“Hell no, don’t put the shrimp on the menu, not if you got it from that new place. I don’t trust them—the food isn’t fresh enough.” Ian spun on one booted foot, saw Hollis watching him and winked before his attention went back to his restaurant. “James, it’s simple. Change the dessert menu for the night. Make sure that new chocolate sponge cake with the raspberry preserves is on the sample tray. No one can resist that.” He eyed Hollis. “In fact, send a round of that to the penthouse. For twelve. Make sure one of them has extra buttercream.”
He turned and picked up his pacing again, his voice lowering as he talked orders and tickets and Valentine’s Day marketing—all sorts of things Hollis didn’t follow. He watched him move in his perfectly tailored clothes and listened to the confident words spilling from his mouth. Business-owner Ian was fucking hot. He wanted to haul him into the room they were sharing—which was really the office where Lucas had put a pull-out couch for them. He and Ian were staying here along with Snow and Jude and various bodyguards. Rowe and Noah had returned home because of their dogs, but Lucas had insisted Sven accompany them. He wondered if Lucas had ever seen Rowe’s Rambo impression out in the woods, creeping around and taking down bad guys—if so he probably wouldn’t have been so adamant about a bodyguard.
Still, everyone gathered here for meals.
Hollis kind of felt like he was in the middle of a sitcom episode or something—one with way too many people. He looked around, spotting Sven and Royce near the doors. Sven was something else, another ponytailed wall of muscle bigger than anyone Hollis had ever seen. Royce was shorter and slimmer with taut, wiry muscles, but Hollis got the feeling the dark-haired man could be the most dangerous person in the room. And after watching Rowe and Noah at play, that was saying something. But there was something in his casual confidence Hollis recognized…something he’d seen mostly in criminals, come to think of it. He frowned, trying to remember if he’d ever heard the guy’s last name so he could check the database.
If he was ever fucking let back into the databases again. Right now, he was officially on leave. As if he didn’t know what that meant. He was in more trouble than he’d let on.
He picked up his glass, admiring the way the lights coming in through the high-rise windows sent a rainbow through the pretty amber liquid. He looked up to find dark eyes on him. Jude smiled and everything in his expression said he got it, that he knew what it felt like to not fit in here. Hollis sighed. He was going to have to try harder. He glanced at Ian and the way he slid into this group like a puzzle piece.
Yeah, try much harder.
“Why don’t you let me introduce you to Jude’s friend, Shane?” Rowe asked as he popped a French fry into his mouth. Nobody had wanted to cook tonight, so they’d ordered in barbecue.
“If I swear I’ll miss you, will you go away?” Hollis drawled, one corner of his mouth going up. They still had several days to go before the Gala and they were all sick of each other and this penthouse. Rowe and Noah might go home at night, but most of their days were spent here making plans and cooking up ways to track down Jagger and his goons.
It reminded him of church lock-ins his parents forced him to go to as a child.
“He’ll just keep coming back,” Snow said before sipping his water. Apparently that bullet had torn up his arm pretty good, so the doc was still taking painkillers. He barely moved it, having mentioned that he needed it to heal well so he didn’t lose any use of his hands. Damaged nerves were a worry at this point.
“What do you mean she quit permanently?” Ian suddenly yelled from the living room.
They all turned his way, Hollis taking in the taut line of his spine as he braced one hand on the wall and lowered his voice into the phone.
“He needs to be at the restaurant,” Hollis said, thinking back to the night before when they’d been in bed and Ian had worried aloud about being gone so long. “Does that Shane guy still have men watching the place?”
Lucas nodded. “Doesn’t matter. Rialto would be the most dangerous spot any of us could be right now, especially Ian.” He frowned and threw a glance over his shoulder at Ian before looking back. “We could take some equipment down in the morning so he could video conference with his staff.”
Rowe snapped his fingers. “That’s a great idea. I’ll swing by in the morning and grab what he’ll need from the office. Quinn has a couple of laptops set up for such things for the more remote jobs. I’ll snatch a couple of them.”