Page 5 of Luca
“Deal,” I said.
Nico grinned like a shark as we shook hands. I’d make him lose this bet.
A cell phone beeped and all of us glanced at our phones. It was Nico’s; he’d gotten a reply.
“Okay, Gia will take them,” Nico announced. “I’ll have my construction team work on building expansion, but until then, Gia said she can accommodate them.”
“Excellent,” I grumbled. Geez, even his housekeeper was too efficient. “Now, let’s go and celebrate. Shall we hit your club in the city, Cassio?”
“Temptation?” Nico questioned. “Isn’t there a Halloween party or something?”
“In fucking August?” Luciano grumbled. It was my sentiment exactly. I hated costume parties. It was a goddamned circus.
Cassio just shrugged his shoulders. “The event manager is doing some shit cramming all of the year’s events into this month. Next week it’s a Christmas party.”
Luciano and Nico promptly called the event manager a moron, rolling their eyes. I couldn’t agree more, but it was Cassio’s club. I wasn’t much into owning clubs. I preferred oil refineries, technology companies, and shit like that.
“No Temptation for me,” Alexei’s cold tone interrupted Luciano’s creative names for Cassio’s event manager as if he was going down the alphabet.
“Yeah, Temptation is too soft for me too,” I replied. “But when Cassio refuses to open something more hard core, you just have to settle for Temptation.”
Alexei flipped me off with a blank expression on his face.
“Go open your own hard core sex club,” Cassio grumbled. “You kinky bastard.”
I grinned. I wasn’t into kinky stuff, not that I wouldn’t give it a try once. But I could take it or leave it.
“I might,” I said. “And call it Cassio.”
“And I just might beat your ass,” Cassio mused.
As if he could ever. My older brother was delusional sometimes.
Leaving them behind, I jumped into my Bugatti and drove myself to Temptation, unaware that there’d be exactly that, a temptation, waiting for me there.
* * *
I strode into the club,waving a hand to Alan, Cassio’s bouncer.
“Hey, Alan,” I greeted him. “Busy tonight.”
“Every night this month,” he grumbled. See, even his own bouncer hated the idea of holidays in August.
A young woman came up beside me. “Thanks for waiting.”
I cocked my eyebrow and gave her a side-glance. She smiled at me, her eyes shining like two blue sapphires with depths of ocean blues. The same blues as those of the girl who haunted my dreams.
“Keep walking,” she murmured. Was she using me to get into the club? I almost laughed. Women usually gave me more than a double take and this one barely glanced my way, her eyes attentive and watching Alan.
My eyes traveled over her. The same shade of raven black hair. The same blue eyes. She was older, taller, with a killer body in aBlack Widowcostume that hugged her curves. It was her. I was certain of it.
Margaret Callahan.
I signaled to Alan with a nod to let her in. We barely stepped foot inside the club and she disappeared without so much as a thank you.
But we weren’t done yet. Far from it if I had my way. I headed after her, scanning the dark hallway way for the petite raven haired beauty dressed in a tightBlack Widowsuit.
Fuck, I’d lost her in the crowds already.
