Nate furrowed his brow. The details didn’t quite add up. The Luxe had a deal with Joy Delivered. They were ready to roll out the marketing for the LolaRing. The product had been kept under wraps, along with the specifics of the partnership. The exclusive partnership.
“What do you mean?” Nate asked carefully as his spine pricked with an oddly familiar feeling. He almost couldn’t put his finger on it. It had been a while since he’d experienced this, but the déjà vu running through his mind was intense.
“She came to me last month to roll out some new product. Said the other hotel chain she’d planned to work with wasn’t going to cut it. Not classy enough, she said. But then she yanked it from me a few days ago to go with the Pierson. Hasn’t told anyone yet,” Ethan said, shaking his head.
Nate clenched his fists under the table, and swallowed dryly. He tried to tell himself not to jump to conclusions. Not to assume the worst. The waitress appeared with a mug and a pot of coffee and poured a cup for Nate. She turned to Ethan. “More for you?”
“That’d be great,” he said, pushing his white ceramic mug closer to the waitress, and knocking some papers around in the process. “Look at me. I’m a fucking mess,” he said to Nate with a self-deprecating chuckle as he grabbed some of the papers and tried to organize them, then stopped. “Screw it. I just need more coffee.”
Nate blinked and tried to clear his head as Ethan took a long drink from his mug. He pursed his lips, keeping his mouth shut, as he worked hard to ignore the rapid-fire fear and anger that stirred in his blood. It was only a business deal; this wasn’t the same situation as Joanna, and besides, Casey wouldn’t do something this sneaky. She wouldn’t lie or play these kinds of games.
But then he’d once believed all of Joanna’s lies.
Every single one of them.
Ethan set down his cup. “Can’t get too upset about it, I suppose. Even though she promised me the deal. Hell, it was my idea. I brought it to her way back before she gave it away to the Pierson,” he said, stabbing his finger against a piece of paper in his stack. Nate’s eyes followed Ethan’s moves, and he flinched when he saw the words in black blaring at him. An email from Casey to Ethan from nearly a month ago, with only a line or two visible since the paper was partially covered up by the computer.
Love the concept! Looking forward to exploring possibilities with you!
It was like being shot back in time. Discovering an email he wasn’t meant to see, full of words that subverted him, words that revealed how he’d been played like a fool again.
He swallowed back his anger, and spoke slowly, trying not to show he was reeling inside. “She was doing this deal with you first? It was your idea?”
Ethan nodded. “Yup. She yanked it out from under me though. And hey, I guess I can’t blame the Pierson for taking it, right? I hear this toy is supposed to be pretty intense. She told me it feels like being licked and fucked at the same time.”
Nate gripped the edge of the table. Blood pounded in his ears as those words echoed loudly, like a cruel mockery of all that was supposed to be private.
* * *
Casey peered at the address on her phone one last time, then glanced up at the street sign. She didn’t spend much time in Chinatown, and the streets had names instead of numbers. Baxter Street. This was the one. She turned right, hunting for her destination.
The stores along the block were tiny, wedged next to each other, and addresses on the front of the buildings could be hard to spot. She readjusted her ponytail, so it was high on her head, keeping her hair off her neck. She tugged at her silky, short-sleeved blouse, wishing for the thousandth time that New York and hot summers played nicely together. But they didn’t and never would. She still loved this city though, loved the hustle and bustle, and loved the fact that she could track down anything she wanted in mere hours, as she’d done today. That was the reason she found herself walking past Chinese grocery stores peddling odd fruit, then dim sum dealers, then sardine-sized shops that specialized in embroidered robes and dresses. She checked the numbers of all of them, and soon she found the X that marked the spot.
The Fortune Cookie Factory. With a name like that, she’d half expected a Willie Wonka-style establishment, with gears and cogs and conveyor belts that produced the little cookie creations. Instead, she’d arrived at a small storefront, stuffed from floor to ceiling with boxes. The door was open, and the interior was dimly lit. She walked in. No one manned the front counter. She tapped the bell lightly.
Soon, a heavyset woman with short black hair and tired eyes waddled to the counter.
“I’m picking up an order,” Casey said.
The woman nodded. “What is your name?”
Casey gave her the name and a minute later the woman handed her a small Chinese food carton with fortune cookies in it. She returned to the blanket of heat in the New York mid-morning, ready to jet back to her office and focus on work before she could give this small little gift to Nate tonight. She hadn’t seen him in four days, and was so ready to let him know how much she’d missed him.
When she reached Canal, she raised her hand to hail a cab, but two minutes later she was still standing there, peering down the long stretch of street at occupied cab after occupied cab. She sighed heavily, shrugged, and hoofed it to the nearby subway. As she walked down the steps to the uptown platform her phone rang. Nate’s name flashed across the screen.
* * *
Something dark and nasty gnawed at Ethan’s gut. It was that thing—that creature inside of him—that told him to keep going. Somewhere inside, he knew he was pushing things too far. But that voice of reason wasn’t speaking loudly enough for him to hear.
Maybe it was because of his boss. Maybe it was because he wanted things that he didn’t have. Or maybe it was just because he was still pissed. He didn’t usually resort to these sorts of tactics to get what he wanted, but he was backed into a corner at work, and if he could convince Harper that Casey had fucked them both, perhaps he could swoop in and steal the deal back that was his in the first place. Be the knight in shining armor for her. She’d have no choice but to work with him, as she should have in the first place.
A long shot, but it was the only shot he had. He wouldn’t have operated like this a few years ago, but a few years ago he was still on the rise. Now he was on the downhill, and men on the downhill had to fight dirty to climb their way up the summit again.