Fire & Brimstone (Neighbor from Hell #8) - R.L. Mathewson Page 0,43

for the next two weeks.

Chapter 21

“Mr. Bradford?”

“What is it, Patrick?” Lucifer asked, pretending that his mind wasn’t on his bed upstairs and the small woman currently curled up in it, hogging all the blankets. She was going to be furious when she finally woke up, he thought with a small smile as he tallied the credit card slips for the night.

“I can take care of that if you want,” Patrick offered after a slight hesitation, making the same offer that he made every night around this time.

“I have it, Patrick,” he said, not bothering to look up from his desk as he shifted his attention to the order slips.

God, he was so fucking exhausted.

All he wanted to do was call it a night, go upstairs and curl up with the woman that was going to kill him as soon as she woke up, but he knew that he would never get that far. He’d be lucky if he made it to the couch at this point.

“Well, goodnight, Mr. Bradford,” Patrick said, sounding like he wanted to say more, but in the end he left, locking up and setting the alarm on his way out.

He needed some fucking sleep soon or he was going to burn out, but one look at the pile of work waiting on the corner of his desk that needed his attention had him biting back a yawn and getting back to work. He only had a few hours to put a dent into all this paperwork before he had to oversee meal prep and the breakfast service. He also needed to make sure that the bar was fully stocked since tonight was going to be one of the busiest nights of the week.

College night.

It was one of his most profitable nights of the week, but it was also his busiest day. It was Thursday, which meant that he had to make sure that they were set up for the rest of the week. That meant calling venders, taking in orders, food prep, going over the schedule and making sure that the majority of his senior staff was scheduled to work, running to the bank to get change and make deposits, and making sure their online ordering system was working flawlessly.

Just thinking about everything that he had to do today was making him tired, but that was too fucking bad because he had a job to do. For the next four days the Fire & Brimstone was going to be a mad house. They’d have the mornings and afternoons to prepare, but even those meal services were going to be brutal, especially since they were still down four waitresses, a bartender, a dishwasher and a cook. Sighing, he made a note to put another ad in Monday’s paper with the hopes that this set of applicants would actually bring him more than just college kids looking for beer money.

Then there was the problem of the woman sleeping in his bed…

He had absolutely no idea what he was going to do about her. The only thing that he was absolutely sure about was that he should be relieved that she was quitting instead of sitting here trying to figure out a way to make her stay. For five goddamn years he’d wanted her gone and just when he was finally about to get what he’d wanted, he’d not only backed down, but he’d also given her a raise to keep her around.

As much as he’d like to say that he’d regretted manipulating her into staying, he couldn’t. She’d needed answers that she would probably never have gotten, because she’d long since given up. So, no, he couldn’t regret helping her when he’d had the chance, but he wasn’t sure that he could say the same about sleeping with her. He should have never slept with her, but he knew that he’d do it again in a heartbeat if he ever got the chance.

Sighing, he leaned back in his chair and wondered what he was going to do about her. She was a complication, which was something that he really didn’t need in his life. He had too much going on in his life to add a pain in the ass girlfriend whose soul purpose in life seemed to be driving him out of his fucking mind.

He didn’t need that in his life, especially not right now when he was still doing everything that he could to make Fire & Brimstone into something special. There was no way that