She stopped me at the top of the stairs in the basement, smiling spitefully as she looked over the soon-to-be-packed room. “Remember, Lily. your job behind the bar was only for the summer. If I were you, I wouldn’t get too comfortable with this one either.”
And then she left, making her way back to the bar while I stood on the stairs wondering what she meant. It was something I stored away for later though. I had slightly more important things to worry about. Like finding Dean, and talking to him before he did anything to James. But as I walked into the back room, where the fighters were being told who they would be versing, I found that he wasn’t there.
As the night went on, and I helped only a handful of fighters, I kept an eye out for Dean anyway, just in case he decided to show up late.
“Antonio gave Dean the night off,” Seb said, pulling me from my thoughts as I cleaned the cut on his chest. His opponent had shoved him into the barrier.
I straightened, focusing on the wound. “What made you think I was looking for Dean?”
He chuckled. “Because no one else down here is that interesting to you or would have you this distracted. Except maybe me.”
“I’m not distracted.”
“You’ve been wiping at this cut for two minutes. The bleeding stopped five cotton balls ago,” he said, gesturing to the discarded cotton balls on the coffee table.
“Oh...”
“What happened at the cocktail party anyway? Dean won’t tell me anything.”
The words hit harder than Seb had meant them to. But at the same time, I felt guilty for telling Kira and Jane about the kiss already. Dean clearly wasn’t into sharing those details. And maybe never planned to.
Or I was just overthinking things and needed to speak with him first before I jumped to even more conclusions...
“Nothing happened,” I said, smiling quickly when Seb looked at me skeptically.
“You sure?” He tugged his shirt on before settling back into the couch cushions, watching me with suspicion in his dark brown eyes. “Dean has always been a private guy, but I have never seen him smug about a party before.”
That settled my nerves a little. He didn’t kiss and tell so maybe he was waiting to talk to me about it too.
I shrugged and shook my head. “I don’t know what to tell you, Seb. Nothing happened.”
“Absolutely nothing?”
I began tidying up, to avoid making eye contact with him again. “Well, we mingled with mob bosses and drank cocktails, but that’s about it.”
He paused for a second, a long second, and I made the mistake of looking back over my shoulder to figure out why he had gone so quiet. I found him watching me carefully before his eyes narrowed.
“What?” I laughed.
He leaned forward, pointing a finger at me as he tried to keep his expression serious. “I’m on to you, missy.”
Chapter 47
Dean
James Henderson was a reputable real estate agent and businessman, according to his business profile.
He lived in a two-story, five-bedroom house in Cobble Hill with his wife, Barbara, and his three kids, Louise, Beth, and Joseph. The red Porsche he drove was a Coupe and was a purchase he made for his 48th birthday; to reduce his stress over an oncoming midlife crisis and to compensate for the tiny dick between his legs.
He had two Instagram accounts; one for family, the other to keep in touch with all his mistresses. The common theme amongst the women he followed on that second account was that they were all young. Similar in age to Lily.
Then there was his Facebook account; a smorgasbord of personal information ripe for the taking all because he failed to make it private. Especially his location. His most recent post was about his recent success selling a property. In celebration, he had taken the rest of the workday off to go play golf at his favorite golf club with a couple of his rich pals.
But not before making an advance on Lily at the office this morning.
Through the side window of the agency, directly in line of sight to the front desk, I watched as he approached her. He brushed her hair aside while she froze on the spot from the contact. She refused to look at him as he traced a finger over her necklace, and then dipped it into the collar of her shirt and peered down with a smirk on his face.
It took every ounce of my own self-control not to burst through the office doors and crush his skull under one of the large planters in the foyer. See how smug he would be then with his brains spilled across the clean, tile floors. But I needed to wait, to buy my time as I figured out what I wanted to do with the prick after my suspicions of how he treated Lily were confirmed.
