Brazen Bossman: A Hero Club Novel, стр. 67

Chapter 25

Piper

Mister Paradise is clearly the spot to be for happy hour.

I have to squeeze my way through a small huddle of men in suits, who were having an intense conversation, just to make my way to the bar.

Tan, crescent-shaped booths with red and blue cylindrical stools on the outside of the table line the left wall, and the bar itself, with high-back barstools in the same blue and red, takes up the entire expanse of the right wall.

I wasn’t sure what to wear, as I’ve never been here before, so I went the safe route and opted for work clothes, and I’m thankful I did. Everyone here seems to be fresh from the workplace grind, still in their suits, slacks, and pencil skirts.

I slip up onto a chair at the bar and order myself a whiskey sour while I wait, and even that makes me think of him. Goddamn him.

I cross my legs, smoothing out and brushing off nonexistent fuzz on my white pants that I paired with an emerald green, sleeveless top. My gaze flits around the room, looking for anyone who I think looks like an “Ida” but no one really sticks out to me.

Great. Knowing my luck, Ida is probably a sixty-year-old murderer who is going to drug my drink and kidnap me.

“Whiskey sour for the lady.” The bartender places a glass in front of me. “Thank you.”

“Another for me, please, and put hers on my tab.”

I look at the chair next to me as the owner of the voice takes residence there.

She is a bombshell at first glance, no doubt. She’s around my age, I think, with black, sleek hair like mine, except her tips are dyed a bold shade of red.

“That’s not necessary. I can get my own drink. I’m actually waiting on someone,” I tell her.

“You must be Piper?” she asks with a tilt of her head.

“Um, yeah, yes, I am, and you are?” I leave the sentence open-ended, hoping she’ll tell me her name because honestly, I was expecting Ida to be a grandma type.

“Soraya Morgan.” She extends her hand to me.

I glance down at her hand, noting the fucking gigantic rock on her ring finger, before I return her handshake.

“I’m sorry, but I think you have me at a disadvantage. I’m meeting someone named Ida here, tonight.”

“Oh.” She laughs. “I probably should have led with that. I’m Soraya Morgan and I work for Ida Goldman. You had been writing in to her… a lot… and I field what gets tossed or what gets sent her way. I, perhaps without permission, started answering your emails.”

It takes a moment for it all to sink in and when it does, I laugh. “So you aren’t Ida, but you are kind of Ida, and you were whom I was talking to the whole time?”

“Well, not the whole time. She did get to your emails before I did occasionally, but as time went on, I just stopped sending them to her and answered them myself.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to seem too weird about it, I just wasn’t expecting it.”

“Look, girl, you’re a Brooklyn native of Italian descent, just like me, so we need to stick together. I guess you could say I felt a certain obligation to guide you on the right path.” She snickers and sips her drink. “Look at me, sounding like fucking Dr. Phil.”

Her accent is much thicker than mine, and to be honest, it suits her well. I instantly like her.

I laugh with her. “You’re much prettier than he is, so at least you have that.”

“Thank you.” She tosses her hair over her shoulder. “So tell me what happened with your boss.”

I sigh and look down at the condensation forming on my glass. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

“Well, I only know what you’ve said in emails, so how about we start at the beginning?”

Over the next hour, I tell her everything that I didn’t elaborate on in the emails. From the first romp on his desk, all the way to leaving him at the Hamptons house in tears.

By the time I finally stop talking, Soraya is seemingly rendered speechless.

“Wow.” She blinks a few times. “I think we need another round to tackle all of this.”

I can’t help but laugh at that. “That’s probably a good idea.”

She orders us another round of whiskey sours and the bartender works quickly, placing them before us just a couple of minutes later.

“So you haven’t talked to him at all?” she asks, using the slender stirring straw to swirl the ice in her drink.

I shake my head. “No. I don’t want to. I feel like I can’t trust him now.”

“And you’re positive it’s your family’s restaurant he bought?”

“Mmm hmm. I saw the address in the email, and once I saw that, I was done. I couldn’t even look at him.” Even though I miss him so badly it hurts.

“So you haven’t listened to his side at all?” She stares blankly at me.

“Well, no, because there isn’t anything to say. I saw it on paper. Black and white.”

“Piper, I’m not one to ever defend a man, especially if he’s an asshole, which this Nathanial has absolutely been to you in the past, but from everything you’ve said to me about him lately, I think you may have fucked up… just a smidge.” She squeezes her index finger and thumb together, showing me.

“I can’t let anyone hurt my family. They are all I have.”

“Why do you automatically assume he’s trying to hurt your family?”

“Why else would he feel the need to buy the damn building?”

“That’s a fair question, but asking me that isn’t going to get you the answer you need and deserve. Only asking him will.” She holds her drink up in a toast, like she knows she’s just made some extremely valid point.

Maybe she has. I made sweeping assumptions, just like