“I was nervous too, but when the time was right—I knew it.” Harmony nodded and reached out to take my hand. “Just promise me you’ll go on a date with this guy. Even if it doesn’t lead to anything, just go on one date with him.”
“I’ll think about it.” I shrugged and squeezed her hand. “But for now, the only thing I can think about is work because I have to write up a report about Hal’s Pub for my bosses.”
“Are you going to recommend that they buy it?” Harmony let go of my hand and leaned back on the couch.
“They already want to buy it. My job was to scout it out, get a feeling for the atmosphere, and let them know if there are any obvious obstacles.” I reached over and picked up my laptop.
“So, are there?” Harmony raised her eyebrows inquisitively.
“There might be.” I exhaled sharply and chuckled. “The guy that asked me? He owns Hal’s Pub.”
“Interesting—the plot thickens.” Harmony made her eyebrows bounce in a comical fashion.
“One more thing.” I looked up from my laptop. “Angelina said you and I share some of the same desires—desires that the two of us have never even discussed. I found that interesting, since we talk about pretty much everything.”
“Oh?” Harmony looked down and I saw her cheeks flush. “Well, I mean—mostly everything.”
“Okay, spill it.” I tossed my laptop the side. “What kind of shit are you into?”
“It’s—kind of personal.” Harmony swallowed hard and shifted nervously on the couch.
“Nope, we tell each other everything.” I scooted closer to her. “You’ve never kept anything from me, or at least I thought you didn’t.”
“It’s…” Harmony started to rub her fingers together and finally lifted her head. “Do you remember when we were in college, and I started spending a lot of time on the computer? Late at night after you went to bed.”
“Yeah, you were struggling and trying to make sure your assignments were perfect. I remember that.” I nodded and tilted my head. “Wait, was that not what you were doing?”
“No.” Harmony blushed again and shook her head. “That’s actually where I met Devlin.”
“Wait, you knew Devlin before Angelina introduced you to him? I thought it was just Nate and Connor that you knew before Angelina started you on your journey.” I felt the intrigue inside me building.
“I didn’t know Devlin’s name back then. I just called him… Master.” Harmony swallowed and her lip twisted into a grimace.
“Wait, you’re into…” I blinked in surprise. “You like to be tied up and shit?”
“Sometimes.” Harmony nodded nervously. “I like other stuff too—stuff that Nate and Connor really have no interest in.”
“Okay, well you’ve told me too much to stop now.” I focused all of my attention on Harmony.
“I like to be spanked.” Harmony’s face twisted into another grimace.
“That’s not very strange. I think everyone likes it a little rough sometimes.” I shrugged and shook my head. “I mean, I’d probably try it if the guy was into it.”
“Not just rough.” Harmony shook her head back and forth. “I mean, I like him to pull my panties down, put me over his knee, and give me a real spanking.”
“Oh my god.” I blinked in surprise. “That—doesn’t sound pleasant.”
“I guess our desires don’t exactly align like Angelina thought.” Harmony shifted on the couch and started to stand. “I should go to bed.”
“Wait…” I reached out and took her hand. “I’m sorry I made you tell me. I didn’t realize it was that personal.”
“It’s okay. I’m not ashamed of it or anything, I’ve just never really told anyone outside of the guys who share my bed.” She shrugged and sighed. “Now you know my dark secret, which means I’ll have to kill you if you ever think about telling anyone.”
“I’m more afraid of you sending Devlin to spank me than kill me.” I looked up at her and a slight smile formed on the edge of my lips. “I love you, Harmony. Your secret goes in the vault with all the rest of stuff we’ve never told anyone else.”
“I love you too.” She exhaled and finally smiled. “Don’t stay up all night writing your report.”
Harmony’s secret lingered in my thoughts as I started writing my report about Hal’s Pub. I had no idea she was into the kinky stuff. It had never really piqued my interest, but it was a little intriguing as I thought about it. Would I really like something like that? I certainly didn’t like the heavy-handed birthday spankings I got every year while I lived at home, especially the one that my stepfather gave me on my panties the year my dress betrayed me and flipped up when he tossed me over his knee. My family thought it was hilarious, but they weren’t on the receiving end of those hard smacks. Getting more than that? Having my panties pulled down so my ass could be really spanked? That didn’t sound like much fun at all.
Although I might like being tied up—if it was someone I really liked.
“Is your report ready?” Jessica walked up to my desk before I was even seated.
“Yep, I’ve got it all typed up. Should I just email it to you?” I looked up at her and plugged my laptop into the docking station.
“No, the bosses want you to print it out and go upstairs.” She nodded and tilted her head. “You might want to put on another layer of makeup, though—you look like you haven’t slept in years.”
“Ugh! I was up all night writing this report!” I dug a mirror out of my purse. “Why do they want me to bring the report to them? I thought that was your job.”
“Oh, they want more than just the report.” Jessica raised her eyebrows and smirked. “This will be a presentation.”
“A presentation!?” My jaw fell open. “I don’t have anything prepared—I don’t have any slides!”
“You’ve got an hour.” Jessica looked at her watch. “Well, less than that now.”
“Crap!” I hurriedly turned on my laptop and tapped my foot as I waited for it to boot up.
They want me to present the freaking report? Oh my god! Why didn’t she tell me that yesterday? I’ve never given a presentation—oh no, what if I struggle like I did during my interview?
Chapter Four
Erik
Yesterday
“Come on, bro. You can do ten more reps.” I hovered over my brother, Olsen, and motioned for him to push the barbell up towards me.
“Fuck, I shouldn’t have added those extra ten pounds.” He groaned and held the weight up when his arms were extended.
“You got this—new record. Keep going.” I smiled and held my hands under the bar to spot him in case he lost his grip.
“Okay, ten more!” Olsen grunted and started pumping the iron with a renewed vigor.
Olsen was nearly exhausted by the time he got the weight up the final time, and I had to help him position it on the bar. As soon as he was done, it was my turn. I took his place and started pressing the weight above my head as he spotted me. We spent some time on the dumbbells once we were done with our bench presses, and then finished our workout with a round of cardio. The sun wasn’t even up yet, and we were both pumped to start the day. We showered, got dressed, and took the elevator from the company gym to the upstairs penthouse where our offices were located.
“What’s first on the agenda today?” Olsen looked over at me as I scanned through my tablet.
“We’ve got that meeting with Angelina, the woman from New York.” I tapped on my calendar and let him see the screen.
“Ah yeah, that’s the chick that used to run that nightclub or whatever.” Olsen nodded and scrolled to look at the rest of his calendar.
“Club Infinite Fantasy.” I tapped the screen and pulled up the profile I put together about Angelina. “Some sort of sex club, I think. There isn’t much information about the club itself, but it closed after some pretty horrific shit went down.”
“Yeah, I don’t know if I want to get in business with someone like that.” O
lsen shook his head back and forth. “Even if she is friends with Quintin Stone.”
“If we’re going to get traction in New York and open a new office there next year, we’ll need Quintin’s help. He knows all the right people.” I shrugged and stared at the elevator as it opened.
“I guess we can hear her pitch at least.” Olsen stepped off the elevator and started walking towards his office.
My brother and I had been running Viking Developments for almost a decade. It started when we went back to the neighborhood we grew up in after college and saw nothing but run down buildings where all of our childhood memories were forged. The corner grocery store had boards over the windows. The local theater was covered in spray paint. Even our old elementary school had been shut down. Those weren’t uncommon sights in the South Side of Chicago, and we found other people who were interested in the same restoration projects we were. At the time, we didn’t call it gentrification, but once the media popularized the term, it became unanimous with what we were doing. It also proved to be quite lucrative.
It was pretty easy to buy run down buildings and flip them into something useful, but the real money was in converting entire neighborhoods. If we could make it attractive enough for people to move in, they brought new money to what was previously decay. The hipsters didn’t seem to mind being a few streets removed from a horrible crime rate, as long as they could live in our illusion of a historical neighborhood—slapped with a fresh coat of paint and a nice price tag. Once the hipsters moved in and started spending money, we were able to buy up more property and keep the renovations going.
“It’s time for your first meeting. Jessica is sending her up now.” My secretary, Claudia, poked her head into my office.
“All right, go tell Olsen and let’s meet in the conference room.” I stood up from my desk and started walking towards the door.
“Hello, Mr. Rourke—and Mr. Rourke. I’m Angelina.” A beautiful blonde in high heels and a skin-tight red dress walked into the conference room.
“Yeah, don’t call us both by the same name. It gets too confusing. I’m Erik. This is Olsen.” I stood up and extended my hand. “It’s nice to meet you. Quintin Stone said you had a proposal for us?”
“I do.” She sat down at the conference table and pulled a tablet out of her purse. “Do I need a password to connect my tablet to your projector?”
“Nah, just hop on the WiFi network. The password is Viking.” I chuckled and leaned back in my chair.
“Awesome, thank you.” Angelina typed on her tablet and then the projector lit up with an image of a club. “This is Hal’s Pub. It’s not far from where you’ve been working, and I’d like you to help me buy it.”
“I’ve looked at it a couple of times.” Olsen nodded and smirked. “But the owner isn’t really interested in selling it.”
“Leave that part to me.” Angelina flipped to the next slide on her presentation. “I also want the two buildings on either side of it.”
“Okay.” I looked at Olsen and then turned my attention to Angelina. “But that’s not going to be cheap and it doesn’t really fit our business model. We don’t like to hop around. We expand in a circle and if we can’t buy the property between the neighborhood we’re renovating and the pub, it’s pretty much useless.”
“Not to me.” Angelina shook her head and flipped to the next slide. “Especially when I turn it into Club Endless Fantasy.”
“I thought it was Infinite Fantasy?” Olsen raised his eyebrows. “Wasn’t that the name of the place in New York?”
“It was—I see you’ve done your research.” Angelina looked at Olsen and smiled. “But this is going to be something a little different. I used to be content just delivering whatever fantasy the moment called for, but now I want to focus on lifelong commitments.”
“So this club isn’t just going to be prostitution with a fancy label?” Olsen tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “Because that’s sure what Club Infinite Fantasy sounded like.”
“No, everything I do is with a purpose, and I was content with what I did at Club Infinite Fantasy, but Club Endless Fantasy will be even better. Isn’t that what life should be with the one you love—the one you marry?” Angelina looked towards me.
“Interesting.” I reached out and tapped the table as I pondered her words. “An upscale dating service. I guess that could work.”
“Oh no, not a dating service.” Angelina instantly scoffed. “I pick the partners and I’m never wrong.”
“Intriguing.” Olsen leaned forward. “But how do you avoid disastrous mistakes?”
“You remember the Soulmate app, right?” Angelina flipped to the next slide, outlining the historic rise—and equally historic fall—of the aforementioned app.
“Yep. It was a crock of shit as far as I’m concerned.” Olsen turned towards me. “We both tried it and got nothing.”
“Over the last year, I’ve been working with Violet, the woman who designed the original app. I already had a hacked version that I modified, but now I have one that is even better than the original.” Angelina flipped to the next slide, showing a partnership agreement with PrinceSoft, the company that originally released Soulmate.
“That still doesn’t change the fact it doesn’t work.” I nodded to Olsen, reiterating his point. “Otherwise we’d both be married to our soulmates right now.”
“It actually does work.” Angelina flipped to the next slide, which had a picture of Olsen and me. “The problem is that Violet put a lot of restrictions on the original release because she didn’t realize how well it worked.”
“You’re about to flip the slide and show us our soulmates?” I looked nervously at Olsen and back to Angelina.
“No.” Angelina put down her table. “That’s the end of my presentation, for now.”
“If it works, prove it.” Olsen motioned with his hand towards Angelina. “Open up the app and find my soulmate.”
“You’re not ready, but if you agree to help me turn Hal’s Pub and the two surrounding buildings into Club Endless Fantasy, I will reveal your soulmate to you—both of you.” Angelina looked to me. “Plus, I already know what you two like.”
“Oh, is that so?” I chuckled and smirked. “Tell us. Or is that a secret too?”
“You’re both proud narcissists. You love yourselves and truthfully, each other, more than you’ve ever loved a woman.” Angelina smiled and nodded.
“Wow, you come in here to ask for money and then you insult us? If that’s how you conduct business, then I’m done.” Olsen put his hands on the table and started to stand.
“I also know about your affinity for virgins—sharing them—taking their innocence together.” Angelina’s smile faded into a cold stare.
“What?” Olsen immediately dropped into his seat.
There’s no way anyone knows about that. We’ve paid every girl we’ve shared more than enough money to buy her silence.
“Okay, we’re done here.” I shook my head and motioned to Olsen. “Let’s go.”
“Hold on.” Olsen swallowed hard and locked eyes with Angelina. “Are you saying that Club Endless Fantasy would cater to that—virgins for us to share?”
“Olsen, that’s enough. We aren’t discussing that with her and we’re not financing this club.” I reached out and grabbed my brother’s arm.
“No.” Angelina shook her head quickly. “What I’m going to give you is the last virgin you’ll ever share, and the one that will be eager to keep that fantasy going forever. The reason you throw away your virgins when you’re done with them is because there’s no connection. You get what you want and then you look for the next one. It isn’t their virginity that draws you to them—you’re looking for something, and you never find it. The girl that you’re meant to be with will have no problem being shared—and that will be her Endless Fantasy.”
“Okay.” I put my hands flat on the table as I realized that my brother wasn’t going to stop discussing it, which meant I was in the
conversation whether I liked it or not. “Let’s say we believe you. Who is this girl?”
“You’ll meet her soon, bur first you have to agree to finance my club.” Angelina nodded and picked up her tablet. “Otherwise it just won’t work.”
“You’re blackmailing us.” I looked at Olsen. “She’s blackmailing us with something that probably doesn’t even exist. Come on, bro. You can see through this, right?”
“I don’t know…” Olsen looked back at me and I saw genuine interest in his eyes. “What’s the harm? We’re going to eventually want to buy that place anyway, right?”
For fuck’s sake. I’ve seen that look in his eyes before. He’s not going to let this go.
“Fine, we’ll finance your club.” I exhaled sharply and shook my head. “At least we get a virgin out of it, right?”
“You’ll get more than that.” Angelina’s face spread into a smile again.
“We’ll see.” I growled and sighed angrily.
Later that day
“Angelina has to be a con artist, bro.” I sat across from my brother, staring as he worked on his computer. “Someone told her our secret and now she’s using it against us.”
“I don’t know about that.” Olsen turned his computer screen towards me. “I’ve been digging into this Club Infinite Fantasy. Check this out—I looked up the news article about the incident that happened right before it shut down.”
“And?” I turned my attention to the screen.
“So, the original article didn’t mention any names, but I’ve been sending emails all morning to a few of the investigators we’ve used over the years. I finally got the original police report that doesn’t have the names redacted. Bro, one of them was Quintin Stone.” Olsen pointed to his screen.
“What?” I felt my jaw fall open. “Seriously?”
Club Endless Fantasy: Reverse Harem Romance (Haremworld Book 8) Page 3