Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 94678 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94678 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
I didn’t name my first establishment Ember’s for no reason. I wanted Emerson to know how badly I wanted her.
How badly I still want her.
The honesty of my inner monologue keeps my expression impassive when Emerson says, “The outfitter was charging you double for a subpar unit.” She hands a patron one of our most requested drinks—the Ember Fury—before she serves another client, still explaining. “That’s the thing about looking preppy.”
I scoff, disgusted by her analogy. Preppy boys aren’t her type. She likes men who are rough around the edges and completely under her control.
“They think they can charge more by announcing it is designer.” She air quotes her last word after wiping her sticky hands down her barmaid’s apron. The drink, named in honor of her hair and fiery attitude, is so popular because we use fresh tangerines instead of bottled juice. “I got a better unit for half the price.” Her eyes mist as they stray to me. “The new manufacturer will install it as per your request by the end of business next weekend.”
I purchased the electrostatic precipitator for Emerson’s mother’s bar. Although doctors doubt Inga’s cancer diagnosis resulted from working in a smoke-filled environment for three decades, I wasn’t as convinced. It’s too late to adjust the harm that has already occurred to Inga’s lungs, but it will lessen the chance of Emerson facing the same horrifying diagnosis, and that is all I care about.
I tell a patron I’ll be with him in a minute when he grunts about me standing in a high-traffic zone and not matching the workload of my staff before I ask the most obnoxious question I’ve ever muttered. “What are you doing here, Emerson?”
She takes my hard tone in stride. “Working.” She winks before she pulls a beer for the patron pissed that he finally reached the front of the line only to be ignored. “Unlike you.”
Her hip bump is playful, but it does little to shift my confusion.
“You got paid.” Even with my GPA smashed from too much liquor, I know this because when Kolya couldn’t get the payment approved by my grandfather’s solicitors without documented proof by a medical professional that we had consummated our vows, I transferred the payment from my personal account five minutes later.
“I did.” Emerson’s face screws up, switching her features from sexy to cute.
Her expression matches mine.
I swear we’ve already had this conversation.
I shake my head, ridding it of the confusion clumped there when Emerson says. “But I organized a replacement electrostatic precipitator after returning the funds to your account, so I figured I should get a job to help pay for it.” She flashes Lynx a grateful smile that he accepts too readily for me not to veer my fist toward his face the instant we close. “And Lynx was generous enough to offer me one.”
“So that’s why you’re here? For a job?” I hate the devastation in my voice even more than I hate that she went to Lynx instead of me.
Lynx was there when we dated, but not in this essence. He was never the man she ran to when she needed help. Once, only I had that privilege.
I wonder if I slipped and hit my head when Emerson murmurs, “That… and…”
I could finish this game now, end it before it spirals out of control like I did yesterday, but I can’t. I’ve been out of the game so long that plays like this should be foreign to me, but since it involves Emerson, it is as if time stood still for ten years.
“And…?”
Her prolonged sweep of my body sends a jolt through me that hardens my cock, and I’m not the only one noticing.
Emerson’s face reddens with jealousy as her narrowed gaze scans a group of women in front of her. My bulging crotch has attracted admirers, and their vocalized desires make Emerson furious.
“Seriously?” Emerson mutters, eyeing them with disgust. “He’s wearing a ring.” She thrusts her hand at the ring not even two bottles of whiskey could coerce me to remove. “That’s a clear sign he’s taken.”
“And…?” The blonde at the front of the trio mimics, mocking our exchange as if it didn’t smother years of hurt.
This is the bar I bought by using the family pub of the only woman I’ve ever loved as collateral. The establishment I named after the only woman I would ever marry. Everything about it is a remake of the establishment that ignited my love of the retail industry that serves alcoholic beverages, and my love of the woman who breathed air back into my lungs and made me burn.
I wouldn’t be who I am without Emerson.
I wouldn’t be here—period.
That grants Emerson the right to stab me in the heart over and over again and not to be mocked in front of me.
When I signal for the bouncer at the door to move closer, the blonde scoffs. “That wasn’t your response to my proposition at the Broadbent Hotel last year.” As she drags her teeth across her bottom lip and lowers her lustful gaze to my body, she reveals a side of me I never wanted Emerson to see. “Kitty and Jasmina aren’t here to equal your stamina, but I’m sure Kova and Mariya will happily take their place.” She thrusts her big-breasted friends forward, their gawks as demoralizing as that of their evil counterpart. “We won’t care if you call us the wrong name like you did with Jasmina.” Her eyes shift to a custom wedding band that matches mine—just with a heap more diamonds. “Or that you’re married.”