by Harlow James
“This isn’t about the fucking cheese basket, Wes! This is about what your intentions are. I need answers, damn it!”
Without thinking, I round my desk and charge toward her, letting my irritability with the conversation drive my movements and my festering pull to this woman aid in my decisions.
Her eyes go wide again, but this time in shock, as she shuffles backwards until her back is pressed against the door of my office and my hand slaps against the door above her head as I hover over her.
“Shayla. Stop talking and listen for a minute. Please,” I say through clenched teeth as I close my eyes and take a deep breath, all the while feeling her eyes on me. But when I pop mine back open, I can see that she’s just as affected by our proximity as I am.
The brush of her breasts against my chest as we both struggle to breath has my body humming with desire—the desire to smash my lips to her just to shut her up some more.
But she’s silent now, waiting for me to speak. And I just need to figure out what to say.
I ran over to her out of instinct, needing to close the distance between us to get my point across. But how much of my honesty does she need to know right away?
“Shayla… I’m not sure why you’re so fucking angry walking in here right now, demanding answers and accusing me of trying to use you for nothing more than my own personal enjoyment. But I assure you, I am not that guy. And even though I barely know you, I can sense that you’re not that woman. I don’t think you’ve ever let any man walk all over you and I most certainly won’t be the first.” I see her fight a grin, but I continue.
“My interest in you is genuine and true. You intrigue me,” I whisper as I reach up with my other hand not on the door and stroke a finger down the soft skin of her cheek, causing her breath to hitch. “I have never sent a gift to a woman before, especially a basket of cheese.” Those words make her huff out a disbelieving laugh. “But there is something about you…”
Her eyes bounce back and forth between mine, an intense hazel that I haven’t been able to appreciate up close yet. “I won’t be made a fool, Wes.”
“Who said that I would make you one?”
She sighs, reaching up to touch my chest, and just the feel of her palms over the fabric of my shirt has my lungs fighting for air.
“I don’t know,” she drags out as I push off the door and stand just slightly farther away from her now.
“I’m just asking for a date, Shayla. I just want to get to know you better.”
She eyes me skeptically before rolling her eyes and then walking around me to grab her purse from where she dropped it on the floor when I stalked her across the room.
“Fine. One date. But nothing fancy,” she declares, pointing a finger in my direction.
“What?” I chuckle.
“I’m serious, Wes. I will not be wooed by money. I don’t want you to think I can be bought.”
“Good to know,” I reply, grinning at the fieriness coming from this woman. My intuition was correct. There is something different about her that I instantly recognized. “Are you free Saturday morning?”
Narrowing her eyes at me, she answers, “You know that I am.”
“I was simply asking to make sure that you didn’t already make plans,” I say while shoving my hands in my pockets, enjoying her sassy remarks.
“Then yes, I’m free.”
“Good. I’ll pick you up at seven.”
“In the morning?” she practically shouts, causing me to laugh at her antics. Man, I swear her and Hayes would get along swimmingly.
“Yes.”
“Fine. But you’d better make it worth my while, Wes.”
“Well, how am I supposed to do that when you said I can’t take you anywhere fancy?”
“You’d better figure it out,” she fires back with a lift of her brow and then turns to leave.
“Shayla,” I call after her, suddenly desperate for just a few more moments with her.
“Yeah?”
“This whole dating thing would be a lot easier if I had your phone number.” I smile across the room at her as she continues to study me.
“I suppose. But this is one date, Wes. Not dating, as in plural dates.” She accepts my phone that I was holding out to her as she enters her number and then hands it back to me. I press call and wait for her cell to ring in her purse so she has my number as well.
“We’ll see,” I state confidently, unsure of where that confidence is coming from since I am in uncharted territory here, for sure.
“Don’t get cocky, Wes. It’s unbecoming of you,” she says over her shoulder and then reaches for the door handle.
“Cockiness is the least of my faults, Shayla. See you Saturday.”
I watch her leave, wishing for just a few more minutes with her until I turn around and remember that I’m at work and there are several hundred emails in my inbox still waiting on a reply.
I settle back into my chair and swivel my mouse to wake up my computer. But this time when I get back to work, there’s a smile on my face that won’t go away, no matter how hard I fight it.
Chapter 6
Shayla
“So, how did it go?” Chloe is standing right in front of the door, waiting for me as I slam our front door shut and sag against it.
I stand there, dumbfounded for a minute before I answer her. “Uh, not how I was anticipating at all.”
“And why is that?” Her hands find her hips and she glances at me knowingly.
“Oh, don’t you go all ‘I told you so’ on me just yet, Missy.” I point a finger at her before I push myself off the door and step around her into the kitchen.
Alcohol. I need alcohol, stat.
“Then tell me what happened.” She slides onto one of the stools at our kitchen counter and rests her chin in her hands as her eyes track my movements, waiting for me to speak.
Moving around the kitchen, I decide it’s too early for alcohol and settle for a peach iced tea, popping the tab on the can, and then leaning on the counter in front of Chloe. “He was… surprised at first to see me, which is exactly the reaction I wanted.” I lift my drink to my lips and take a sip. “But then he was all charming and deflecting, answering every one of my questions with a question. God, it was annoying.”
Chloe just grins at me and waits for me to continue.
“I called him out on not telling me who he was, and he gave me the perfect answer. But then I asked him point-blank what his intentions were, what he was expecting, and he was… honest.” The reality sinks in that maybe this guy isn’t who I want to peg him to be.
“What was his office like? Was everything made of gold and diamonds?” Chloe’s eyes grow wide like a kid seeing a lit-up Christmas tree.
“Seriously, Chloe? No. It was surprisingly… small.” His office was much smaller than what I would suspect from someone with his net worth, almost like he doesn’t want his presence here to be noticed.
Stop it, Shayla. Every man wants to be noticed, especially those with money. Don’t go making excuses for him already.
“It’s tucked between a baby boutique and a pet groomer. But it was beautiful. White walls, dark wood, windows out the back of his desk that overlooked the ocean.”
“Could you imagine having sex on that desk with the ocean behind you? Oooohhh, it’s making me all hot and bothered.” I watch a shiver roll through Chloe as she vibrates in her chair, and I can’t help the laughter that escapes me.
“Yeah, there will be none of that.” I look away from her as images of that very scenario roll through my mind.
“Okay, I got side-tracked. You said he was honest? What did he say?”
The memory of him pressed up against me instantly makes my body heat rise. The serious tone of his voice, the piercing demand of his eyes, the way his finger trailed down my cheek all have me itching to see him again even though my head is still fighting my decision.
“That he doesn’t normally pursue women, or send them gifts. But that h
e just wants the chance to get to know me. So… I agreed to a date this Saturday.”
Chloe jumps from her stool and starts hopping up and down. “Oh my God, Shayla! You’re going out with a billionaire!”
“Stop it, Chloe. I know, I know, okay? But I told him nothing fancy, so we’ll see if he can follow directions.” I sigh and then walk around the counter to take a seat on the couch as she follows me and sits down on the cushion adjacent to me.
“Why are you not more excited?”
“I don’t know. There’s just something holding me back. I think… I think subconsciously I’m not letting myself be excited because I don’t want to be disappointed.”
She reaches out and rests her hand on my leg. “That’s understandable, especially since that’s all you’ve ever experienced or seen second-hand.”
Images of my mom crying herself to sleep, throwing things across our apartment, and screaming into the phone each time her flavor of the month left her become too real to push aside. I always wondered why she would continue to go after men who fit a certain checklist for her—wealthy, older, and sometimes married. Of course, she’d pretend she didn’t know until they told her they wouldn’t leave their wives for her and then dumped her like a sack of potatoes. Then it was a scramble to find the next guy, to prove that she could catch any man and get what she needed from them—money, clothes, and I guess a part of her self-worth came from their reactions to her as well.
So needless to say, I’m struggling with this situation with Wes, even though my heart is telling me to take the leap. It’s just one date, right? Nothing has to come of it.
But what if I fall? What if I give myself permission to feel and then he pulls the rug out from under me? I don’t know if I could recover from that kind of pain.
“Hey. You know I love you and understand your reservations, but I also know that your hymen has probably grown back by now since it’s been so long since you’ve had sex.”
“Jesus, Chloe.”
“Soooo… you’re going to go out with this wealthy and extremely attractive man. You’re going to have fun. And hopefully, you’re going to get laid so that your bitch-meter can be taken down a notch.”
I smile at my friend while resting my head on the back of the couch. “I was pretty fired up when I went in there. I wonder what the hell he was thinking …”
“If he’s a man, he probably was envisioning bending you over his desk and fucking you into submission so you would shut the hell up.”
“That’s vivid.”
“No. That’s honest. You’re a catch, Shayla. You’re headstrong and independent. Men like Wes Morgan have to find that attractive. He probably has bimbos with half a brain throwing themselves at him daily. But it’s probably rare for him to find someone that challenges him.”
“So, what if that’s all I am to him? A challenge.”
Her eyes veer off to the side and then flick right back to me as her grin spreads wide. “Then you make yourself the hardest fucking challenge of his life.”
***
“Slater? Can you get those guys at the end of the bar, please?”
It’s Friday night at Loft 24, and we are swamped. The club reached capacity by ten o’clock and we had to call in another bartender just to make sure we could handle the crowd.
“Got it!” he calls back to me as I shuffle over to the bachelorette party huddling near the bar, waiting for their shots.
I pull the bottle of tequila up high, doing a few little tricks and spins as I fill the eight shot glasses and then slide them across the marble surface to them.
“Here you go, ladies. And congrats, by the way,” I say to the bride as she smiles a goofy grin and rocks a little on her feet. Poor girl probably won’t last another hour.
“Thank you. I just love him so much. And, he drives an Aston Martin,” she croons before her party hollers in celebration and they all toss back the clear liquid, grimacing as their heads fall back down.
“Wow,” I say, trying to act impressed, but quickly write her off as another woman that just cares about material things. I give their marriage two years, tops.
Don’t get me wrong, I used to think that way too, especially growing up with having much of nothing. But it took leaving my mother’s apartment for me to realize that happiness was a choice, not some magical destination you arrived at one day because you finally had everything you deemed important in your life.
Now, I find happiness in the simple things, experiences, while living my life one day at a time so I don’t feel like it’s passing me by and I missed all the little moments that make each day count.
However, I think subconsciously I feel that there is a small part of me that feels like something is missing.
“It is crazy in here,” Cassie yells as she slides up next to me and starts filling a tray full of shots.
“I know. I feel like I can barely think because there’s constantly someone who needs a refill.” And with my date tomorrow looming over my head, I’m welcoming the distraction. Otherwise, I feel like I’m about to crawl out of my skin with anticipation.
“Sometimes I like that… when work is so crazy it helps you forget what’s going on in your head.”
“You’re preaching to the choir, sister.”
She laughs as we continue to move around each other. “So, any plans tomorrow?”
I cast her a side-eye glance, debating whether I should say anything to her—but then I remember how she was just giving me shit last week for never giving in to a guy’s attention—so I guess I should tell her for nothing more than shock value.
“I actually have a date.”
Her mouth drops open as a glass slips from her hands and goes crashing to the floor.
“Seriously, Cass?” I reach for the broom behind the bar and start sweeping as she stares me down.
“You have a date? Shayla, the deflector of all attempts by men, has a date?”
I laugh before she bends down to hold the dustpan for me. “Yes.”
“With whom?”
“Just this guy,” I answer on a shrug, not wanting to advertise just exactly who weaseled his way into my brick wall of defense.
“He sounds hot,” she sarcastically replies as I finish sweeping, and we both stand. Cassie dumps the glass in the trash and then takes the broom from me, putting it back in place. “Sorry about that. Thanks for cleaning it up.”
“No problem.”
“So this guy must be something if he got you to agree to a date with him.”
“Oh, he’s something alright,” I mutter. “But you know what this means, right?”
“What?” she asks, her eyes widening in fear.
“Well, I believe you told me that if I went on a date with a guy, you would ask out Slater.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “Um, I believe the agreement was that if you asked out the guy in the suit the other night that I would.”
“Close enough,” I say with a wave of my hand. “Come on, Cass. We can take a risk together. Don’t you wonder what could happen if you say yes?”
How is it that I can be so convincing of others to take charge of their lives, but I fight my own chance at happiness?
“All the time. But… I …”
“Hey, bartender! Another drink over here, yeah?” A drunken shout pulls our attention to a group of men laughing and shoving each other around as Cass and I stare in their direction.
“Just think about it,” I say as I walk away from her and put the drunk asshole in his place in front of his friends.
***
The next morning, the sound of my alarm on my phone buzzes, and unlike every other day, my eyes pop open immediately at the sound. I roll over to retrieve my phone and notice a text message on the screen from Wes.
Wes: Good morning, Shayla. Please dress in workout gear, but bring a change of clothes just in case. See you in an hour.
I bite my lip as I read his text over again, trying to guess at what he has planned for us to
day. Maybe we’ll just go for a run together since that seems to be something we both enjoy. But something tells me he has something else up his sleeve. Either way, I know I can expect him here soon, so I sit up and stare off into space as my heart beats erratically in my chest.
He texted me last night asking for my address, but I was at work and didn’t reply until after one in the morning. I hope it didn’t wake him, but early morning texts come with the territory of someone who works at night.
I swing my feet over the edge of the bed and head for the bathroom to freshen up. Even though I have a feeling I’ll be sweating on this date, I brush some mascara over my lashes to make them pop. Other than that, I leave my face make-up free. I pull my hair into a high ponytail and then search for the perfect outfit to drive him crazy.
I may be fighting his attention with my mind, but my body surely enjoys the reaction he has when we’re close to each other and lacking clothes.
Red seems like the appropriate color for today, so I put on my matching shorts and sports bra set, with a simple black tank top over it. I lace up my running shoes and then look for something to throw extra clothes in. I grab a small duffle bag to throw a pair of jean shorts in, a pair of flip-flops, a bright pink tank top and bra to go under it, and a black bikini just in case.
Once I’m packed, I walk down the hallway into the living room and notice Chloe standing in the kitchen in front of the coffeepot.
“You’re still here?” I walk around her to the cupboard to grab a cup and then push her out of the way with my hips to pour the sustenance into my mug.
“I was about to go wake your ass up. I had to make sure to say good luck before I leave.”
“Chloe… you still think this is a good idea?” My stomach is in knots and suddenly I’m not sure if I should drink coffee before I go. It just might make my stomach even more upset.
“Let me ask you something, Shayla. Are you nervous right now?”
“That’s a stupid question.”
“Okay. But is it nervous like you’re going to shit yourself, or nervous excitement like you’re about to jump out of your skin?”
