Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (111 page)

***

Many things had changed in a single week,
Nicole thought as she and Danielle came back from a night out at one of the
nearby clubs.
 

It had been refreshing to go out and just
dance with a bunch of drunken girl friends and not think about Red or anything
that came along with him.

But still, she thought, entering her old
apartment, so much had changed.

Just the other day, she’d seen the report
on TV about Red Jameson being fired by his board of directors.
 

She’d already known about it, of
course.
 
The company had had a big
meeting a couple of days prior to alert the employees about everything that was
happening.

To say that people in the office stared
at her funny lately, would have been an understatement.
 
Everywhere she went people gawked
now.
 
And sometimes they were even
bold enough to ask her what Red was doing, where he was staying, when was the
last time she’d talked to him?

Red Jameson was their version of Elvis
Presley or Tupac—a celebrity that might be anywhere in the world or nowhere
at all.

She told them the truth.
 
She had no clue where Red was now and
what he was doing.

The Rag had even run some report on him
that claimed he was the new Howard Hughes.
 
Red Jameson had gone completely insane and was now living on a tropical
island under an assumed identity with a new face given to him by a willing
plastic surgeon.

The sad part of it was, Nicole thought it
possible that the article in The Rag was accurate.
 
For all she knew, Red had made sure that
he could never be found and would never enter her life again in any way.

Mostly she told herself it was for the
best.

But most of the time, Nicole also knew it
was a lie.
 
She missed him and she
ached for him in every cell of her body—wept for the loss in deepest part
of her soul.

Nicole didn’t care if he was crazy,
didn’t care if he was bad news.
 
She
just knew that she loved him and he loved her, and hoped maybe someday he’d
figure out what something like that was truly worth.

Lately though, Nicole had started to feel
like the connection might be lost.
 
Lately, she’d started to wonder if the man she thought she loved even
truly existed, or ever had existed.

How ironic it was, then, when she and
Danielle were home from the dance club, slightly tipsy, getting ready for some
Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and a little bad reality TV before bed—that
Nicole’s cell phone rang and she instantly knew it had to do with Red.

The connection that she feared was gone,
never to return—was as alive as a downed power line, sparking and dancing
on an empty street.
 

Before she even answered, Nicole knew it
would be about Red.

“Hello,” she said into the phone, her
heart pounding like mad in her chest.

“Hello Nicole,” came the reply.
 
It wasn’t Red, though.
 
It was the man who’d helped destroy
him.
 
The voice belonged to Kane
Wright.

“Don’t ever call me again,” she
rasped.
 
“I don’t know how you got
this number—“

“Let’s dispense with the hysterics,” Kane
said gently.
 
“I’m calling because I
want to see you and speak to you.”

“I don’t have any interest in that,” she
said.

“I’ve gone out of my way not to hurt Red
Jameson because of you,” came his response in that slightly accented, cultured
voice.
 
“But if you disrespect me, I
might decide to completely crush the man instead.”

“Isn’t owning his company enough?
 
What more do you want?”

“I think we both know the answer to that,
Nicole.”

She bit her lower lip.
 
“What do you want from me?”

“Just a meeting.
 
Agree to meet with me.
 
You don’t have to do anything else.”

Danielle was watching her with wide,
concerned eyes.

“So if I meet with you, you’ll leave Red
alone?” she said.

“Please, this isn’t some Hollywood film
starring Liam Neeson,” he laughed.
 
“I’m not a movie villain, Nicole.
 
The terms are constantly changing and I make no promises.
 
But if you at least meet with me,
there’s a chance for things to work out.
 
And that’s something, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know if it’s worth it.”

“I promise I won’t bite.
 
Give me a few minutes of your precious
time, hear what I have to say.”

Nicole swallowed, knowing her answer was
probably going to change her life, and possibly Red’s too.

“Yes,” she said.

For His
Honor (For His Pleasure,
Book 4
)

By Kelly Favor

© 2012 All Rights
Reserved

Kane Wright told Nicole to meet him at
his club, Venture, located in the Meatpacking District.
 
Danielle wanted to go with her to make
sure she was safe, but

Nicole told her to stay home.

“Who will call the cops if both of us go
missing?” Nicole asked her.
 
That
shut Danielle up temporarily.

But as the taxi had pulled up outside the
apartment and Nicole readied herself to leave, Danielle stood in front of the
door. “This is a really bad idea.
 
Why are you still fighting for him, Nic?”

Why
am I still fighting for Red?

She didn’t bother trying to answer,
because there was no answer—at least, nothing that would satisfy Nicole’s
overprotective roommate.
 
Nicole was
fighting for Red because she had no choice, and because despite everything, she
still knew that he loved her and would have done it for her had the situations
been reversed.

The taxi ride was long and the
neighborhoods got worse and worse as they closed in on the address for the
club.

Finally, just when they reached the most
run down, desolate spot of all, the cab slowed and the driver announced that
they’d arrived.

Standing outside Venture, Nicole was
regretting that she didn’t have Danielle by her side.
 
The cab took off before she had a chance
to ask the driver to wait a moment until she was safely inside.

The street around her was empty, and she
was surrounded by urban decay—buildings that looked unused,
crumbling.
 
She thought there were
likely several thriving crack houses in the area.

The club itself appeared to be closed,
but she could hear the steady thump of industrial music coming from
within.
 

Palms sweaty, heart racing, Nicole tried
to open the door and found it locked.
 
She pounded on it a few times with her fist.
 
“Hello?” she called out, feeling like an
idiot.

A moment later, the door swung open and a
man in a skintight dark t-shirt stared her down.
 
He was pale, so pale that she was sure
he must be an albino.
 
Or was he
just a weird guy pretending to be an albino?
 
Either way, Nicole decided he creeped
her out in a major way.
 
His pale
eyes were like two glinting white marbles in his head.
 
“Yessssssss?” he asked with an odd,
lopsided grin.

“I’m here to see Kane Wright,” she told
him.
 

“Oh, honey,” he clucked, shaking his head
at her.
 
“I don’t think he wants to
see you.”

“He’s expecting me.”
 
She tried to stand her ground, even as
everything in her told her to just run away as fast as she could.

The albino made a screwy face as if he
really and truly couldn’t comprehend the notion that Kane Wright would want
anything to do with a girl that looked like her.
 
“If you’re wasting my time, I’m going to
make sure you regret it.”

Despite the man’s flamboyant manner,
Nicole sensed that he was a dangerous person.
 
For one thing he was muscular,
wiry—and he also looked like he’d been in a lot of altercations in his
time.
 
Pale, thick scars were
visible on his neck, his cheek, and one scar ran the length of his bicep.

“I’m not wasting your time,” she told
him.
 
“But you’re wasting Mr.
Wright’s time, and I wonder if he’d like that.”

The albino man grinned at her again, a
leering, greedy look.
 
“You better
hope you’re truly a guest of Mr. Wright’s honey.
 
For your own sake.”

She crossed her arms as he closed the
door and disappeared back inside.
 
Nicole once again considered turning around and getting the hell away
from this place, but before she could convince herself to do it, the door
opened once more.

The albino man was back, with a severely
altered attitude.
 
“We should
hurry,” he said, the grin wiped from his face.
 
“Come with me.”

Nicole tried to restrain a smile.

Inside, she could more clearly hear the
thump-thump-thump of the base from that industrial music.
 
The halls were dark and foreboding, the
dim strobe light blinking off and on, and as they walked, she was aware of
shadowy people watching her pass by.

She could feel their eyes on her,
watching her, thinking god only knew what about her.

Bare chested men, semi-naked women,
tattooed, clad in leather—these were the people that inhabited Club
Venture.
 

The albino man led Nicole into a stairwell,
and as they walked into it, she heard moans and groans and slurping sounds
bouncing and echoing off the walls.
 
The sounds came from a flight below—what must have been the
basement level.
 
It could have been
a couple or it could have been five people down there, and Nicole didn’t care
to know which it was.

They started to climb the stairs.

On the second floor, the albino stopped
and led them out of the stairwell, into another long hallway with doors on both
sides.
 
“Go all the way down to the
last door on the left,” he told her.
 
“Give a knock and Mr. Wright will let you in.”
 

She started to walk down the long
hallway.

“Bye now, honey,” he called to her.
 
“I hope to see you again real
soon.”
 
And then he flitted away.

Alone in the hallway, Nicole almost
missed her albino chaperone—but not really.
 
She walked slowly, hearing the thumping
music louder again.
 
Finally she
reached the last door on the left and knocked.

When the door opened, Kane Wright was
behind it.
  
He was wearing a
cream colored suit, his hair immaculate, smiling at her as if she were an old
friend who’d dropped by his summer house out of the blue.
 
“Nicole, my dear.
 
So good to see you.
 
Come inside, please.”

She was surprised that the room she
walked into was large, well-lit, with a white carpet and white, modern
furniture to match.
 
A window on the
left wall overlooked the inside of the dance club from above.
 
Strobe lights pulsed and flashed and a mob
of people moved almost as a single organism below them.

Although this room was removed from the
club atmosphere, it soaked it in a little just the same.
 

“Drink?” Kane offered.

She shook her head once.
 
No.

“Please, have a seat then.”
 
He motioned to one of the white
couches.
 
She sat down and felt its
immediate luxury, sank into it just enough to feel enveloped.
 

Nicole had taken great care to dress down
for this meeting.

She wanted there to be no confusion, so
she’d worn unflattering jeans, sandals, and a light gray sweater.
 
Her hair was not particularly styled and
she’d put on no makeup whatsoever.

Kane went and poured himself a drink of
some sort and then sat down across from her, affable, as he always seemed to
be.
 
“Any troubles getting here?”

She shrugged.
 
“You’ve got a strange employee working
the door, but other than that it was fine.”

“Oh,” he grinned.
 
“You must mean Jeffrey.
 
He’s nice enough once you get to know
him.
 
And as long as you don’t make
fun of him being pale.”