Kinga followed Studio Portland’s manager down a wide hallway and thanked him when he opened the door to a vast studio space and gestured for her to enter. Stepping inside the huge room, she took in the action: scruffy band members milling about on the full stage, others setting up equipment, someone banging away on a set of drums.
Not seeing Griff, she turned in a full circle, observing the wooden area in front of the stage for dancers, the natural lighting flooding in from the bank of large rectangular windows to her left. She eventually found Griff sitting on a couch at the back of the room, a writing pad on his knee and a sexy pair of wire-framed glasses on his gorgeous face.
Kinga leaned her shoulder into the wall, taking a moment to study the man she’d slept with a week before. She hadn’t seen him since he left her apartment very early the next morning, slipping out of her bed with a kiss on her forehead and zero explanations. They’d spent a crazy, wild, hot night together—God, it had been the best sex of her life—but she hadn’t wanted any morning-after awkwardness. Neither had she wanted to discuss how they were supposed to act going forward.
He’d left Portland and this morning she’d received a message informing her he was back. She tapped her fingers against her heart, feeling both excited to see him and confused about how to act. While he was away—she had no idea where he’d gone, and refused to ask—they’d exchanged many work-related text messages, and if she could carry on having a text-based relationship with him until the ball, she would. It was so much cleaner, easier.
Safer.
If they kept their distance, she could pretend he was just another artist—one of the many she’d dealt with over the years—and not someone who rocked her sexual world.
Kinga lifted her fingertips to her forehead, wishing she could get his beautiful body, and the way he made hers sing, out of her mind. She hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since he’d spent the night in her bed. Despite washing her linens and her towels, she could still, strangely, smell his citrus cologne, taste cheesecake on her tongue and hear the deep rumble of his voice. In her dreams, he often made love to her. Frustratingly, her subconscious always took her to the brink before waking her up. She was horny, tired and deeply frustrated.
Not that she’d ever let him know that.
He was such a contradiction, Kinga thought, happy to watch him. He had a rock star vibe, completely confident and effortlessly stylish, but still managing to exude an alpha male, don’t-screw-with-me attitude. He was charming and had a wicked sense of humor, but below the surface, she sensed dark and turbulent waters. Kinga suspected he had a complicated backstory, depths that had never been explored, feelings and thoughts that went unuttered.
There was Griff O’Hare, the wild musician, stupendously talented, and there was the real Griff, private and intense and so very...real. She could dismiss and ignore the artist, but the man behind the facade fascinated her.
Like the rest of the world, Kinga wanted to know why he acted out, what motivated his bad boy behavior, why he’d given up music and performing to hibernate on his ranch for a couple of years. She wanted to know about his family—never discussed by him—and she wanted to know whether he’d ever thought about changing careers. Was he where he wanted to be? Was he living the life he wanted?
Was she?
Good question. Kinga stared down at the toes of her spiky-heeled, thigh-high boots. Callum had carved out a space for her and Tinsley at Ryder International, but despite her MBA, her two degrees and years in the business, Kinga knew neither she nor Tinsley would ever be promoted into the CEO position. Neither, sadly, would her dad.
She adored her father, but James was too soft to make the hard decisions a multinational company needed. Someone who operated at that level needed to be focused, unemotional, fiercely intelligent and, to an extent, ruthless.
Her father was intelligent but emotional, and unlike Callum, James didn’t have a ruthless bone in his body.
Years ago, after leaving college, Kinga had campaigned hard to get her grandfather to consider her as his successor but he’d either brushed her off or laughed at her ambitions. She was a woman and, as such, lacked the “balls” the job needed—his expression. Her ego had been hurt and her pride scorched, but when she pushed both away, she realized that she didn’t really want the responsibility or the stress of leading Ryder International.
She didn’t want to end up old and brittle, a workaholic, putting profits above people. Cold, disengaged, soulless.
She didn’t, in other words, want to be like Callum.
Kinga felt her phone vibrate and looked at the screen, smiling when she saw her sister’s number. “Hey.”
“Why did you support Callum’s decision to appoint Cody Craigmyle’s company to co-create and manage the cocktail competition?”
Kinga winced at the venom in her sister’s voice. “Because his quote was very competitive, he has experience in running international events, does fantastic work and has never,everlet us down.”
Tinsley didn’t respond, so Kinga spoke again. “He’s also someone we’ve known most of our lives and we trust him.”
“Youtrust him,” Tinsley muttered.
Kinga shook her head. Even as teenagers, Tinsley and Cody had been combative, but since her divorce from Cody’s younger brother, JT, their animosity had ratcheted way up. Before marrying, Tinsley and JT had been an item through high school and into college; the Ryder-Whites and the Craigmyles were close friends and trusted business associates. And best of all, Callum had approved of and promoted the marriage. Kinga had thought that JT and Tinsley had a good chance of making it over the long term.
They hadn’t. Now Tinsley was single again, her ex was living in Hong Kong and had remarried and—pouring peroxide onto her torn-up heart because Tinsley had begged him to start a family—had a baby on the way.
Tinsley’s marriage was over and she never spoke to JT anymore. Tinsley and Cody, however, would not stop arguing. Kinga wondered if Tinsley was taking out her hurt and anger over the divorce on Cody. But she wasn’t brave enough to suggest that to Tinsley. Kinga just wished the two would stop bickering or, if that was impossible, to leave her out of it.
They exhausted her.
“The contracts have been signed and you are overseeing the mixology competition, so you’re going to have to work with him,” Kinga told her sister.
“I don’t want to,” Tinsley said, sounding like the sulky five-year-old she’d once been.
“Deal with it, babe,” Kinga told her before disconnecting the call. Shoving her phone back in her leather tote bag, she looked up to see Griff looking at her from his seat on the couch, that sexy smirk on his face.