Page 14 of Bully

“Kyle.”

“Kyle.” Tamen nodded, “Congrats on your promotion to superintendent. Call the owner of your company and inform him of the changes. If he has a problem with it, tell him to call me. I don’t have time for any interruptions like this again, understood?”

“Understood.” Kyle nodded his head, looking at me briefly, “It’s your building Sir, you’re in charge of who comes and goes.”

“Good.” Tamen nodded and then looked over his shoulder at me. “Let’s go. Try not to walk off a set of scaffolds or something and make me look like an idiot, would you?”

I gritted my teeth to keep from snapping back with something snarky and followed him. I walked through the loud and chaotic construction zone until we reached what used to be a client payment room; it had been cleared out, and a makeshift desk was set up in the center.

“You won’t be using the front door anymore.” Tamen said as soon as the door shut behind us. “Enter through the employee entrance and come straight to this office from now on. Understood?”

“Say please.” I replied and then rolled my eyes when it looked like his would pop out of his head. “I understand.”

He glared at me and then pulled a pack of cigarettes off his desk and popped one between his lips, but didn’t light it. “Do you have the designs?”

Grabbing the folder from my bag, I laid it on his desk and then put my stuff down on the extra table against the wall covered with more of the same kind of folders, no doubt stuffed with more decisions he seemed incapable of making. Was it because he was a man and didn’t care for details? Or was it because he didn’t know the business well enough to decide?

“Have you ever owned a club before?” I asked, flipping open the front of a random envelope, finding a menu of different meals outlined and noted through with angry red pen marks. “Or any business, for that matter?”

“Why?” He asked, sitting down in his chair to stare at me with that dark, piercing stare. It was fucking wild how a man with bright blue eyes that nearly glowed in the low light could have such a dark penetrating stare. It made him look like an animal instead of a man.

I broke the magnetic pull his gaze had on me and shrugged, closing that folder and opening another one. “You seem,” I paused, turning back to face him as I leaned back on the table and crossed my arms over my chest. “Stressed.”

His brows rose a fraction of an inch before he looked away from me and down at the folder. “Come, explain your pairings.” He laid the folder on his desk and leaned back in his chair, staring back at me as I made my way to him. The man oozed power and authority, and all I wanted to do was flip him out of his chair to take his seat from him.

I hated opposing power.

I hated authority.

I hated him.

Even if for a second, I considered sitting down right in his lap to explain my designs as he had instructed, just to throw him off his game rather than dumping him out of his chair altogether.

Instead, I stood at his side instead.

Had twenty other jobs not weighed in the balance, I may have chosen one of my first ideas.

“Obviously, you need a variety of styles to meet different desires and personalities with as many rooms as you plan for.” I flipped through the pages and found one I particularly liked. “By keeping one element, you can style four or more different rooms to be similar but not identical. That would keep costs down on materials, as well as production times, as your crews would be able to move straight into the next room after the first.” I took the black lace from the center of the page and laid it over first the dark red paint color and then moved it to the emerald green color next to it, covering it to match. “One element, used across multiple rooms.”

Tamen leaned forward in his chair and nodded to the page. “And the satin?” He ran his fingertips over the swatch of silky fabric hanging next to the emerald green. It was the same inky black color as the lace, but it completely changed the vibe of the design when I laid it across the same four sample colors.

“Emerald green, burgundy red, warm cream, and royal purple can be the main colors of all the rooms. Changing the accent colors,” I flipped the page and showcased the different laces and satins displayed, “can leave the rooms all different without major changes.”

“Customers will get bored.” He countered, leaning back in his chair and looking up at me with a tilt of his head. The man was so tall, he came up to my shoulder where I stood with my hip against the desk facing him. “There needs to be more variety. The name of the club is Prism, remember.” His eyes flicked up to my hair that was clipped back, “A kaleidoscope of variety. That’s our motto.”

“Maybe if you want it to look like a rave.” I argued. “If that’s the look you’re going for, you might as well add black lights to the ceiling that will highlight every single sperm stain and shooter tubes in between the breasts of your bottle girls in the lounge.” I tsked my teeth and flicked the folder closed, “I thought you wanted class and luxury, not an early 2000s rager.”

I picked up the folder and went to walk away, but he grabbed my wrist as I turned away and held me by it.

My skin burned from his touch, and the air literally crackled between us as he stared up at me with his glowing eyes. What the hell?

“They’ll get bored.”

“No, they won’t.” I shook my head, challenging him with my ideas. “It will spark familiarity and comfort. Think about it from a customer’s standpoint.” I leaned back on the desk, and he let go of my arm, “Say a customer comes here for the first time and books the emerald green room with black lace and has a fantastic time.” His eyes squinted slightly, like he was already judging my plan, but I kept going. “And then the next time he comes, he books the royal purple room that has that same black lace undertone to the fabrics and the accents. His mind is going to instantly slide back into the place where he found pleasure last time. He’s going to relax and enjoy himself, even if it’s only his second time, because it will be familiar.”

“And if he has a bad time the first night?” He argued, “What happens when he comes back to a familiar room and the memories that return to him aren’t good ones.”

I grinned defiantly at him. “Did you enjoy your night with Valentina?” His blue eyes darkened, and his lips played with that cigarette he still hadn’t lit. “Did you enjoy your other nights with girls here? Have you ever left unsatisfied?”

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