Ugh! That man was so infuriating that he made me mad even when he wasn’t around!
As Dalton sat down and started perusing the menu, I pretended to do the same, even though I had already read it six times. The fact was, Dalton was a good guy—the perfect guy, actually. It could be good between us. No, scratch that. It could be great. We could be ‘Nicholas Sparks, clutching each other in the rain and dying in bed together’ great.
I couldn’t let my anger toward my jackass boss ruin something that wonderful, could I? Nope, not today. I knew what I had to do.
I reached over, took Dalton’s hand in mine, and squeezed it. “Thank you for the roses, thank you for the jacket the other night, and thank you for the lobster roll I ordered before you got here. If I’m preoccupied, it’s because I’ve had a lot on my mind. But that doesn’t matter anymore, because you were right. I have to quit my job, and I’m going to do it tonight.”
Chapter 7
Dalton managed to stop me from getting up in the middle of dinner to rush over to The Castle and quit, which turned out to be a good thing, since the date turned out to be pretty enjoyable. Especially since Dalton couldn’t be happier with my decision. Even before dead sorority girls started falling from the rafters, Dalton didn’t think I belonged there. And, while I still wasn’t sure what he meant when he said I ‘wasn’t the right type of girl for a place like that,’ after everything that had happened, I wasn’t sure I disagreed with him, either.
I wasn’t a good fit for that place, and I sure as hell wasn’t a good fit for Abram. Our last interaction would’ve told anyone as much. All I wanted to do was stop thinking about him—about his brooding eyes, about his hard, sculpted chest, about his stupidly handsome (and always scowling) face. Most of all, I didn’t want to think about the electricity that sparked between us more and more every time we were near one another.
I promised Dalton I would give it the weekend and let myself cool off before I officially quit. He didn’t want me running in there and saying something I would regret. So I sat around all weekend, twiddling my thumbs, chewing the scenery, and all around chilling out. Turned out Dalton was right. After I got a hold of myself, the fire in my gut—the thing that was pushing me to run away from Abram and The Castle so quickly—died down. Even the desire to leave faded.
I was left only with this: the knowledge I would be better off away from there, away from him. Away from my unexplainable feelings that threatened to ruin a good thing between Dalton and me.
And that was as clear as it was pertinent. It was for that reason I knew I still had to quit.
I moved down the stairwell to the club as carefully as I had every time, save the first. Expecting to see him standing outside an unbroken sphere of police barricades, I was stunned to find the alleyway empty and the pavement littered with shredded crime scene tape.
“Damn him,” I muttered.
I hurried the rest of the way toward the door, ready to type my security code into the pad and get this over with, but the door was already open. In fact, it was swung out so far it had practically fallen off the hinges.
“Abram,” I called through the door. “Abram, you’re not supposed to be in there. They could throw your dumb ass in prison for this!”
When he didn’t answer, I stepped inside. I was going to kill this man even if I ended up in an orange jumpsuit. I flicked on the lights to get a better look, but what I saw took my breath away.
The entire place was in ruins.
The furniture was tipped over, destroyed with its pieces splayed across the floor. Glasses lay shattered in shards on what was left of the bar, and scorch marks spotted the drapes and carpeted areas. All my work in tatters around me.
“Somebody set this place on fire,” I whispered to myself.
“Among other things.”
I jumped back a step. Even though I had expected Abram’s presence, his voice still startled me. But nothing was more alarming than his condition.
Abram sat ass against the floor, his knees to his chest, his eyes transfixed on the destruction surrounding him. Though he remained his hulking self, dressed in a gray pair of pants and a tight matching blazer, he looked smaller somehow.
It didn’t take me long to recognize the look on his face. It was the same one I felt on my own when my agent told me I had aged out of modeling, when I had to move to a smaller apartment, when Mom was diagnosed. It was utter defeat, the sort one only earns by watching everything they’ve built melt away in an instant.
Maybe I had been wrong about Abram not caring about The Castle. Whatever things in this world were important to him, this club was among them.
I walked a few steps toward him, but decided it prudent to keep at least some distance between us.