Need housekeeping crew to clean this place.
I attached my live location, saw the blue ticks as Paul read the message—he knew better than to ignore my texts, whatever time of day they came—and he replied: Sure thing.
That was the kind of reply I was used to getting. Not just from Paul, but from everyone.
There were very few people who weren’t below me in the strata of Five Points, and I’d worked my ass off to make that so.
The only people who ranked above me included Aidan Jr. and his brothers, Aidan Sr. of course, and then maybe a handful of his advisors that he respected for what they’d done for him and the Points over the years.
But the money I made Aidan Sr.?
That blew most of their ‘advice’ out of the window.
The reason Aidan had a Dassault Falcon executive private plane?
Because I was, as the City itself called me, a whiz kid.
I’d made my first million—backed by the Points, of course—at twenty-two.
Fifteen years later?
I’d made him hundreds of millions.
My own personal fortune was nothing to sniff at, either.
“W-Why have you done this?” Aoife asked, her voice breathy enough to make me wonder if she sounded like that in the sack.
“Because you’ve been a very stubborn little girl.”
Her eyes flared wide. “Excuse me?”
I reached into the inside pocket of my suit coat and pulled out a business card. “For you,” I prompted, offering it to her.
When she turned it over, saw the logo of five points shaped into a star, then read Acuig—in the Gaelic way, ah-coo-ig, not a butchered American way, ah-coo-ch—aloud, I watched her throat work as she swallowed.
“I-I should have realized with the Irish name,” she whispered, the muscles in her brow twitching as she took in the chaos of the scattered photos on the floor.
Watching her as she dropped the contents on the ground, so she was surrounded by them, I tilted my head to the side, taking her in as her panic started to crest.
“I-I won’t sell.” Her first words surprised me.
I should have figured, though. Everything about this woman was surprisingly delicious.
“You have no choice,” I purred. “As far as I’m aware, the Senator has a wife. He also has a reputation to protect. I’m not sure he’d be happy if any of those made it onto the National Enquirer’s front page. Not when he’s just trying to shore up his image to take a run for the White House next election.”
She reached up and clutched her throat. The self-protective gesture was enough to make me smile at her—I knew what the absence of hope looked like.
There’d been a time when that had been my life, too.
“But, on the bright side,” I carried on, “this can all be wiped away if you sell.” As her gaze flicked to mine, I added, “As well as if you do something for me.”
For a second, she was speechless. I could see she knew what that something was. Had my body language given it away? Had there been a certain raspiness to my tone?
I wasn’t sure, and frankly, didn’t give a fuck.
There was a little hiccoughing sound that escaped her lips, and she frowned at me, then down at herself.
“Is this a joke?”
“Do I look like I’m the kind of guy who jokes, Aoife?” Fuck, I loved saying her name.
The Gaelic notes just drove me insane.
Ee-Fah.
Nothing like the spelling, and all the more complicated and delicious for it.
“N-No,” she confirmed, “but . . .”
“But what?” I prompted.
“I mean . . . you just can’t be serious.”
“Oh, but I am.” I grinned. “Deadly. You’ve wasted a lot of my time, Aoife Keegan. A lot. Do you think I’m normally involved in negotiations of this level?”
Her eyes whispered over me, and I felt the loving caress of her gaze as she took in each and every inch of me. When she licked her lips, I knew she liked what she saw. I didn’t really care, but it was helpful for her to be eager in some small way—especially when coercion was involved.
Aidan had called it bribery. I preferred ‘coercion’. It sounded far kinder.
“No. That suit alone probably cost the mortgage payment on this place.”
I nodded—she wasn’t wrong. I knew what she’d been paying as rent, then as a mortgage, before some kind benefactor had paid it all off. Free and clear.
“I had to get my hands dirty, and while I might like some things dirty . . .,” I trailed off, smirking when she flushed. “So, as I see it, we have a problem. I want this building. You don’t want anyone to know you’re having an affair with a Senator. Or, should I say, the Senator doesn’t want anyone to know he’s having an affair with someone young enough to be his daughter . . .”
If my voice turned into a growl at that point, then it was because the notion of her spreading her legs for that old bastard just turned my stomach.
Fuck, this woman, the thoughts she made me think.
Because I was startled at the possessive note to my growl, I ran a hand over my head. I kept my hair short for a reason—ease. I wasn’t the kind of man who wasted time primping. It was an expensive cut, so I didn’t have to do anything to it. Even mussing it up had it falling back into the same sleek lines as before—a man in my position had to look pristine under pressure. And very few people could even begin to understand the kind of strain I was under.
The formation of igneous rock had less volcanic pressure than Aidan Sr.
She licked her lips as she stared down at the photos, then back up at me. “And you want me to sell the place to you, even though this is my livelihood and the livelihood of all my staff, and then sleep with you?”
Her squeaky voice, putting suspicion into words, had me crossing my legs at the ankle. “We wouldn’t be doing much sleeping.”
Another shaky breath soughed from her lips, then, those beautiful pillowy morsels that would look good around my cock, quivered.
“This is crazy,” she whispered shakily.
“As far as I’m concerned, all of this could be avoided if you’d just sold to me a few months back. Now you have to pay for my time wasted on this project.”
“By spreading my legs?”
Another squeak. I tsked at her question, but in truth, I was annoyed at her using those same words I had to describe her with that old hypocrite of a Senator.
I didn’t move, though. Didn’t even flex my arms in irritation, just murmured, “Small price to pay. And, even though it’s ten percent above market price, I’ll stick to the last offer Acuig gave you. Can’t say anything’s fairer than that.”
She shook her head, and there was a desperation to the gesture as she cried, “I need this business. You don’t understand—”
“I understand that some very powerful and very dangerous businessmen want this building demolished. I understand that those same powerful and dangerous men want a skyscraper taking up this plot of land. I understand that a four hundred million dollar project isn’t going to be put on hiatus because one small Irish woman doesn’t want to go out of business . . .” I cocked a brow at her. “You think I’m coming in hot and heavy? These kinds of men, Aoife, they’re not the sort you fuck around with.