I had control of the interview, but Adrian had that damn trump card of being the interviewee, not the interviewer. And on top of that…
He could see the internal turmoil I felt speaking to him, being around him. He might have been a man of power who used his title and position to sleep with other employees, but he wasn’t an idiot. In one respect, I agreed with him—luck was actually a minimal role in getting to where he was.
It was a weird thing to say for a guy who could be a domineering asshole, but he was actually a great listener.
He just used that skill for selfish, wicked intent.
What might be, I wondered, if he ever found someone worth using that skill of listening for more selfless, more altruistic reasons.
It was never really a question if I was going to Adrian’s office. I could hem and haw about how bad an idea it was, how I’d need to be my utmost professional, how I needed to expect Adrian to try to seduce me, but at the end of the day, as a business journalist, you always went where the heat and pressure were the greatest. If you couldn’t handle it, that was fine, there were plenty of other careers for it.
I found myself just outside his office within thirty minutes. I braced myself for Adrian to give some glib remark about how I had taken so long, how if I really cared about the story, I would have camped outsideRubyand been there within ten minutes. But instead, I found something interesting.
Nothing.
As in, Adrian wasn’t there at the moment, so I had nothing to do but sit in some chairs outside his office. His secretary was very nice, an older woman with graying hair, probably in her early fifties, but she spoke little and had clearly been well trained not to speak beyond general courtesies and delivering basic information. I gave up asking questions about the first follow-up; I had to save myself for Adrian, and in any case, the secretary of a CFO was not a great source.
Especially an employed secretary.
I waited there for a good twenty minutes. It was getting to the point where I wondered if Adrian was playing a mind game, making me wait outside his office as long as he’d waited for me to arrive. Except I never heard him moving in the office; I didn’t see any movement of shadows that suggested there was someone inside. I didn’t hear any phone calls or conversations inside, not even a keyboard typing away.
I wasn’t rude enough to stand up and look in myself, but I strongly suspected Adrian wasn’t even in his office. If he wasn’t there, then?—
“Ah, Delilah Reyes.”
I turned and gulped. Gone was the professional outfit Adrian had worn at our last meeting, a gray suit with a white button-down. In fact, he didn’t even have a button-down on; the diamond cufflinks were probably in his office or his bedroom somewhere.
In their place were a black polo shirt and gray pants, showing off an extremely well-developed and honed physique. Veins ran down his biceps and made spiderwebs across his forearms, and though he had a shirt on, his pecs and broad shoulders were so much more clearly visible with what he had on.
Inappropriate thoughts of what those muscular arms and hands could do to me bounced around in my brain. I tried to clear them away and remind me that Adrian could have shown up shirtless and I’d still be a professional… but if my body was reacting like this to simply seeing his forearms and half his biceps, I shuddered to think how I’d behave if I saw more of his clothes off.No, do your job, Delilah! You are better than this.
“I see that you don’t believe in casual Fridays,” he said with a chuckle. Too confident a chuckle. He’d already gotten what he wanted, seeing me in person.
“I always dress for my job, you never know where you’re going to have to look presentable,” I said. I had on a red sports jacket, black pants, black shoes, and a white button-down. I wasn’t lying. I always wanted to be the best-dressed person in the room so that no one could accuse me of trying to seduce anyone.
Funny how the motivations differ, but you and he share the same interest for desire.
“I see,” Adrian said. “I know I said come to my office. But we already did that. I want to do our next interview elsewhere. Come.”
It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t even a command. It was just an obvious statement, like saying gambling was legal in Las Vegas. There was no option to obey or defy, only acknowledge the reality of the next step.
“And where is elsewhere?”
“You will see,” Adrian said.
We got to some elevators after going down a couple of different hallways. Adrian held his hand out, as if escorting me into the open elevator doors. I stepped through and put my back against the far wall; I knew there was a decent chance I’d be touched, and I wanted to delay that moment as long as possible. Still, I couldn’t help but notice I gradually moved forward as the elevator rose.
By the time the elevator stopped—which took several seconds, enough to make me think we’d gone to the top ofRuby—I was inches away from Adrian. He looked back at me, smirked, and then stepped forward. Immediately, the cool winter air of Vegas made me wish I’d brought a thicker jacket. So we were… outside?
“Welcome to my penthouse, Delilah,” he said. “The four brothers get four directions. Cassius gets south, overlooking the majority of the Vegas Strip. I get east, towering over Las Vegas Boulevard. Dante gets north, facing the rougher parts of town. And Lucas gets west—a direction he specifically requested so that he could think. Curious, but ultimately it works for all of us.”
“Four penthouses,” I said, “four brothers. And you guys had no fighting over who got what?”
“There was some minor bickering, but we’re all happy with what we have.”
Was he? Knowing how Adrian had reacted to the questions about King of Diamonds, I had my suspicions that wasn’t quite true.
But I could barely think before Adrian put a hand on the small of my back and guided me to the railing. It wasn’t so low as to be inappropriate, but it definitely wasn’t the patronizing yet ultimately innocent touch many older men put on me.
