I was five minutes away from my building when I finally got a text back from her. “Mr. McAllister, I told you I had plans this evening. I’m not available to work. I will see you tomorrow.”
I growled as I stared at her message. How dare she talk to me like that? Insubordination. Did she think that she could tell me when she could and couldn’t work?
“I won’t be in the office tomorrow, Ms. Waldron,” I responded quickly. “Call me now.” I sent the text message and I could see the three dots indicating that she was typing a response back to me. “Call me,” I typed before she could send me something back in a text message.
The dots stopped and I stood there holding my phone with my breath in my throat. Was she not going to call me? Was she really going to … And then the phone rang. I felt my heart jump for joy for just a brief second like I was a teenager, and I frowned as I answered the phone.
“Hello?” I said brusquely.
“Hello, Mr. McAllister. This is Abby.”
“Abby, where have you been?” I snapped.
“I already told you I had plans, sir. You can’t—”
“Did you book the flights to Edinburgh?”
“Not yet, sir. I’m—”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m trying to figure out if we have to go through London, and I was told if I wait till tomorrow that—”
“You were told by who? Your date?”
“Sir, I’m not really sure why you’re asking me these questions. Aren’t you meant to be on your date?”
“That’s none of your business, Abby.”
“Whatever, Mr. McAllister.”
“I need the flight details ASAP. I need to make other plans for the trip.”
“What are you talking about, sir? I book everything for you.”
“Fine,” I sighed. I knew I wasn’t making sense, but I just wanted to hear her voice. “How’s the date going?”
“It’s fine,” she said, her voice sounding muffled. I could hear the noise of what sounded like a feminine voice laughing in the background.
“Where are you?”
“What do you mean, where am I?”
“I said, where are you? It doesn’t sound like you’re in a restaurant. In fact, it sounds like …”
“It sounds like what, sir?”
“It sounds like there are two girls talking in the background and giggling about something.”
“I’m not sure what you’re saying, sir. I just stepped outside the restaurant so that I could call you back and—”
“Uh-huh. Whatever, Ms. Waldron. Just work on the flight information. I have to go now.”
“Um, okay. You’re the one that—”
Click. I hung up on her. Something about Abby Waldron rankled me. I wasn’t sure what it was. I mean, yeah, she was sexy, and yeah, I wanted to fuck her in every position I knew, but it was more than that. She got under my skin in ways I didn’t know a woman could get under my skin.
It felt deeper than just lust, and I hated that. I was not made for emotions. I was not made for losing my cool. I hated who I was right now. And that made me dislike Abby. What was she doing to me? She was bewitching me. I’d make the trip to Edinburgh pure hell for her. I didn’t like her feeling like she had the upper hand. I need to be far more in control of the situation. I needed to be the strong man that I knew that I was.
Chapter 20
Abby
* * *
“So, hi. I’m Abby. I …” The girl with the long, blonde hair just stared at me as I spoke. “I’m new today.”
She continued to stare at me, a blank expression in her cold blue eyes. I had already changed my mind about taking this job a million times, and as I stood in front of the unfriendly girl, I wondered if I could run away and just go home.
“Okay, and what do you want me to do about it?” She flipped her hair and then turned to the other girl, a short Asian woman with big, beautiful eyes. “Hey, Hannah.”
“Yeah?” The other girl looked over at the blonde.
“This girl wants us to know she’s new.” They both looked at me and started laughing.
“Okay. And what do you want us to do about it?” Hannah said with a raised eyebrow.
“I guess I was just hoping that you’d say that we don’t have to have sex with the guys or anything.”
“It’s up to you.” The blonde shrugged. “Depends how much money you want to make.”
“You don’t really have sex with them, do you?” I could feel my heart beating erratically. This was not what I wanted to hear.
“Of course not.” She paused and then started laughing before she high-fived the other girl. “Sorry. We always get the new girls on the first day. You’ll be fine.”
“Yeah.” The girl named Hannah walked over to me wearing the skimpiest bikini I’ve ever seen. “You’ll be absolutely fine. You’re Abby, right?”
“Yeah.” I looked at them curiously. “Are you being nice or …”
“Oh, this is a little joke we always play on the new girl,” Hannah said with a laugh. “We like to act like bitches first to sort of make you feel more comfortable, you know?”
“Uh, yeah. Not really.” I giggled nervously. “You nearly gave me a heart attack. I was about to run out of here.”
“No worries,” Hannah said with a smile. “We don’t bite. The men might try and bite, but we don’t.”
“So I’m jumping out of the cake, which seems kind of weird …”
“Oh, the guys will love you,” the blonde with the long hair said.
“Oh?”
“Because they never expect it. Us, we’re there and we’re upfront and yeah, they enjoy us, but we’re just par for the course. But you, you are the crème de la crème, the pièce de résistance,” she said with a dramatic French accent.
“But no pressure, right?” I giggled nervously. “And I’m not expected to do anything but jump out of the cake?”
“Well, you do a little dance,” Hannah said with a grin. “You do know that, right?”
“Yeah, but it’s not like I have to do a lap dance, I just jump out the cake and do a little dance and that’s it?”
“Yep, you come out at the end of the night,” Hannah said with a grin. “It’ll be fine.”
“And you guys don’t do more for extra money, do you?”
“Do you want the truth …?” The blonde arched an eyebrow at me.
“The truth.” I braced myself.
“Well, I wasn’t lying, it really depends on how much money you want to make.”
“We don’t have sex, though,” Hannah said with a grin. “Definitely no sex—unless they’re super hot. That’s my motto.”
“Oh,” I said.
“I know I sound like a slut, right? But I go to clubs, and I pick up guys all the time. If it’s a guy I would meet at a club and hook up with, then it’s okay. I mean shit, for ten grand, right?”