Wicked Billionaire - Sawyer Bennett Page 0,31

know if she has a boyfriend. I never thought to ask.

But surely not.

Not after what we did together.

Mentally, I make myself shrug off my curiosity. I have to stop thinking about her outside of our working relationship.

For my own sanity, it’s imperative.

♦

August is already nursing a beer when I get there. When I sit, the bartender moves my way, clearly surprised the head boss is gracing the establishment. I rarely eat at my own restaurants. Not because they aren’t stellar, but because I don’t like making a spectacle of myself, which I tend to do in my own resort. I want my employees to give top-notch service to our customers without worrying about me watching over their shoulder.

I lift my chin to the bartender before nodding toward August. “I’ll have what he’s having.”

“Right away, sir,” He says, but my gaze is pinned on August. He looks fine.

Great, actually, as he holds out his right hand with a smile.

When we shake, he says, “Thanks for meeting me.”

“Was worried something was wrong,” I say. I put my forearms on the bar, but angle my chair slightly his way.

August shakes his head. “Everything is mostly great. Sam is fine. Leighton’s great. I mean… we’re great.”

“I sense a ‘but,’” I say with a laugh as the bartender sets my beer in front of me. I spare him a short glance. “Put both of these on my tab.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Blackwood.”

Turning my attention back to August, I wait for him to tell me why he’s here.

When he does, I’m not prepared for what he says.

“I’m leaving town,” he informs me in a matter-of-fact tone. “Tonight, actually.”

“Permanently?” I inquire, just to clarify.

He nods, picks up his beer, and takes a sip. “Yeah… Leighton’s father was made by some of the mob family he testified against. They have people pouring into Vegas to look for them. No clue if they’ll be successful or not, but I should get Leighton and Sam out of here.”

“Her father too?”

“Yeah,” he says. “All of us. We’re headed to Pittsburgh. I’ll transfer to that branch of the Jameson office, but I don’t think I’ll be back in Vegas anytime soon.”

I hate that. August isn’t my best friend because I don’t have one of those. The downside of being American royalty with a demanding job. But he is a friend, one I’ve shared numerous debaucheries with at The Wicked Horse. Plus, he’s confided in me about the pain of his past.

I feel something akin to sadness at his news, which is odd. I’m not a man who easily forms personal attachments. It’s a product of my upbringing. I was raised by a nanny, not by my parents. My sister is eight years older, so we led separate lives from the start. I went to an affluent, obnoxiously snobbish boarding school with other like-minded kids who were also raised by nannies and had no concept of what it meant to develop deep friendships.

“I do believe I’m going to miss you,” I admit. Granted, our time hanging out was exclusively limited to The Wicked Horse, but after our fuck sessions ended, we’d spend hours nursing glasses of bourbon or scotch while we talked. We developed a friendship during our conversations, which is why I never hesitated to help him out when his son got sick. I let him borrow one of my private planes to pick up his newfound son, then bring him to Vegas for cancer treatments.

“I’ll miss you, too,” he says with a fond smile. “Not the club, per se. Those days are behind me, but the memories of our adventures will always be well regarded.”

“Indeed,” I murmur, mind immediately going to my last adventure there. With Bailey.

“So how has it been at the club?” August asks conversationally. “Managing to survive there without me?”

Still adrift in my memories of Bailey, I end up admitting, “Actually… I haven’t been in over a week.”

August laughs, clapping me on the back. “Are you sick or something?”

Or something.

It hits me then… August could be a great sounding board about my problem with Bailey. He recently went through a similar situation. He’d gotten involved with a woman when he’d thought doing so wasn’t a good idea.

Never before have I shared anything personal with anyone. I’ve always chosen to handle my problems on my own. But August is a friend of sorts, and there’s no shame in having girl problems, right?

“There’s a girl,” I say, and August blinks in surprise. He knows I’m a firmly entrenched bachelor who hates