?
The noise in the bar was steady: quiet conversations, the faint clatter of glass, a worn-out rock song barely holding a tune. Nothing fancy. Just threadbare booths, scuffed floors, and a fried-food haze.
It was a far cry from The Blackwell Room, and maybe that’s exactly why Dan picked it.
He slid a bourbon across the table with a grin that said he knew the answer. “So, let me get this straight. You hired her?”
Gideon gripped the tumbler, the cool weight grounding in his hand. He took a slow sip, letting the silence do the work.
Dan whistled under his breath and leaned back, settling in like this conversation wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
“You. Mr. No-Mistakes. Mr. Every-Move-Is-a-Twelve-Step-Chess-Game. You hired the woman who’s been living rent-free in your head since the night you met her. At your own club. Where you’ll see her every night.”
He didn’t need to raise his voice. That was never Dan’s way. His tone dropped instead. Calm. Deliberate. “Tell me you see the problem.”
Gideon didn’t respond. Just took another measured sip.
Dan leaned in again, his elbows on the table, the edge creeping in now. “This isn’t only about attraction, and you know it. You could’ve sent her across the city with a glowing reference and never looked back.”
He paused, watching him. “But you didn’t.”
Gideon’s silence stretched thin. “She was the most qualified candidate,” he said finally, the words cleaner than the truth.
Dan gave a short laugh, low and unimpressed. “Yeah? And I’m a monk.”
He shook his head once, smile gone now. “Don’t tell me this was strategy. You hired the one woman who rattles you. That’s not business. That’s something else.”
Gideon’s jaw worked, but he didn’t reply.
“Didn’t think so,” Dan muttered, lifting his glass like a man toasting a mistake in real time. He took a drink, then added, “You don’t mix business with pleasure. That’s your whole brand, man. But this? You just threw a match into your own damn oil reserve.”
Gideon’s voice dropped. “She can handle the job.”
“That’s not the question,” Dan said. “The question is, can you handle her?”
Silence stretched.
Dan leaned back again, eyes glittering with amusement. He raised his glass once more. “To chaos, then.”
Perfect.
Gideon clinked his glass out of reflex, but the words lodged somewhere deeper than expected.
Because this wasn’t the calculated move he usually made. It wasn’t tidy. It wasn’t smart.
It was something else entirely.
And for the first time in years, he couldn’t tell whether he was playing the game or being played by it.
?
Gideon left the bar, but the conversation didn’t leave him. Dan’s words looped in his mind, needling at the edges of his control, pulling at something he didn’t want to name.
So instead of going home, instead of lying in bed and letting the tension chew through him, he went to the one place that demanded more from his body than his thoughts ever could.
When his thoughts wouldn’t shut up, he let his fists do the talking.
Not with words. Not with strategy.
