Ivan’s face scrunched like he didn’t have time or patience for any of it. “I’m tired.”
“You’re old,” I retorted and smiled thinly at him. “Go home. Or retire, huh? I’m stepping into your shoes whether you want me to or not.”
“Your mother was just like you,” he grumbled as he started to walk away. “Maksim will be at the entrance to take you home.”
Maksim had become a friend, a faithful bodyguard I’d hoped I could trust ever since he drove me to Ivan’s that very first night. He didn’t say much, but I didn’t need him to. I just needed him to keep me alive.
“Where precisely is home?” Rome’s murmur was deep behind me and had the hairs on the back of my neck rising immediately.
“You’d like to know that, wouldn’t you?” I kept facing forward, not giving in to the need to look at him, to touch him, to feel him again.
My gaze stayed on Bastian, who shrugged his shoulders and winked at me like I should throw Rome a bone.
I’d thrown him enough in the limo. I’d indulged way too much.
Bastian abandoned me and made his way to the bar. I sighed and closed my eyes, readying myself.
“Just give me your address, Katie.”
I knew that if I turned around I would be overwhelmed by the beauty of his dark features, lured in by the sheer size of him, and feel the gravity of his aura pulling me toward him. I tried to steel my nerves and my desires, but his stare still hit me like a jet going full speed when I faced him.
There was expectation in his eyes, and the way he stared at me like he knew me, like we could conquer everything together, made me weak at the knees, in my heart, and in my soul. “Probably not a good idea to be sharing addresses, Rome. Especially when you don’t even share with me things like the fact you own a sex club.”
“Oh, please. We don’t talk business.”
“Maybe we should,” I threw back at him. I was pushing his buttons because the sex club omission pushed mine and I was letting off steam, adrenaline. Fear, even. I hadn’t ever had to sit at the table where the decisions were made before. Now, I did. Now, I was one of them, and I wasn’t sure I knew what to do with it.
“I told you what there is to know already,” said Rome. “I bought in and agreed to manage the place. We’ll open in a few more weeks, but we’ve obviously got staff on site for meetings and for initial set up. It’ll be a lucrative venture, good for all parties involved. I’ll involve you however you want.”
I peered up at him. “As in, you’ll let me buy in?”
“Do you want to?” he asked, like he didn’t care one way or the other. The thing about Rome was, he always put me on that pedestal, believed I should have been there all along. He’d offer me this like I deserved it.
“I guess I should consider it.” The fact that I could do that with the wealth I was inheriting turned my stomach with anxiety.
“It’s worth it. We can have the lawyers draw it up.”
I hummed and let the idea rest as I glanced around. “It’s big,” I said almost to myself as I took in the high ceilings, the shimmering poles that reached from them all the way down to the floor, the deep red ropes dangling throughout. Staircases flanked the open area and curved up to more seating and more private spaces. They met at a beautiful waterfall that cascaded down to the first floor behind the bar. A chandelier encircled that water. “The base of the waterfall a VIP area?”
“Of sorts.”
“Interesting,” I murmured, thinking of what this place would turn into when the doors opened to the exclusive clients on the list. It’d be a labyrinth of luxurious debauchery.
It’d be heaven and hell.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Rome commanded.
I didn’t exactly know. But a part of me wanted to find out. “I want to come to the opening.”
He looked me up and down. “I guess you can. What for? I’m not sure.”
I didn’t answer him but headed toward the bar and everyone else.
“If you’re coming, I can come get you once you give me your address.”
I sighed. “No, Rome.”
“Why?”