“You can go,” I tell him, pointing toward the door. “You shouldn’t have to pay for parking since you weren’t here long.”
“Babe…”
“Get home safe. Maybe I’ll talk to you in three to five business days, once you apologize for being a gigantic asshole just now. I was atwork.”
He doesn’t make a move to stand, so I climb off of the bed and head for the door of my bedroom, holding it open and gesturing with my hand for him to get the hell out of my apartment.
“Goodnight, Ethan,” I hiss.
“Soph, come on,” he pleads. “It’s late, we should just go to bed.”
“I’m going to. You can, in your own bed at your own house.” I shrug. “But you’re not sleeping here.”
My mom taught me four things that will always stick with me:
1. Never wear a red lip with a pink shoe.
2. Blueberries are the key to avoiding a painful wine hangover.
3. The most powerful weapon in the world sits between your legs.
4. If you let a man get away with disrespecting you once, he will take it as an invitation to do it over and over again.
I’ll be damned if I’m going to call her and tell her that I sat here and took it while my boyfriend shamed me for actually enjoying sex.
There’s an almost three-minute-long standoff between Ethan and I while I stare him down until he finally picks his shirt up from the floor next to my bed and climbs out, slipping the shirt back over his head as he walks out of the room with a huff. I shut the bedroom door hard behind him, locking it, and I flop backward onto the now empty bed. I let my body sink into the mattress, surrounded by my lavender cotton sheets.
I wonder how that conversation would have gone if it had been Eric here, instead, and Ethan had been the man that I met on vacation. Would there have even been a conversation about it at all? He didn’t seem to care about the fact that my job is what it is; he only seemed concerned for me. His eyes looked the same as they did after that night in the alley when my arm got scratched up.
My hand absently traces over the now unmarred skin of my forearm, remembering the way that it felt when Eric cleaned out the cuts that I didn’t even complain to him about.
I’ll be back for you real soon, Sugar.
A part of me almost hopes you meant that.
SEVENTEEN
Davis
I probably should have followed my instinct last night, hauled Noelle over my shoulder and carried her ass out of that club. Lord knows I wanted to, but I know when to pick my battles and which ones should be chosen at which time. I’ve got time.
“I’m sorry sir, can you repeat that?” The guy on the phone asks. For the second fucking time.
“You’re hearing me correctly,” I tell him. “I want every VIP table, every night, for the next three weeks.”
“Sir, that would run you a minimum of...one hundred and sixty-eight thousand dollars,” he tells me as Rowan steps into my office, my coffee and lunch orders in her hand.
“Cash or check?”
Rowan’s brow furrows as she throws me a questioning thumbs up, and I nod in response, holding a finger up to her to tell her to wait just a minute.
“Sir, I—”
“Just get it booked and let me know how you want the money.”
Setting the phone down on the switch, I reach for the to-go container sitting on my desk and give Rowan a nod. “Thanks, darlin’. What can I do for you?”
“Colt sent me to check in,” she says. “You’ve been locked in here all day.”
