Good Girl(13)

"Right. Half plus seven." I nod like it doesn't matter, already regretting bringing this up with Canon.

"Tell me we're talking about a twenty-one-year-old. Tell me you don't have your balls ready to blow over a teenager."

"Jesus, relax. I don't. Never mind, we're not talking about this." I nod my head towards the pub door and start walking.

"This is why Double Diamonds is my club of choice. Vince doesn't hire unless they're twenty-one."

"What?"

"Great benefits too."

"What?" I stop so I can look at Canon. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"The strippers at Double Diamonds. Comprehensive benefits package. Health insurance, tuition reimbursement. No stage fees. Did you know most clubs charge the dancers just to work?" He spits this last part out, his tone indicating his disgust at the patriarchy of the modern strip club worker.

"How…" I hesitate, as I stare at him, speechless. "Why do you know this?"

"I golfed with Vince last week."

"Great. Glad to hear you're making new friends."

"Don't be jealous. You were busy." Canon checks his watch and glances at Hennigan's. "God. I hope your teenager isn't hanging out in a bar."

"Will you shut the fuck up? She's not a teenager. And she's not mine."

Not mine, and not at the bar.

I notice it as soon as we're through the door, as if I expected her to be in the same seat she was in last weekend, waiting for me. Possibly because I know damn well that she lives down the street after my perusal of her employment file.

I'd only wanted to confirm which department she was in, a flicker of hope that she'd simply been on four for a meeting and seeing her would not be a common occurrence. But no. She's in human resources, assigned to cubicle 4W-28, putting her on the west side of the fourth floor. Way too close to my office for comfort.

Goddammit, I walked away for a reason. I didn't fuck her in Brady's office last weekend, even though I wanted to, because I'm not in the habit of making bad decisions. So I sent her home, where she belonged. Far away from a man like me, a man interested in one thing when the soft blinking of her eyes and the wide-eyed optimism on her face told me she was interested in something different. Then she shows up in my office. Nearly two hundred thousand people employed on the Vegas Strip and she's working in my casino. Sitting eighty feet from my office.

Fuck.

I don't need the distraction and she sure as hell doesn't need me. Opening this resort is my focus. Nothing else, no one else. This is my moment. This is my time to make a lasting contribution to the family company. This venture was my brainchild. I'm the one who brought it to the board. I'm the one who lined up the investment money. I'm the one who spent the last four years eating, living, breathing with the sole goal of making the Windsor the most profitable arm of the family business.

Me.

Besides, I fuck. I don't take women to dinner and escort them home to Connecticut to meet my parents.

Focused.

I'm a privileged son of a bitch. No, that's not right. I'm the privileged son of an heiress. My great-grandfather started a company that's ensured financial stability for generations. Each generation since, instead of resting, has grown the company larger. Bigger, better, more successful.

My mother has been running the North American division of Sutton Corporation for two decades. She's a force to be reckoned with and, in her fifties, not ready to step aside. My cousin took over as CEO of the company two years ago.

I could have fucked off for the rest of my life and it wouldn't matter. The company would have kept moving without me. I'm not an integral part, not like my mother, or my cousin, or my uncle running the cruise lines. My twenties were a struggle finding my place in this conglomeration. A place that would matter, a chapter header instead of a footnote.

The Windsor is my chapter header, my legacy.

It's not lost on me that my lasting contribution to humanity will be the self-indulgent opening of a luxury hotel on the Las Vegas Strip, not charity or healthcare reform or the abolition of racial disparity or funding public education.

Brady's behind the bar, more observing than bartending, so when he spots us arrive he comes over and we do the obligatory backslap handshake.

"Two weekends in a row. Wow." Brady folds his arms and leans against the bar top. "You're either really impressed with my microbrew or you're back for the girl."

Thanks, Brady.

"We sure as fuck did not come out to Henderson for beer," Canon mutters as he slides onto a stool. "You do card here, right?"

I'm about to tell Canon to fuck off when Brady tilts his head across the room. So she is here. I'm flooded with a rush of adrenaline, and something else, something different. There's a sense of exhilaration at seeing her again, a wasted emotion for a man just looking to fuck. As if I'm a teenager and this might be the first time I get my hand down a girl's pants, when I'm not and it's not.

Perhaps I just need to get her out of my system. Maybe just a taste, a quick fuck. A good time for both of us and then we move on. On Monday it's back to business. I turn in my seat, scanning the bar as Brady sets a couple of drafts in front of us. I locate her, pulling darts from a targeted cork board, her dark hair spilling down her back, the lighting picking up the highlights woven throughout her hair. She's in a denim skirt, the material snug over the curve of her ass, and the sight makes my eager fingers tighten around the glass in my hand. It doesn't help matters when she lifts up on her tiptoes to grab at a dart just out of her reach, her ass rising that much higher as she reaches.