Page 66 of The Grand Duel

“I presume this seat isn’t taken?”

I smile at Ebony as she slides in next to me at the table. “How are we, Mr A?”

“I’m—” I get a waft of her perfume and pause, the smell uniquely her and one I’ve grown accustomed to over the years.

It’s nothing like Lissie’s. Lissie’s is clean, subtle, barely there until she’s close enough, and then it submerses over you as if you’re sinking into her skin.

“Umm, broken? Are you okay?” Ebony asks, smiling.

I stare at her, wondering what the fuck is wrong with me.

This has been me for years—this club.

The only way I know.

“I’m fine,” I say, harsher than I mean to.

I make a conscious effort to look at her face, smiling.

My gaze drops to her breasts.

But tonight…they aren’t as full. As round. They wouldn’t fit in the expanse of my hands like the breasts I’ve thought about every night for the past week and a half would.

Her hand slides over my thigh. “Why don’t we go upstairs, you seem…”

I snap my eyes up, her perfume getting more and more pungent by the second. “I seem what?”

“Distracted.”

I am.

I’m distracted by Lissie fucking Elton.

She’s in my head. Wormed her way in without even knowing it, and now she won’t leave. She’s at my work, at my club.

If she’s not with me at the office, I’m wondering if she’s here with another man.

I scrub at my face and scoot out from the seat. “Sorry, Ebony, is Bronwyn in?”

“Yes,” she tells me, quickly standing with me. “Have I done something wrong?”

“No. No, it’s not you.”

I take the stairs to the bottom level of the club, then the stairs to the basement level and Bronwyn’s office.

Lissie

“If you say what I think you’re about to.”

“He was sniffing it!”

Her eyes widen through the screen. “Fuck off!”

“Jove, I shit you not, he had my cardi held to his face, eyes closed, inhaling.”

My sister has well and truly lost it on the other end of the line. I smile as I watch her laugh.

“Do you think he has a thing for you?”