by Lewis, R. J.
Blythe stopped eating mid-bite. Her eyes popped out of her face as she looked at me in horror. “Are you serious? She hates him. How the fuck did that end up happening?”
“She wants to meet him.”
And she didn’t give me much choice in the matter. She’d nearly had a heart attack after learning I’d been living at his place for a while. She’d said it was too soon, and I couldn’t exactly let her in on the whole situation with the text, otherwise she really would have died right there on the spot. I was fucked. Enormously. Because Borden wasn’t a warm and sweet kind of guy. It was going to be a disaster.
“Maybe she’ll like him,” Blythe said, though I could see the doubt in her eyes.
“She’ll loathe him,” I replied frowning. “And he’s going to love it.”
Borden had tunnel vision. All he cared about was me. He barely gave anybody the time of day. If you were against him, he simply didn’t give a fuck. Even if you were a sweet old lady. This was going to be interesting.
When I finished my first sandwich, I excused myself to go to the toilet. It was halfway there I noticed a familiar face seated a short distance from our table. In direct view of us, Hawke was spread out on his chair, arms crossed, eyes firmly focused on mine. I stopped immediately, my heart skipping a beat in my surprise.
What the hell was he doing here? He never followed me.
Feeling irrationally angry, I stomped to him, my own arms crossed, a deep angry frown on my face. I stopped in front of him, and for a split second I took in the sight of him. He looked like a creepy vampire or something, dressed all in black, his long dark hair loose around his shoulders, his face particularly pale today like he’d been deprived of sunlight. My eyes then dropped to the table and at the strawberry sundae he’d half demolished. “You like strawberry sundaes?” I blurted out, my brows furrowed. “Like, what the fuck?”
With that gravelly voice of his, he retorted, “What’s wrong with a strawberry sundae?”
Well, you’re a two hundred and thirty pound man – minimum – and you look like a fucking sun-deprived vampire feasting on a strawberry sundae! What was not wrong with that picture?
Instead of saying that though, I just shook my head. “Why are you here, Hawke? I have Graeme and a whole brigade of men around the street as it is. I don’t need a babysitter in here.”
“Just following orders,” he simply replied.
“Since when has Borden told you to follow me?”
He didn’t respond, opting instead to just stare at me with his dark eyes. They reminded me of his brother too much, and I felt a strange chill dart down my spine. I didn’t know much about Hawke, had never cared to in all honesty. He loathed me and he’d made no effort concealing that the entire time I’d worked for Borden. But after seeing his brother and the strange interaction they’d had with one another, I was suddenly a little curious about him. Maybe part of me didn’t think he was all that trustworthy knowing he was tied in with the bikers.
“Don’t have anything to say?” I pressed, leaning forward as I glared at him. “So you insult me any chance you get in the office, but now that we’re alone, you’re suddenly a mute?”
He still didn’t respond. Those dark eyes continued to peer into my own. He wasn’t going to back down, and I didn’t want to either. I could have had this staring contest all day if I wasn’t in the way of the waitress and Blythe wasn’t waiting for me at the table.
“Fine,” I told him with a hard voice, straightening myself. “But don’t get used to this, Hawke. I don’t need you around. There’s nothing you can do that another one of Borden’s muscle can’t. Go and enjoy your sundaes stalking somebody else.”
I turned around to leave, but not before catching the small smile on his lips. It infuriated me and it took everything in me to press forward. I went to the bathroom, and when I returned, he was gone, his sundae left abandoned, a ten dollar bill next to it. Had he seriously listened to me? I looked around the café as I re-joined Blythe, but there was no sign of him.
After we ate, I walked her down to the nearest ATM, making sure Graeme followed, or else he’d have my head. She remarked on his presence as he trailed us in his car at a snail’s pace the whole way, practically alongside us. He blatantly stared at us the entire time, his eyes narrowed, his bushy moustache extra bushy today.
“Borden’s…protective,” I explained to her simply.
She gave me a worried look. “He sends his men to follow you around, Em? That sounds like he’s a stalker.”
“It’s not like that.” It was. I wasn’t going to lie to myself.
She continued to stare at me, waiting for more. I didn’t have the energy to defend him by making up shit, so I shrugged and turned to the task at hand. I took out the money she needed, along with another hundred on top for food. I didn’t let her count it, otherwise she’d have gone against the extra cash. Instead, I closed the money in half and tucked it discreetly into her purse.
I’d never seen her more grateful the entire time we’d been friends. She bopped up and down excitedly, her tired eyes lighting up. We parted ways on the promise she’d be a better friend from now on and keep in touch.
“Don’t even question it,” she told me determinedly.
On the way home, Graeme kept shooting me these glances. I caught him a dozen times, and he’d mindlessly turn back to the road…and then look back at me. I smiled. “Do I have a wart on my face or something? Is that why you keep looking at me?”
“No,” he answered, returning the smile. “I was just thinking how stupid you are for giving your friend money.”
My smile vanished in a blink of an eye. “What? Has Borden bugged me or something? Are you listening to my conversations now?”
I’d kill him if he did.
“No, but she shows up all withdrawn, and then afterwards you take her to the ATM. It’s fairly obvious what you did.”
“Why is it stupid that I gave her money?” I sounded offended, and I was. There was nothing stupid about what I did. I was helping out my best friend, and he was staring me down like a naïve child for it.
“She’s not going to use that money on what she said she would. That girl was filled with lies. You could see it from a mile away. She took advantage of you, knowing very well how close the two of you are.”
“How do you know that?”
He just looked at me for a long moment. “Why do you think Borden assigned me to look after you?”
“Because of your unnaturally good looks,” I teased.
He sighed. “Because I know these things. A silent observer, very rarely wrong. It’s a survival instinct. Don’t doubt me.”
I didn’t. And I hated that I didn’t. Graeme didn’t lie. I trusted him with my life, and he was telling me all this because he cared enough to let me know I was being taken advantage of.
“What do you think she needed the money for then?” I asked him quietly.
He shrugged absently. “Does it matter at the end of the day? You should be more concerned about the lie, shouldn’t you?”
“Should I?”
He chuckled. “You have a big heart, Emma. That’s your problem. You’re not upset that she lied. You’re upset that she’s keeping something from you and you don’t know what it is.”
I looked back more closely on the way she reacted while we’d eaten. None of her actions or glances indicated to me that she’d been lying. Either she was a damn good actor, or she just successfully preyed on my emotions bad acting and all. I hated to think which one of those was the answer.
“What should I do? Let it go or call her out on it?”
He shrugged. “If you call her out on it, you could drive her away. Better to be patient. Lies usually find their way out, no matter how deep you bury them. Besides, it’s not your burden to carry. Let it play out.”
I blinked in surprise at him. “You should have been a therapist, Graeme. A lot of wisdom pouring out of your bushy mouth.”
He smirked. “Wha
t else do you expect from a fifty five year old?”
“Fifty five? You look thirty five.”
He laughed heartily, and I smiled at my lame compliment. I didn’t think it was possible, but I totally made Graeme blush. And I almost forgot about tonight’s dinner while I sat alongside him.
Almost.
Six
Emma
When we returned to the club, Linda strode up to me and Graeme on our way to the office. Her long red hair was piled high in a neat little up-do. With her make-up done up the way it was, her cheekbones were so accentuated, they looked like they could cut steel. She was gorgeous. Bitch or not, I had to appreciate it.
“Borden’s busy,” she informed us, her face neutral. “He’s having a meeting with one of those insane bikers in a private room. Said for you guys to go to the office and go about your day until it’s over.”
“Is he meeting with Hector” I asked her.
“I don’t know him by his name. But tall good looking guy with this cheeky as hell smile. Acted like he owned the place and stared at me like a piece of meat.”
Yeah, that was him alright.
“If it weren’t for the half dozen ladies striding in after him, I would have thought he’d force me in too,” she added distractedly. “Fuck, being a woman is tiring some days.”
My heart stopped for a beat, and I tried not to let my fears show as I asked, “There are girls in the room?”
She nodded once, running a hand over the top of her hair as she looked around. “Yep. A couple dancers from here, and a few others that came with him. Slutty little things.”
“Slutty how?”
Her eyes met mine. “Oh, you know, tiny little booty skirts and belly tops, big tits spilling out of their cleavage. And these girls were in their mid-fucking-twenties. They were rubbing up against each other, holding hands like sorority girls in a porn video. Pretty much warming up for their show. That sort of slutty.”
“Their show,” I repeated slowly.
“Mm. The biker said he wanted some background noise, and they jumped at the chance. They’re in one of the larger rooms. You know, the kind of rooms people hire their bachelorette parties in. Don’t ask me why it has to be that big for two men talking business.”
The raw feeling of anger shot up my veins as I pictured the women she spoke of. Hector’s kind of women, no doubt. What decent female would want to spend her time, intimately, with somebody like Hector?
I let out a long breath and glanced over at Graeme. I needed to be cool about this, not react like a crazy jealous person. “What do you think is going on?” I asked him.
Graeme shrugged in an unconcerned way. “Could be anything.”
Like, what kind of anything? The kind that would cause Borden to have some crazy orgy fest with a bunch of women in his own club? I remembered the hard ridge in his pants before I left for lunch. He’d been horny as hell and I hadn’t taken care of it. Was it being taken care of now? More anger bubbled within as I envisioned all kinds of horrid things. I fought hard to suppress my body’s urge to shake. I swallowed it down with a forced nod.
“Let’s return to the office,” Graeme suggested.
“I’ll wait for Borden,” I replied tightly. “If it has something to do with Hector, then it would be important for me to know straight away.”
Graeme raised a brow at my lame excuse, no doubt seeing straight through my bullshit. I wasn’t going to work when Borden might currently be getting a lap dance, or worse. No, if I was in the office, I wouldn’t see them emerge from the rooms and make their exit, and I wouldn’t be able to analyse the situation – meaning the state of undress he might be in – if I wasn’t around the main rooms. I’d never felt this paranoid before. I’d never been given a reason to feel this way, and I wasn’t liking how hard the feeling slammed into me. We turned back around and settled ourselves at the empty main bar area. All the while, I kept fighting to keep my mind clear.
Seated on a stool, I waited with Graeme standing nearby. He was looking around with this look of caution on his face – a face that was consumed with frown lines and dark circles beneath his eyes. Did the guy ever take a break? He desperately needed one.
“Everyone’s been real antsy,” Linda said, sidling up to me on a stool. “It’s got something to do with you, right? That’s the only reason Borden would have ten thousand men following you around.”
I turned to her. “No point in denying the obvious.”
Her cool eyes met mine. “So what’s going on then? Someone out to kill you or something?”
I suppressed the chill those words gave me and didn’t respond. All I kept thinking about were giant boobs and short skirts around my Borden, around my man, around the hard dick I’d put in his pants.
She smiled arrogantly. “Ah, now that’s a shame. I kind of liked having you around.”
“Kind of as in none at all?”
“Precisely. I miss the way things used to be, sans you. It was less complicated. Only a matter of time.”
“Writing me off already?”
“Mm, not entirely, but Borden’s got a lot of enemies. It only takes one.”
Sigh. “Duly noted, Linda. Thanks for your positivity in the matter.”
She smiled wider, those little pink lips now aggravating me to no end. “In the unlikely but likely event something does happen, just know I’ll take good care of the boss man, alright?”
My whole being tensed and my eyes narrowed. “How about you just fuck off now, Linda, or else I might accidentally not pay you this week. I do take care of payroll services, you know.”
That smile bared teeth just then. Really white ones. “Alrighty then. See you later, doll.”
I clenched my fists, shaking with the urge to sucker punch her. She turned around and walked off, those hips shimmying from side to side in that way a man would salivate over. I wanted to rip her face in two, the snotty little bitch that she was. What the hell had Borden seen in her to hire her as manager – making a small fortune, no less – to this place anyway? How could she be given such a large responsibility when she was such a fuckwad? I looked her slim and tall body over before she disappeared into another room and briefly wondered if he’d touched her at all. Had he given her a taste and that was why she was hungry for him?
The rational side of me said hell no. Borden had never been like that. My mind was tormenting me right now because he was in a room with scantily clad women, and I was seething over it. Was this how angry he felt when a man looked at me? Was I feeling the same level of possessiveness? If so, it sucked, and I understood him better.
Minutes passed in miserable silence. The kind that had me simmering in a pool of self-pitying thoughts of being cheated on by a criminal kingpin that had the city beneath his boot. I scoffed at myself. I deserved no sympathy for being in this spot in time. I firmly placed my ass upon it willingly.
I heard the entrance of the club open and heavy footsteps followed. I looked up and rolled my eyes at the sight of Hawke. He noticed Graeme first and stopped in front of him. “What’s going on? You’re meant to be with Emma.”
Graeme cocked his head to where I was seated. “I am. Borden’s with Hector at the moment.”
“Then he’s found something.”
“Possibly.”
“So why are you out here instead of the office?”
Graeme jerked his head in my direction again and said nothing.
Hawke then glanced at me, understanding dawning. “Okay.”
I looked away from them and down at my cell phone, half-heartedly playing one of my mind numbing games. When I noticed him approaching, stopping at the stool Linda had just been on, I sighed and turned my body away from him, dismissing his presence entirely.
“That friend of yours you just had lunch with, how much money did you end up giving her?” he suddenly asked.
I stalled before answering. The asshole had still followed me.
“Emma,” he pressed.
“I thought y
ou were all knowing,” I replied disinterestedly. “You can leaf through my life but don’t know my bank details?”
“I can figure it out if I wanted to, but it’d save me a few minutes of cracking into your account if you just opened your mouth and told me.”
First, I dealt with a friend that lied to me about her issues. Then, I faced Linda’s bitch face telling me Borden was in a room surrounded by barely clothed women. And now, I was copping Hawke’s bullshit.
And I really didn’t want to deal with Hawke’s bullshit.
The tornado inside of me spun uncontrollably, and I ended up spinning back to him, icily replying, “How about it’s none of your goddamn business, Hawke? I’m not going to willingly tell you jack shit about the money that’s sitting in my bank account. You can figure that shit out yourself. If you don’t like it, join Linda’s ‘I Hate Emma Club’ and fuck off into the sunset.”