“She learned it all from me.” I smile as our dinner is placed in front of us. “You do have more details, right?”
“Stop f**king with him.” Tyler laughs. “Aaron, just tell her everything. Then she’ll shut up. If not, I’ll shut her up.”
My heel connects with his shin.
“Bitch,” he hisses.
I smile sweetly.
“Well,” Aaron begins, a smile teasing his lips, “it’s not a huge building. But there’s a fair-sized bar with a dance floor and plenty of space for tables. I have a designer working on something now—she’ll have it by the weekend—and it should take around three weeks to remodel. I presume that’s enough time to give notice at your current job.”
I swallow my salmon and point my fork in his direction. “I haven’t agreed to anything yet, buddy, and that’s not enough information. Cocktail bar—are we talking mixers? Shots? Getting those guys in who can do those fancy-ass cocktail-shaking routines? Which, by the way, I wouldn’t be averse to. Just putting that out there.”
I can feel Tyler shooting daggers at me across the table.
“Yes, I’d be looking to hire some of those ‘guys who can do fancy-ass cocktail-shaking routines,’” he says with a smile. “Really, your job would be to run it. It would be full time but flexible. Your hours would be based entirely around your modeling schedule. As long as you can get in twice a week for several hours to do schedules and orders, you’ll be paid a strong salary.”
“A strong salary? That happens in bartending?” I snort.
Dayton nudges me and passes me a slip of paper. I grab it and look down. My eyes widen the second I see the number on the paper.
“Are you f**king serious? For being a bar manager?”
Forty thousand dollars a year is not a normal f**king salary for that shit. I know that much.
“I’ll expect you to run it and make it the top cocktail bar in the city. There’s a room upstairs for functions with a separate bar. I believe you can hook the young, college crowd. You’re confident and you’re hot. You’re the perfect manager for this.”
I push my fish around the plate. “Wow. Um. Really? This isn’t a joke?”
“No joke,” Dayton says quietly. “Donny is an ass. A lovable ass, but an ass. He’s always in a shit mood whenever you ask for time off for modeling even though he knew the conditions when he hired you. You won’t have to deal with pervy-ass guys staring at your tits all the time. Just Tyler.”
My lips twitch. “Seriously? I could model and do this?”
“No one is making you. Or forcing you.” Dayton shoots Aaron a look and gets a grin in return. “It’s a big choice, so take a few days to think it over. It won’t open for, like, three or four weeks at least.” She leans in toward me. “I knew you’d freak a little,” she whispers. “Take as long as you need to decide. You don’t have to do this.”
I nod. “Um, okay. I’ll think about it for a few days. I really want to, but it’s a huge decision.”
It doesn’t escape my notice that Tyler has been silent throughout our whole exchange. I can still feel his eyes burning into me. Luckily, Aaron accepts my response and the subject is dropped. We swiftly move onto Dayton’s latest shoot and the fact that her latest project had her top of her class.
I stay silent throughout the majority of the conversation, happy to listen to her describe a job she loves with true passion. It’s so amazing to see and hear after so many years of seeing her working as an escort—something she coveted for the control and not the job. Although she doesn’t regret her decision to be a call girl, I know she loves photography.
It’s easy to see when she’s the one behind a camera, shooting you.
When Tyler joins the conversation, his words are short and clipped. They add a heavy level of tension over us all. One that almost makes me want to shrink back a little—it’s powerful and overwhelming. And I know somehow it’s because of me.
Was it really the cocktail-shaking-guy thing? Because wow.
Dayton shoots me several confused looks, ones I mirror, throughout the rest of dinner. Eventually, we pay, Tyler wordlessly covering my half of the dinner and throwing my money back at me. Literally throwing it.
I snatch it back up and shove it into my purse. My eyes narrow at him. What the hell is he playing at?
I stalk out of the restaurant behind him and go to my car. Neither of us says a word as he gets into his and drives out of the parking lot. I follow him out and realize too late that he’s heading toward my apartment.
If he thinks he’s getting himself into my pants tonight, he can go f**k himself.
I pull up next to him in the parking lot and get out. He’s leaning against the hood of his car, his hands in his pockets, his chin against his chest. He’s marginally illuminated by the streetlight, but most of his face is hidden by the darkness.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
He looks up. “What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with you?”
“Several things, but that’s not the issue here.” I dump my purse on the hood of his car and put my hands on my hips. “Are you having a male period or something? Because your mood changed quicker than a f**king traffic light at rush hour.”
“Excuse me for being a little put out when my date started talking about fancy-ass cocktail guys or some bullshit.”
“It wasn’t a date.” I stop. Was it? No. “That wasn’t a date! That was a f**king business proposition.”
“A date disguised as one.” He clamps his jaw shut and pushes off the car. “That was the whole bloody point of the night. A date you didn’t know was a date.”
I rub my temples. “Why would you do that when you know how I feel about dating?”
“That’s why I did it.” He runs his fingers through his hair.
“Well, if that’s the way you treat your ‘dates,’ I’ll be rethinking Saturday night.”
His arms shoot out. His hands clamp around my wrists and he pulls me into him. His fingers stroke my jaw, and he tilts my head back so I’m looking at him.
“Don’t even think about it,” he says tightly. “You’re going to the party with me on Saturday whether you f**king like it or not.”
I narrow my eyes. “Last I remembered, you weren’t the boss of me.”
“You weren’t saying that when you were screaming my name.”