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  What bothered me wasn't my way of thinking, however. It was how easily she'd read me tonight. I didn't like anyone but Isadora, and maybe Doug, to be able to see me at all. I didn't want anyone to read me about this though. The fact that Contessa had been able to meant that this thing with Toni was worse than I'd thought.

  Maybe you should be.

  Those four words, so simple, echoed around in my head for the rest of the drive home, but it wasn't just those that were bothering me. If it had only been her suggestion, it wouldn't have made much of an impact. I just couldn't stop thinking about the rest of what she'd said.

  Don’t deprive yourself of everything that’s good in life. You’ve missed out on so much already.

  I was in a foul mood by the time I pulled into the multi-car garage attached to the side of the house. Climbing out, I stared at cars that had belonged to my father, and to his father, then looked over at the three I owned. The cars alone were worth a mint, and I took care to make sure they were all driven and stayed in working order. They were a connection to the family I no longer had.

  What I did have was more money than I’d ever spend in my lifetime.

  I had two family businesses that weren’t just surviving in tough financial times – they were thriving. And I wasn't being arrogant when I said a lot of that was because of me. I hadn’t grown up fearing change the way a lot of business types did. I welcomed it and adapted to it, so my companies were doing more than fine.

  I had a healthy, albeit unusual, sex life, and a place where my appetites weren't just tolerated but supported.

  I had a sister I loved and adored, and who loved me back, even when I was being an ass.

  Just what had I missed out on?

  Yeah, my parents were dead, but I wasn’t the only orphan in the world. Kids sometimes grew up without parents. And I'd been nineteen, so I'd had them through a lot of important years.

  Okay, I had to move back here to raise my little sister, but that had been a choice and one I'd never regretted. Besides, it hadn't been like I'd done it completely alone. I might not have had family around to help me, but I'd had the money to have a full staff of housekeepers and chefs and security guards.

  Maybe you should...

  “Should what?” I muttered to myself as I headed towards the house. “Get involved with Toni?”

  I’d tried “normal” relationships with women who weren’t in my kind of lifestyle, and they’d all been disasters. I could get aroused enough for sex, but I never enjoyed it, and the women always knew. After one complete disaster, I never told any of the others why I didn't seem to enjoy myself. They might've suspected, but none asked. The relationships just fizzled away, and I'd realized that I could never do “normal.” Any attempt with Toni would have the same end result. I had no doubt.

  Yet, even as I had the thought, I found myself thinking about what it would be like to take her the way I'd taken Contessa.

  Bent over, tied. Waiting for me to fill her with my cock. Waiting to give her permission to come.

  She’d never wait, though. She’d take and demand.

  I’d have to punish her.

  Spanking that sweet, lush ass...

  Even though I'd already come so many times tonight that my cock almost felt raw, the thought of bringing my hand down on that pale skin made it jerk and pulse.

  “Dammit.”

  It took all my self-control not to slam the door as I came into the house. I went straight towards my wing of the house, not wanting to see anyone. I was a frustrated wreck as I stripped out of my clothes and threw myself down on the bed.

  My cock pulsed, bobbed against my belly, half-hard and promising to be more. I reached down, grasped it, hissing out a breath at the contact. It was almost too sensitive.

  This morning, I wrapped my fist around my dick and pictured Toni while I'd gotten myself off. Then Contessa had sucked me off, and I’d fucked her three times. Not the most I'd ever come in a day, but definitely close. Now, I was already burning for relief, all over again.

  I felt like a boy who’d just found his first skin mag.

  And it was all because of that smart-mouthed, tiny, pain-in-the-ass redhead.

  I had to do something about this.

  My cock throbbed beneath my fingers.

  I really, really had to do something about it or I was going to explode.

  Chapter 9

  Ash

  Monday morning didn’t bring a better mood.

  It actually brought a much worse one, and I made damn sure to get my lousy ass out of the house before Isadora came downstairs. I loved my sister and I didn't like avoiding her, but when I felt like this, the less human interaction I had, the better. And if I was going to end up taking out my bad mood on someone, I'd rather it wasn't someone I actually cared about.

  Since it was Monday, I had to get up at the ass crack of dawn to miss her. She was always up and moving early on Mondays. She had classes at the beginning and the end of the week, something that still stuck in my gut.

  After she'd graduated from the best private school in the city, I'd told her that she could do whatever she wanted and had given her control of her trust fund. To my annoyance, she said she wanted to go to college, to get a degree in fine arts. At first, I'd refused point-blank, but she hadn't let it go. She’d pushed and pushed and pushed until I finally relented. Mostly because if I hadn’t, she’d threatened to move out and I wasn’t about to have that.

  I needed to keep her safe, and it was hard enough doing that when she was going into NYU two days a week. I wasn't going to try to do it from a distance. She was too important to me to risk losing her the way we'd lost our parents.

  I didn't understand. I’d told her she didn’t need to worry about college or anything like that. She could just take it easy and have fun.

  Have fun…is that what I’m to do with my life? Have fun?

  I’d known the moment I'd said it that I’d messed up.

  So I hadn’t argued when she'd said she needed more.

  I guess on some level I could understand. I wouldn’t have wanted to sit around watching TV or reading or go shopping...or sitting on endless committees for charities that wanted our money. The sweet little girl who’d come crying to me night after night with nightmares about our parents' deaths just didn’t exist anymore.

  A heavy rain started to fall during the drive into the office building where I spent most of my days. After my parents married, they'd taken all of their families' money and the businesses they'd created, and merged them all into Phenicie-Lang. I kept my mother's real estate conglomerate and my father’s hotel dynasty, building them both into even more. I also added to the family business, dabbling in dozens of different areas. Art, theater, technology, education, the environment...

  Phenicie-Lang was a sparkling spiral in the sky. Normally the sight of it filled me with a burst of pride, but not today. In fact, the ugly gray clouds reflecting off the mirrored surface seemed the perfect echo of my toxic mental state. I strode in and everybody seemed to realize in an instant that I wasn’t in the mood for small talk or even the standard greeting.

  The express elevator, reserved for my use alone, had never seemed so far away, and when the doors finally closed around me, I leaned against the wall and breathed a sigh of relief. I'd never been so glad to be alone.

  “Get your head out of your ass.” I ran my hand over my face.

  I had a board meeting at ten, and I had a potential takeover I needed to look into. My top hand man was coming in later to brief me with the details and walk me through the specifics so I could decide if I wanted to proceed. Technically, I was supposed to take it to the board, but in the end, if I said I wanted to proceed, they would do what I wanted.

  Likewise, if I thought it was a bad fit, they would agree.

  Everybody fucking agreed with me.

  All the time.

  A pair of smoky blue eyes flashed through my mind and I clenched my jaw.

  I wasn’t going t
o think about her.

  Mind made up, I strode out of the elevator the second the doors slid open, giving a short nod to my assistant, Melody Strum, as I walked by. She returned the nod and went back to whatever she was working on. She’d been with me almost as long as I’d been in charge, and if anybody understood my moods, it was her.

  I could count on not being disturbed unless if was vital. She wouldn’t want to put up with my temper unless she had no choice.

  ***

  My decision to not think about Toni lasted through the board meeting, and even most of the way through the lunch that followed. It was a tradition my father had started and I’d kept it up, partially because it was a good business practice, but also because it reminded me of Dad and the type of man he was. So even though I didn't have anything in common with the rest of the members of the board, I stayed and did the small talk thing.

  Regardless of how tense a meeting was, it seemed that we all functioned better – and were less likely to be at odds – if we knew we would have some time to socialize and relax afterwards. I wasn’t much for socializing, but my father had worked hard to keep Phenicie-Lang not just a successful company, but a good one.

  Time after time, the company my parents had created together came up on one of the best places to work, and that didn’t happen because I gave out bonuses or sent people home with a coffee cup at Christmas. It was because I made sure to keep one very important priority. I would always make sure Phenicie-Lang was a company my parents would've been proud of.

  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 ben
t 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.

  I heard the whisper of skin against skin, and my gaze dropped as she crossed her legs. Shit. I wanted to uncross them, push them wide, press my mouth against her...

  I forced myself to pull my gaze back up.

  She wasn’t even looking at me.

  “Sorry?” I prodded, remembering what she'd said.

  “Yes.” She gave me a distracted smile.

  Her eyes were snapping, though. Snapping and hot. Fuck. It drove me out of my mind.

  “I seem to remember you telling me that employees were supposed to call you Mr. Lang.”

  “You work for Isadora, not me.”

  Dammit. Why had I pointed that out?

  Toni arched her eyebrows, a bemused look on her face. “You're right, I do. And Isadora doesn't seem to think it's a problem for me to call you Mr. Lang. And until she tells me otherwise, it's not going to happen. And I don’t see why she would change her mind.”