Driven By Fate(8)

“I want a trial period. We’ll start with one day.” Her breathing was unsteady as she spoke. “Tomorrow. If I don’t feel like you’re paying me for sex, I’ll consider coming back.”

“I assure you, there will be work completed. Agree to one week.” A realization rushed in. Only, it wasn’t a realization at all, really. It was something that never left him. A mental countdown. How had she managed to make him forget? “There will be an end date, I assure you. I’m returning to London for good in a matter of weeks. I have a business to run.” He gave a firm nod. “So you see, it won’t be indefinite if that’s what you’re worried about. A week is more than reasonable.”

“One day.”

The snapping behind his eye started again. “That really doesn’t work for my personality.”

She shifted against him, eyelids fluttering when he gave her a little upward drive. “I get the feeling not much does work with your personality.”

“I’m not an easy boss.”

“I’m not an easy anything.”

“Oh, you don’t say?”

Her laughter was unsteady. It caused her tits to press against the front of her shirt, dragging his attention to her hard nipples. Jesus, he needed to step back before he sucked them in plain view of every car zipping past, but it was hard. Almost impossible. All too aware that he needed to play this right or she’d balk at his proposition, he put a few inches between them.

When she looked as if she wanted to drag him back, he growled in his throat. “My office address is on the business card I gave you. What time are your classes tomorrow?”

“Classes.” She shook her head as if to clear it. “Early. I could be at your office by eleven thirty.”

“You could or you will?”

She stayed still beneath his scrutiny. “I will. Although, I have no idea what I’m thinking.”

“Yes, you do.” He rapped a knuckle on the roof of the cab. “I start paying you tonight. Please take Delta Burke home and don’t pick up any strangers along the way.”

“Delta has a mind of her own.”

The way she said it, Porter knew she referred to herself. He reached out and brushed a thumb over her bottom lip. “I said please, Francesca.”

Her unsteady exhale bathed his thumb. “Oh, well in that case.” She pried open the driver’s side door, her hand slipping off the handle to steal her bravado. “Until tomorrow, my lord.”

Porter stood on the sidewalk watching her taillights disappear before going back into Serve, collecting his tools, and going home to count the minutes until eleven thirty tomorrow morning. Not five o’clock, although he couldn’t deny a heady anticipation; eleven thirty appealed almost as much.

Odd, that.





Chapter Four


“Over easy or scrambled?”

Eight different answers were shouted back at Frankie from the kitchen table. It was six o’clock in the morning and her uncle’s friends had once again descended on Casa De Luca for their free breakfast. One hour from now, they would all begin their shifts, hoping to pick up a fair in Queens on their way into the city before completing twelve-hour stints behind the wheel of their cab. Breakfast had become a tradition, and she was the designated workhorse. Never mind that she enjoyed cooking breakfast for their freeloader asses.

“You’re all getting scrambled.”

She greeted the grumbles behind her with a one-finger salute, one that earned her a smack on the shoulder from her Uncle Joe. “Knock that off. That’s not how I raised you.”

“You’re right.” She set down the spatula and turned toward the men gathered around their kitchen table, giving them the double middle finger. “Better?”

“Atta girl!”

She turned back to the stove before they could see her smile. This was the game and she played it well. As long as she didn’t act too much like a girl, she was allowed into the boy’s club. It had been a long time since she tested that theory, but she wouldn’t. Ever. If she didn’t have these guys, she’d have no one, a fact that had been made apparent to her at age ten. One day, her mother had dropped her off at school and gone to the doctor for a routine medical procedure and never come home. Her uncle hadn’t been given a choice of whether or not to take her in; he’d simply done it, even if the sight of her tears had caused him to hide in the bathroom or work overtime those first few weeks. So she’d stopped crying and started pulling her weight. And she’d never stopped.

“Frankie, how goes the business model presentation?” Her uncle’s friend, Phil, fluffed his hair. Well, imaginary hair. The man was completely bald. “You need a beautiful assistant to earn you some points with the judges?”

“They’re not judges, they’re my professors.” Frankie scooped eggs onto multiple plates. “And if I needed a beautiful assistant, I’d go with Sanchez. He’s got way better legs.”

Hoots and catcalls broke out around the table. Frankie used a set of metal tongs to remove bacon from grease sizzling in a cast iron skillet and divided it equally among eight plates. She was grateful for the distraction this morning. She’d woken up wondering if her encounter with the inexcusably sexy brit had been an elaborate dream. But no, her ass was sore as hell. Not to mention, his business card had been propped on her nightstand. Crazy. Going to see this man she’d just met had to qualify as crazy. She’d been looking to dip her toe into the world of BDSM last night and instead she’d found herself in the deep end. Porter Evans was an arrogant, demanding son-of-a-bitch. Yet the mere thought of him sent an arrow of lust right to her middle. He wanted to do rough, unfamiliar things to her body. God, she wanted to let him, too. Her curiosity and magnetic attraction to him had forced her to agree to his highly irregular job proposal.