“Pretty? They’re freakin’ gorgeous! Seriously, are you letting him grovel?”
“There’s nothing to grovel for.”
“Okay. Not having this conversation. Call me when your head is screwed on properly. I love you. Goodbye.”
My jaw drops and I stare at the phone.
The bitch just hung up on me.
Chapter Four
“Ms. Lopez, you’ll be dining in one of the private rooms upstairs. Please follow me.” The host leads me up a short flight of stairs and toward a white door with gentle gold embellishments. “Someone will be along for your order shortly. Your drink is waiting for you.”
“Thank you.” I wait until he disappears before opening the door. The room is empty—which means my client is late. Fantastic. Just what I need.
I pour a glass of wine from the bottle on the table and set my purse by my feet.
“Dayton.”
I freeze. “Please tell me this is a bad coincidence and not something you organized.”
Aaron says nothing as he takes the seat opposite me. “We need to talk.”
“We’ve spoken plenty over the last few days, don’t you think?”
“Not nearly enough.” He fixes me with a hard stare. “Sit down, Dayton. You’re not going anywhere.”
“Really?”
“The door is locked from the outside.” His lips quirk. “And on my orders, it won’t be unlocked until one hour from now.”
“Let me guess. Your uncle owns this restaurant, and that’s why you’re playing caveman.”
“I could walk into any restaurant in Seattle and have a private room booked quicker than it takes you to blink.” He looks up at me, and I feel the truth in his words. “Now, you can stand while we talk or you can sit. I really don’t mind, but we’re most definitely talking. You’re not leaving this room until I’m finished.”
“I think I’ve made it perfectly clear I don’t want to talk to you.”
“And I’ve made it perfectly clear you’re going to, and we both know who is going to get their way. You’d be much more comfortable sitting down, I’d imagine.”
I sit back down and take a deep breath. “This is underhanded, you realize that?”
He shrugs one shoulder, leaning back casually on his chair. “I’m not above playing dirty to get you back. I’m not above anything to get you.”
I take a long sip from my glass. “What are you doing in Seattle?”
“That’s the middle of the story.”
“Fine. Why don’t you start from the beginning? I’m always good for a fairytale.”
He chuckles lowly, and I feel it down my spine. Fuck you, body. Fuck you.
“When you left, after…” He pauses.
“After I discovered you’d been lying to me for weeks.”
“Ah, it wasn’t really lying.”
“It was a lie of omission, and that’s still a lie.” I hold his gaze for a few beats. “But we’re not discussing your idiocy, so please continue.”
“When you left, I confronted Naomi, and eventually she admitted she organized the party deliberately. She was trying to make my life difficult for me, and she’s succeeded.” He runs his finger around the rim of his glass. “I spent the next few days in Paris doing business and headed back to New York. A divorce agreement was already drawn up—my final offer—and if she didn’t sign it, we’d go to court and she’d get a hell of a lot less. She agreed. Dad flew her into the city and we signed the papers.”
“Congratulations,” I repeat my halfhearted sentiment from the other night.
“And then I fired her.”
“Excuse me?”
Aaron smirks and loosens his tie. “Our lawyer, Mr. Carlisle Sr., pulled out the documents and I took over the company. Then I fired her. She no longer has a place at Stone Advertising or modeling.”
“Making your mark quickly, aren’t you? Starting off as ruthless as you intend to carry on?”
He rests his elbows on the table and leans forward. “She f**ked with you, Dayton. I don’t take kindly to people f**king with the most important person in my life.”
“Are you firing yourself then? Because you f**ked with me pretty damn good too.”
His eyes darken. “I don’t need to. My punishment is my own personal pain in knowing I hurt you. Not to mention the way your eyes haunt me. I can’t close my eyes without seeing your face as you found out about her.”
“Good.” I grab my glass tightly. “I hope it hurts like a bitch.”
“Worse,” he says honestly. “Being without you is like my soul has been shredded in the most brutal way. There isn’t a second where I’m not thinking of you and the way you feel in my arms or the way you taste when your lips are against mine. Being without you is the worst kind of torture, and I brought it on entirely by myself.”
I swallow. I know, I want to say. I know because I feel that and more.
“So why are you here? In Seattle? Other than to harass me, of course.”
“I control the Seattle branch now. The person in charge here before me was all too happy to relocate to New York.”
“Happy to relocate? I’m sure he was.”
“I may or may not have convinced him a false happiness was better than no job.”
I shake my head. “You’re a bastard in and out of the boardroom.”
His lips quirk to the side. “I prefer powerful or influential, personally.”
“I’ll stick with bastard, thanks.” I meet his eyes. “You should have stayed in New York, Aaron. It would have been better for us both. You should have stayed just like you did the first time around.”
“And the first time around, I made a colossal mistake. I f**ked up. I should have come running after you and never let you out of my sight, but I was too weak to do that. I didn’t realize you were the best thing I would ever have in my life. Now I know differently. Now I know that nothing or nobody will ever compare to you, and I’m not giving you up again.”
“It’s not a choice, Aaron.”
“I’m not giving you up. Hear that, listen to it, understand it, and accept it.” His eyes are focused, his voice edged with a rawness that hits me hard. “No matter what you convince yourself, Dayton, you’re mine. Your heart and your body belong to me. You know it as well as I do.”