“What about Claudia?” I asked looking up at Jeremy.
“She’s dating some mogul in Dallas.”
“Damn,” I muttered as I thought about the long-legged, black-haired woman. She would not have been a hardship to court around the town to these different events.
I flipped through some more names and smiled inwardly. “Keylee Zinc, I know she is not dating anyone and I just saw her a month ago around Jackson Square.”
Jeremy did a quick Google search and smiled. “Total country club material. How do you know her?”
“We grew up together. She left New Orleans for a while but I just saw that she moved back. She would be perfect. Find out her number so I can give her a call.”
“Give who a call?” Kace asked as he walked in my office without even knocking. The man lacked manners most of the time but then again, we were comfortable with each other enough to not have to knock.
I looked up at Kace and saw that his face was bruised and his posture hung low, it must have been the anniversary. Had it really been an entire year again?
“You look like shit,” I said as Kace took a seat in front of my desk. Jeremy eyed Kace with terror and infatuation in his eyes. It was comical to see my gay assistant fawn over my right hand man. Kace had no fucking clue either.
Kace shrugged his shoulders and repeated, “Whose number do you need?”
“I don’t believe that concerns you.” I turned to Jeremy and said, “That will be all.”
Jeremy nodded, smiled at Kace and then took off and shut the door to my office like a good little assistant.
Once the door was shut, I walked over to the buffet in my room that held my bourbon and poured a glass for both Kace and myself. I handed it over to him and sat back down behind my desk.
“When are you going to stop paying people to beat the shit out of you every year? You know you just end up pummeling them without them even knowing what they got into.”
Kace didn’t answer as he took a sip of his Bourbon. He stared off past my shoulder.
“Did the girls notice?”
“Just Lo.”
“Why just Lo?” I asked as I crossed my ankle over my knee and sat back in my chair.
“She came looking for me in my room.”
I automatically sat up and said, “What the hell was she doing in your room?”
“Apparently getting an eyeful,” Kace said with a slight smirk. Smug bastard.
“The girls are not allowed back there,” I gritted between my teeth.
“I know that but do you really think Lo is going to follow your rules? She barely submits to you when you ask, like hell if she is not going to go snooping around. You know her, once she has her mind set on something, she’s going to make it happen.”
The fucker was right. Goldie was a loose cannon, a mustang, a hellion, she would do whatever she wanted and there was no stopping her.
“What did you tell her?” I asked, annoyed.
“I didn’t. I told her to leave.”
“And she listened to you?”
Kace sat back in his chair and smiled over the rim of his glass as he took a gulp of my expensive- as-hell bourbon. Irritable fuck. I hated that Goldie and Kace had some kind of connection, hated it with every damn bone in my hollow body. It didn’t slip past me that they shared something, that there was an underlining attraction they had for each other, it was easy to see but what kept me sane was the minute I walked in the room, all of Goldie’s attention was drawn toward me. I was the one she truly wanted, Kace was just a little side show for her. I was the God damn main event.
Changing the subject I asked, “When are you going to stop letting people beat the ever living piss out of you? You look like hell.”
Kace didn’t answer me, he just looked down at his hands.
“How does it even help the situation?”
Kace blew out a long breath and said, “You know when you first started the Lafayette club and opened the Bourbon Room? You brought girls up here to forget, to forget and control the pain that coursed through you from Natasha’s rejection?”
I winced from the memory but nodded.
“It’s completely fucked up on so many levels but this day—” he looked me dead in the eyes and said, “—this day was the worst day of my life. Not only did I ruin any sort of normalcy and future I might have but I destroyed that of a little girl’s, of a family’s. I killed a man, Jett.” I nodded as I watched the pain pour out of Kace. “Getting my shit beat up for a couple of hours relieves the pain that I feel every damn day of my life. Feeling someone’s fist connect with my face blacks out the emotions rolling through me, the thoughts that haunt me every day. What if I didn’t get drunk that night? What if I didn’t let him provoke me? There are so many questions running through my head that paying some dickheads to take me to a back alley and fight me is the only way I can survive this day. It’s the only way I can manage the pain.”
Kace was all kinds of fucked up and I truly felt bad for my friend. We dicked around with each other most of the time but we had a general understanding for each other and what we have gone through in our lives. We had demons that we were trying to fight everyday but Kace was facing an army of them and it was rare when he talked about them so when he did, I made sure to be there for him.
Watching him sit in front of me with his head hung in shame and his leg jittering up and down had my stomach twisting in knots. I couldn’t imagine the pain and torment he went through on a daily basis so even though it didn’t make much sense to get the crap beat out of him, I kind of got it. It was a little escape from the reality he had to face every day.
Not wanting to get too deep with him because he would just close off, I said, “You know where to find me and the Bourbon.”
Nodding his head, Kace tipped his glass as a salute to me and then took another sip. Silence fell between us as we soaked in the moment of just being in each other’s company.
Breaking the silence, Kace said, “Seriously, what number is Jeremy looking up?”
Sighing because I knew Kace wasn’t going to drop the topic, I said, “Keylee Zinc’s. I need an escort for some events I must attend in order to get in with the Lot 17 project.”
“Keylee? The tiny tart with tits?”
A small smile spread across my face as Kace brought up Keylee’s old nickname from school. She was small like Lo but had olive skin and raven black hair that was almost to her waist. Her eyes were a deep gray color and she had a rack that had the guys in high school dragging their tongues around on the ground. She still did have a great rack but now that she was all grown up, she has tightened her body up, graced her neck with a set of pearls and showed a classy display of cleavage. She had just enough class that would work for getting along with the wives of the men I had to impress and just enough sexiness that the husbands would appreciate the arm candy I brought along.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Why aren’t you bringing one of the girls, like Lo?”
My attention snapped up to Kace as I tried to read his face. He was serious, he wasn’t even trying to dick me around.
“You know I can’t bring one of the girls, everyone would know that they are a Jett Girl. I will not put them in that position.”
“Everyone is going to assume Keylee is one,” Kace suggested. I shrugged my shoulders not caring. Keylee’s welfare was none of my concern. Yes she was attractive and we grew up together but if it came down to her or one of my girls, I would rather sacrifice her reputation over my girls’.
“Jett, you’re going to fuck it up.”
“Fuck what up?” I asked, trying to tamp down the anger that was starting to boil. I didn’t take well to people questioning me, ever.
“Everything with Lo. If she finds out that you are out with some other woman, she is going to freak out.”