I was in the middle of a particularly banal conversation about golf when I saw a waitress who bore a slight resemblance to one Toni Gallagher.

She wasn’t as slim, wasn’t as pretty.

But her hair was almost the same shade of dark red, and her laugh was just as easy, just as quick and open. Not that Toni had ever laughed with me like that. I'd only been fortunate enough to hear her second-hand, when she and Isadora were discussing something amusing.

And there I was again, trapped and thinking about a woman who was so completely wrong for me.

***

Robert Townsend was only ten years older than me, but he was already completely bald.

He weighed exactly what I weighed, but he was several inches shorter and built like the broad side of a barn, solid and heavy.

We boxed sometimes at the gym, and I knew for a fact that he had a jaw like a concrete wall. And a right hook that felt like a sledgehammer wrapped in human skin. He was also one of the most brilliant men I’d ever known.

He sat across from me, sipping on a glass of bourbon as I studied the printouts he’d just finished spreading across the space in front of me.

“At this point, it’s an either/or situation.”

I nodded and continued to read the fine print, looking at Robert's estimates for five and ten years down the road. Then I looked at how much it would cost to bail these people out if we decided to do the buy out. The hotel line used to be one of the best, but bad management and some lousy customer service, complicated by the fact that they hadn’t done any major upgrades in over a decade...I whistled and rubbed at my forehead.

“This is more of a mess than I'd anticipated.”

“I told you it wouldn’t be pretty.”

I shot him a dark look. “I’m not looking for I told you so’s.” And I sure as fuck wasn't in the mood for them.

Unrepentant, Robert shrugged. We’d met my first week as the new CEO. He'd come in to try to get me to hire him and I'd been...well, unpleasant. He'd simply smiled, apologized and said he'd come back. A month later, he had, and he'd accepted my apology without being condescending. Then he'd shown me what he could do for me and I hired him on the spot.

As an independent consultant, Robert wasn't part of the company, which meant he had no problem telling me where things stood. As a friend, he wasn’t afraid to be honest. That made him invaluable.

As if sensing the direction my thoughts had gone, Robert grinned at me. “If you didn’t want an honest opinion, you should have had one of your yes-men do the job, rich boy.”

I snorted at him and plucked up the closest report.

“Look at it this way...if you pick up the project, when you’re done, you’ll own the lion’s share in the market.”

“I know.”

“Yeah. But if you don’t...” He tossed something down in front of me.

I barely glanced at it at first. Then I looked again, eyes narrowing. “What’s that?”

Robert slid a hand back along his naked scalp, an innocent look on his face. A look I didn't believe for a single moment.

“It's a picture, smart guy. You know him, of course...Huey Rossiter.”

My lip curled. Yeah, I knew who he was. I just didn’t know why Robert was showing me the picture.

“He had lunch with two of the board members from the chain.”

“Shit.”

That decided it. I nodded and reached for the phone on the table. A moment later, Melody came in, barely sparing Robert a glance although he made no attempt to hide the fact that he was studying her. They’d had a whole back-and-forth thing going for years. Sort of like that couple from that Shakespeare play. Not Romeo and Juliet but the other one. Much Ado About Nothing.

“Call the board. Emergency meeting. Offer my apologies, but I need their approval to move forward on a takeover and we don't have time to wait.” I passed the information over to Melody.

“Of course, Mr. Lang.” She didn’t even glance over at Robert.

“Damn.” He sighed as she closed the door behind her. “If I ask her out, think she’ll say yes this time?”

“She didn't say yes the first two hundred times.”

“Two hundred and one’s the charm.” He grinned at me as he stood.

We made a bit of small talk, then said our goodbyes. I was Robert's biggest client, but I wasn't his only one. I waited until he had enough time to leave and then I followed.

With one of the biggest business decisions of my life breathing down my neck, what I should have been doing was sitting in my office, running the numbers. Instead, what I was doing was sitting in my car at a red light, wanting it to turn faster.

My gaze strayed to the clock built into the dashboard and I pressed harder on the gas.

I couldn’t think.

I couldn’t get jackshit done.

I hadn’t been able to all week.

“It’s because of this mess with Toni,” I muttered. Actually, it was because of my dick and how it wanted to be in Toni, but logic didn’t need to enter into this. Logic, as far as I was concerned, could take a flying leap.

Toni was the root of my problems, and we were going to have it out. I wanted answers and I hoped that those answers would finally clear my head.

For starters, I wanted to know why in the hell she hadn’t come clean about the problems with her brother. When they did background checks, just what did she think people were asking about? Whether or not she’d ever stolen a candy bar as a kid? No one fucking cared about stuff like that. Especially not for something like this. When trusting someone to work in your home, you needed to know if there was anything that might put your loved ones at risk.

I was good and worked up by the time I got home. Once I parked, however, I took a moment to pull it all back in. I didn't want to blow up around Isadora. I hadn’t seen her that morning, and I was almost positive she had some sort of paper due this week. I wanted to ask how she’d done. Then maybe I could talk her into going out. While she was getting ready, Toni and I could...talk.

My stomach clenched at the thought.

But Isadora wasn’t in the sitting parlor where she preferred to spend much of her time.

Toni was, though.

Toni was stretched out on one of the long, low couches and she looked completely bitable.

Standing in the shadows of the hall, I watched as she got up, frowned at a note she had on a pad of paper, and then tossed it down before she walked over to a bag and bent down. The narrow black skirt she wore pulled tight over her ass and again, the image from the other night at the club slammed into me.

Pushing that skirt up over her hips.

Dragging down her panties.

Wrapping that hair around my fist and holding her steady as I forced her to take my cock. I’d get her wet, so wet, and so ready –

She jerked upright and turned around, her eyes unerringly seeking me out.

I didn’t realize it, but I’d moved forward until I stood in the doorway.

Her eyes met mine and I saw something flash across them, then disappear. “Back to lurking in the shadows, are we, Mr. Lang?” she asked, giving me a saccharine smile that I was pretty sure was fake.

“Ash.”

Shit. Why had I told her to call me that? I'd made it clear when I first met her that she wasn't going to be calling me that.

I knew the answer, no matter how much I hated it.

I wanted to hear my name on her lips. I wanted to hear her moaning it, then sobbing it as she begged me to let her come.

She wouldn't beg.

I knew she wouldn’t. Wouldn't beg. Wouldn't submit. She wasn't a part of my world, and the separation had nothing to do with money or society.

“I’m sorry.” She moved back to where she’d dropped her notepad and sat down.