Page 47 of Be With Me
But that knowledge didn’t stop me from seeing red.
“You want in on some of this?” Johnny, the host, asked from where he sat, pulling my gaze to the line of coke he was casually cutting on the glass table.
It was our product. Best in the state, courtesy of our Colombian suppliers. They knew it too, which was why they were playing hardball in this year’s contract renegotiations. I was more than happy to let Cosimo deal with that headache.
“I’m good,” I said. The last time I’d touched the stuff, I was eighteen and stupid, desperate for an escape. I grew out of it fast when I saw what happened to the men who didn’t.
Johnny snorted the line and tipped his head back with a blissed-out sigh.
I turned back toward the dance floor.Fuck. He’d distracted me, and now Mia was gone. Her friends were still there, but she’d run off somewhere.
Hiding from me?
Good luck. The house was big, but not big enough.
Nina’s sharp glare was fixed on me. She shook her head in warning.
I just smirked.
She didn’t like Mia getting entangled with me? Too fucking bad. I still needed to have a word with my cousin about that fucking horoscope she put together, but that could wait.
Pushing off the wall, I went in search of my little stylist.
I knew my way around here. Johnny was a regular at Black Silk, and I always got invites to his Labor Day parties, along with the others he threw during summers. By day, he designed software. By night, he liked to pretend he had an edge.
He was the kind of guy who had missed out on partying in his twenties and was now desperately making up for lost time at thirty-five.
But he wasn’t stupid.
If photos of him getting sloppy surfaced online, there’d be hell to pay. His PR team had probably begged him to enforce that no-camera rule. Everyone generally obeyed.
Everyone except me. I didn’t play by the fucking rules.
Something Mia was about to find out.
I checked behind a few of the doors—empty bedrooms. Halfway down the hall, I stopped.
A familiar scent lingered in the air. Lily of the valley.
My gaze flicked to the door on my right. A bathroom. She was in there.
I leaned against the wall, crossing my arms. I could wait. What was another minute or two when she’d made me wait hours?
The lock turned. The door slid open.
And there she was.
In that fucking dress.
The little metallic thing clung to her curves like a second skin. Did she have any idea? Was she aware that every man in this house probably salivated when she walked past?
Her wide brown eyes locked onto mine.
"We need to talk," I ground out.
"No thanks.” She tried to brush past me, like she actually thought I’d let her go. She even had the nerve to look surprised when my arm shot out and blocked her path.
I leaned down, bringing my lips close to her ear. Her whole body stiffened. “It’s about The Golden Circle party.”
