It took Tim a good minute. “Oh,” he said. He spent a couple useless seconds patting his pockets. “I don’t know where my phone is.”
“Right.”
Tim grinned sheepishly, and Ryan had seen that Patricia failed to be won over by it. He’d never seen her again.
“I looked at her,” Kai said, “and saw how different she was from me. Different, and not so different. She wasn’t that much older than I was, but she looked so…together. The way she dressed, the way she spoke, even the way she walked made me think she was bright and smart and getting what she wanted from life. Then I saw her interact with Mr. Randall, and I knew she really did have it together.”
“You saw Tim’s dad? On the yacht?”
Kai nodded. “He didn’t treat me like he treated Patricia. He made assumptions about me, and I realized they were based on the superficial—on my clothes, my hairstyle—lack of, really—and how I spoke. So, I changed all those things.”
“And became a CEO.”
“Yes,” she said. “Because of things that happened on the Randall yacht.”
“Wow.” Ryan studied her. She’d changed more than just the superficial, though. “It takes more than new clothes and a change of hairstyle to start a business.”
“I had some capital, too.”
She didn’t meet his eyes so easily then, and Ryan wondered what the story was behind that.
“That’s what Tone is about, isn’t it?” he asked. “It’s more than a gym. It’s about changing a woman’s image. Her life.”
“Tone is a gym and a spa,” she said, though he knew she was being at least mildly evasive. “That’s mostly what it’s about.”
Kai had met him at the restaurant, and, when he asked if he could take her home, she agreed. She took him into her building, into her apartment, and into her body as though those were all things she wanted, too.
When they came together in her bed, it was some mix of that sweet lovemaking he remembered and the rougher, wilder fucking he’d experienced with her the prior week. He liked it both ways, and he thought she did, too.
He left her in the morning, early, because they both had busy work days. At her door, he held her and kissed her. “I want to see you again.”
She nodded. “I’d like that.”
“What about Vin and Tim? Will you see them again?”
She looked away, and Ryan wished he hadn’t asked. But he needed to know. Wanted to, anyway.
“I was with Tim on Saturday night,” Kai said, still looking at the floor. “And Vinnie called asking for a date. I’m supposed to see him tonight.”
Shit.
* * * *
Ryan had requested a meeting with Tim and Vinnie end of the day on Friday. Ryan made endless fun of Vinnie and his penchant for meetings—it was entirely uncommon for Ryan to be the one setting it up. Tim had to figure he knew what—whom—it was about.
He had the feeling Kai Morrison was going to cause trouble, and he didn’t know what to do about it.
Tim knew that Ryan thought he had dibs on the girl. The woman, he should say, because Kai was that. He thought Ryan’s claim was pretty weak—he’d known her for maybe an hour or two longer than Tim and Vin had, and they’d all been in bed with her the same night. He figured Ryan also factored in Vinnie’s unabashed status as a player and Tim’s…well, whatever Tim’s habit with women was.
He thought about that for a minute, when he should have had his attention on the sketches he’d drawn up on his latest toy, a big LED display screen.
Maybe, if Vin was a player, Tim was a playboy. He thought there was a subtle difference. Vin spent a lot of time in the sack with women. Maybe he’d do a bit of wining and dining, but the end goal was always pussy.
Tim liked sex plenty, too—most of his wining and dining nights also ended with a woman in bed. But he liked the company of women, too, for more reasons than a romp in the sack. He liked sharing a bottle of wine and a good meal, a night at the theater or even the opera. He was happy in a tux with a pretty woman on his arm at a charity fundraiser or art auction.
He was likely to have his name mentioned or photo printed in the society columns or GQ. If anything, Vin would show up in an advice column in Hustler on how to get laid.
Of the three of them, Ryan was the one most likely destined for the white picket fence, wife, and family. Maybe that was part of the reason Ryan felt his claim on Kai was superior to the other two. Maybe he was thinking of her in terms of the future.
Problem was—if that was the case, Ryan wasn’t alone.
Tim really liked Kai. Oh, he couldn’t argue that he’d had a thing for her for ten years. Sure, he remembered that night, and that bout of three-on-one sex had been wickedly hot. But that night, he hadn’t given much—or probably, any—thought to the woman. She was there, and she was willing, and a foursome with his buddies had turned out to be a great way to celebrate.
But he liked her now. He’d admired her in Montauk, even as she’d left him in a significantly compromised position. He’d loved their re-mix a week ago, when he and his buddies had once more shared Kai and her magnificent body.
He’d enjoyed the hell out of her the next night, after he’d used the number he purloined from her phone to make a date with her. He’d texted her from outside her building after they’d left her on Friday, just before Ryan had decided he wasn’t done with her, handed his keys over, and headed back to Kai’s place.
Saturday night, he’d hired a limo, picked her up, taken her on a pretty drive up the Hudson to dinner at an inn with a deck over the water, and then invited her to his place for the night.
His penthouse included a rooftop garden. He’d made love to her there, surrounded by city lights, and then in his bed. That night, and the morning after, too, before she needed to leave for her flight to Chicago. He’d used his own sedan to drop her back home, and he couldn’t remember ever wishing so much he didn’t have to let a woman go.
He went home and started investigating. He looked at the Tone website and learned that fees for Tone services were discussed privately at the time of registration—which was arranged personally, onsite. He learned more when he badgered his sister-in-law Beatrice into applying for membership at the Tribeca location.
Then he played hooky a bit from work and did some sleuthing. He scouted out the Upper East Tone, watching the comings and goings from a coffee shop across the street. On the third afternoon, he saw Amaryllis again, towing little Michaela along. Feeling only a little creepy, he ran two blocks so he could cross the street, turn around, and “casually” run into the pair.
He’d liked Kai already, and what he learned had made him like her more.
Tim had been raised in wealth, in a family where charity took the guise of large checks written for black-tie dinners. He thought he’d done better than his folks in terms of choosing to make contributions to causes he truly felt would make the earth and the humans on it better off, but he was very far from a bleeding-heart liberal.
He’d never exactly put himself on the line to help improve the lives of others.
Kai did that. And he found it admirable and—attractive.
So, whatever superior claim Ryan thought he had on Kai, Tim was going to fight him for it. For her.
Chapter Six
The pup—Vin figured he should stop thinking of Ryan that way, but it was what it was—paced by the windows while they waited for Tim to join them.
It wasn’t hard to guess what was on the boy’s mind. Pussy.
He stopped and checked himself. Vin was sure Ryan wasn’t thinking of Kai Morrison as pussy, and, much to his surprise, neither was he—entirely.
Though, in that department, the woman was a standout, hands down.
Vin had never seen himself as a settle down, get married, have kids kind of guy, and he still didn’t. But he had a glimmer now of something he wanted. He hadn’t quite gotten a grasp on it, hadn’t quite seen it. Still, he knew it was there.
Like a cowboy d
idn’t have to see around the corner of a saloon to know a stampede was coming—he could hear and feel it.
What was going on with Kai was like that. A stampede.
He sighed when Tim came through the door, though he couldn’t have said if it was in relief or concern.
Tim seemed to have a hard-on for the woman, too.
Vin pushed off with his feet and rolled himself over to his under-counter fridge. He took out beers—summer ales for him and Ryan, some fruity wheat crap for Tim—and passed them around. Sitting back, he opened his, then tossed the opener over to Tim. Ryan had his own opener on his key chain.
He looked at Ryan and opened the meeting—he was, after all, the CEO. “We got a problem?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I told you two already that I like Kai. I seriously like her. I’d like to request that you two keep hands off. At least until I can see where she and I are going.”
“No.”
Vin raised an eyebrow at Tim, but the guy looked totally straight.
“I like her, too,” he went on, unsmiling. “Seriously.”
“Shit.” It was the best Vin could come up with.
With a grumble, Ryan took a seat on the chair next to Tim’s.
“Do you know what she does on the fifth floor of Tone?” Tim asked. “Do you know what Amaryllis was doing there?”
“Who the fuck is Amaryllis?” Vin asked.
“In the elevator,” Tim said, “after we left Kai’s office. She had her little girl with her. Michaela.”
“Ah.” Vin had a vague recollection. “And, who cares?”
“I do.” That was both Tim and Ryan.
Vin sighed. “All right, what? What does Kai do on the fifth floor, and why was Amaryllis there?”
“I thought you’d want to know,” Tim said with the smirk he would know would make Vin want to punch him. But he went on anyway. “Amaryllis is a nineteen-year-old single mother. Kai and her staff are teaching her how to…make it, I guess, is as good a description as any. They helped Amaryllis get her GED. They’ve trained her on software for admin jobs. They’ve got stylists and…whatever. People to teach her to dress, to talk and act professionally. They want her to get a job so she can support herself and her daughter.”
Tim went on, speaking with obvious admiration. “Amaryllis isn’t the only one. Tone’s fees have a twenty percent surcharge that finances their work with bright but poor women. The kind of work Tone’s customers pay top dollar for, these women get for free.”
“Like the girl Kai was on the phone with that day in her office.” Vin remembered thinking it was an odd sort of business call.
“Kamia,” Tim said. “Yeah. As part of the program, the women get up front the money they need for cab rides to Tone. If they spend the money on something else, if they need to, maybe, they can still get there by bus or subway. It’s their choice.”
“Learning to manage money,” Ryan said.
“Yep.” Tim looked between the two. “Tone’s customers get the same services—personal trainers, stylists, personal shoppers…everything they need to help them be successful in whatever professional role they fill. Plus, with the surcharge, they’re contributing to a sort of charity that has direct, tangible benefits for women who need a hand. Amaryllis says a lot of the girls get jobs with a Tone customer when they finish the program.”
Vin had to give it to the woman. “That’s pretty cool.”
Ryan was nodding, then focused his gaze on Tim. “She said something last week…do you remember Patricia? She was your father’s AA ten years ago.”
“I remember,” Tim said.
“Kai told me she’d met Patricia that morning, before she left the yacht. It really made an impression on her—the way the difference in Patricia’s appearance and Kai’s had such an impact on how each woman was treated.” Ryan was quiet, thoughtful for a minute. “She met your father that day, did you know that?”
“No, I didn’t,” Tim told him. “But I know where Patricia is now.”
Vin knew there was something significant about it. “Where?”
“She’s in San Diego, hunting up the next location for Tone. She’s Kai’s business partner.”
“Huh.” Sitting back, Vin looked at his friends. Ryan was stupid in love already, whether he was admitting it or not. And Tim was going over, too, despite the fact that he was yammering on about how “admirable” the woman was. It didn’t take a genius to know that meant love to him. Somebody had to keep his head about him, and he figured he was going to have to be the one. Wasn’t anyone else wondering how Kai ended up with Patricia and the bank to start up a successful business?
There was an obvious answer that didn’t reflect so well on Ms. Morrison.
He could see a world of hurt ahead for his buddies. Maybe for himself, too. Even with eyes wide open, when it came to Kai, Vin had a significant hard-on. He’d taken her out to dinner the night before, and she’d still been in his bed come morning. Generally, he went to the woman’s place, because it was a lot easier to get up and leave once the festivities were over than to pry a sated woman out of his bed and push her out the door. For some reason, he’d wanted Kai in his place, his bed, and he hadn’t lain awake at two o’clock, figuring out how to give her the boot.
Vin didn’t think he was done with her, either.
“I don’t see a good solution to this,” he finally said. “At least, not one that we can make among ourselves. Ryan, if you don’t want Tim to see her, I think you need to talk to Kai about it. I guess that applies for me, as well. It’s not really about who we choose for her to see, but who she chooses. At the moment, I’d be happy to be with her any time she agrees to it. And I gotta say, I’m not opposed to another round of three-on-one, either.”
“Shit.” Ryan stood. His fists curled and he shoved them into the pockets of his jeans. Vin read that as an effort not to raise them.
He sat straight and tried to look like a CEO. “We’re talking about a woman, here,” he said. “It’s not something any of us has total control over. Or maybe not even a little control over. Let’s remember what we have here, though. A business that we share and that we’re good at. And a friendship, too. I don’t want us to lose those things over a woman.”
Tim rubbed the back of his neck and looked from Vin up to Ryan. “He’s right. Sit down, buddy. I think we need to talk to Kai. Maybe all of us together. What do you think?”
Vin had to say the truth. “We all show up at her place, I know what I’m going to want to happen. And it won’t involve a lot of talking.”
That had them all quiet, and Vin just sat thinking for a minute. “Maybe we should just leave be, and let the problem solve itself. Maybe we remember what’s most important to us, make a commitment that whatever happens with Kai doesn’t ruin the good thing we have going.”
Tim picked up his line of thought. “So, maybe, we just…don’t talk about it for a while. We just proceed as we want to, see where each of us gets with Kai. How would that work?”
They both looked at Ryan. “I don’t like it,” he said. “But I can’t think of anything better. At least, not short of you two just bowing the hell out.”
“Sorry, dude,” Tim said, and Vin nodded.
* * * *
The next time Ryan saw Kai was Sunday afternoon. He understood she was a busy woman, particularly now that he knew about Tone’s social program. He reminded himself about that often, and bit his tongue a lot, and thereby kept himself from asking if she’d spent Friday night or Saturday busy with one of his buddies.
He took her to the New York Botanical Garden and then made dinner for her at his place. He enjoyed both activities—she was good company, whether she was strolling with him hand in hand along pretty paths in the arboretum, sitting by the rock garden waterfall, or giving tongue-in-cheek advice about his grilled shrimp salad recipe while sitting on a stool at his small kitchen island and snagging an occasional olive or piece of avocado.
They sat close together at his dining
table as they ate, and the meal involved a lot of touching. And sharing tastes, eventually, when they got to the desserts he’d bought at a local bakery.
“I didn’t know what you’d like,” he said, when he opened the box.
“So,” she said, once she’d peeked inside, “you got one of everything?”
They were back at the island, and he scooped a finger into some chocolate crème and took it to her lips. Then, with a kiss, he took some back. “I figured we’d burn some extra calories,” he told her, “between the gardens and what I hope comes next.”
She broke off pieces of a chocolate caramel brownie and fed one to him and one to herself. She sealed that deal with a kiss, too. “You’re thinking…what? A little yoga? Calisthenics?”
He smiled, not so much interested in dessert anymore. “Maybe some naked yoga.” He put his hands on her waist and boosted her onto the high counter. “I have some ideas about that. Like one of us doing a little downward-facing dog.”
Kai laughed, but she had her hands up over his shoulders. He pressed between her legs and brought her close against him. She wore a little swing skirt that had been tempting him all day. In a flower print, it matched the vest she wore over a lilac tee. All in all, she’d looked as pretty as any ten of the gardens they’d seen.
She’d still been nibbling on bits of dessert, so her mouth was sweet when he took it again. “Kai,” he said. He wanted to say a lot more, but he concentrated instead on divesting her of some of her clothes. He slid the vest off, then took the tee up over her head.
Kai seemed to always offer a happy surprise with her undies. This time, her bra was a skimpy thing of opaque, white silk with a ruffle that teased more than covered her breasts. He scouted out the front clasp right off. Leaning in, he opened his mouth along the side of her neck. He sucked hard on her skin and left his mark on her. Then he nuzzled lower, to the valley between her breasts, and took in her scent.
It was all Kai—that natural perfume of sweet and hot mixed together, nuanced now with the floral scents of their day in the gardens. It stirred him deep in his core, like he was recognizing, imprinting, his woman.
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