If I’ve learned nothing else in the past two years, it’s that no one else is responsible for my life other than me. I make things happen. It’s that simple.
The bartender puts down the glass he’s drying as I approach. Tall and muscular, he’s lankier than Ryder, clean-shaven, hair combed and parted on the side, his strong forearms on full display in his rolled up shirt sleeves. He’s good-looking, and his easy, leaned-back posture says one thing: he knows it. “What would you like?” he says. “Other than me, of course.”
I smile in spite of myself. “I’m looking for Ryder.”
The bartender nods over his left shoulder, toward a hallway that ends at a closed office door. “He’s in the back.” He rests on his elbows, leaning toward me. “But trust me,” he says, cocking an eyebrow. “I can give you whatever you need.”
I grip my side of the bar, pitching myself forward enough that our faces are only inches apart. “You just did,” I whisper. “Thanks.”
I stand in front of the unmarked door at the dark end of the hallway, knowing Ryder’s behind it. I take the knob in my hand, imagine barging in, giving him a taste of his own medicine, but then decide that just because he’s an unmannered tyrant doesn’t mean I have to be, too. I knock at the door three times. No answer.
Three more. Nothing.
Well, who needs manners when there’s business to be discussed? I open the door.
As in the bar, the blinds are closed, the light soft and dim. There’s a small lamp on a desk, stacked high with papers. Ryder’s tall, imposing frame leans over them, his hands steadying himself on the desk’s edge. He looks up as I enter, surprised, it seems, to see me, his full lips pursed, blue eyes narrowed. And definitely, definitely piercing.
“I didn’t say come in,” he says.
“You didn’t lock the door either.”
“What do you want?” he says. His voice is gruffer than the other night but hearing it again makes my heart race and my skin warm, like my body hasn’t put aside the thing my mind had to forget to get me here today: Ryder Cole is dangerously hot. Emphasis on danger. And I’d be a fool to forget it.
I smooth down the skirt of my sundress. Inhale. “Figured we had some unfinished business from the other night.”
He walks around the side of the desk, then perches himself on the edge in front of me. Under his black blazer, his white button up shirt has just enough buttons undone to be endlessly eye-catching, but even more distracting is the way his dark jeans hug his pelvis in all the right places. “You want more where that came from?”
I take a long blink, wanting to smack that smug smile off his face, but maybe wanting more not to blush. “I want to talk about my brother.”
“Unless you have ten thousand in cash hiding somewhere under that dress,” he says, his gaze trickling from my face down my breasts, my waist, my bare legs, “I don’t think there’s more to discuss.”
“Fighting or betting?” I say.
His mouth hitches into a half smile. “Is that an offer?”
“Jamie’s debt,” I say, crossing my arms. “Is it from fighting or betting?”
Ryder pauses, cocks his head at me. “Are you wearing a wire?”
“What?”
He takes me by the waist and pulls me to him, standing me between his slightly open legs. “Are you wearing,” he says, his hands running up and down my ribs, “a wire?” His fingers trail down to my hips and just below my breasts, crossing over my back, my abdomen, generating a heat that seems to radiate through every part of my body and pulse between my legs. I force myself to glare at him.
“No.”
“Alright,” he says, looking at me, his hands still gripping my midriff. “I’ve learned it never hurts to ask.”
“Did you pick up that tip in business school or jail?”
“Neither one, tiger,” he says. “I’m a self-made man.”
“Made from what? The mistakes of people like my brother?”
“I earned everything I have,” he says. “Unlike your brother who wants to take what isn’t his.”
“Like you want to take our house?” My anger rises, unbidden, and he seems to consider it before he replies.
“I don’t want to take your house,” he says, his fingers soft but light on my ribcage. “But that’s just business. Your brother should have explained this before he asked you to come do his dirty work for him.”
“Jamie doesn’t know I’m here,” I say. “I don’t even know where he is.”
He cocks his head, his eyes narrowing. “You expect me to believe that?”
“You can believe whatever you want,” I say. I widen the stance of my legs a little, just enough that they push against his. “But that’s the truth.”
He taps his fingers against me, contemplating. “Well, wherever he’s hiding, a bet’s a bet,” he says. “And a debt’s a debt.”
So the answer to my earlier question: betting. At least Jamie’s not getting the shit beat out of him. Small favors.
“Maybe the police would be interested to hear about all your success,” I say.