The Billionaire's Flame

Stunningly Inappropriate and Heartless

As soon as Kieran is out of earshot, I pull out my phone to call Connor. I’ve got work at the Crimson Cavern in about an hour, and I need to sort things out with him in case he shows up.

“Finally,” he says by way of answering. “What the hell, Emerson?”

“Sorry,” I say, because I have to. “Look, Con, I know I should have called sooner, but you really pissed me off last night.”

“I know.” He sounds pretty calm, in spite of the way he answered. Connor, like most men, is much better behaved when he’s sober. “I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that, and I’m sorry. But you can’t just blow me off like that, either.”

“I know.” Ten bucks says you comforted yourself by f*****g some waitress at another of your restaurants. “I’m sorry.”

He sighs. “It’s fine. Look, I can’t make it out tonight. The Lounge got broken into early this morning, and I’ll be dealing with insurance adjustors and police for hours.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I say, even though I don’t particularly care. The Rouge Lounge is the one strip club amidst his repertoire of establishments, and thus my least favorite. I know several of the girls who work there, and I’m not a fan of the stories they’ve told me.

“Thanks, babe. Look, I’ll catch up with you tomorrow, okay? Look after my baby for me.”

He’s referring to the Crimson Cavern. He pretends it’s his favorite even though the Lounge really is. “You got it.”

I think about Kieran while I get ready for work. Until he got all judgmental and harsh about Connor, he was being so nice. Did I really have to react quite as ferociously as I did? It’s not like he was wrong about Connor, after all.

You just don’t say things like that to people you barely know. It makes me think he’s been spoiled by his own wealth for far too long and fallen out of touch with the real world and, you know, normal human courtesies.

Less than an hour into my shift, he shows up again.

“You’re bartending tonight,” he observes as he takes a seat at the bar. “That makes this easier.”

“I only waitress when we’re short on staff,” I tell him shortly. “It makes what easier, exactly?”

“Apologizing.”

Well, that, I certainly wasn’t expecting. “To me?”

He laughs. I really like his laugh. It’s always so unexpected, coming from such a put-together person.

He’s in a suit again. So at least I’m not swooning quite as badly as I was when he was shirtless this afternoon.

“Yes, to you,” he says. “I was out of line. I had no right to judge you or your relationship based on what I saw yesterday.”

“Well…” My heart is starting to pound. He’s being nice again. I can never think straight when he’s being nice. “Apology accepted. I’m sorry, too—for what I said about your company. I don't really know enough about it to judge.”

He flashes me another of those billion-dollar smiles, then asks, “Can you make an old fashioned?”

He would order an old fashioned.

“Of course,” I say, and I get to work on his drink.

We aren’t that crowded yet. We will be soon, given that it’s a Saturday night, but it’s only five o’clock now—my shift started at four. Which means I can feel the full force of Kieran’s gaze on me, unimpeded by other patrons.

“Would it be impolite for me to ask you a couple of questions about him?” Kieran asks me after a few seconds. “Connor, I mean?”

I fix my gaze on the golden liquid I’m stirring as I tell him, “Probably. But go ahead.”

“He’s a bit older than you, right? If memory serves, he already had a few of these restaurants open by the time I graduated high school.”

“He’s thirty-four.” I strain the liquid into a glass and lift my gaze to Kieran. “Not exactly an old man.”

“Right.” He still seems a bit bothered. “But you started dating him when you were how old?”

I garnish and slide him his drink, frowning. “Eighteen.”

He accepts the drink, but he doesn’t look at it. His gaze I still rooted to mine. “That’s quite a long time, Emerson. No interest in marrying him?”

I let out a completely unintentional retching sound. “Ugh. No. It’s not like that with us.”

“Then what is it like?”

What am I supposed to say—that it’s transactional? That I continue seeing (and sleeping with) Connor so that he’ll continue paying my mother’s medical bills? That I am, for all intents and purposes, a prostitute?

I part my lips to tell him something better than that, but before I can come up with anything, I’m interrupted by the world’s most annoying voice: Lexi’s.

“—just can’t believe how bad the service was at the Daily Dose today,” she’s in the process of whining to her friends as they approach the bar. “Oh, hi, Emmy.”

I groan inwardly as I flash her a polite smile. “What can I get you, Lexi?”

She glances at Kieran, then back to me. Clearly she already knew he was here; the woman has little birds everywhere. Our very own Littlefinger. (Or was that Varys?) “Why don’t you start by introducing me to your friend here?”

I glance at Kieran, who looks amused. “Right," I say. "You probably met in high school. Kieran, Lexi. Lexi, Kieran.”

Lexi beams at him, then introduces him to the two cronies behind her. He politely shakes each of their hands, but before Lexi is finished droning on about whatever she’s telling him, he turns the entirety of his attention back toward me.

She must notice, because she loses her current train of thought and enters mean mode instead. “You know, Emmy, you really shouldn’t be working this much. You’re bound to get yourself sick if you don’t get more rest.”

I don’t know where she’s going with this, but I know that I’m not going to like it. “I’ll be fine, Lexi. What can I get you?”

“It’s just, if you get sick, you’ll get poor Heidi sick. And the last thing you need to be dealing with is even more medical bills. Or should I say the last thing we want Connor dealing with?”

Jesus Christ, she’s awful. Bringing up my dying mother’s medical bills—and the fact that Connor pays them—in front of a virtual stranger?

“Wow,” says Kieran. “That was a stunningly inappropriate and heartless thing to say. And I don’t even know who Heidi is.”

My mouth falls open again. Did he really just say that?

“No, no,” Lexi says quickly. She attempts a giggle, but it’s so high-pitched, it gives away her nerves. “Emmy and I are old friends. She doesn’t mind, do you, Emmy?”

“We aren’t friends,” I say immediately. “I’m really just trying to do my job here, Lexi.”

Lexi’s cheeks are starting to burn. She glances nervously at her friends, then at Kieran. “She’s lying, obviously. I’m not heartless, Kieran. I’m a mother. We’re all mothers—everybody except her.”

“Well, for the sake of all the kids that go to school with yours, I hope your children don’t take after you, Lexi.” He sets his glass down and looks her straight in the eyes for the first time since she sat down. “I remember you. You haven’t changed one bit.”

Her lower lip actually starts to tremble. Her friends look petrified.

Suddenly, she releases a loud, violent shriek of anger before bursting up and off her seat. “Come on,” she says to her friends, grabbing them by the arms and pulling them toward the door. “This place blows.”

Kieran and I both stare after the girls for several seconds in stunned silence. Finally, I look back at him and say, “Thanks. But I really don’t need you swooping in to save me, Kieran.”

He smiles. “I know, I know. But you weren’t exactly in a place to snap back, given the whole ‘customer’s always right’ thing.”

“I guess that’s true.”

“Can I ask?” he asks, leaning forward. “Who’s Heidi?”

I immediately look away from him. “She shouldn’t have said that.”

“That much is abundantly clear. Lexi Murphy was always a heartless b***h; I’m sorry to see that she hasn’t changed. Still, I’d like to know, if you’re willing to tell me.”

“She’s my mom.”

His eyes cloud over with realization instantly. Sick mother; Connor paying for the bills; now it all makes sense. “She’s the one that song was about,” he says. “Get Better Soon, or—”

“I really don’t want to talk about it,” I say firmly. “Look, Kieran, I appreciate you coming here and apologizing, but it’s a Saturday night, we’re about to get slammed, and the last thing I have time for is talking about my dying mother.”

He seems to understand. “I’ll get out of your hair, then.” He fishes a way-too-large bill out of his wallet and gets to his feet. Before he closes his wallet, he fishes something else out.

It’s a business card, I realize when he places it in front of me. It’s not like any business card I’ve ever seen, though. It’s made of metal, I think. Jet black, with silver lettering. KIERAN SHARPE, it reads. Beneath it, his number and email. Nothing more.

“I’m still in town for a few more days,” he tells me. “I’d like to see you again, Emerson. I hope to hear from you.”