Fake It For Daddy (Sugar Daddy 1)

I hesitate but I know that’s the best I’ll get out of him right now. I’m worried, but I do as he asks and get dressed.We sit silently in the back of a classic Rolls Royce. Claude sits up front with the driver, not looking back toward us, simply staring out the window. His three female assistants are gone and I briefly wonder what they were even doing at the airport yesterday.

Probably trying to impress us or something like that.

Clearly, they don’t know Leon.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about him, it’s that he isn’t impressed with trappings. He doesn’t care what something looks like, if it’s fancy or beautiful or what, so long as it functions as it should. He wants things that are profitable, that work hard. And then they can be beautiful.

I glance at him but don’t say anything. I can see the worry and frustration in his gaze as the buildings flit past our windows. I want to put my hand on his leg, or take his hand in mine, anything to try and comfort him. But I don’t, of course. I’m just his assistant, after all.

It’s an agonizing ten-minute drive. It feels like hours. But soon enough, the car pulls over beside what looks like an entire city block surrounded by a fence with a screen draped all around it. We can’t see into the center of the fenced-in area, but clearly there’s no building there, otherwise we’d see it.

The location is good… really good. We’re not exactly right on the beach but there’s a major marina just across the street. There are gambling clubs, night clubs, drinking clubs, and anything else you could imagine all within a block or two, at least based on what I could tell as we drove here.

Claude gets out first followed by Leon. I follow them both and step onto the sidewalk, nervously looking between the men.

“Will Maxime and Cerise be here soon?” Leon asks Claude before the man can start speaking.

He hesitates only a second. “Of course,” he says. “Come, let us look around.”

Leon glances at me, a dark expression in his eyes. But we follow Claude halfway down the block and through a small door built into the fencing.

“We imagine it will go here,” Claude says, gesturing at what’s essentially an empty dirt lot. There are construction vehicles idling, some materials lying around, but nothing’s being built, nothing’s happening.

“Who owns those?” Leon asks, gesturing at the diggers sitting abandoned in the center of the lot.

Claude shrugs. “Previous owner. He did not leave willingly.”

Leon grunts in response and steps out into the dirt. He looks across the empty expanse, his eyes defocusing slightly. He’s seeing something I don’t see and I wish desperately I could know what it is.

Claude launches into a monologue about the lot. He gives its size, how deep we could build, the local regulations on building height, brief rundown on earthquake requirements, fire requirements, all the standard things a building in this area would need.

Leon clearly isn’t listening. He’s looking around the lot with that distant look in his eyes. I’m getting more and more nervous as time passes. Claude eventually finishes what was clearly a preplanned speech and Leon doesn’t even react.

I stand there awkwardly, not sure what to do.

Finally, Leon cuts across the space. He walks away without a word. Claude looks at me with a frown, about to say something, but I just ignore him. I follow Leon, jogging to catch up.

“What’s going on?” I hiss at him.

“They aren’t coming,” he answers.

I frown a little. “You can’t know that.”

“There’s nothing here to see,” he says, his voice strangely flat. “It’s a good space. If they actually do approve this, I think I can be very, very happy with it. But it’s not happening.”

“Leon, you can’t know that.”

He stops suddenly and turns to face me. We’re in the middle of the lot now, well out of range of Claude’s spying ears.

“Yes, I do know that,” he says to me softly. “I’ve been working on this place for a long time, and I’m telling you, if they were serious about this deal then one of them would be here. They never, ever, ever send an underling to meet with an important associate. It’s a huge insult here.”

I blanch slightly. “I didn’t realize that.”

“They’re insulting us, Paige.” A shadow of anger drifts across his face like a cloud in an otherwise blue sky. “And I don’t know why.”

“Can’t we talk to them? Ask them?”

“It won’t matter. You’ve met Maxime. He’s a smarmy, fast-talking charmer. And Cerise is just as likely to tell me to fuck off as she is to tell me the truth.”

I look around, digging my toe into the dirt, almost trying to conjure up something to say. But there’s nothing to say, and I know it.