Tough Customer: A Hero Club Novel Read online

  Sure, she was hot. Hot and sexy. She even smelled good, like coconuts and vanilla. She wasn't really my type. I like petite women with big tits, and I'm not really picky about whether the tits are original equipment or aftermarket additions. I like women who are groomed and polished, and who look good on my arm. This girl had freckles and didn't wear makeup. She had a big bush of curly, wild hair that looked like it might actually swallow the comb sent in to tame it. Her upper lip was covered in a sheen of perspiration, as if she’d been rushing around all afternoon. She wore Birkenstocks! And she had this giant, no-nonsense knapsack purse that made her look like she was packed to run away from home. She was cute, really cute, just not for me.

  So, I'm not quite sure why I'd given her my contact information, a Benjamin, and an order to deliver my dry cleaning to my office the next day. Because I was an asshole to her? Or was it because I liked to boss people around...or maybe, just boss this woman around?

  I put these odd ideas out of my mind. I need to focus on my dinner meeting with Marcia Pittman. An investor I needed to court if my plan to expand my family’s restaurant business was to succeed. As of eighteen months ago, when my father and older brother died in a small plane crash, it was up to me to make the decisions that would help the business grow. Before that, I’d had a satisfying career as a social worker.

  I spot the restaurant, glance at my watch, noting I'm about five minutes late. I leave my car with the valet, stride into the restaurant, then give my name to the hostess. Ordinarily, I'd hold business meetings at one of my family's high-end eateries, but because I'm pitching Marcia to expand the business, I feel compelled to hold the meeting away from work, where the rumor mill runs rampant.

  I arrive at the table, give Marcia a dazzling smile, and offer her my hand to shake. She's an attractive woman, with unnaturally bright red hair cut into a precise bob. I see a flash of irritation cross her face before she rearranges her expression into a grimace-like smile that, no doubt tempered by Botox and fillers, fails to reach her eyes. I don’t mind how she looks, as long as she invests in my new restaurant venture.

  "You're late," she says, still grimace-smiling.

  I gesture for her to take her seat.

  "I apologize," I say. "Sheila, my assistant, called in sick today. She keeps the trains moving around the office, so now the inmate is running the asylum," I chuckle.

  "I see," Marcia says, eyeing me up and down with an appraising look. Despite getting off to a rocky start, the meeting goes well. After I pitch my expansion plans, Marcia invites me to send her a more detailed prospectus with an investment proposal.

  With our business done, we relax over coffee and desserts. I have the tiramisu, and she picks at a slice of plain New York style cheesecake. We make idle chit-chat, then Marcia begins to direct the conversation to more personal subjects. She wants to know if there is a Mrs. Cooper, and I mention that my mother is retired and no longer part of the day-to-day operations of the chain. I know she is flirting with me, and while I find her attractive, I don't feel I should go there with her.

  To be honest, I prefer the chase. Being chased does nothing for me. I'm too bossy to be pursued. Besides, I don't fuck where I work.

  Marcia gives me an ingratiating smile. "Aren't you a joker?" she coos.

  And with that, I am able to sidestep her little innuendo, and soon, I call for the check.

  When I leave the restaurant, I have a spring in my step and a smile on my face.

  That is, until I receive a call from Sheila.

  "Yeah," I say, waiting impatiently for my assistant to speak.

  As I pull out into the late evening traffic, Sheila launches into a coughing fit so violent that I hold my phone away from my ear as if I might get infected over the air waves.

  "I went to my doctor," Sheila says, sounding weak. "I have the flu."

  The flu?

  "Did you not get a flu shot?" I ask. I may sound like an asshole, but seriously? We have a health plan to prevent such things.

  "You can still get the flu even after you've had a flu shot," she tells me. "Instead of feeling like you're dying, you just feel miserable."

  I sigh.

  "How long will you be out of the office?" I ask, already thinking of how I will handle this. I'd have to call the temp agency for help.

  When I took over, I let the lease lapse on our expensive office space. I work out of the suite of offices above the first restaurant my grandfather, Ulysses P. Cooper, opened. I try to have my corporate staff work out of one of our locations, whenever possible, in order to be immersed in the restaurant culture. I believe everyone who works for Cooper’s should be familiar with the product and also understand what it’s like to be a front-line worker.

  We run a pretty bare-bones operation. With Marcia Pittman's investment, I'm planning to expand with a new brand of restaurants that will be open for breakfast, as well as provide a more budget-friendly alternative for families and young professionals. "I don't know when I’ll be back," Sheila says. "At least a week. There is a number to the temp agency on my desk blotter. I left it there yesterday afternoon, just in case I turned out to be sicker than I thought."

  I have to admit this is efficient of Sheila, and I appreciate it even though this ruins my week.

  "Well," I grumble. "Take care of yourself."

  I hang up wondering what the hell I'm going to do until Sheila is back at work.

  Chapter Three: Samantha

  I'm having my morning coffee in the café in my condo complex, perusing my agenda for the day, when a text message hits my phone with a ping. It's from Peter Shark.

  Take week off. Off the grid for two weeks. Will explain later.

  Frowning, I pull up my world time map and see it is 2 pm in London, where Peter is with his girlfriend, who should by now be his fiancée. I debate texting him or even possibly calling him, but it feels like something is wrong. Since he's "off the grid," I can only assume he doesn't want to be disturbed.

  My entire week just freed up, and I hardly know what to do with myself. I had cleared my calendar in anticipation of helping Peter get started on the myriad of tasks involved with setting up a household for a pair of newlyweds. I should be contacting realtors to list his bachelor pad condo. I should be creating his guest list and pulling together the names of several wedding planners his new fiancée can interview and choose from.

  My condo is part of a mixed-use residential and retail development, which works out great for me as I tend to use the coffee shop as an annex to my home office. Lincoln T. Cooper’s dry cleaning hangs on the hook by the front door of the café. Mr. Cooper likes extra heavy starch, to the point that it must feel like he’s donning a cardboard shirt when he puts them on. I still can’t get over how he gave me, a complete stranger, all that cash with the assumption that I have nothing better to do than run around town doing his bidding. What a douche! He’s either stupid, or he’s supremely privileged. It is true that I would deliver his dry cleaning for the right price. But he had no right to assume this was the case. I spend most of my morning cleaning my apartment and being annoyed by Lincoln Cooper. Finally, I snatch the dry cleaning bag off the back of the door.

  I put Lincoln Cooper's business location into my phone's GPS app and drive to the address, grumbling the whole way. I find myself in front of an upscale restaurant. The name of the restaurant is "Coop's". I pull my RAV4 into an open parking space, grab the dry cleaning, and walk to the front door. A young man wearing black pants, a white shirt, and a long white apron opens the door, lets me in, then hustles off.

  The place has the look of an expensive English pub, from the chandeliers made to look like deer antlers in the main dining room, to the brass trimming the old oak bar behind the hostess station, to the frosted glass picture windows, which bear the name of the restaurant in stylized lettering. Everything about the place is beautiful and classy, and in my jeans and polo shirt, I feel way underdressed.

  The dining room is empty, but the place smells
wonderful, like crusty artisanal bread, olive oil, and roasting meat. It's too early for lunch, but my stomach growls anyway.

  I must look confused because a beautiful woman in her thirties, wearing a uniform like the man who let me in but without the apron, approaches me with a smile on her exquisite face.

  "Are you being helped?" she asks.

  "Um, I'm looking for Mr. Cooper?" I say, realizing that I sound as if I'm asking a question, rather than making a statement. "I have a delivery for him," I say, holding up the dry cleaning.

  The beautiful woman's brows knit together in confusion.

  "You're delivering his…?"

  I laugh nervously. "Yes, he asked me to bring these by today."

  I pride myself on my professionalism, but somehow, right now, I sound less like a professional and more like a sorority girl. Something about this situation has me off balance. I try a different tactic.

  "Can you show me where Mr. Cooper's office is?" I cock an eyebrow to emphasize my point. It is a well-practiced gesture that I pull out whenever I need to push someone to do something and they aren't cooperating.

  "And you say he's expecting you?" the woman asks as if she doesn't believe me. "We normally take deliveries at the back door." Now she cocks her eyebrow as if to say that I do not intimidate her.

  Fuming and blushing furiously at her words, I fish around in my bag and produce the card Lincoln Cooper gave me the evening before.

  "Here you are," I say, handing her the card.

  She frowns and squints at the card, examining it as if it might be counterfeit. Finally, she shrugs her shoulders and says, "Follow me."

  She is a tall woman, even without the skyscraper type stilettos she wears. It's amazing she can walk so fast in them. I jog to keep up with her long strides. I hold the dry cleaning straight with one hand so as not to wrinkle it. I just want to deliver this and be on my way.

  The young woman leads me to the back of the restaurant, past the kitchen, the restrooms, and past what appear to be private function rooms to a highly polished, heavy wooden door. We go up a narrow flight of stairs, and I see there is a corridor with offices off to either side. She gives the door a quiet knock, pokes her head in, then tells me to enter.

  When I walk in, the man from the night before stands at a reception desk, a phone receiver in his hand. He's poking at the phone cradle, his face screwed up in concentration as the phone rings. And rings, and rings. He's wearing tailored, dark gray slacks and a deep blue dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He spots me and beckons me in, indicating a seat in front of the reception desk.

  I thought he was good-looking the night before, but he's even better looking today. I have this thing about men's forearms. Lincoln Cooper’s heavy-looking gold-tone watch is the perfect complement to his muscular, tanned forearms. As he punches the phone buttons, his arms flex in a most attractive fashion. And like a dummy, I stand there, gaping at him.

  I hold up the dry cleaning and look around for place to hang it. He snaps his fingers to get my attention, then points at the reception chair again. I feel like I'm being bossed in a most unpleasant way, and I start to bristle. He puts a hand over the receiver, raises his eyebrows, and says, "Sit down, I'll be just a minute."

  I open my mouth to protest, but he points at the phone in a gesture clearly meant to communicate the fact that he's on the phone. This is a man used to bossing people around. I look around the small reception area, spot a coat tree, and hang the dry-cleaning there. Feeling a bit put off, I take a seat in the reception chair.

  He keeps on punching buttons on the phone, which light up intermittently. He is flustered and annoyed. As he tries to answer the phone, I look around the office and see all the accoutrements typical of a man’s office. There are several silver framed photos on the shelf behind his desk. One photo is of him and another man who looks a lot like him, and is around the same age. His brother, maybe?

  In another photo, Lincoln sits with an older couple flanking him, his arms draped over their shoulders. He sits at the reception desk, punches several buttons on the keypad, and suddenly, all the ringing and flashing stops. He blinks at the receiver, looking comically perplexed, and hangs it up.

  I clear my throat. "Perhaps you should let voicemail pick it up," I say. "When your receptionist is back, you can pull the messages then."

  He looks at me with his lips parted, blue eyes registering a sort of wonder as if I'd suddenly come up with the most brilliant of ideas.

  "That's a really good idea," he says with a short bark of laughter. "I should've thought of that." He gives me a radiant smile, one that prompts me to smile back. We smile at one another for a few awkward moments and completely out of the blue, my mind conjures the image of me strolling over to him, then straddling his lap...

  Blushing, I snap out of my lust trance, hop up, and point out the dry cleaning.

  “Samantha Mack,” I say, pointing at myself. "Happy to help. And I brought your dry cleaning!"

  When I whip around again, a big, nervous smile on my face, the man's eyes bounce up to meet mine. I blush when I realize that when I turned away, he'd taken the opportunity to check me out. And my butt!

  I give him a small smile. "Happy to help," I repeat, blushing to the tips of my ears. I fish in my bag for my wallet. “My rate is $35 per hour and your dry cleaning was $27.50.” I hold out the change for him.

  “What if I told you to keep the change?” he asks, lips twisted into a smirk.

  “I’d insist on giving it to you, anyway,” I say, a little haughtily.

  He studies me, then he takes the change.

  Our fingertips brush, and I snatch mine back as if I’ve touched a hot stove. His eyes, focused on mine, flicker at my nervous movements.

  Okay, phone crisis averted, dry cleaning delivered, pleasantries exchanged, I tell myself. Time to go.

  Only, while my brain endorses this sensible idea, my eyes want to keep looking at him, and my body wants to continue to bask in this man's scorching hot gaze. I stand there, not knowing what to do next. I know I somehow need to leave this man's presence. I just don't know how to make it happen.

  "So, anyway, I'm going to get going," I say, hooking my thumb at the open doorway.

  Lincoln Cooper is a good-looking man. Irresistible, actually. And he looks at me in a way that suggests a mutual attraction. I've been down the road of co-workers with benefits before, and I will not go there again. That is why it's time for me to leave. I need to get my feet moving. Toward the open door, down the stairs, out of the back of the restaurant, through the dining room and its delicious smells, out the front door, back into my car, where I will drive away and forget I ever met the magnetic Mr. Cooper. I visualize doing all those things, yet I don’t do them.

  He leans back in the chair, steeples his fingers, and gives me a speculative look.

  "Last night," he says. "You said you have a personal concierge business, is that right?"

  Slowly, I nod. “It’s called ‘GoForYou.’”

  I'm not sure where he's going with this line of questioning, and wherever it is, I, for damn sure, don't want to go there. Something about him makes me think he would be a very difficult boss to please, and I don't need that kind of aggravation. Plus, I would fall into this man's bed, jump on his dick, and ride myself into oblivion if he suggested it.

  "And I'm pretty booked up these days," I say, anticipating what he's going to ask me next. Truthfully, I'm stretching the facts just a bit. With Peter out of town, I tell myself I have more time to work on marketing, in order to bring in new clients. I've spent most of my career in corporate America, for better and for worse, and I do not wish to work for one employer ever again. Putting all my eggs in one basket nearly ruined me, and I don't want to take that risk again.

  "My assistant is out with the flu," Lincoln says. "I need help until she comes back to work."

  "I...don't really do offices," I say. "My clients tell me what they need, and I go off and do it."

  "Rea
lly?" he says, getting to his feet. The phone rings again. He glances at it, makes a move as if he's going to pick it up, then stops himself.

  "Voicemail," I remind him, backing away from him with another tight smile.

  He moves closer to me. Closer. And weirdly, I am rooted to the spot. I should flee, but I do not. He is about six inches away from me, right outside the bubble that constitutes my personal space and close enough for me to smell his potent male scent. It's like his handsome face has taken up my entire field of vision, and this close, I can see his eyes hover between blue and green. Kind of turquoise, and he has lashes longer than any man has a right to.

  "You will come in a couple of times a week,” he says, as if I didn’t just tell him that I’m not going to work with him. “Otherwise, I’ll email you or call you with instructions for the tasks I’ll need you to complete for me.” He’s so close that his breath fans over my face. "Um..." I say, stepping back a little. I wait for him to follow, and I'm both relieved and disappointed when he doesn't.

  "You can let the calls go to voicemail, retrieve the message, then send me the important ones via text or email," he says. "I'll send you a list of everything else I need done. Give me your contact information."

  I frown at him. Does he always jump around in conversation like that?

  “Never mind,” he says. “I’ll see that you get a company email. You’ll be [email protected]. Smack.”

  I scrunch my face in irritation. It’s not like I haven’t been given various versions of the “Smack” email address over the years. I’m annoyed by the email address, and aware that I’m being bulldozed into helping him out.

  “Don’t call me Smack,” I say.

  “Smack,” Lincoln breezes on. “I took over the company a year and a half ago when my father and brother died in a small plane crash. I normally have an assistant, but she’s sick with the flu.”