A Jade's Trick (Lilly Black's Jaded Series Book 1) (3 page)

Well, I guess I'm keeping your money another night, Playboy
. 

It's Friday night. I've worked until after 1:00 am with no sign of him, and as I wonder how I'm ever going to find him to return his money, I'm distracted by some drunk girl with a fake ID I had refused to serve earlier.  Another bar must have accepted it, but now she's back here looking for her friends, car keys in hand.

"Why don't I get you some water while you text them, and you can wait for them here?" I suggest, irritated because she shouldn't have been able to get by Dave the first time, let alone twice.

"I already did, but I can't wait anymore.  I have to work in the morning."  I offer to call her a cab, but she won't leave her car here overnight, and though I tell her to wait while I grab a beer for the customer beside her, when I turn back around, Drunk Girl is already getting into the elevator.  I rush to the end of the bar that runs to the roof's edge to try to signal Dave to stop her, but when I see him, I'm stunned.  He's standing beside a black limousine, shaking hands with...Cain? 

What the fuck?

"Dave!" I scream in vain.  I catch a waitress to cover the bar for me, calling Dave on his cell on the way to the elevator to tell him to stop Drunk Girl, but when I get downstairs, I am not at all happy with the arrangements he has made to get her home safely.

"Uh-uh," I say firmly, becoming unpleasantly aware that I forgot to slip on my pumps before leaving the bar as Cain's exquisiteness in the halo of streetlights ravages my mind.  "I'm not going to...um..."

"Um..." Cain says smugly.

Damn, he pisses me off! 

"I'm not going to put her in a car with some strange man," I say, snapping out of it.

"Well, there's progress.  You called me a man instead of a boy," he says with that adorable grin that curls just a bit more on the left side.

"It's fine, Evan.  We can trust Mr. Ballantyne," Dave says.  I narrow my eyes at him.

"This is somebody's little girl and I don't want to be a part of teaching her that it's okay to hop in a car with a stranger just because she's too drunk to drive," I explain.  San Diego is the 8th largest city in the country, and there are lots of men out there who would take full advantage of her in this impaired condition.  I don't believe for one second that Cain is one of those men because the only drug he needs to seduce his way into a woman's bed is his smile, but it's not about him.  It's about the precedent.

"We won't even be in the same vehicle.  I'll drive her car," Cain offers.

"Okay," I relent.  "I'll call the cab." Dave opens his mouth to say something, but Cain shakes his head, silencing him.

"The limousine is yours, isn't it?" I ask.

"Why?  Would you be more inclined to trust some strange man if he had a limousine?" Cain asks facetiously.

"I'd probably be less inclined," I snipe.  "And give me your ID, Playboy, as collateral."

"Yes, Ma'am," Cain says with a laugh as he takes his driver's license out his wallet and hands it to me.  "I hope I don't get pulled over."

"I think you can follow the rules for a few miles," I say, glancing at it before slipping it in my apron pocket, catching only his full name - Cain Tolbert Ballantyne.  Strange.  Tolbert, pronounced Tol-bear, is my mother's maiden name.  It's French like my last name and almost everyone I knew back home even though my mother isn't originally from New Orleans.  It makes me wonder how Cain got it, if it's a family name, if it comes from France, Canada, Louisiana? 

As Drunk Girl directs Cain to her car, I head back up to the bar and examine his ID.  He's twenty-seven, and he lives in an apartment downtown, which is about a twenty minute drive from here in good traffic.  Based on the address, I would guess it for a top floor of one of the high-end skyscrapers, and the penthouse and the limo squash my last glimmer of hope that Cain Ballantyne and I could have any common ground...unless, of course, we're more alike than I could glean from my limited knowledge of him.  I don't come off like someone with my background, having put great effort into the image I project to the point that not a trace of Louisiana comes through in my accent. 
Could I be misjudging him?
 

It's after 2:00 am - closing time - when Cain returns.  With the bright lights up and the red lights off, the waitresses encourage people to get out by snapping up their drinks as
I see Cain in good light for the first time, and he's even more magnificent.

"Our drunk friend is safely in her dorm," he announces.

"Well, it's after last call, but I suppose that deserves a drink," I say as I give him back his ID.

"Are you offering to have that drink with me?"

"I have too much work to do," I say.  It's an excuse.  Nicole would gladly cover for me given the circumstances.  "But I really appreciate your help tonight."

"Yet I get nothing for my noble deed but the offer of a drink alone?" 

"You have my undying gratitude."

"It's not your gratitude I want," Cain says.

"It's all you're going to get," I snap at him, angry with myself for even considering that I might have misjudged him, and he pauses, glaring back at me, just a hint of a smile curling in the corners of his mouth.

"What's it going to take to break you?" he asks, breathing the words as if he's thinking aloud, and though he probably just meant to break my resistance
,
in my usual, glass-half-empty view, I take it to mean that he wants to break me like a horse.

"Go home, Playboy," I spit as I walk to the end of the bar and begin feverishly polishing the brass fixtures at the waitress station.

"Good night...Ice Queen," Cain says, leaving me frozen with my back to him, tears welling in my eyes.

Ice Queen, Cain?  You have no idea,
I think as I listen to the last footfalls of this achingly beautiful man as he walks out of my life again.  It's what he meant to do last night, but fate, though usually out to fuck me, sent me a drunk girl.  If not for her, I wouldn't even have known Cain was with Dave tonight, but I guess it doesn't matter now.  It's done, I blew it, and I didn't even remember to give him back the money.

"I know what you're doing," Nicole says as she hands me a list of drink requests.  It's Saturday night, and the bar is in full swing.

"What are you talking about?"

"You keep looking at the elevator.  You're hoping Cain comes in."  She calls me out.  No one in the world knows me better.  We've been best friends since we met waiting tables together at a restaurant in Los Angeles shortly after I left home.  We became roommates, and in the first year we lived together, she lost both of her parents in a car wreck.  Her older brother moved to West Virginia with their little sister, enrolling her in a boarding school for the deaf, leaving Nicole and I completely on our own. We've only had ourselves to depend on for so long, we've become like the mothers neither of us have.  It's why it makes me crazy that she dates men who are no good for her and why it makes her crazy that I don't date at all, and it's also why she's excited that I appear to be interested in Cain.

"You like him," she taunts.

"Do not," I argue.

"Do, too," she sings as I walk away to fill her order.  Okay.  Maybe I looked at the elevator once or twice but only because I feel bad about how we left things last night.  Just because I don't want to be the latest notch on his bedpost doesn't mean that I have to be so hateful to him.  That, and I owe him $1,000.

When last call comes and goes with no sign of Cain, I can't deny my disappointment because it's written all over my face, but at least I don't have to deal with Nicole teasing me about it, her mind clearly elsewhere as she comes excitedly bounding up to the waitress station.

"Guess what!" she calls out in hushed animation as the last stragglers shuffle to the elevator.

"What?" I ask.

"See that guy?"  She indicates a well-dressed man with light brown hair walking toward the exit.  He looks back over his shoulder at her, giving her a smile and a wave before stepping into the elevator.  "That's Jackson.  I'm going out with him tomorrow night."

"Oh," I say, not meaning to sound let down, but I was hoping her "guess what"
had something to do with Cain.

"So here's the thing, and please don't say no
,
" Nicole says, and I grit my teeth, knowing and dreading what's coming.  "Jackson is in town staying with a friend - a guy friend - and he was hoping I could find someone to..."

"Nic, no," I plead.

"Please, Ev?" she begs, then with a grin, she sweetens the deal.  "We're going to Maison Latour, and I know how much you love French food..." 

"And how much you love expensive restaurants," I scowl.

"So you'll do it, right?" she asks, her eyes childlike and hopeful.

"I'll do it," I relent with a sigh, "but it's not a date."

"Okay!  Yay!" Nicole brings her hands together in a gleeful clap, and I grab our purses from behind the bar.  Before I stuff my apron in, I look inside optimistically to see if there is anything unexpected. Cain's envelope is still in there waiting for the chance to be returned, but there's nothing new.  Seeing it, I think about what the cash in that envelope could buy because I have nothing to wear to Maison Latour, and I push the envelope deeper into my purse as I try to push the guilt of that thought out of my mind.

"Cain did say to buy something pretty with it," Nicole reminds me.  I roll my eyes at her, but I realize that I am probably going to have to do just what she's suggesting.  It feels so wrong to spend Cain's money on a dress to wear for another guy that to rationalize it, I start dredging up all of the anger and resentment I've felt over the past week, reminding myself that helping a drunk freshman get safely back to her dorm doesn't make him a saint.  It doesn't mean he isn't still a dog who thought a $1,000 tip would make my panties drop.  He's still the same man who probably has a bet with Steph to see who can nail me first, and now he wants to break me?

You know what?  Fuck him!
  Not only will I spend his money on a new dress for this date, I'll buy something sexy as hell, and I hope the bastard just happens to be at Maison Latour to see it!

Careful what you wish for, little girl,
a voice in my head warns, and strangely, that voice sounds a lot like Cain Ballantyne.

Early Sunday afternoon, Nicole and I hit the mall in Mission Valley to find dresses for tonight.  I don't backslide at all, keeping my anger with Cain burning hot to allow me to spend his money without guilt, and though I would normally dread shopping, today for the first time ever, I don't have to obsess over price tags.  I actually enjoy myself.

After mani-pedis, Nicole and I head home to get ready, and in my room alone I realize why this whole exercise is turning out to be such fun for me.  This is the first time in my life that I have ever put so much effort and expense into a night out.  I ran away from home before I had a chance to go to prom, and though I always claim that it's not something I cared about missing, that's not the truth.  I was still in school when junior prom came around.  I stayed at home that night, telling the kids at school I didn't want to go because prom was stupid, but the truth is I didn't go because nobody asked me.  No one.  And if not even one single guy at an insignificant New Orleans high school thought I was a worthy prom date, how could I not question the motives of someone like Cain Ballantyne?