by Z. Stefani
“It’s the recipe I got from Kiki. I made the strawberry ones especially for you. I also have a little money I would like to give you.” She began to dig through her purse, but Lux stopped her.
“We’ve been through this a million times,” Lux said with a straight face.
“Please, I know how much piano lessons cost. Not to mention the keyboard you gave her.”
“The keyboard was a donation. Besides, your daughter worked very hard to get that prize. She won it fair and square.”
“See Mom, I told you Lux wouldn’t take it,” Sally Mae giggled as she walked up to stand beside them.
“Are you sure?” Roxanne asked.
“Of course I’m sure.”
“Thank you so much for everything you’ve done, Lux.”
“She’s a joy to teach.”
“I just feel so bad; I wish I could pay.”
“Listening to her beautiful music and knowing that I’m the one who taught her is payment enough. She loves it and I love it, why let money ruin such a good thing?” Lux smiled.
“I’m so proud of you Sally Mae.” Roxanne kissed her daughter.
“Yum!” Pixie sang with glee as she ran over to stand beside her sister. “I swear you and Kiki make the best cupcakes on Earth, Roxy. I so adore you.”
“Thank you so much, Pixie,” Roxanne cooed before turning and leaving with her daughter.
“You’re needed on the other side Luxy baby,” Pixie informed her as she pulled the brightly colored tin from her cupcake.
“What’s going on?”
“They’re blocking the lounge entrance off with red tape and signs,” Pixie said as she stuffed half of the cupcake in her mouth.
“Who is?”
“Who do you think? Dean Blake’s men,” she said through a mouth full of pink cupcake.
“What? They can’t do that!” Lux almost screeched.
“Mom was so distraught about it that she locked herself in her room.”
“Shit!”
“I’ll go take care of Mom,” Pixie said as she shoveled the rest of the cupcake into her mouth. She then grabbed the plate of cupcakes from Lux. “I think these cupcakes might help Mom.”
“Or you.” Lux shook her head as she watched Pixie rush off.
Lux briskly walked down the halls decorated with the children’s artwork to the other side of the building where the Music hall met the lounge. She opened the large double doors that separated the buildings to find a rather large man in the process of hanging a sign on the door. There was a group of men in the Lounge, all of them hanging Do Not Enter signs with red tape on the other doors. They had also used the red tape to fashion thick, make shift barriers across the doors.
Lux ripped the red tape off the door closest to her as she walked into the lounge. “What in the hell are you doing?”
“Mr. Blake wants this section blocked off,” the man that had been hanging the sign when she walked in answered.
“I don’t care what he wants… take it down!” she demanded.
“Sorry Miss, I can’t do that,” he said sympathetically.
“You cannot block the lounge off!” she insisted.
“Even if I didn’t do my job, he’d just fire me and hire someone else to do it. Your best option would be to take it up with Mr. Blake, Miss,” he informed her.
“Fine, then I’ll do it myself,” she snapped as she began to tear down the red tape.
The men stood back as she went from door to door and removed everything they had hung. The foreman grabbed his cell and quickly dialed his boss.
“Mr. Blake? Yes, she’s taking down the signs, what should we do?”
“Put them back up when she’s done. You’re getting paid extra for this scenario,” Dean instructed over the speaker.
“Yes, Sir,” he said and hung up the phone.
Lux had finished ripping down all of the signs and the tape. As she headed towards the garbage can she noticed that the men had immediately started to put new signs back up.
“What in the hell are you doing?’ she yelled, still carrying the large ball of signs and tape.
“What we were instructed to do… put them back up after you were done.”
“Your boss told you this?” she asked as her anger intensified.
“Yes.”
“We’ll see about that,” she whispered more to herself as she stormed out of the front entrance of the lounge, still carrying the big ball of signs wrapped in a mound of tape.
She cursed under her breath as she headed out to her car. She opened the passenger’s side and tossed the big sticky ball in the seat. She rushed to the driver’s seat, started her car, and headed to see the attempted-lounge-wrecker himself, Dean Blake.
***
Lux parked in front of the office building and then stormed inside. She knew Dean’s office was not located on the same floor as their original meeting. The secretary that had led her there that day had told her as much. She walked through the lobby and headed straight for the receptionist’s desk.
“Can I help you?” the woman smiling behind the over-sized, round desk asked.
“Yes, I am here to see Dean Blake. I just can’t remember which floor he told me his office was on,” Lux said nonchalantly, despite the fact that the receptionist was staring at the large red ball of tape in her hand.
“He’s at the very top; I’ll just call him.”
“That won’t be necessary; he’s expecting me.” Lux smiled before walking away from the desk.
“But no one is allowed up there without permission,” her voice grew louder as Lux rushed to the elevators.
Lux took the long ride to the top and stepped into a huge lobby. Despite her anger, she took a moment to stop and look around her. The whole place screamed of wealth… extreme wealth; but more than that, it screamed of art. She looked at the clean white stucco walls, the charcoal furnishings, and the platinum accents. The walls were covered in large, darkly themed paintings that seemed to oppose as well as complement the elegance surrounding it.
“May I help you?” the secretary at the main desk asked.
“Dean Blake’s office?” Lux asked.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“Yes.”
“Your name?”
“Lux Hart.”
“Um, I don’t see you here.”
“Just show me where he is,” Lux sighed in mounting irritation. She preferred to not take her rage for Dean out on this woman, who was just doing her job.
“You’ll need an appointment first.”
“I have an appointment. There is obviously a mistake.”
“Okay, I’ll take you to his personal secretary. Come with me please.” She smiled pleasantly.
She led Lux down a wide hallway decorated in the same dark paintings. The end of the hallway opened up into a large, brightly lit area with a desk and a door. They stood before the desk that looked too pricey for a secretary and a secretary that was too under dressed to be a secretary.
“Hello, can I help you?” the secretary asked in a sweet, cartoonish voice.
“She’s here to see Mr. Blake, but I’m not positive if she has an appointment,” she informed the other secretary before she headed back to her desk.
“Is this his office?” Lux asked.
“Yes, is he expecting you?” she asked sweetly.
“Yes,” she lied with a straight face.
“You’re name please?”
“Lux Hart.”
The secretary picked up her phone and dialed her boss.
“There is a Ms. Lux Hart here to see you, Sir.” She relayed the message in the sweetest of tones.
“Send her in,” Dean said dispassionately.
The secretary held the door open as Lux sashayed into Dean’s office and then quickly closed it behind her. Once they were alone, Lux glared accusingly at Dean for a moment as she held up the large ball of tape. She strolled across the room with the air of a queen, despite the butterflies wreaking ha
voc in her belly. She stopped in front of his desk and dropped the large, sticky ball down on his paperwork.
“What is this?” he barked.
“This belongs to you.”
“You have to the count of three to get it out of here,” he warned her.
“Save your count; I’m not moving it.” She glared at him as she handed him the paperwork.
“Excuse me?”
“I want you to sign this, then I want you to get the rest of that red tape out of my building. Then I want you to leave us the hell alone before I expose all of your secrets! You have no idea the mental trauma you’re causing everyone!”
“It’s just a record store; tell everyone to download there music like everyone else,” he mocked.
She tried to count silently to ten before she jumped across his desk and decked him.
“It’s not just a record store!” she hissed through clenched teeth.
“Oh yes… I almost forgot about the lounge.”
“It is so much more; if you’d even taken the time to look inside you would know that. If you’re trying to eradicate the building; you should at least know the extent of what you’re destroying. It’s way more than just a record store and a lounge.” Her patience was dwindling by the second.
“You’re wasting my time; I’ll never sign.” He was angry but somewhat amused by her audacity as well as her passion. Despite his need to crush her, he also wanted to dominate her; she was turning him on at rapid speed. He could feel his cock lengthen towards her direction.
“Then I will be forced to go public with your affairs. The governor’s wife is bad enough, but what you did to your last competitor is also damaging. Not to mention the long list of disgusting deeds you have committed over the years.” She smirked.
“Then by all means, let the world know how depraved I am while you let them know how low you’d sink to win.”
“That’s not going to work on me. I fought too hard for the music hall to care about stuff like that. Unlike you, I don’t have the public eye on me due to my family’s celebrity stature and wealth. I also don’t have a family established enough to tarnish with my scandalous affairs.”
“You don’t know anything about my family.” He rose from his chair and walked around the desk to stand beside her.
She was suddenly over powered by his smell. The appealing scent of freshly washed flesh drifted into her nostrils. He didn’t wear cologne or anything more elaborate than soap, but the simplistic smell was ruggedly appealing to her. She’d expected some overpriced cologne or something equally obnoxious, probably something flecked with gold. Surprisingly, she was just as impressed that he’d unknowingly proved her wrong, as she was by the fact that he could make soap smell so fucking sexy.
He took another small step closer, and she felt the room shift with her unease. He dominated her with his size, his muscular body towered over her five foot five frame. She suddenly felt very small and was embarrassingly stimulated by the feeling. Normally, she preferred to be the dominating force in the room, but somehow this felt just as comfortable. The thought was unpleasant, but the feeling it caused was exquisite.
“Get away from him; he’s dangerous,” she warned herself.
“Your family is public domain; all I have to do is look you up. Everyone knows you.” She took a small step back.
“You don’t know anything.”
“I know enough.”
“What do you think you know?”
“I know you’re a womanizer who doesn’t have respect for wedding vows. Speaking of which, let’s get back to the governor’s wedding vows and how you violated them, shall we?”
“If you leak those photos, this will get nasty. You should quit while you’re ahead, I am the last man you would ever want to go to war with,” he warned her in no uncertain terms.
“Is that a threat?” She raised her eyebrows dramatically.
“Yes.” He nodded calmly.
“Well your threats won’t work either; you don’t scare me.” She unintentionally puffed out her chest and raised her chin.
“You should be scared of me.” He took another step towards her.
The only thing she was scared of was her body’s unusual reaction to him and the way it seemed to be working without her brain’s consent. She was unexplainably drawn to him and felt her wayward body attempt to shift towards his direction. She couldn’t understand her body’s horrific state of confusion nor could she understand the overwhelming lust building inside.
“This is the man that is trying to destroy The Music Hall,” she repeated to herself as she cleared her throat.
“I’m not scared of you, and you’re foolish if you think that you can intimidate me into giving up that building. I’ll keep digging until I find something that hurts. I will never let that building go,” she vowed with enough passion to ignite his.
He wanted to continue arguing with her, but he needed her to stop. His rage was tempting his lust and soon he would lose the little control he’d been holding onto. She was as stubborn as she was mouthy, and he was caught between shaking her and stabbing his tongue down her throat to shut her up. He wanted to be the one who forced her to stop. He wanted to take her down to the floor, slam his painful cock deep inside of her, and fuck her until she changed her tone.
“Neither will I; it’s an ideal location,” he said while trying to refrain from grabbing her. Her mouth would be the death of her. “It’s not the building itself that I’m interested in; your property is but a link in the chain. I want that whole block. As you know, a few of your fellow business owners have already sold to me. Now I need the biggest lot on the block… I need that building.”
“You won’t get it without a fight.”
“I would love to fight you,” he admitted.
“Then I guess we’re at a standoff.” She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes.
“We don’t have to be. You are a beautiful girl. When this is over and the building is demolished, I’d be more than willing to make it up to you.” He ran his finger down her cheek, but she immediately slapped his hand away.
She knew by his reaction that no one had ever reacted so negatively to his touch before.
“Don’t get pervy.”
“Pervy? I didn’t even mention sex.”
“Then don’t get charming. It won’t work on me,” she said with confidence.
“Are you saying that I’m charming?” he asked as he raised his right brow.
“I’m saying that I’m immune to the crock of shit that you consider sweet talk,” she elaborated.
“You’re even sexier when you’re pissed.” He ran the tip of his finger up her forearm, but she swatted his hand away again.
“Are you seriously standing here talking to me about something as insignificant as my looks when I am trying to save The Music Hall?”
“Your looks could never be considered insignificant, not in the least. If you were smart, you’d use them to your advantage,” he told her as he felt his lust mount to an unreasonable level.
“Save your underhanded compliments for the millions of women you swap saliva with and sell me back the other part of my building,” she snapped back at him.
“I don’t swap saliva with anyone,” he said with a frown. He had never been into kissing, it was too intimate. Until Lux, he’d never felt compelled to use his mouth above the neck.
“Well whatever it is that you do.”
“Do you want to know what I do? I can show you.” He took a tiny step closer, and she instantly stepped back.
“All I want is for you to sell my building back to me.” She ignored his last question.
“Why would I sell it to you? I want you to sell the rest of the building to me. I’ll double the offer.”
“No,” she shook her head and glared up at him.
If looks could kill, he knew that he would be dead.…
“Why not? It’s a generous deal; more than generous.”
“Because we worked
too hard to get that building where it is today. That’s my building.”
They’d redone that building with their own bare hands, every one of them. Not to mention, she’d watched those kids grow up and watched their talents grow within those walls. Every inch of that building had a memory; it was an important part of their lives. Not to mention that the Music Hall was the only good thing that had come from her father’s traumatic demise.