Sin (Vegas Nights 1)

I’d never been here without the knowledge I could call him. Now, I was, and it stung. All I wanted to do was grab my purse and get the hell out of here, but I couldn’t. I’d neglected my duties long enough. It was time for me to pull up my big girl panties—but not too far, given that I was wearing a thong—and get the hell on with it.

“All right. What needs to be done?” I stepped up to the edge of the bar.

“Damien Fox needs to fuck off,” Abby said it so simply, like it was nothing more or less than a fact. And I guess, to her, it was a fact. He needed to. “He said he’d wait for your call to discuss a meeting, and that his lawyer is on standby to draw up papers for the sale of the bar. But you can’t call him before one p.m. because he’s up late with the clubs some nights.”

“Well, that’s a surefire way to get me to call you before one o’clock.” I rolled my eyes.

I didn’t know much about Damien Fox except for the fact he lived up to his surname and owned half of the strip clubs in the city. My father had crossed paths with both him and his father on occasion, but from the rumors I’d heard, I went out of my way to avoid the entire family.

Now, it seemed that wasn’t an option for me. I needed to confront the cunning, smug asshole myself.

“How do I contact him?”

“His card is in the register.” Abby cocked a thumb over her shoulder and opened a folder.

Great.

I was hoping she’d say she didn’t know.

Stepping behind the bar was strange. It’d been such a long time since I’d been there, yet at the same time, it felt right. I knew what Abby had said wasn’t wrong—waiting until I was ready to come back would have resulted in me never doing it. I might have been throwing myself in at the deep end by calling Damien Fox immediately, but the situation needed handling.

I wasn’t selling The Scarlet Letter. No matter how much money he tried to give me.

I opened the register and instantly found his card, the small, black rectangle obvious on the silver tray of the drawer. It wasn’t hard, given that the register was empty because Abby hadn’t put the cash tray in there yet. Knowing her, she’d deliberately dropped the card down the side of it so she didn’t have to look at it.

Flipping the thick, dark card between my fingers and thumb, I glanced around for the phone. No way was I using my cell—I didn’t want to invite Mr. Fox to call me on my personal time.

“Under the register,” Abby said over her shoulder.

Sure enough, when I bent down to look, I found it. Each key beeped when I typed in the number on the card. I didn’t know if this number was private, business, or to one of the clubs, so I ran the risk of not even getting through to him.

“Hi,” a man’s voice said.

“Hell—”

“You’ve reached Damien Fox. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

I was going to ignore the fact I’d just attempted a conversation with a phone recording.

The beep was long and loud, and I swallowed hard before speaking.

“Good morning, Mr. Fox. This is Dahlia Lloyd from The Scarlet Letter. Thank you for your interest in purchasing the bar, but the business is not for sale. Have a nice day.”

The second I pushed the button to end the call, Abby burst out laughing.

“What the hell was so funny about that?” I frowned, staring at the phone. I glanced up in enough time to see her turn around and look at me.

“Really?” Her lower lip trembled. “You were so nice, then so mean, then so nice again.”

“I wasn’t mean.” Was I?

“It’s the way you said it. You were all, ‘Good morning, Mr. Fox!’” she trilled her impression of me in a chirpy voice that made my skin crawl. “Then, you went, ‘The business is not for sale,’” she continued in a sharper voice before going back to the chirpy sound again. ““Have a nice day!””

Shaking my head, I put the phone back on the shelf where it belonged. “How else was I supposed to say it? I’m not a mean person, but obviously, the man doesn’t take a hint.”

“Have you ever known a man to take a hint?”

She had a good point.

“Well, no, but still. It was my first official act as the owner of the bar, and I wanted him to know I’m not a pushover.”

“Just a little soft on the inside. Like a s’more.”

I’d been called worse.

I rounded the bar and joined her at the table where she was sitting with her laptop open. “Can I help you with anything?”