Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 68249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
“You’re in love with her,” he said.
My world dropped away for a moment. The words I’d refused to believe, that had haunted me each night she lay in my arms, spoken out loud by someone else. “Bane,” I grunted.
“You. Are. In. Love. With. Her.”
“Get out of my office.”
Bane didn’t budge—once again, the only person in this office who didn’t jump when I asked, “How high can you jump, motherfucker?”
“Bane,” I said. “I’m not interested in—“
The fucker waved a hand to cut me off mid-sentence. “Stop it. You’re afraid because you love her and you didn’t believe in that shit until you met her.”
“Because that shit is a farce,” I said. Money made the world go round. Money and sex, and that was all there was to it.
“Except you know that’s not true anymore. You love her,” he repeated. “You love Riley, so my question to you is this: if you love her, why are you letting her walk away?”
“What the hell else should I do?” I asked, and wagged a finger at him. “Not that I’m admitting to the love part, by the way.”
“Don’t be like that,” Bane said. “And what you should do is make it happen like you’ve made everything else happen in your damn life. Show her that you want her. That she’s not just yours but that you actually fucking care.”
“She lived in my apartment for four weeks. That doesn’t scream ‘care’?”
“Dude, you made her into a charity case,” Bane replied. “She thought you were being a nice guy, or that you wanted to get in her pants. I’m no expert on how women think but damn, that seems pretty obvious to me.”
So what the hell was I supposed to do? Buy her a bouquet of roses and a box of chocolates like some cheesy Hugh Grant motherfucker? That wasn’t me. All I did was business, food, and sex. And she probably wouldn’t let me cook her a lasagna and fuck her over the kitchen counter right now, given that she’d told me not to call her.
“I dunno, man, you’re a smart dude. You’ll figure it out,” Bane said and finally pushed out of his seat.
I’d been standing rigid, my fists hurting from the tension, palms sweaty. Taking that first step toward my desk was like a robot waking up from a shut down. My joints practically creaked.
Bane watched me walk to my chair, lower myself into it. “I came to ask how you were doing on the Letterman Building and what your decision would be, but I guess that’s not going to happen anytime soon.”
“What if we didn’t buy the Letterman Building?” I asked.
“Then we won’t be opening another club or restaurant.”
“What if we didn’t open another club or restaurant?”
“Are you just going to keep repeating what I say?” Bane asked and took hold of the back of the leather chair. It squeaked under his grasp, and the corners of his lips twitched upward.
“What if we did something totally fucking different?” I said, more to myself this time.
Riley’s studio was on the market. And if it wasn’t, I’d damn well get it on the market and buy it at a steal, because those were the contacts I had, and doing this type of business was like breathing to me.
I could easily snatch up that place and give it to her. She wouldn’t accept it, of course. She’d tell me that I couldn’t buy my way back into her life or some shit. But if I bought it and opened it, hired her to run it? Surely, she couldn’t say no to that. It was her dream.
She could save up the money she needed and buy it back from me, also at a steal, and that would be it. She wouldn’t need a goddamn loan. She wouldn’t need shit except for her raw talent as a dancer.
Riley could take the place and expand. She could hire new instructors, do other dance forms, hip-hop and whatever the hell else type there was. She’d flourish.
If I couldn’t have her in my bed, I could at least show her that I cared about her goals. That she wasn’t just mine, that she was a person I cared for. Loved.
Fuck, I really do love her. Fuck. Fuck.
My thoughts had revolved around it, danced away from admitting it. I’d focused on her being mine rather than loving everything that was hers.
“Dude.”
Oh shit, Bane was still around. I looked up at him.
“You look like you’re having an aneurysm. Your eyes are spazzing out from side to side. Are you going to say anything that makes sense anytime soon?”
“No,” I replied. “I can’t talk. I have to act. There isn’t much time.”
“Right.” Bane headed for the door. “Just don’t do anything stupid.”
“Why would I do anything stupid?”
“Love does that to people,” he replied, then opened the door and slipped out into the hall. He shut it behind himself, and I stared at it. It was that same misted glass as in our conference room.