Heart of the Devil (The Forge Trilogy #3)(52)

Goddammit. Not fair.

Randi warned me I was underestimating him. My across-the-hall apartment neighbor told me that looking at Cannon would make my nipples peak, my thighs clench, and my brain fill with images of him bending me over the nearest flat surface or pinning me up against the closest wall. I chalked that up to Randi being . . . well, Randi. A.k.a. Everyone’s Slept with Downtown Randi Brown. She’s the kind of woman who gets men drunk so she can fuck them. She says her guy friends call her a dude with tits, and I can’t disagree, even though she’s one hundred percent female.

But the last thing I expected was for her to be absolutely right about this.

Cannon tilts his head to the side and waits for me to reply. “Unless you’re not Drew Carson?” he asks with a lilt of humor underlying the question.

His rising eyebrow and questioning smirk nearly put me over the edge. He’s supposed to be a villain. A monster. How can he look like he’s trying not to laugh at me in my stunned silence?

Snapping myself out of my temporary stupor, I widen my smile and force everything aside except my goal.

Stay cool. Act cool. Be cool. That’s my mantra whenever I’m undercover and things are dicey. Repeating it silently helps me pull myself together.

“I am. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Freeman,” I say, stepping forward to shake his hand like the professional I am.

Except there’s another problem. I should have braced. I don’t know why I didn’t brace.

As soon as the ridges of his calluses slide across my skin and his fingers tighten on mine, another shiver of awareness shoots through me. Why does he have calluses? He works at a desk. He’s not supposed to be the definition of physical male perfection. And yet, here we are.

“Cannon,” he says, correcting me with that voice of his, which should be registered as sex in audible format. “We’re informal among the staff. Patrons are another story. Treat them all like they’re wearing crowns and holding scepters that can destroy your world in a heartbeat. Got it?”

While his statement is part curious and part foreboding, his sharpened gaze takes in every inch of me, the same way I surveyed him.

“Duly noted, sir. I mean . . . Cannon.” I correct myself and tug my fingers free of his, but he’s watching me like he’s waiting for me to spill all my secrets.

I won’t, I promise myself. Because I never have before, and there’s more at stake now than ever.

“Good. Come on. Time for your trial by fire.” He lifts his chin to the bull beside him, spins around, and pushes open the next massive door.

I force myself not to grin and pump a fist in the air. I’m in.

My personal victory party lasts only as long as it takes to cross the threshold, and I set foot on the thick green and gold stripes of the plush carpet that so many monied, famed, and evil feet have tread.

Cannon rattles off rapid-fire orders. “I need you behind the bar. Two G&Ts, one martini—extra dirty with three olives, an old-fashioned, a Moscow mule, one Bass Ale in a chilled glass, six Perriers, and two black coffees. You have ten minutes. Don’t fuck it up.”

I blink several times as my brain commits the list to memory, but the question still slips from my lips. “I thought I was here to interview as a server, not a bartender?”

One eyebrow quirks as he surveys me with a tilt of his chiseled jaw. Sharp cheekbones stand out like blades in the brighter light of the club. “If you want to work here, you do what I say. If you want the job, get behind the bar. If you don’t, you know where the door is. Understood?”

“Yes. Of course,” I say with a chipper smile. “I understand perfectly.” Silently, I add to myself, You’re a douchebag who’s too attractive for his own good, and you want to see me sweat. Not going to happen.

He doesn’t know I’ve spent time embedded with troops rushing headlong toward enemy lines. If mortar rounds exploding around me didn’t shake my composure, neither will an order from the heir presumptive of the most powerful mafia family in New York. Just the heir himself . . . No. That was a fluke. Totally not happening again.

“I’ll have those drinks for you right away, Cannon.”

His hazel eyes flash brighter green with something I can’t identify, but without another word, he strides away toward the long table of men inside a glass-walled room ahead of us. I’m left alone, my fingers gripping the strap of my bag as I stare after him, because Lord Almighty, that ass should be a crime itself.

Wait. Stop. Why the hell am I looking at his ass?

Randi was right. I need to check myself before I get caught up in his “superior ability to render a girl dick-struck.” At least, that’s how she described him. I brushed off the warnings, but they’re all coming back, and fast. Duly noted, Randi. Duly noted.

Turning on the stacked heel of my black knee-high boots, I weave through expensive wooden four-tops and high-tops on plush handwoven carpet. I smooth my skirt over my thighs and slip behind the forty-foot-long bar that was supposedly shipped over from an establishment in Sicily that catered to only the highest-level members of a famous mafia family. Around me, the elegant brass fixtures cast a warm glow on the rich paneled walls. If I tried to imagine an enclave for the wealthiest, most famous, and exceptionally notorious men of New York City, the Upper Ten would be exactly the picture in my head.

I tuck my bag into a corner, wash my hands, and mentally prepare myself for the job to come. From inside the glass-walled room about thirty feet away from me, Cannon’s head tilts back as his Adam’s apple bobs with laughter. He shoots a glance over his right shoulder, and it collides with mine.