Jenny, her gaze drifting between me and her boss, nodded. She retreated to a door that swung as she moved through the opening, and within seconds, she had her coat and purse over her arm.
As she sashayed past—for my benefit, I was sure—she murmured, “See you tomorrow, Aoife.”
Aoife nodded and shot her friend a smile, but I wasn’t smiling. There were dishes on every table. Plates and saucers and tea pots. Those fancy stands that made any man wonder if he could touch it without snapping it.
Aoife was going to clear all that herself? Not on my fucking watch.
When the bell rang as the waitress opened the door, I didn’t take my eyes off her until it rang once more upon closing.
Aoife swallowed, and I watched her throat work, watched it with a hunger that felt alien to me, because, God, I wanted to see my bites on her. Wanted to see my marks on that pale column of skin and her tits.
Barely withholding a groan, I asked, “Do you often let your staff go when you still have a lot of work to do, so you can speak to a stranger?”
Her cheeks flushed again, and she took a step back. “I-I, you’re not—” Flustered once more, she fell silent.
“I’m not what?” Curiosity had me asking the question. Whatever I’d expected her to say, it hadn’t been that.
She cleared her throat. “N-Nothing. You wished to speak with me, Mr. O’Grady?”
My other hand tightened around my briefcase, and though seeing her had made my reason for being here all that more necessary, I was almost disappointed. There was a gentle warmth to those bright-green eyes that would die out when I told her my purpose for being here. And her innocent attraction to me would change, morph into something else.
But I could only handlesomething else.
Some men were made for forever.
But those men weren’t in my line of business.
I moved away from her, pressing my briefcase to one of the few empty tables. I wasn’t happy about her having to do all the clearing up later on, and wondered if Paul, my PA, would know who to call to get her some help.
There was no way I was spending the rest of the night alone in my bed, my only companion my fist wrapped around my cock.
No way, no fucking how.
I paid Paul enough for him to come and clear the fucking place on his own if he couldn’t find someone else.
I wanted Aoife on her knees, bent over my goddamn bed, and I was a man who always got what he wanted.
In this jungle, I was the lion, and Aoife? She was my prey.
I keyed in the code and opened my briefcase. The manila envelope was large and thick, well-padded with my documentation of Aoife’s every move for the past few months.
It had started off as a legitimate move.
I’d wanted to know her weaknesses, so I could put pressure on her and make her cave to my demands.
Now, my demands had changed. I didn’t just want her to sell the tea room we were standing in, I wanted her in my bed.
Fuck, I wanted that more than I wanted to make Aidan Sr. a fucking profit, and Aidan’s profit and my balls still being attached to my body ran hand in hand.
Aidan was an evil cunt.
If I failed to deliver, he’d take it out on me. Whether I was his idea of an adopted son or not, he’d have done the same to his blood sons.
Well, he wouldn’t have taken their balls. The man, for all his psychotic flaws, was obsessed with the idea of grandchildren, of passing it all on to the next generation. He’d cut his boys though. Without a doubt.
I knew Conor had marks on his back from a beating he refused to speak about. Then there was Brennan. He had a weak wrist because his father had a habit of breakingthatwrist.
Without speaking, I grabbed the envelope and passed it to her.