“That’s what I was talking about,” she said.
“What?”
“You seem awfully distracted. I don’t know how many of the other investors noticed, but I did, and so did Landon. He messaged me privately during the call to ask if you were okay. Are you okay? I mean, I know things are stressful, but is there something else going on?”
Coming from anyone else, that might have seemed like prying, but Amanda knew me well enough that I wasn’t offended. If anything, it made my heart feel warm that she was seemingly so concerned. However cool I thought I was playing everything, it obviously wasn’t cool enough to fool her.
“No, nothing else is going on, just the bar,” I said. “Between the call and the investors and the bar and my brothers, it’s just a lot.”
“I understand that,” she said, looking deeply into my eyes. I could feel her concern in that gaze. “I just want you to know that I’m here to help you with anything you need. You don’t need to worry about it. Whatever I can handle on my own, I will, and if you are needed, I will make sure you stay in the loop and I remove as much of the stress as possible.”
“I know. And I appreciate that,” I said. “I really do. I have no idea how I would get along without you in my corner.”
“Poorly,” she said, deadpan.
I laughed. “You might be right.” I stood, heading to the nightstand where I kept my wallet. Stuffing it into my pocket, I turned back to her. “Well, now that the call is done, I am going to go head out and take care of some things. If you’d like to join me, you can or you can stay here at the hotel. Either way.”
She seemed to debate for a moment and then came to a decision.
“I think I’ll stay here actually. I have a few things I need to take care of myself. If you need me for anything, just give me a call,” she said.
“Will do. Thanks again, Amanda,” I said. She smiled and nodded sheepishly, and I left.
* * *
As I arrived at Mason’s, my phone started ringing. Since it was a rental car, I didn’t have my usual hookup of display and Bluetooth, so I had to fish it out of my pocket. I thought it might be Amanda, changing her mind, but when I looked at the screen, I saw it was my PI.
“Find anything out?” I asked almost immediately.
“Well, hello to you, too, Mr. Anderson. Yes, as a matter of fact, I did find something out,” he said.
“Sorry. What did you find?”
“Well, it isn’t exactly great news for your theory. It turns out Danny has been getting himself into trouble recently, doing a lot of gambling and racking up debt,” he said.
“Is that so?” I asked.
“Yes, and the gambling debt is rather large. It’s more than just a couple days’ profits from the bar. He’s in pretty deep right now, but he seems to be making good on his payments. One of the bookies he owes isn’t too far from where you saw the money exchange. I’ll be honest, Tom, I think what you saw was a man paying off part of a debt, not paying for a job.”
“Shit, are you sure?” I asked, pissed that the one lead I had was now slipping through my fingers.
“I’ll put it this way. With the money he owes to various bookies in and out of town, he wouldn’t be able to get ahold of enough money to have someone burn a place down. Just looking at all the pieces, it doesn’t seem to fit.”
I sighed heavily and then thanked him for the call. Hanging up, I looked up at Mason’s house, dreading going inside. I had to deliver the news and tell my brothers that we were back to square one.
When I got inside, I called them all into the living room, and we sat down in our usual places. When we were all sitting, I took a deep breath.
“I just talked to the PI,” I said. “He doesn’t think it was Danny.”
“What?” Jordan nearly screamed. “Of course it was. You heard what he said when he walked past you!”
“I’m not ruling out that he could just be a major asshole, Jordan. He just might not be a criminal asshole,” I said.
“What made the PI think that?” Tyler asked, rubbing his jaw. It was a habit he’d had since childhood when he was confused about something.
“Apparently, Danny owes a couple of bookies in town a lot of money. What we saw was more than likely him paying his bookie off, not paying for a service. My PI thinks he wouldn’t be able to get ahold of the kind of money a professional hit would take.”
“Bullshit,” Jordan said, steaming. He was shaking his head slowly and staring at his cup of coffee. “Where there is a will there is a way, and that rat bastard had the will, Tom. I can feel it.”
“Well, maybe it was—I am not ruling it out completely. But I am saying we need to go about this carefully. He is just as likely to be innocent,” I said.
There was a murmur of agreement among the brothers, but it took a moment for Jordan to join in. When he did, the reluctance was palpable.
“So,” Mason said, “now what?”
10
Amanda
By that night, I felt like I had pretty much gotten into the groove of working from the hotel.
Much like Tom said, it wasn’t too much different than working at the home office. Just more comfortable and without a bunch of other coworkers wandering around all day. The room also didn’t have a full-service coffee room within just a few steps, which was a downside. But there was a perfectly good coffee maker I was getting used to. I had put in an online order for some of my favorite coffee to be delivered the next day, and that would definitely help.
Not having Tom there in the room helped me focus more. When we were at the headquarters, he spent most of his time in his office. While I went in and out throughout the day and accompanied him to meetings and conferences, we weren’t usually in such close contact so much of the time.
Not only was having him that close to me so much a bit of a distraction from the work I was supposed to be doing, but it was stirring up thoughts I really shouldn’t be having.
It was a relief to have him leave so I could concentrate completely on the work I needed to be doing. Right then it was sending off what felt like a never-ending list of emails. I had to keep up with the correspondence for a wide variety of clients, vendors, and others within the industry. I also had invoices to send out and payment acknowledgments to make.
In addition to all the emails, I had to go over the initial plans the marketing department had submitted for the upcoming holiday season. A couple of years ago, Tom had started entrusting the first look at these plans and proposals to me. He had the final say, but I looked them over first, made comments and offered suggestions, then passed them along to him when I felt they were ready for him to see.
I had to admit, the marketing department seemed to be in good form already this year. We were gearing up to have a very busy and hopefully very successful holiday season, so their marketing had to be on point. I was already pretty impressed by what I was seeing, but there were a few things I thought could be tweaked.
I looked over at the time and was shocked to see how late it had gotten. Most of the day I was on conference calls with Landon making sure I stayed on top of everything that was going on at the office so I could relay it to Tom. The conference calls pushed back getting my actual work done, so now it was several hours after the usual end of my day.
As if that thought had sent some sort of message out into the world, I heard a knock on the room door. Curious about who it could be, I got up and went over to look through the peephole. Ava stood in the middle of the hallway, waving.
I opened the door, and she grinned at me.
“You were looking through the peephole, weren’t you?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Good, I wouldn’t want to think I was just standing out here waving at nobody.”
I laughed.
Ava smiled a little wider. “Well, I just thought I would come by and see if you wanted to go downstairs to the bar with me and get a drink. All the boys are back at my house, and Robert is
asleep, so I have some time to myself.”
“That sounds amazing,” I said. “I could definitely use a break. And a drink.”
Ava laughed and stepped back, gesturing to the hallway as if to invite me out with her. I stepped back into the room just long enough to put on my shoes and grab my purse. We went down to the bar and slid into one of the small tables set off to the side. She looked around.
“This is weird,” she said.
“How so?” I asked.
“I just kind of feel like I’m cheating on The Hollow.”
“I’m so sorry Ava. I know that you’ve been working there for the past year. You must be devastated.”
Ava nodded. “There were definitely a lot of memories in that place. It wasn’t around all that long, but it really got into our hearts. It’s devastating that it’s gone.”
“They’ll rebuild,” I said. “Tom is already talking about the plans for it. It might take a little while but try to think about all of the opportunities a fresh start could mean.”
Ava smiled across the table at me. “He tells you a lot, doesn’t he?”
I blushed. “We have a good rapport, yes.”
She laughed. “I can see that. I can also tell you one thing, you sure do make him smile. Not that I heard him say anything about it or anything, but I have a feeling you’re not just here because he wants to keep up with work.”
I didn’t know exactly what she meant by that, and I didn’t know if I wanted to delve any deeper into it. Instead, I detoured the conversation.
“Speaking of the bar,” I said. “You were telling me that you and Mason started dating when you were young teenagers.”
“That’s right,” she said, nodding. “We’ve known each other basically our whole lives. That’s kind of the way it is when you grow up in a place like Astoria. I think in a way I always knew he and I were going to be together. I don’t think it was love at first sight or anything. We were really young. But…”
“But what?” I asked.
She looked at me with a hesitant look on her face. “It’s going to sound ridiculous.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “Last night at dinner, I told Tom that coming here made me feel like a secret agent on a special assignment. You really can’t sound more ridiculous than that.”
A waiter came by and took our drink orders. When he walked away, she let out a sigh that made her shoulders drop and got a soft smile on her lips.
“It’s not like I always realized that I loved him. But I always knew he and I were supposed to be together. It was almost like we had been together always. Even before we knew each other, and we were just finding each other again. Like pieces of a puzzle being put back together.” She cringed a little and covered her face with her hands for a second. “I told you it was going to sound ridiculous.”
“It doesn’t sound ridiculous,” I said. “I’ve never experienced anything like that. It sounds pretty wonderful.”
“It is,” she said. “It was awful in those years that we weren’t together and I lived in Michigan. I had convinced myself the part of my life that included him was over, and I would never be happy again. I had to force myself to put him behind me and try to find something new.”
“How did the guys you dated in between feel about that?” I asked.
The waiter came by and set our drinks in front of us. Ava ordered a couple of appetizers, and I picked up my drink for a sip.
“Well,” she said, “there weren’t many guys I dated in between. I convinced myself I was just focusing on my career, and that I was perfectly happy. Now I realize it was just because I didn’t want to be with anybody but Mason.”
“That’s so sweet,” I said. “I love that the two of you were high school sweethearts and now you’re married with a child.”
For the rest of the evening, Ava and I drank, munched on the appetizers, and bonded. We got to know each other through stories and a lot of laughter. I had no idea how many hours or how many drinks later it was when I noticed Ava looking at the door to the bar. She leaned across toward me.
“Look who’s here,” she said in a loud whisper.
I wasn’t sure what she was talking about until Tom walked up the side of the table. He looked at me with concern in his eyes.
“I went up to the room, but you weren’t there. I had no idea where you were,” he said.
“Right here,” I said, holding my arms out to encompass the bar.
“I came to the rescue for girls’ night,” Ava said.
“Well, if I’m not interrupting, can I join you?” he asked.
“Absolutely,” I said.
He sat down and ordered two drinks right off the bat. He downed them quickly and was soon on his way to loosening up. It was a relief. He had been tense and a little on edge since the night before. It was good to see him relax a bit.
The night continued on with the three of us talking and laughing. After a while, Ava looked at her phone, then announced she needed to go. Mason had already called the rideshare for her so he didn’t have to wake up the baby to come pick her up. She gave me a hug and headed off with a promise of us hanging out again soon. Tom and I lingered at the bar a little while longer.
“If you didn’t know where I was, why didn’t you just call me?” I suddenly asked.
Tom laughed. “Took you long enough to swing all the way back to that conversation. You don’t have your phone on you.”
“I don’t?” I asked.
I started to lean down to pick up my purse, and gravity got the best of me. I tipped over and couldn’t stop myself from heading straight for the floor. He managed to get up and scoop me out of the air before I toppled onto the ground.
“Maybe we should go on up to the room,” Tom said.
“Might be a good idea,” I replied.
We were both a little tipsy and giggled our way across the lobby and into the elevator. The walk down the hallway to our corner room felt like it stretched on forever. Finally, we got there, and Tom used his key card to open the door. I waltzed inside without paying attention to where I was going, and suddenly my feet tangled beneath me.
I was heading face-first for the floor for the second time that evening, but Tom was right there to catch me again. I fell into his arms, and he brought me up close to his body. The spark was instant and intense. It took my breath, and my eyes locked with his. Everything seemed to pause for that moment.
I snapped out of it and looked away. “Thank you, again. I don’t know why I can’t stay upright.”
“Alcohol,” he said. “But this time it was my jacket. I must have dropped it on the floor when I came in here to check for you.”
He helped me up to my feet. I stepped away from him and took a breath. Gesturing toward the bedroom door, I tried to look like my heart wasn’t pounding in my chest.
“I’m going to head to bed. Feel free to go in the bathroom if you need to.”
Without waiting for his response, I scurried into the bedroom, shut the door, and changed into my pajamas as fast as I could so I could bury myself in the bed in case he needed to pass through the room. And this was the first night in my adult life I went to bed without brushing my teeth, but there was so much more on my mind.
11
Tom
When I woke up the next morning, the first thing I noticed was how uncomfortable my pajama pants were. The lingering, powerful dream still rolling through my mind had caused me to pitch a tent so strong that I instinctively unbuttoned the single middle button to let it out. I willed myself not to touch it and tried to focus on something else, anything else, in order to avoid the indignity of her being in the next room while I jerked off.
I tried to focus on the bar and all of the information we had learned in the last few days, but nothing seemed to clear my mind. Every time I started to think about the bar, it would drift to drinks, and then to last night. The sweet smell of her perfume as I caught her. The tension between us while I held her in place. There had been a momen
t there, however fleeting, where I could have just dipped my head and placed my lips on hers…
I had to shake this off. Figuring a shower might help, I got up quietly, pulling the waistband of my pants out until my cock went back inside, and made my way to the bedroom. Amanda was still asleep, curled in the center of the bed with a pillow under her arm. She looked incredible. Ignoring the thoughts running through my mind, I went into the bathroom and started the shower. With any luck, she would hear the water running and get up, get dressed, and we could get on with our day. Or better yet, maybe she would sleep right through my shower and I could have a second look at her.
Briefly I thought about running just cold water, but the stiffness in my neck seemed like it needed the warmth. Stripping out of my pajamas, I climbed in and let the water rush over me. I cleaned myself quickly, with every intention of getting out, but the showerhead was strong enough to beat my muscles into submission, and the warm water was relaxing and luxurious.
I closed my eyes and let the water run down my face, the streams sliding down my neck, over my shoulders, and down my chest. No matter how long I had been in there, the urge for release had not subsided. The images of Amanda in the dream had not gone away, and even were joined now by the image of her in the bed. It brought thoughts to the surface so real, so intense, that my cock thickened under the water, and I reluctantly grabbed the base.
An image of Amanda from the dream, her hair at her shoulders, dressed in only a silken robe, came searing into my mind’s eye. I stroked myself as I imagined her in that robe, walking into the bathroom, seeing me in the shower. In my vision, she opened the robe and let it slide off her magnificent body before climbing in with me.
Taboo Boss: An Older Man Younger Woman Romance Page 6