Her Dirty Bartenders (Men at Work #5) - Mika Lane Page 0,46

brought up by a degenerate father who runs a bar.”

Since when was I a degenerate? And I didn’t just run a bar. I was part-owner in the biggest club in Denver.

But I could see what she was doing, clear as day. She’d thought this through, and this was the beginning of her making a case against me.

Which was not going to happen.

“I have a lawyer,” she blurted out, like that was going to intimidate me.

I took a deep breath. I didn’t want Stell or the guys to hear me arguing. “You’re not taking him to Arizona, Elise. I won’t allow it. And I don’t care how many lawyers you have, or how bad you try to make me look. It won’t work. The court won’t award you full custody if I don’t agree.”

“Fine. You’ll hear from my lawyer then. And expect it to be expensive.”

She hung up.

What a way to wake up. Now there was no way I was getting back to sleep.

She’d never get full custody of Jax, but keeping that from happening could be costly. Elise had her mother’s large bank account to finance her whims. It was a different story for me.

I did have money in the bank, of course, and I could sell my sports car for something more practical like a used SUV. It would certainly be easier to cart Jax around in a full-sized, grown up vehicle.

I texted one of my buddies who sold cars.

know anyone who might want to buy my Porsche?

Since I knew I wasn’t going back to sleep, I started reading the news on my phone before I switched over to researching custody issues. I had to do something. It would be hours before everybody else woke up.

In order to get Cab’s old man off our back, we stepped up our private parties. In the past, we’d kept them to a minimum because one, they were a lot of work, and two, we wanted them to seem exclusive. But our needs had changed, and we began to say yes more often than we said no.

Actually, our amazing bookkeeper and general operations person, Deb, was the one saying yes or no. I stayed out of events. I was not a details guy. It was all I could do to remember to bring a diaper with me every time I had the little man.

We’d asked Stell to work tonight’s party with us. She and I were setting up a small bar in the Playroom when I noticed Deb was still in the office.

“Hey there. Thank you for setting these parties up. I’m sure when you took the bookkeeping position you didn’t realize you’d also become an event planner.”

She laughed. “I actually like it. It’s fun. Well, mostly fun. Some of the people who want to have parties here are pretty freaking sketch.”

I knew that to be the truth. But Deb had grown up in Denver and knew a shit ton of people. She could usually do some recon and find out all we needed to know about whether someone was going to throw a fairly manageable party, or attract troublemakers.

“All I can say, Deb, is that you are a godsend.”

She smiled at me and got back to work.

Loved that woman.

And there was our lovely Stell, arranging bottles on the portable bar, or ‘party bar’, as she called it, in the order we liked so we could grab them and make drinks quickly.

She was especially gorgeous in a low-cut blouse that, when she moved just the right way, revealed a wisp of her black lace bra. She’d gathered her hair at the back of her neck in a messy little knot, which was so different from the braids or ponytails she wore during a regular work night.

By any measure, she was a breathtaking woman, but with the extra effort she’d made for tonight’s party, I couldn’t keep my eyes off her.

And couldn’t stop thinking of the hot freaking time we had together at Cab’s the night before.

I’d hoped she’d respond to us the way she had. I’m not sure it was wishful thinking from the first time I’d met her at our car accident, or just her plucky, take-no-shit attitude, but she’d turned out to be as passionate as I expected her to be. And then some.

I also hoped she’d decide to stick around Denver, if not permanently, then at least for a long, long time. But if her heart was set on LA, then of course that was where she should go.

One thing