“It’s good to have people who care about you around. They keep you out of trouble.”
Jax coughed at that statement, and I glared at him.
Turning my attention back to Dimitri, I asked, “Do you have any of the Firewater Black Label?”
Firewater was a whiskey with a cult following. It tasted like it had been aged for twenty years but in fact was created in a lab and aged less than a year. The owner of the company, Penny Lykaios, was a genius and happened to be Ana’s cousin. Ana had introduced us and we’d fostered a friendship over the years. It was actually Penny and her husband Hagen who’d influenced me to take the jump into the nightclub business. With their guidance and the exclusive distribution contract I’d negotiated with Penny for Firewater, I’d gained an edge in the cutthroat nightlife industry.
“You should know. Aren’t you the one who got me on the list for distribution?”
Dimitri pulled the bottle from a cabinet where he held the reserved spirits he kept for his high-end clients, mainly my father and his circle.
“Yes, but no one’s supposed to know that secret. If Papa finds out, you won’t get any more bottles.”
“No one’s here who’d tell on you.” He looked up at Jax, who nodded.
Dimitri poured two fingers’ worth of the reddish-gold liquid into a tumbler and set it in front of me.
Without a second thought, I shot back the expensive whiskey, letting the alcohol burn down my throat and warm my stomach.
“Another.”
Dimitri narrowed his gaze at me but complied.
I drank the second glass back. “Again.”
“Only one more.”
Frowning, I said, “Fine. You’d hand me the bottle if you were dealing with the shit I was.”
“Getting drunk won’t solve your issues.”
I was surrounded by overprotective men, and the way Jax was staring at me, he would take the bottle from me if it were in my hand.
They weren’t the one stuck marrying a man they’d never met to save everything their family had worked to build. Or expected to produce the next generation with a man who may or may not be a horrible human being.
God, I hoped he was nothing like Jonas. The man gave me the creeps on more levels than one.
Picking up the glass, I went to drink down the alcohol when my gaze landed on the man standing outside the bar windows.
Baz.
His dark, almost black eyes studied me. Immediately, I felt my skin tingle. What was it about this man that made my body react so strongly?
It wasn’t just his dark good looks or the body that looked like he’d walked off the pages of a fashion magazine, or the hint of tattoos that peeked from the collar of his shirt. He affected me in a way that made me want to let him do anything and everything to me.
He shook his head, glancing at the glass in my hand.
I lifted a brow and downed the drink.
Baz moved to the door of the bar, pulled it open, and walked in, heading straight for me.
When he was less than a foot from me, he pulled the glass from my hand, set it on the bar top, and said, “As a friend, I believe it’s safe to say drinking your troubles away isn’t the best idea.”
Chapter Six
Sebastian
“And how would you know about my troubles?” The irritation on Isa’s beautiful face told me she was ready for a fight.
If we were alone and I wasn’t getting glares from the man behind the counter or the giant I knew was her security, I’d have given her the challenge she was throwing down.
Everything told me she was dealing with the aftermath of whatever Jonas had said at lunch.
Fucker had set up the brunch as a way to emphasize his influence on the situation he’d put both families in. The bastard hadn’t expected me to show up, or that I’d make it very clear to Benz that I took orders from no one, especially not Jonas.
Then, when one of my spies had sent me a text informing me that Isa had walked out of the lunch angry, I knew I had to find her. Jonas was an asshole. Well, I was one too, but in a different way.
I was lying to the woman I was going to marry. Technically, I wasn’t lying, I just wasn’t revealing who I was, but I highly doubted she’d view it from my angle.
“After last night, I’m pretty sure I know exactly what troubles you.”
“Then you understand why whiskey is definitely called for.”
“How’s that?”
“I just had the pleasure of dealing with my future father-in-law.”
I could only imagine how he’d treated her. He thought himself superior to everyone, and his view of women as a whole was low.
I took her hand and pulled her from the bar. “Have coffee with me.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be at Emma’s? That’s across town.”
I ran a thumb over the pulse point on her wrist, causing her to shiver. She was definitely not immune to me.
“I was about to head there when I saw you throwing back a thousand-dollar-an-ounce whiskey.”
That was both a truth and a lie. I’d known she wouldn’t have shown up. Her honesty about her life made me realize she wasn’t anything like the woman I expected her to be. Her loyalty to her family trumped her personal needs.
When I’d gone looking for her after my call, the last place I expected to find her was drinking her troubles away at a neighborhood bar.
“Well, if I’m going to drink, it might as well be something worth the effort or the possible hangover.”
“I doubt you ever let yourself get to that point.” The woman had a need to control everything.
I’d gauged that last night, and the unhappiness she felt at not having any say in the course of her life.
“Why are you in my neighborhood, Baz?”
“Your neighborhood?”
“Yes, I grew up here.”
“I had business in the area.” I guided her to
