by Layla Frost
When she met my eyes, I did nothing to mask my expression. Her cat eyes widened, her full, fuckable lips parting in an invitation I doubted she knew she was extending.
Cazzo.
I watched, completely enthralled as the woman lowered her head and blew her hair out of her face. She continued wiping down what had to be a gleaming surface. A blush spread across her cheeks, travelling down to her chest.
Bellissima.
“A name,” Luc reiterated, switching the conversation again. “I mean, I could go strike up a conversation—”
“Luca,” I warned with a scowl. Standing, I chugged as much of the bitter coffee as I could tolerate. I tilted my head toward our avid audience. “If you’re making a move, now’s the time.”
Not waiting for a response, I approached the counter again.
The blonde looked up from her phone, the pink flush spreading across her high cheeks. Nervously, she tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear, only for it to fall right back. “A refill?”
“Please.”
Taking my cup, she turned and dumped the old stuff before replacing it with the fresh brew.
I fought the urge to grimace at the flat, one-dimensional smell. When she handed the cup back, my fingertips stroked her inner wrist as I took it. “Thanks…” I let the word hang.
Her brows lowered as she tapped her chest before shaking her head. “Wrong job. I wear a nametag at my other one,” she muttered before smiling and tucking her hair behind her ear. “Dahlia.”
Cat eyes looked up at me, her lips parting slightly. The errant piece of hair fell back into her face.
I opened my mouth to speak, but Luc beat me to it.
“Boss,” he said sharply, already heading for the door.
Fuck.
“See you soon, Dahlia.” My voice was a low rumble. Turning, my long strides ate up the distance to Luc. “What is it?”
He ran his hand through his hair, his jaw clenching and unclenching. “What is it always? Work. Why do we do this again? I should quit and go spend my days in a cubicle somewhere.”
“You’d lose your mind.”
“I’m already doing that.”
“But not from boredom.”
“I could go for some boredom.” He looked around at the city street packed with families, tourists, and the typical rushed workers. “Just heard from Simmons, over at Elio Pharma. He’s requesting a meeting.”
“Where?”
Luc jerked his head toward the black SUV parked at the curb. “He’s on his way to the office now.”
My annoyance was growing to anger. I approached the vehicle as the driver got out and opened the back door.
“Mr. Amato,” the driver greeted, though his face showed little. Dark glasses covered his always alert eyes. His mouth was set in a perpetual scowl, and I couldn’t remember ever seeing him smile.
“Thank you, Niall.” Climbing in, I looked out the darkly tinted windows as I waited for Luc. My view of Dahlia was blocked by the giggling gaggle of women.
With her upturned face and parted lips, she’d looked at me expectantly when I’d asked her name. She’d been waiting for me to ask more.
And I would.
But not until Luc did his job.
“Dahlia,” I said as soon as he got into the car.
Taking out his phone, his thumbs moved across the screen quickly. “Got it.”
Pushing all thoughts of her to the back of my mind, I took out my own phone. “What’s going on?”
“He wouldn’t say, just demanded a meeting. My guess? Contract regret.”
The familiar thrill set in. My mind went in twenty directions, analyzing the possible scenarios and reactions.
As Niall weaved through traffic, the constant stop and go making me glad I hadn’t driven, Luc and I ran through the relevant information to prepare for anything Simmons could throw my way.
When we arrived at my high-rise, I got out, not waiting for Niall. My anticipation built, and I realized I’d be disappointed if Simmons only wanted to discuss routine questions.
“Window cleaners need to come,” Luc said to himself, his steps falling in with mine.
“What we need is some rain.” The spring weather had been unseasonably warm and dry. The grime and smog from the city polluted the air, clinging to buildings. Clinging to my nostrils, skin, and mood, too.
“Since you haven’t gained control of the weather… yet,” he added, “I’ll get a crew here by the end of the day.”
Separating as we went through the revolving doors, we made our way into the vast lobby, bypassing security. Eyes were on us, whispered conversations and hushed speculations following my every move. I punched in the passcode for my private elevator, the doors opening immediately. Entering, I pressed the button for the third floor from the top.
“Cleaners will be here within an hour,” Luc said as the doors slid closed behind us.
“That was fast.”
He lifted his phone, still typing something. “I sent the email from your account.”
A minute later, the doors silently opened to another lobby. I barely stepped off before Rosa launched out of her seat.
That’s not a good sign.
Working as both my receptionist and office manager, Rosa was more like Superwoman in business attire. If she was upset, there was a reason.
“I’m sorry, he refused to wait out here.” She tipped her head toward the monitor on her desk that accessed cameras in my office. “Other than looking at your shelves, he’s been sitting there, huffing and puffing as if you’ve had this meeting on the books for weeks. Which, I might add, I suggested he do multiple times.” She put her hands on her hips, a sure sign she’d done something wrong.
“What?” I asked.
“He pushed past me.” At the look on mine and Luc’s face, she backtracked. “Not literally. But he wouldn’t accept my very polite offer to sit out here and have a cup of coffee. So… I may have tripped him when he walked by my desk.”
“You’re fired.”
Rosa just rolled her eyes before turning away from me to kiss Luc’s cheek. “Mama called. She said dinner tonight.”
He shook his head. “Can’t.”
“If it’s a date, bring her. It’ll get Mama off your back for at least two weeks.”
Luc scoffed. “Yeah, right. More like two days, and that’s only if I’m lucky. It could be like last time when she tried to set me up with someone else while my date was right next to me.”
“Yeah, but that woman was awful.”
“I know, which is why I never saw her after that. Anyway, I don’t have a date tonight. Work.”
Since she knew our schedules better than Luc and I did, she knew there was nothing official on the calendar.
Like all the Ricci’s, Rosa was tall, with light brown eyes and hair. She was hardworking, loyal, and basically family, which meant she, too, got away with more than most. Like her brother, she knew when to ask questions.
More importantly, she knew when not to.
“I’ll let her know. She’ll reschedule, though, so you’d better get in touch with her,” she said before turning back to me. “I pushed your next meeting back, but there was only a twenty-minute window.”
I nodded, setting an alarm on my watch as I headed toward my office.
Pushing open the heavy wood door, I entered, setting my expression to a friendly neutral.
The smell of stale cigars filled the space, emanating from the paunch bellied man wasting my time. Nothing on my desk looked out of place, not that there was anything important sitting around. The chairs in front of the desk were empty. Instead, Simmons was seated in one of the four chairs positioned around a coffee table.
Strategic power play.
Too bad it’s a poorly thought out one.
I bit back my smile.
At my desk, it was clear I was in charge. In his mind, the casual seating area would put us as equals.
“Mr. Simmons, what can I do for you?” I approached the c
hair across from him, but I made no move to sit.
His beady eyes widened as he realized his error. He shifted as if to stand before pausing.
Bolting up would highlight his insecurities. Remaining seated meant I loomed over him, literally and figuratively looking down my nose at him.
Obviously reaching the same conclusion, he reluctantly sank back. “I wanted to discuss the contract.”
“You mean the one that’s been signed and is already underway?” I asked.
From the very first meeting with the pharmaceutical’s board of directors, I’d gotten the feeling Simmons was going to be a headache. His main focus was on amassing money for himself, not for the company he was destroying.
Simmons cleared his throat. “Yes, well, it’s come to my attention that those stock shares were worth a lot more than you paid for them.”
“You and I both know that’s not really true.” He opened his mouth, but I continued. “However, as the contract states, Amaric and I will do our best to make it true again.”
“There are some within the company that feel you mislead us and think speaking to an attorney would be wise.”
“Within the company, or just in this room?” Luc muttered from his seat at my desk. Spinning the chair, he kicked his feet up and leaned back. “Because this is the first we’re hearing about it.”
“No, there are multiple—”
“Let me be clear, Mr. Simmons,” I interrupted. “I want to help Elio Pharma. Actually, let me rephrase. I want to help the scientists and developers at Elio Pharma. They’ve made some groundbreaking drugs that will do a lot of good. It’s the business side of the company that I couldn’t care less about.”
Shooting up from the chair, Simmons looked outraged. He also looked bloated, overindulged, and petulant. “That’s—”
The alarm on my watch began beeping. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have someplace to be.”
The blow to his ego at being dismissed was clear, throwing him further off his game as he pushed his bluff. “Fine, we’ll get in touch with the attorneys.”
“Good, we’ll call ours, too,” Luc said, not bothering to glance up from his phone. “I’m sure they won’t find anything out of place with Elio’s practices.”
Some color drained from Simmons’ face. “The contract stated everything is confidential.”
“It also said we require full cooperation. If some within the company feel like breaking the contract, we’ll have to send everything over to our lawyers so they can sort it out. All that information passing across so many desks.” Luc shrugged.
“We all know Elio was one, maybe two, quarters away from going under,” I pointed out. “My job is to take a controlling percentage and make the changes to prevent that. If you’re going to fight me, I have no problem selling off my stocks and walking away.”
Simmons’ eyes widened. “But—”
Holding his gaze, I kept my voice firm and even. “I also have no problem with running the company into the ground before you have time to strap on a parachute. And, as Mr. Ricci pointed out, information leaks. Ethics. Bad decisions. What some people use a company credit card to pay for on a weekly basis…”
The rest of the color drained from his face as he headed for the door. “I’ll, uhh, speak to the board and get this cleared up. Sorry for the inconvenience, Mr. Amato.”
“Speaking of,” I said, halting his escape. “If you need a meeting, call Ms. Ricci and politely make an appointment. Do not barge into my office,” my voice lowered, the warning clear, “and never disrespect her.”
“Right.” Rushing from the room, he almost collided with Rosa. “Sorry, sorry. Uhh, and sorry about earlier. Goodbye.”
I closed the door and moved to sit opposite of Luc, more annoyed than angry.
“So what does he use the company credit card for every week?” he asked, handing me another report.
I shrugged. “The hell if I know.”
···
Setting my pen down, I pushed away from my desk and ran my palm down my face. Since dealing with Simmons’ bullshit the day before, it’d been one thing after another. When I heard someone push the door fully open, I didn’t bother looking. “Is the cubicle next to you available?”
“Yeah. And Margaret on the other side of me brings in cookies and big bags of candy,” Luc said, adding to the fictitious office in his imagination. “But Dave over in H.R. is a real hardass. I wouldn’t be able to use company time to do things like this.”
At the sound of something hitting my desk, I opened my eyes to see a file. A thin one. “This what I think it is?” I didn’t wait for his answer. Opening the folder, I quickly scanned the information. “There’s not much here.”
“That’s because there’s not much, period.”
Wanting to read through when I had more time, I began to close it when something caught my attention. “Grocery store.”
That explains the name tag comment.
“She works at the coffee shop until late afternoon before having just enough time to get to the grocery store to start her shift there.” Luc checked his watch. “Which she’s probably about to do soon.”
“Is it that late already?”
He nodded. “Coincidental stop for milk?”
“And make her think I’m a stalker?”
Luc glanced meaningfully at the file.
“You know what I mean.” Gathering my things, including the stalker file, I stood and headed for the elevator. “I do think a cup of shitty coffee and a muffin have been added to my morning tomorrow.” When the polished silver doors opened, we got in, Luc pressing the button for the lobby.
As the elevator descended, Luc remained disconcertingly quiet, his toes tapping.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I left some stuff out of the file.”
My body tensed. “What?”
“It’s nothing bad.” He held his hands up, shaking his head. “Definitely nothing that would cause any problems for you. Squeaky clean background check. No connections to any competitors or disgruntled companies.”
“Luca, I told you to get everything.”
“I did. I just didn’t give you everything.” He sighed, taking out his phone. “If you want the information, I’ll email it to you right now. But sometimes it’s better to go in not knowing every detail already. She may have the personality of a gelatinous fish. She might be ‘The One’. I don’t know. I just think you should go in a little blind.”
We both fell silent as I thought about what he’d said.
Thanks to Luc’s skills, I usually knew more about people than they knew about themselves. It was a necessary part of my life, but it sure as fuck killed any shot at a relationship. Even just reading a basic background check meant I had a list of flaws and bad habits of any potential partners. By the end of scanning the report, it was like we’d already dated, grown apart, and broken up.
A little mystery might be nice for once.
“‘The One’?” I questioned, unable to hide my smile at his choice of words. “Getting romantic in your old age?”
“Says the guy who’s stalking the pretty barista.”
I chuckled. “Good point.”
When the elevator door opened, we made our way through the lobby to the waiting SUV, but my thoughts stayed on Dahlia.
Her petite size, delicate features, cat eyes, and full lips made me want to fuck her, protect her, and then fuck her again. It was more than just wanting to take her on every surface of the café, though. There was something about her that dug deep under my skin. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I was looking forward to finding out.
I just had to hope she didn’t have the personality of a gelatinous fish.
···
I lied.
Like the serious fucking stalker I was turning out to be, I kept my body hidden behind a cardboard display as I watched Dahlia work for a minute. Her hair was piled on top of her head, nothing blocking the view of her gorgeous, but tired, face.
Her steps and movements were slow. Even without seeing her fourth yawn in the small timeframe, it was obvious she was exhausted.
Lost in her own world, she loaded the last of the fruit onto a cart, shutting down the cases for the night. I could’ve been standing right next to her, and I doubted she’d have noticed.
When another girl approached her, not looking anywhere near as wiped out, I moved to the end of the aisle. Pretending to contemplate cereal choices, I furthered my stalking career by eavesdropping.
“Hey, Dahl, almost done?” the girl asked.
“Yeah, this is the last of it. I have to put the schedules in Jerry’s mailbox for approval.”
“Cool. We’re all heading over to O’Gregor’s, do you wanna come? I’ll hang and wait for you, then we can walk over together.”
I added a couple boxes of cereal to my half full cart.
If she sees me here, at least I have a reasonable excuse, suspicious as it may be. There’s no way I can convince her I happen to be at a dive bar frequented mainly by college kids.
“Not tonight,” Dahlia said. My relief was cut short when she added, “I’ve got a date.”
Her going to a bar was enough to put me on edge, but hearing her say she had a date had me white knuckle gripping the cart as I planned my next move.
The girl’s tone was a mix of excited and surprised as she asked, “With who?”
Yeah, with fucking who?
Dahlia gave a little laugh. “My bed. And I’ve been looking forward to it all day.”
They started toward the back, the squeaking cart drowning out their conversation and signaling the end of my stalking.
It was fine since my mind was already planning.
Chapter Two
A Date with Bougie Baguettes
Dahlia
He’s back.
I wasn’t a total moron. There were at least four other coffee shops within a one block radius, one of which was the best I’d ever had. Our coffee was decent, at best. The baked goods were out of this world, but I didn’t think that was what had him coming back.
Crossing off the cliché bohemian decor, raspy indie music on a constant loop, and the prone to buffering Wi-Fi, that left one thing.
Me.
After he’d asked for my name, my heart had decided to travel to my throat to accommodate the butterflies that’d invaded my stomach.