Page 31 of Such A Bad Girl

My sleepless night left me weak and exhausted the next morning. I sought refuge in my work, locking myself in the office with the books again, hoping to put a dent in my workload.

If I didn’t find a way to increase profits, I’d have to give in to Rian’s suggestion of allowing more members. I wanted to keep membership low. As far as I was concerned, we needed to keep our circle tight right now. But that didn’t mean we didn’t need more money. I’d been pouring over investor portfolios for weeks, but so far, nobody seemed to be the right fit.

The clock was ticking, though, and I needed to find a solution fast.

My intention was to drown myself so deeply in work that I wouldn’t have time to think about anything else, especially Everleigh.

But she wasn’t going to allow that.

I’d been in the office for merely an hour when she called.

I considered ignoring her for a moment. But I never could resist her. “Hey,” I answered, after a moment.

“I need to see you.” As usual, the sound of her voice took my breath away. And as usual, she made demands with no regard for what I was doing.

“Everleigh, I told you — this isn’t a good idea.”

“Oh, shut the hell up. I’m not talking about what happened yesterday. That’s water under the bridge.”

What a way to put it. For fuck’s sake. I couldn’t let her know that her comment gutted me, though. “Then what do you need? West is still out of town.”

“I know that.”

I paused, waiting for her to explain herself.

“Meet me at Float.”

“The coffee shop?”

“Yes, we need to talk.”

“Everleigh, we are talking.” The last thing I wanted was to sit across a table from her and have to look at her. Just hearing her voice was bad enough.

“I need to see you in person. Be there in an hour.”

She hung up, certain that I would obey. Not like I had an important job to do or anything, for fuck’s sake. The woman was impossible. She thought the entire world revolved around her. She thought I’d just drop everything, that she was more important than anything else that may be going on in my life.

As I made my way out to my car, I cringed because she was right.

Chapter Sixteen

EVERLEIGH

The pile of shredded paper napkins on the table grew larger and larger as I waited for Theo. The thick sunglasses I had on, along with the bright purple wig, were doing a good job of keeping me from being recognized. So far. But I kept the big coffee cup close to my face, obscuring it as much as possible as I sipped my chai, and nervously ripped up the paper.

I yearned to go out in public on a regular basis without a disguise, but it was very rare that I was able to pull that off.

From a table in front of me, my bodyguard, Charlie, kept a close eye on everyone in the coffee shop.

When Theo walked in the door, my heart skipped a beat. The image of his hooded figure kneeling between my legs in the temple flashed in my head, sending a surge of hot sparks through my veins.

The annoyance on his face only made him more handsome, somehow. He looked much different fully clothed than he did in the temple. Clad in tight Levi’s and a black button-down with the sleeves folded up to expose the muscles of his forearm, he had that effortlessly handsome look that made everyone jealous with how easy he made it look.

“Nice wig,” he said, sitting down. “The purple creates an interesting contrast to the green of your eyes.”

“Thanks, I guess?”

He shrugged. “It’s pretty. What’s up?”

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