“I told you I wanted the electrostatic precipitator installed no later than the end of the month, so why the fuck was my order canceled?”
Lynx knows me better than anyone does. He’s been on my payroll since my inaugural year, and we’ve been friends even longer than that, but going above my head like this is outside of his pay scale.
Lynx hits a generous-tipping patron with a flirty wink before cranking his head my way. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t cancel anything.”
“The electrostatic precipitator that was to be installed in the Lidny pub next weekend.” My voice is harsh, and my temper is frayed. “Someone canceled it.”
His laughter frays my mood further. “It wasn’t me. I’m not fucking stupid. I don’t want to die.”
“Then who canceled it?” I can’t think of a single person dumb enough to go against me when it comes to something like this.
Except perhaps one.
The air dampens with an incoming storm as the hairs on my nape prickle. I peer past Lynx, my body’s awareness of its mate’s closeness still strong despite the amount of alcohol I’ve forced through my veins over the past thirty hours, just as the voice from my dreams floats through my ears. “That would be me.”
Emerson is at the end of the bar, mixing cocktails and pulling beers like she owns the place. Her presence commands the attention of everyone in the space, and she has a lineup of patrons desperate to be served by her.
Shockingly, not all of them are male.
She is a girlie girl as much as she is a sexpot.
Tension spikes when our eyes lock, and electricity courses through my body. I should hate how her presence instantly places my defenses on the back foot, but I don’t.
I can’t let her know that, though, or she will eat me alive. Instead, I try to downplay her craved yet unexpected arrival, certain it will end in disappointment.
I lost count of the number of hours I wasted watching the entry doors of this very club, awaiting her arrival.
I didn’t name my first establishment Ember’s for no reason. I wanted Emerson to know how badly I wanted her.
How badly I still want her.
The honesty of my inner monologue keeps my expression impassive when Emerson says, “The outfitter was charging you double for a subpar unit.” She hands a patron one of our most requested drinks—the Ember Fury—before she serves another client, still explaining. “That’s the thing about looking preppy.”
I scoff, disgusted by her analogy. Preppy boys aren’t her type. She likes men who are rough around the edges and completely under her control.
“They think they can charge more by announcing it isdesigner.” She air quotes her last word after wiping her sticky hands down her barmaid’s apron. The drink, named in honor of her hair and fiery attitude, is so popular because we use fresh tangerines instead of bottled juice. “I got a better unit for half the price.” Her eyes mist as they stray to me. “The new manufacturer will install it as per your request by the end of business next weekend.”
I purchased the electrostatic precipitator for Emerson’s mother’s bar. Although doctors doubt Inga’s cancer diagnosis resulted from working in a smoke-filled environment for three decades, I wasn’t as convinced. It’s too late to adjust the harm that has already occurred to Inga’s lungs, but it will lessen the chance of Emerson facing the same horrifying diagnosis, and that is all I care about.
I tell a patron I’ll be with him in a minute when he grunts about me standing in a high-traffic zone and not matching the workload of my staff before I ask the most obnoxious question I’ve ever muttered. “What are you doing here, Emerson?”
She takes my hard tone in stride. “Working.” She winks before she pulls a beer for the patron pissed that he finally reached the front of the line only to be ignored. “Unlike you.”
Her hip bump is playful, but it does little to shift my confusion.
“You got paid.” Even with my GPA smashed from too much liquor, I know this because when Kolya couldn’t get the payment approved by my grandfather’s solicitors without documented proof by a medical professional that we had consummated our vows, I transferred the payment from my personal account five minutes later.
“I did.” Emerson’s face screws up, switching her features from sexy to cute.
Her expression matches mine.
I swear we’ve already had this conversation.
I shake my head, ridding it of the confusion clumped there when Emerson says. “But I organized a replacement electrostatic precipitatorafterreturning the funds to your account, so I figured I should get a job to help pay for it.” She flashes Lynx a grateful smile that he accepts too readily for me not to veer my fist toward his face the instant we close. “And Lynx was generous enough to offer me one.”
“So that’s why you’re here? For a job?” I hate the devastation in my voice even more than I hate that she went to Lynx instead of me.
Lynx was there when we dated, but not in this essence. He was never the man she ran to when she needed help. Once, only I had that privilege.
