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It came as no surprise that the marriage didn’t last, but Q reclaimed his inheritance. So when Xavier approached him with his business proposal, a deal was struck. The Kings and one Hinton became business partners provided that Quentin Hinton remained a silent partner.
“Hello, Eamon,” a feminine voice floated in between the music.
He stopped and looked down just as a woman’s slim hand slid up his broad chest. When he shifted his gaze to the hand’s owner, he was pleasantly surprised to see Charelle. His lips stretched wider at the short, red number she had on. It showed off her long, lean and toned physique to perfection. “Hello, Charelle.”
“Ah. So you do remember me?” She moved closer and pressed her small curves against him. “You know, six months is a long time not to hear from someone.”
He laughed while his gaze dragged down her body. “If I remember correctly, you were the one who left town.”
Charelle’s cherry-red lips curled higher. “Silly man, you were supposed to chase after me.” Her hands and arms looped around his neck. “Don’t you know when a woman is playing hard to get?”
Behind him, Xavier and Jeremy chuckled. “Actually, I do,” Eamon said, reaching behind his neck and, gently but firmly, pulling her arms down. “And like I told you before, I don’t like playing games.”
Charelle moaned and pushed out her bottom lip. “Then don’t think of it as a game. Think of it like a dance.”
“Oh. A dance, huh?” He playfully rolled his eyes.
“What?” She pushed on one of his bulging biceps and flashed her pearly whites up at him. “You’re a man who owns a strip club. Don’t tell me you that you don’t like dancing.”
Xavier cut in. “Actually, it’s a gentlemen’s club.”
Charelle’s gaze shifted to the brothers. “Sorry. I didn’t know that I was interrupting a family reunion. Hello, boys.”
They quickly said their hellos.
“Then you won’t mind excusing us.” He started to move away.
“So we’ll finish this dance later?” she asked, rocking her hips to entice him with what could be waiting for him when he was through.
It wasn’t enough. “No. I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head and stepping away. “When I dance, I like to lead.”
Charelle’s face fell while Xavier and Jeremy sucked in a quick breath as if Eamon had delivered a body blow. He should have known better than to do this in front of them. They had a tendency to be juvenile.
“You’re welcome to stay. Just tell the bartender I said that the drinks are on the house tonight.” He stepped around her and then threaded through the crowd when she grabbed him by his trim waist.
“Is that it?”
“Did you need anything else?” he asked benignly.
“Hey, Eamon.” A woman walked behind him and gave his firm butt a good squeeze.
He turned his head in time to see Hayley, one of his waitresses, sashay away. “Hey, I require dinner and a few drinks before I allow a woman to have her way with me.” He laughed.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Hayley teased and continued to navigate her way through the crowd with her tray of drinks.
Laughing, Eamon turned back toward Charelle whose face was twisted in annoyance.
“Well, no wonder you’ve been M.I.A., you’ve already moved on to the next trick.”
Unfazed and, quite frankly, bored by Charelle’s penchant for drama, Eamon folded his arms. “You do realize that you just called yourself a trick, right?”
“No. I’m calling you a flea-infested, roaming dog.”
“Then you were smart to leave me when you did,” he agreed. No matter what she said, he was not going to indulge her by fighting. What was the point? Hayley meant nothing to him. It was harmless flirtation between good friends and not out of the ordinary for colleagues who worked in their type of establishment. “It was good seeing you again, Charelle.”
Making a clean break this time, Eamon finally maneuvered the rest of the way through the club to his private sanctuary: the office. “Shut the door behind you,” he instructed and then opted for the leather couch instead of the executive chair behind his desk.
“Yes, boss. Right away, boss,” Jeremy joked before closing the door behind him. In doing so, he lowered the volume at least fifty percent from the loud music bumping in the club.
“All right,” Eamon said, stretching back on the couch and kicking up his feet. “Lay it on me. What’s so important that it takes both of you to fly in to talk to me?”
His younger brothers looked at each other again as if waging a silent battle as to which one of them should drop the bomb.
“You guys are really trying my patience,” he warned. “Spill it.”
Xavier sucked in a deep breath. “It’s Quentin.”
Dropping his head back, Eamon groaned. “I should’ve known. What has he done now—tear up the Atlanta club again?” he asked, referring to a drunken brawl Q had gotten into about six months back.
“No. It’s nothing like that,” Xavier rushed.
“But?” Eamon asked. “Why do I hear a ‘but’ coming?”
“But…he’s driving me—”
“Us,” Jeremy corrected and then nodded for Xavier to finish.
“Yes. He’s driving us crazy. We thought—”
“Actually it was Xavier’s idea,” Jeremy cut in again and then rolled his hand at Xavier. “Go ahead. Tell him your idea.”
Xavier looked like he was two seconds from going for Jeremy’s jugular.
“Anyway,” Xavier said, cutting his eyes back to Eamon. “We were thinking that he could come out here and work with you for a little while. This is our biggest club. Surely there’s plenty for him to do around here.”
Eamon was already springing back up from the couch before Xavier could finish his sentence. “No. No. And, oh hell no!”
Jeremy slapped his hand against his forehead. “C’mon, Eamon. It’s your turn. He’s already spent time at our clubs, drinking and chasing women. It’s like having a kid around that we have to babysit twenty-four hours a day.”
“So when you say put him to work you meant that in the loosest terms possible, right?”
Xavier sighed. He and Quentin were actually best friends though Eamon never understood why. They couldn’t be more opposite than the North and South Poles.
“I don’t understand,” Eamon said. “Why do we have to do anything? Quentin is a silent partner. Kick him to the curb and tell him to take a trip or something?”
Xavier raked his fingers across his finely shaved head. “Well…let’s just say that he’s going through a little emotional crisis at the moment.”
Eamon frowned. “What do you mean?”
“He has a broken heart,” Jeremy answered. “And it’s bad.”
“Real bad,” Xavier agreed, nodding. “Sterling married the woman Q thinks he was in love with.”
“Quentin is always in love,” Eamon dismissed. “Give him a couple of weeks and he’ll be fine.”
“It’s been six months,” Xavier said.
“It’s getting worse not better,” Jeremy added.
“And what am I supposed to do? Babysit? Does it looks like I have time to babysit a cousin I don’t even like?”
“You mean the same cousin that has made us all rich?” Xavier asked.
Here comes the guilt. “No.”
“Just for a little while,” Xavier continued. “He’s excommunicated himself from his family.”
“No.”
“He’s a broken man. We’re all he has,” Jeremy added. “Just keep him for a couple of months and then you can send him back to…Xavier in Atlanta.”
“Me?” Xavier turned. “What about you? You’re his cousin, too.”
“I just had him.”
Eamon and Xavier stared at Jeremy.
“Fine.” He tossed his hands. “He stays out here with Eamon first, then Xavier and then me. We’ll just keep him in rotation until he gets back onto his feet again.” Jeremy glanced around. “Deal?”
Xavier smiled. “Deal.”
They looked toward Eamon.
“I don’t believe this.” He rubbed a hand across his forehead, trying to get ahead of the stress headache that was coming his way.
“Is that a yes?” Xavier asked.
“All right. All right. I’ll do it.”
Xavier clapped his hands. “Great! He’s staying at the Bellagio.”
“What?”
“C’mon, Jeremy. Let’s hit the road before we miss our flights.”
Before Eamon could get another word out, his brothers damn near disappeared like a couple of ghosts. One thing was clear. He’d been set up…again.
Chapter 2
In the penthouse suite in the Waldorf Astoria hotel, Victoria Gregory stood looking as regal as a queen in her Versace French-vanilla-and-gold empire wedding gown. The sweetheart neckline, gold Cinderella tiara and Harry Winston diamonds dripping from her ears, neck and wrist were the result of hours of deliberation by a committee of family and friends. The wedding planner, location, caterer, florist, musicians and guest list had all been handled with Victoria’s usual meticulous eye for detail. Outside the floor-to-ceiling window, the sky was a crisp blue without a single cloud in sight.
“A perfect day for a wedding,” she finally said wistfully, taking in the scenery one last time. After that, she drew in a deep breath, squared her shoulders and then whipped around toward her five bridesmaids. “Are you absolutely positive that they missed their flights? Maybe the limousine driver was late and missed them? They probably took a cab or something.”
Her twin cousins, Grace and Iris, cut a strange look toward each other that instantly piqued Victoria’s hackles a few more inches.
“What is it?” she asked, her voice lowering to a lethal level. If Victoria was known for anything, it most certainly was for her quick temper. It was something that she had inherited from her father and she made no apologies for it. “Tell me,” she snapped with a stomp of her foot.
Lolita, another cousin of hers on her mother’s side of the family, cleared her throat since it was obvious that the twins were too afraid to speak. “We called Cole’s cell phone a few minutes ago.”
Victoria didn’t like the smirk that crept across Lolita’s face. “And?”
“And…after threatening him within an inch of his life, he gave us some slurred statement about how he didn’t think that Marcus was going to make it.” Lolita’s smirk continued curling up until it reached the corners of her mouth. “Sorry.”
Victoria’s hands balled at her sides while the room around her started turning a vibrant shade of red. “What do you mean he’s not going to make it?” she hissed. “I have over three hundred guests waiting downstairs.”
In sync, Grace and Iris stepped back while Lolita’s eyes sparkled with mischief.
This wasn’t the first time Victoria regretted asking her cousin-slash-arch nemesis to be a bridesmaid in her wedding, but after her mother pleaded and begged, she gave in. Since then, the heifer had been like a steel thorn in her butt. She bitched and complained and seriously thought that she had a vote on every aspect of the wedding. Every time Victoria came close to catching a case, her mother would step in and reel her back down to earth.
Still smiling, Lolita shrugged her shoulders. “I could go down there and tell everyone that Marcus has just dumped you.”
The twins gasped.
“I’m sure that they’ll understand,” Lolita added. “Lord knows I do.”
Before the bitch could bat her faux mink eyelashes, Victoria launched and snatched the girl’s lace-front wig clean off her head, exposing her thin edges and mini afro-puff of hair underneath.
The twins jumped back.
Lolita screamed and then clutched at her unkempt natural hair.
Satisfied, mainly because it was a hideous wig in the first place, Victoria threw it down and proceeded to stomp on it.
Lolita finally stopped her long wail and spat, “You bitch,” before launching toward the bride herself.
Two seconds before, the twins recognized the look in Lolita’s eyes and finally found the courage to jump into the mix before it got too ugly. The result was them landing right where they didn’t want to be: in the middle. Lolita’s arms spun like a windmill trying to get to the bride while Victoria’s hard fist was landing some pretty good blows on contact. A second later, all four of them fell into a heap on the floor.
The door to the suite flew open and, after a momentary gasp to take in the situation, a stream of women rushed into the room and struggled to pull them apart.
“Enough! Enough! Enough!”
Celya Gregory’s strength never ceased to surprise Victoria. Before she knew it, she was peeled away from the girls, but she was still pissed at her cousin’s determination to ruin her wedding day. Who does that?
The team of family and friends helped them all to their feet, but Victoria and Lolita continued to stare each other down.
“Oh, some of the beads fell off your dress,” Ceyla fretted while she checked her daughter over.
Aunt Brenda settled her hands on her hips. “What on earth is going on? Have you two lost your minds?” Her head swung from Victoria to Lolita, but then her face twisted into a frown. “Child, what on earth happened to your head?”
Lolita thrust an acrylic-tipped finger toward Victoria and started shaking it. “She did it! Crazy bitch! No wonder Marcus doesn’t want to marry you. If I was him, I’d run like hell, too.”
Victoria’s temper shot back up and she was once again in the launching mode. “Let me at her!”
This time the army of women caught her and pulled her back.
Her deranged cousin laughed as she swooped over and snatched her wig from off the floor. “I guess things don’t always turn out the way we plan, do they, cuz?”
Lolita’s mother, Fiona, snickered as well, but then grabbed her daughter’s arm and pulled her toward the door. “C’mon. Let’s go.” Before they reached the door, she also added, “I guess it’s a good thing that we didn’t waste any money, buying a gift.”
They laughed like a pair of hyenas and then slipped out of the room.
Clenching her teeth together, Victoria’s gaze shifted to her mother. “Gee. I’m so glad you talked me into inviting those two.”
Celya’s cafe-latte complexion pinkened as she exhaled a long breath. “I’m sorry, baby. I’d hoped…”
Victoria shook her head and then turned away from her mother. She wasn’t in the mood to rehash the strained relationship of her mother’s older and crazy sister who couldn’t deal with her own petty jealousy. Everyone could see the truth, but her mother generally saw or wanted to see the best in everyone.
It was an annoying habit that Victoria was happy that she didn’t inherit. “Someone get me a phone.”
“Sweetheart, what did Lolita mean about Marcus not wanting to marry you? Where is he?”
All eyes turned toward her. “I don’t know, Mother. She probably made it up. Lord knows she’s evil enough. All I do know is that he’s not here.”
Everyone’s eyes shifted away.
Victoria resisted the urge to scream and instead turned around and stormed from the living room suite and to the elegant master bedroom with her torn chapel train sweeping the floor behind her.
“Oh wait, sweetheart. Your train.” Her mother fretted behind her.
Victoria continued her steady march away from everyone’s gazes. They probably couldn’t wait until she was out of sight anyway so they could start calling and texting everyone that she had just been dumped at the altar. “Dumped! Me? I don’t believe this.”
“Well have you tried to call him?”
She sucked in a breath and rolled her eyes. “That’s why I’m looking for a phone, Mother.” Victoria grabbed her cell phone from the nightstand and speed-dialed Marcus. On the first ring, she impatiently tapped her foot. On the second, she was pacing the room. By the third, she was mentally threatening to kill her tenuous fiancé if he didn’t answer his damn phone.
“This is Marcus. I’m sorry but I can’t come to the phone right now. But if you leave a message, I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.” BEEP!
“Marcus Lawrence Henderson, I don’t know where you are, but I know that you better be on your way to our wedding.” She turned her back toward her mother and then added in a low hiss, “I swear. If you embarrass me today, there’s not a rock on God’s green earth that you’ll be able to hide under. Get your butt here. Now!” She disconnected the call but still felt the need to stomp, scream or hit something.
“All right now, sweetheart,” her mother said, coming up behind her and wrapping her arm around her waist. “Calm down. I’m sure that everything will be all right. He and the boys probably just hung out a little too late at their silly bachelor party.”
Victoria’s eyes rolled back so far that she could almost see behind her. “I know Kent is behind this.”
Her mother sighed but didn’t refute the comment. That was enough to make Victoria feel like she was on the right track. Kent Bryce had been doggedly pursuing her hand since college. Not because he loved her, but because he wanted to position himself with her billionaire father and his successful investment company. She wasn’t a fool. She saw straight through Kent and all his lame attempts to woo her. So when she pivoted and selected Marcus Henderson, a simple paper pusher out of account receivables, as an attempt to spur his calculated affection, Kent proved to be quite adept and positioned himself to become Marcus’s new best friend.
Marcus, being a shy man, didn’t know what to make of his rise in social standing and popularity and was snookered into Kent and Victoria’s chess game before he ever knew what had happened. Relentless, Kent beat out Marc’s own brother for the position of best man and was primarily responsible for this harebrained idea of having the bachelor party out in Las Vegas.
Victoria protested the idea, but she was seen as feebly trying to prevent the groom from his one rite of passage. Her father even poo-pooed her concerns and said that she was just being paranoid. So here she was, waiting for the groom along with all of New York’s elite society.
Victoria took another deep breath while the fear of becoming a laughingstock rose like a tidal wave. Marcus wasn’t much of a party man. He didn’t drink or indulge in anything crazy. All of that played a part in her selecting him as her husband in the first place. Sure. She would’ve liked to have done this the old-fashioned way. You met someone, there’s a connection, you fall in love and then you walk down the aisle. In Victoria’s world that was just a fantasy sponsored by the fairy-tale spinners out of Hollywood. In her short thirty-two years, she had found one constant in life: people only liked her for her family’s money and prestige.
She was irrelevant.
Her father, Mondell Gregory, made his fortune in hedge funds and this year cracked the top twenty on Forbes’s list of richest Americans. A worthy accomplishment to be sure, but it resulted in her having a rather difficult upbringing. When you can’t trust those around you because you suspect their intentions had nothing to do with you, but everything to do with them trying to boost their social standing, it leads to a rather lonely existence. So she built a wall around her heart and protected herself the best way she could. As a result, she had little patience for fools and it could be argued that she was a little anal and controlling.
It was the best way to avoid getting hurt.
When Victoria attended prep school, she was dubbed the poor little rich girl because she isolated herself from the crowd. By the time she was in college, she was the ice queen—and the loneliest person in the world. The years that followed didn’t improve much. She’d become an investor herself and was rich in her own right. She had plenty of acquaintances, but no real friends. She just learned how to play the game. Smile and pretend she was happy during long, tedious society events. Men did find her attractive. After all, she did have her mother’s long legs and coke-bottle curves. But after a while, those same men would show their true hand and start talking more about her father than about her.
Again, she was irrelevant.
Now, despite all her careful planning and maneuvering, she was about to be left standing at the proverbial altar. Turning, Victoria walked over to the bed and plopped down. All she could do was just sit, wait…and pray for a miracle.
Forever an optimist, Celya stayed next to her side and insisted. “Everything is going to be all right. You’ll see.” She smiled and squeezed her daughter’s shoulders.
Despite her struggle not to succumb, a tear skipped down Victoria’s face.
So much for that damn brick wall.
Chapter 3
Eamon woke feeling like he was riding an out-of-control carousel. So much so that it was difficult for him to even lift his head. He lay still, trying to recall his last moments of consciousness—without much success. He certainly remembered making a ridiculous agreement with his brothers to babysit their spoiled cousin, Quentin. And there were vague memories of him rejoining the Hendersons’ bachelor party. Looks were deceiving when it came to those New York Wall Street types. Those men really knew how to party. That was saying something from a man who specialized in running bachelor parties.
Bachelor Adventures was his brainchild and operated as a side business for The Dollhouse. There was definitely a market for this type of service and it struck Eamon as a no-brainer when he’d read how much the wedding business actually made. But with everything primarily geared toward the brides, it seemed only logical to give the grooms’ last night of singlehood the sort of send-off it deserved. It took some time, but soon word-of-mouth spread among soon-to-be-married guys like a modern underground railroad. They came from near and far, filling The Dollhouse’s calendar in all three club locations resulting in an extensive waiting list.
So what in the hell happened last night that resulted in him sleeping on a floor? The floor?
At last, Eamon’s eyes fluttered open and verified that he was indeed curled up on a carpeted floor. Despite the spinning and the pounding going on in his head, he forced himself to glance around. He found little comfort in the fact that there were at least twenty other people sleeping among throw pillows, colorful fabric that he thought he recalled one of the belly dancers wearing, food, shoes—hell, the list went on and on. The bottom line was the place was wrecked.
“Neah. Neah.”
Eamon slowly turned his head and came face-to-face with a billy goat. “Morning.”
“Neah. Neah.” The goat responded and then with his thick tongue he proceeded to lick Eamon’s face.
“Eeeww.” Eamon jumped back and tried to wipe the foul-smelling saliva from his face. It was nowhere near enough to make him feel clean so he hopped up, spinning room and pounding temples be damned, and went in search of the bathroom. It required him jumping over quite a few sleeping bodies. The hotel suite’s wreckage continued as he made his way to the bathroom and still he had no recollection of all that went on last night. Had he hit his head or something?
Amazingly the bathroom had survived whatever shenanigans they had indulged in last night and it was thankfully empty. He went straight for the sink and started splashing cold water on his face. It was an instant relief to soothe his headache and to wash away his unusual morning kiss. After he shut off the water and grabbed a towel, he finally took a look at his reflection in the mirror.
“What in the hell?” He leaned in close because he didn’t quite trust his eyes. But he wasn’t seeing things. Someone had written in permanent marker across his face: BOY TOY. Eamon took the towel and roughly rubbed at his forehead. The words remained. “No. No. No.”
But it didn’t matter how many times he pleaded or rubbed his forehead raw, the bold letters stayed stubbornly in place.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
Eamon jumped and then turned toward the door. “Who is it?”
“How long are you going to be in there, man? I gotta pee,” a woman whined.
Eamon gave himself one last look in the mirror and then tossed the towel down. “Here I come.” He opened the door and the unidentified woman raced in and hopped on the toilet before he had a chance to clear the threshold. Shaking his head, he closed the door behind him and went on to try and inspect the damage.