunning inside and out."
She blushed again. I was going to keep complimenting her all night so I could just see her blush. It was the most beautiful thing to see a woman who still took compliments like that and turned it into a gift to me. Most women expected flattery and it did nothing for them in the end.
"Okay, let's take the plunge," she said and nodded toward the manuscript. "You have all sorts of criticism. That pen is making me nervous."
I opened the first page. "You really don't have to be."
She folded her arms on the table and leaned forward, ready to hear what I had to say. I wondered if she knew how good it made her cleavage look. Maybe she had done it on purpose, but I doubted it.
"First of all, your characterization is brilliant. The way you build these people up and give them life is something very few people manage in books."
She smiled. "Thank you."
"Your dialogue is great, too. It's something special. You write the way you talk."
"How is that?"
"Witty and quick."
She shook her head. "When you said positive criticism I thought there would be more criticism than positive."
I laughed. "I'm getting to that. The good things first."
She nodded, sipping her cocktail. It was a blue mix of something that looked like it might be potent. I sipped my three fingers of Whiskey on the rocks. It wasn't my favorite but in a place like this it seemed silly to order a Corona so this was my usual for this restaurant. It was a little like all the faces I put up for different people in different areas of my life.
"Your action scenes are fast-paced, which is good, but you don't plan them, do you?"
She shook her head and I nodded. "I can tell. If you write with a plan you might be able to fix that and not write yourself into a corner."
She groaned. "You're not the first person to tell me that. The ladies at the writing club I belong to all tell me the same thing. I guess now that an outsider has mentioned it, too, it must be true."
I leaned back. "You're part of a writing club?"
She nodded. "We meet once or twice a week, depending on how busy everyone is, and then we read our new pages to each other and discuss how it fits in with the rest of the book and how we can make it better. They're great ladies and brilliant writers and the discussions are really good. They agree that the male lead needs to be a biker."
I raised my eyebrows at her. "You talked about me?"
"I...well, yes, I just...I needed to. You know, Francis needs work."
She was cute when she stuttered like that, finding an answer to a question she hadn't expected. She'd talked herself into a corner the same way she wrote herself into a corner now and then. The fact that she'd spoken about me to her friends just made me feel like something special.
/> "I like that you mentioned me to your friends."
She shrugged. "I told them you were an asshole."
I laughed, unable to help my surprise. "You think that of me?"
She nodded. "You're managing to redeem yourself - it's not as bad as it was before."
I couldn't believe she was saying that, but it was true and I knew it. The insult stung a little but the fact that was willing to be honest with me trumped that.
"What else?"
I looked at the manuscript again. "You can work on your voice a little if you don't mind me saying. Your characters all sound the same. Like you. Just try to give them different voices."
She nodded. "Noted."
I scratched my head, forgetting I'd slicked my hair down. I flattened it again and got irritated with the oil on my hand. I really wanted a smoke but I wasn't going to smoke in front of Selena. That would be rude.
"Other than that, I really just think that your commitment is commendable."
"That's a big word for a biker."
I shook my head, smiling. Sometimes she jabbed me with little insults, almost like we were play-fighting. In a way, we were.
"Sorry."
I smiled. "Don't be. It is a big word for a biker. I know a lot of my men who won't be able to understand what you're saying, and I mean that in the nicest way possible with no disrespect to them. I'm just not your average biker."
"I have to agree with you on that."
It was when she followed up her jabs with compliments like that, on the fly and so quick I wouldn't notice if I weren't paying attention, that made it all worthwhile.
"The discipline it takes to write a book is insane," I carried on. "And you wrote over two hundred pages already. Not only is that amazing because you made the story work for two hundred pages, all in a row, but you stuck to it. I know a lot of people who would just give up."
"It sounds a lot like your criticism has gone over into flattery," she said. And it was true, it did. But there was a side of her I really admired, not as a man looking at a woman but as one lover of literature to another.
"You spend a lot of time in books, don't you?"
Her question was about a side of me I didn't often show, but I'd shown her so much of that side lately it wouldn't really make a different if I lied to her.
"Yes, I do. For different reasons, but the literature side isn't commonly known. You should feel honored."
"Oh, I do."
The food finally came and we were quiet while Maxine and another waitress put our plates in front of us. The food smelled great. I ordered another whiskey and got another cocktail for Selena.
"Thanks, Maxine," I said before the waitress disappeared again.
"Oh, she has a name." The comment suggested she wanted to know why I was referring to the waitress by name if there was a backstory.
"My past with her is completely professional. She works for me. I call her by her first name. It's very simple."
Selena looked at the food on her plate, nodding. "I don't mean to sound like a jealous woman," she said. "What you do with other women is your business."
I shook my head, looking at her even though she wasn't willing to make eye contact. "What I do with other women is my business, but the one thing you should realize is that you're not like the other women, and no matter what happened with them, they can never compare."
She looked up at me, her eyes a deep blue like the ocean. "Isn't a bit soon to be able to say something like that?"
I shook my head. "The fact that it is this soon and I know it already should tell you how different you are from them, and how much I noticed."
She looked like she wasn't sure what to make of that comment. Instead of answering me she cut a perfect square of her steak and put it in her mouth, chewing. After she swallowed she looked at me. "This food is really good. You should let your chef know."
We ate in silence for a while, the manuscript and the sudden serious talk was forgotten for a while.
"You still haven't told me anything about yourself. You know every inch of me and I know nothing of you."
I frowned. "I don't know anything about you, either. Other than that you're a writer, of course."
She nodded and swallowed the bite she was chewing. "You're right, but you read my book. That gives you some kind of insight into my soul that I don't have of you."
I had to agree, she was right. I didn't know her well but I felt like I could relate to her on a lot of different levels because I'd read her work. I felt closer to her somehow, and she hadn't had that privilege with me.
"I don't have a book you can read that lets you know who I am, but you can ask me anything you want and I'll tell you truthfully."
She narrowed her eyes at me. "That's a very dangerous statement to make."
It really was. "That should be a testament to how much I trust you right now."
A smile played across her lips and it made me want to kiss her. Really badly.
"You really shouldn't." Her smile was sexy as hell.
That erection from earlier returned and I tried to tell myself to behave. It didn't work as well this time. The whiskey had relaxed me and I was starting to look at her body more than her face.
Judging by how easily her smile came now and how she talked more and more I was guessing she felt the alcohol, too.
"Come on, give it a shot."
She thought for a moment.
"You said that your businesses - plural? - were started with dishonest money. What were you doing?"
I winced. "Cutting right to the chase, huh?" Why had I told her I would answer anything? There were sides of my life I didn't want her to know about. Selena was a goddess and I wanted to look like a god to her for as long as I could. I didn't want her to be disappointed in me so early in the game. Still, a promise was a promise. I took a deep breath. "Have you heard of one-percenters?"
She shook her head.
"Okay. It's said that ninety-nine percent of biker gangs are law-abiding citizens that just like to get together to ride together. There is that one percent, though. Those bikers are outlaws and they do all sorts of things that aren't right, like trafficking or smuggling drugs or other criminal activities. The Fallen Thorns - my gang - weren't always as good as we are now. We've changed a lot of things."
I watched her closely, hoping I could tell by her face when her opinion of me changed. I couldn't tell at all. Her face was an expressionless mask and she just nodded, listening to me speak.
"What did you used to do?"
I looked around. Admitting something like our past and letting the information finds its way to the wrong ears was dangerous for everyone, not just me. The restaurant was quiet with diners all around us paying attention only to their own company. "We smuggled drugs. We moved product every night with people on the lookout for police. We were the middle man between one buyer and another and we took a cut of the money."
She raised her eyebrows. "Enabling, then."
I nodded. It could be said that that was what we did.
"Did you ever use?"
I shook my head. "I'd seen too many people in my life get fucked up - sorry, messed up - completely from taking drugs. I will never get into that, and if any of my men do I will beat them until they're right back on the straight and narrow."
Her face softened despite my violent reaction and my accidental swearing. "You care about them a lot."
"Can you tell?"
"It really shows."
After everything I told her, that was what she took away from it? I was really starting to like this girl.
"What else do you want to know?"
She looked around the restaurant, sipping her cocktail and thinking.
"You mentioned that riches mean nothing when you don't have someone to share it with." Oh boy, here we go. "You didn't have anyone special in your life?"
I shook my head. I didn't really want to talk about May, but maybe it would be good for Selena to know about my psycho ex, just
in case she made an appearance. "I had someone in my life while I was walking on the wrong side of the law. She was there before I hit it big before I bought into all the businesses. I thought we could build an empire together, you know? It's always so much more special when you've worked for it together."
Hard Ride: A Motorcycle Club Romance (The Fallen Thorns MC) (Whiskey Bad Boys Book 2) Page 7
