Chapter One
“What in the actual fuck?” Juliet murmured under her breath as she reluctantly turned off her ignition.
Either this was a joke or someone was wasting her time.
From the outside, Catacombs was nondescript, blending in with the other warehouses that lined a dreary street in an obscure industrial park Juliet hadn’t even known existed. With cinder-block construction, the club had a black steel door and no front windows.
There wasn’t even a sign on the building.
She would have thought she had the wrong place if she hadn’t double-checked the address.
How could this club make enough money for a big renovation if no one could even tell what it was from the street? She made a mental note to address curb appeal when she met with the owner.
Briefcase in hand, she straightened her blouse and knocked on the scuffed metal door, not entirely sure anyone would hear her. Only seconds passed before a man yanked open the door. Tall, with broad shoulders, the guy was good to look at. His longish red hair contrasted with his startling green eyes. He had a sexy smile too.
Hellooo . . .
“Hi, I’m Juliet from Stride Designs.”
“Hi, Juliet from Stride Designs. I’m Grant from Catacombs. Come on in.”
“Grant?” She frowned. “I have a nine o’clock with the owner. William Ellis?”
“He’s not in yet. But I’ll show you the plans and stuff. He’ll be here . . . soonish.” Grant glanced over her shoulder as though expecting Mr. Ellis to make a sudden appearance.
As Juliet followed him in, she glanced at her watch. Nine a.m. sharp. Hopefully, the man didn’t have an ongoing issue with punctuality, although from what this guy had said maybe it was common for him. As the only public face of her family’s business and one of the main designers, she was too busy to deal with people who couldn’t make their appointments on time.
“Is he . . . often late?” she asked cautiously, not wanting to offend, but needing to know so she could plan for it their next meeting—if there was one. She hadn’t brought extra work with her to fill the wasted time.
Grant chuckled. “Yeah. But don’t worry, he left his notes.”
Inwardly grumbling, she followed the man through the almost lightless main area of the club, into a small office down a hallway. One side of the room was covered with blackout blinds. A desk sat in the middle of the space with an office chair behind it. At least she assumed it was a desk. Every square inch was covered with . . . mess. Papers, mugs that looked half-full, an oddly large assortment of rulers—some broken. Not a single inch of actual desk showed through the chaos.
She inhaled deeply through her nose and let it out slowly through her mouth. It was a meditation trick she’d learned during her yoga phase. It was the only part that had stuck and she used it to quell her frustration with difficult clients.
Grant shuffled through a mound of papers, looking confused. “Hmm. It’s around here somewhere.”
On the corner nearest Juliet, she spotted a crude floor plan . . . drawn in purple. The page was full of scribbles and measurements written with question marks.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
She picked the page up, cringing. “Is this it?”
“Ah. There it is.”
“Purple,” she muttered, half-convinced it was colored pencil.
“What?”
“Nothing. Um. Too bad he didn’t use one of these rulers.”
Grant smirked. “It probably didn’t cross his mind to use them for that. He didn’t tell you what kind of club this is, did he?”
What kind of club? The info she’d received had been incomplete and oddly vague. She’d assumed it was a nightclub. It certainly wasn’t a golf club. “No. Why?”
A shadow caught the corner of her eye and she turned toward the doorway. Another broad, well-muscled man, with too many tattoos, had basically made a door of himself. This guy had messy reddish-blond hair and a day’s growth of blond stubble along his square jaw, as though he’d been out partying all night and hadn’t bothered to go home yet. Her spine straightened in response to him. He looked a lot like Grant, but a bit older, and a bit . . . harder.
The guy was offensively handsome—the kind of guy who chewed women up and spat them out and didn’t think about them again. No one had any business looking so sexy and . . . fucking magnetic? . . . in a sloppy T-shirt and worn jeans. She could tell he was one of those guys who was a huge narcissistic asshole who never thought of anyone but himself. His eyes were the same startling green as Grant’s, too, but the expression in them was very different. She felt like he was mocking her.
“You’re the project manager from Stride?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m Juliet Callahan,” she said stiffly. “You must be Mr. Ellis.”
“Will. Nice to meet you.”
Yeah, sure it was. He seemed to be assessing her . . . laughing at her maybe, as if he thought she was a joke.