Page 12 of Dirty Deal

“And yet you came back.”

“So I did.” Is it really so shocking? This was our agreement, after all. “If you want to scare me away, you’ll need to try much harder.”

Weston’s frown deepens. He drums on his desk, the silence stretching between us.

There are no sounds from the casino seeping up through the floor; no car horns or other traffic noise from outside. This placewas well built and right now, it’s like Weston and I are the only two people in the world.

I wish.

Maybe he’d hate me less in that scenario. Maybe he’d even come tolikeme, to crave my company the way I already crave his.

Does he ever think about me at all? Could he ever let go of this grudge?

“Fine,” Weston clips out at last, snatching up his phone and tapping out a message. “Maybe this will wipe that smile off your face.” His chair rattles back over the floorboards as he stands and nods at the door. “Come on. We’re going to the penthouse.”

* * *

Weston’s assistant meets us at a private elevator, a bucket of cleaning supplies and a vacuum by his feet. He looks younger than I expected considering he has such a prestigious role in the casino—early twenties, like me—but he nods at Weston with brisk efficiency as we arrive.

“I got what you asked for. Should I go up there too and keep an eye on her?”

For a moment, the assistant’s gaze slides to me, a hint of apology in his expression. As if he feels bad for talking about me like I’m not here. But when Weston speaks, the assistant turns away again, and hey—I may as well be a speck of lint on the floor.

“No,” Weston says. “I’ll go up with her. You watch over the floors. Any major issues, you know where I am. And… Ariq?”

The assistant pauses, staring expectantly at his boss. Even when my father ran this place, even when he commanded a staff of hundreds, no one ever looked at him likethat.Like he was the captain of their ship, and they’d follow him down to the seabed if necessary.

It’s kinda funny seeing someone else go all moon-eyed over Weston James. Even if this Ariq guy’s hero worship is more of a professional flavor while mine is x-rated, it’s nice to see I’m not the only one.

“Don’t tell anyone she’s up here,” Weston says, eyeing me with clear distaste. “I don’t want the staff to get the wrong idea.”

Yes, god forbid that anyone think we’re hooking up in the penthouse. I poke my tongue out at Weston, and Ariq turns his laugh into a cough.

“Yes, sir.”

Does it hurt that Weston is so repulsed by the idea of us having a tryst? Yes, yes it does. Am I gonna let him see how small and bruised it makes me feel? No, I am not.

The cleaning bucket clatters loudly as I heave it up into my arms. “Alright. Let’s get this show on the road.”

Six

Weston

I’m not sure which is more annoying: the fact that Lena knows how to use all the different cleaning products, or the fact that she is clearly thrilled to see inside my apartment. Whatever I hoped to achieve with tonight’s mini-torture has spectacularly backfired.

She keeps stopping to peer at the artwork on my walls, and to read the spines on my bookshelves. When I had her scrub every inch of my bathroom, she even had the gall to nose through my damn medicine cabinet.

“Ooh,” she’d cooed, going up on her tiptoes to see deeper inside. Yesterday’s high heels are gone tonight, replaced by strappy sandals. Her coat is abandoned too, hanging on a hook in my hall, while Lena cleans my apartment in a bottle green cocktail dress.

If the universe was fair, she’d look like hell—instead of like a fever dream with yellow rubber gloves.

“Oh no you don’t.” I’d slammed the bathroom cabinet door shut, leaving smudgy fingerprints on the mirror for her to wipe off. “Don’t go poking through there.”

Not that I’m hiding anything interesting. There are shaving supplies, over the counter painkillers, extra tubes of toothpaste. Stuff like that. Nothing that would cause a scandal, and yet I didn’t want Lena seeing something so intimate. The thought made my neck itch.

She shot me a knowing smile and kept cleaning.

So unbelievably irritating.

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