Nikos winked before leaving, and Honey found herself standing there for a second longer, lost in her thoughts before she locked the door after him and went to get ready for bed. Today had been a good day. A very good day.
C H A P T E R
24
IT WAS A SATURDAY NIGHT, AND INSTEAD OF ROLLING AROUND IN BED WITH A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN, Nikos spent his night drowning in paperwork with one. Nikos looked at the mountain of paperwork strewn across his desk that felt never ending before he glanced at Honey, who sat across from him, studiously reviewing each sheet. Her eyes flickered back and forth as she read each line, and a pen hung between her lips. Nikos found himself imagining Honey as a secretary in a tight blouse and pin skirt with her hair pinned up. Before he could let his mind stray to an even kinkier place, he swapped the thought away, realizing that his mind was trailing to fantasies because he was incredibly bored. Rather than focusing on the task at hand, he was imagining useless fantasies that would never come true.
“What are you going to cook for me tonight?” Nikos asked, breaking the silence. At least, this was something that could actually come true.
“I’m not your personal cook,” Honey said, rolling her eyes without looking up from her work.
“Of course, you aren’t my personal cook. A personal cook would be feeding me something different every night.”
Honey paused in her work before grabbing a balled-up piece of paper off the table and throwing it at him. It grazed his chin, and in turn, Nikos picked up one and threw it back.
“You know you’re childish, right?” Honey said as she grabbed another ball from the pile of papers they had tossed and threw it at him. Nikos laughed, amused by her antics.
“It’s my charm,” Nikos joked, and Honey rolled her eyes. “But you’re even more childish than me because you’re still doing it.”
Back and forth, paper balls were tossed across the table, and when he reached to grab another one, he realized that they were all on the floor now.
“I win,” Honey said, grinning mockingly before she stuck her tongue out at him. It was so childish and unlike her that Nikos couldn’t help but laugh again, amused by this side of Honey that usually only peeked out when they were outside of the club. The corner of Honey’s lips trembled, and to his surprise, she laughed too, with a small smile on her face. They were so caught up in their own amusement that they hadn’t even heard the door creak open until they heard a throat clear. Nikos looked up, his laugh sobering when he saw who was at the door. He resisted the urge to sigh, a habit that always happened whenever he saw her.
Rheagan leaned against the door frame with her arms crossed and a frown on her face. Her eyes roved over thepaperwork on the table, and the paper balls littered over the floor.
“The floor is really busy tonight, and all the girls are out working hard except one,” Rheagan said, pointedly looking at Honey, who lifted a brow. Not wanting things to turn bad, Nikos decided to get to the point.
“What do you want?” Nikos asked, already annoyed by Rheagan’s antics. She had a tendency to get territorial when it came down to him and the other dancers at the club, despite them not having a relationship together, and he had already heard about the fights she had gotten into with the other girls. He didn’t need Rheagan causing problems with the girls at the club, especially not with Honey, someone he hadn’t even had a sexual relationship with.
“You,” Rheagan said unabashedly, and Nikos couldn’t help but sigh now.
“Here,” Honey said as she shuffled the pile of paperwork together in front of her before passing it to him. “My performance is coming up, and I don’t want to be accused of being lazy.”
The sarcasm was clear, and Rheagan’s frown turned even deeper.
“Thank you,” Nikos told Honey gratefully, and Honey nodded before she turned to leave. When she reached the doorway, she paused, turning her sharp eyes on Rheagan, who looked both surprised and wary. Nikos watched with his shoulders tense, hoping he wouldn’t have to stop a fight.
“Do me a favor,” Honey said, eyeing Rheagan down with a dark glare. “Keep my name out of your mouth when it doesn’t need to be there.”
Instead of responding, Rheagan looked away, breaking eye contact, and Honey rolled her eyes before leaving. Nikos sighed.
“What’s your problem?” Nikos asked, wondering why she was being this way with Honey of all people. “Don’t bother Honey.”
“What? Because you like her?” Rheagan asked him suspiciously, with sharp eyes as if they were lie detectors and could see through his heart. But Nikos only chuckled as he leaned back in his seat.
“Because I’ve heard the rumors, and clearly, you haven’t,” Nikos said, thinking about the stories he had heard about Honey and her sharp claws. Theo had already told him that when Honey first started working here, some of the girls had tried messing with her because of Antonis’s favoritism, but Honey had beat down enough of those girls that most of them knew not to mess with her anymore.
Though Nikos didn’t like Rheagan in that way, he would hate for her to have to find out the hard way that Honey wasn’t someone to be messed with, and also, he didn’t want Honey to have trouble because of him.
Rheagan rolled her eyes before changing the topic. “What’s your relationship with Honey?”
“Nothing.”
“Good,” Rheagan said, smirking with triumph. “Because though I’ve never met Antonis before, some of the girls have told me about him and how he practically owns Honey. So I don’t think he would be happy if he knew you both were spending so much time together.”
“Mind your business, Rheagan,” Nikos said, annoyed that he was even having this conversation. “None of my relationships with any of the women here have anything to do with you.”
He was tired of Rheagan speaking possessively as if they were in a relationship, and the small threat in her words hadn’t escaped him. He wondered what kind of rumors she had heard about his uncle, but Nikos didn’t need to hear any warnings from her because he had already heard them loud and clear before from his uncle, and Honey was the one woman in this club who didn’t want him.
