Crimson Desire

Vincent Harold Douglas.

Excitement. God. How long had it been since I’d felt that kind of rhythm in my veins? And what the hell was wrong with me?

He was sitting on one of the stools around the bar, a handful of people clustered around him — though I wasn’t sure sitting was the right word for what he was doing. Vincent looked more like a man who had come to drink alone and somehow found himself in the middle of a bachelor party he didn’t know he was headlining. He wasn’t enjoying the attention. That much I could see.

He was at the center of the crowd. People swarmed him — I doubted peacocks put this much effort into a mating dance. Vincent sat through it all as if the world couldn’t possibly matter less. He didn’t even acknowledge the people around him long enough to dismiss them.

For me, though — this was chaos worth watching. Dangerous. Too provocative to look away from. And completely outside my control.

That oppressive presence of his was exactly the way I remembered it. He radiated a weight that made people either step back or make the mistake of leaning closer. Both were dangerous.

Tonight he was in dark navy. In that bespoke three-piece suit, he wasn’t just a striking man. He was a predator at the top of the food chain — and no matter what he did, I saw the animal underneath. His tie had been loosened, the buttons of his vest undone. The disarray was provocative. I didn’t understand how he managed it — how he pulled it off even when he was put together.

Two years, and it was painfully clear my memory had done him a disservice. He was far more devastating than I’d remembered. Handsome wasn’t the word. Not even close. There was something much more primal in the effect he had — different, darker, more calculated. And beneath that suit was a body no one just happened to have.

His face wasn’t unfamiliar to me anymore… I only wished I could say the same about the effect he had on me. His looks were still just a shell — something I wanted to get past. But that attitude of his… There was an arrogance in it that pushed me to peel back every layer and uncover the poison underneath.

Just standing there, he reminded me of things I had no business wanting. But I wanted them anyway. Whatever he stirred in me — this time, there was more of it.

His jet-black hair was exactly how I remembered. Effortlessly messy. Those tar-dark eyes were fixed on the whiskey in his hand, and I remembered that darkness too.

The moment he tilted his head up, our eyes met. I didn’t care that he’d caught me staring. When our gazes locked, it was as if we were two people in an empty room — nothing else, no one else. Only a few seconds. But enough to make me feel cornered.

Adrenaline detonated in my veins. A reckless thrill tore through me. My pulse sped up. My breath thinned. There was a control in his posture I found almost too self-assured. Untouchable. Unyielding. And that control was clearly still poking at the demons inside me, because I was filling up with the urge to push him, to defy him.

His eyes stayed on me a moment longer. A darkness had settled into his gaze that landed low in my stomach. Then something the man beside him said pulled his attention away, and he looked back down at his drink. I couldn’t move.

For a second I wasn’t sure what I’d seen in that gaze — desire or sharp disapproval. I expected the second. I wanted it to be the first. And then I caught myself wondering whether he’d recognized me at all.

I was still mentally throwing a punch at myself when a voice snapped me out of it — “Can I get another martini? Two olives.”

I swallowed hard.

Stupid hormones.

It must’ve taken me a few minutes to throw myself back into work. But I was aware of his gaze moving across my back, leaving a trace of warmth wherever it touched.

I caught myself trying not to meet his eyes again. I didn’t know why. Self-preservation, maybe. Then I asked myself why I’d even need that. What did it matter what he thought, or who he was?

That was when I let it go — and got back to being myself. Though that unfamiliar thrill was still churning in my stomach, and I was ignoring it for all I was worth.

I made small talk with customers and brushed off their flirting with the easy smiles I’d long since perfected. I joked around with Nell and Grace and kept my focus on the work. Nell was handling Vincent’s section anyway. I didn’t have to talk to him, serve him, or lose any sleep over whether he remembered me.

Not that I wasn’t curious about what he was doing here. I didn’t think he was a Temple member. Sure, hosting important people in this part of the club wasn’t unusual — but Vincent was in Forbes’s top ten, and that wasn’t our usual clientele.

Then again, I was in the top ten myself, and here I was, standing behind a bar…

Even without a membership, we were always open to private guests willing to pay a hefty entrance fee. Which meant paying triple for their drinks on top of it. But I couldn’t imagine anyone who chose to come here being bothered by that difference.

If anything, the freaks probably enjoyed it. Why settle for cheaper when you could drink the same liquor for three times the price?

People with Rockefeller-level money were their own breed of weird…

They wanted diamond-capped teeth that would look horrifying when they grinned, and gold toilets. They had mountains of money and still survived on eight Diet Cokes and coffee a day. They handed over the annual income of a small country for clothes no one would take for free off the street, and never paused to think about it for a second.

I guess, as a bartender, that included me?

Hell, my brand of weird probably even outdid Vincent’s.

A little later, when I reached into the cooler for a white wine, I glanced at Vincent out of the corner of my eye. A few more people had already gathered around him, running some kind of Hunger Games for his attention.

This was exactly why I hadn’t expected men as rich as him to hang around places like this.

As it was, my identity was kept hidden. Everyone knew my name — my face, on the other hand, was deliberately kept out of the press. All they had on me was one childhood photo from when I was nine.

I still didn’t have a social media account, and the only friend who knew my full name was Edwin.

Even so, I didn’t think I’d be useful to these people the way Vincent was. Beyond my money, I had no power, no connections, no social standing anyone would angle me for a favor over. Someone else ran my company for me, and they probably got far more respect than I did.

Did I care? Not even a little…

Which was why I was happy. I could move however I wanted, make my own friends, move through a crowd unnoticed, and every now and then even climb onto the stage with our house band that played live on weeknights.

I smirked at Vincent’s bored expression while I poured the white into the glass. Just then, as if he’d felt my eyes on him, he raised his head — and our eyes locked again. His eyes narrowed at once, as though he were reading the thoughts in my head.

I must have been getting way too much pleasure out of messing with this man, because when I stole another glance at him, I didn’t even try to stop the smirk spreading across my face.

The moment one of the men beside him reached out to touch his arm — trying to get his attention again — Vincent shot him a sharp look. Even from that distance, it was clear he didn’t like it. The poor guy pulled his hand back immediately. The smirk on my lips only grew wider.

I turned back to my work, thinking I could ignore him for a while longer — when Nell suddenly appeared right beside me.

Today she was wearing a dress cinched tight at the waist with a corset, flaring out below. The color wasn’t just blue — it was royal blue. The hairpiece on her head was studded with crystals. Apparently she considered that a symbol of her reign too.

Bouncing in place with excitement, she said, “Oh my God! Did you see him?”

I didn’t need to be a genius to know who she was talking about, and apparently I wasn’t going to get away from Vincent that easily tonight.

I frowned as if confused. “Who?”

Grace shot me one of her oh, please looks. “He’s so good-looking, isn’t he? I’ve never seen anyone like him.”

I hesitated before answering. Her words had caught me off guard.

Why did I not like her being interested in him? I felt my fingers anxiously tugging at the bracelet on my wrist.

As my smile faded, I said, “I have.” I’d seen Vincent before, after all.

She studied my face carefully for a moment, trying to figure out if I was serious, and whatever she saw made her nod as if she understood. “Lucky girl.”

I wasn’t so sure about that at the moment…

In my head, I might have been playing with Vincent. But I also knew I was walking a very thin line.

Some men looked like angels, others like devils. Vincent was a lethal combination of both. He had a divine kind of attractiveness, but there was a devilish darkness in his bearing and in his eyes.

Enough to make me afraid. Enough that I should have turned around and run.

And by run, I meant relocating to Mexico.

His attitude was arrogant and rude, but he was rich and powerful enough that no one seemed to care.

Judging by everything he had and everything he’d built, he was the kind of man who planned every move in advance. Shrewd. Calculating.

I made the mistake of glancing at him again. His brows were drawn together. I watched him elbow someone aside who was trying to slip between him and the man sitting on the stool next to him.

Oh my God.

Watching him — catching his irritation, his reactions — was unreasonably satisfying. Most people should have found him unpleasant, sarcastic, impossible to tolerate. And yet there they were, pulled into his orbit without seeming to choose it. It should have been repellent. It wasn’t. If anything, it made me want to laugh.

As if more than one version of me had been living inside my head all this time, and they’d been waiting for this exact moment to step out of hiding.

I looked again, and this time I caught him rolling his eyes at something someone said. He looked like he was muttering something under his breath.

I was drawn to that cold attitude of his, to his expressionless way of moving — I even found it entertaining. Even his sarcasm was enjoyable.

As far as I remembered, he had a beautiful smile. He must have offered it rarely, though. He’d smiled at me a few times at the Met. But tonight I hadn’t even caught the faintest curve at the corner of his lips.

Over the years, it was as if he’d forgotten how to smile. Or maybe I’d just stumbled onto one of those rare moments back then — witnessed a minor miracle without realizing it.

Maybe the reason he’d smiled at me before had been the emotional wreck I was in. He must have found it amusing…

Could it be that he fed on people’s pain?

I caught myself anxiously tugging at the bracelet again and immediately wanted to slap myself for being this curious about him.

A little later, Nell appeared beside me with a groan. “I need a break.”

“You mean you need a cigarette,” I said, raising one brow.

She shrugged. “Someone has to carry on my mother’s bad habits.”

Her gaze drifted over the crowd. “Would you and Grace mind covering for me? Can you handle it?”

I nodded. Grace was still nearby to deal with Vincent.

Of course, because my luck was flawless, the moment the last of Vincent’s whiskey was gone, Grace had already moved on to another group.

I shrugged to myself and started toward Vincent, who had by now skillfully cleared out almost everyone around him — until only one man remained.

The moment I moved toward him, his gaze found me. I shivered when those eyes, dark enough to feel like they’d been dipped in shadow, locked onto me completely. My pulse quickened for reasons that didn’t quite make sense to me.

I lowered my gaze to the glass in his hand, letting him read my intention. If he wanted another, he could say so without my asking. A simple nod would have been enough.

I stopped right in front of him. He didn’t say a word — just waited, as if stubbornly expecting me to speak first. So finally I did. “Another?”

Before I answered, we held each other’s gaze for a few seconds — and I searched his eyes for any sign that he recognized me.

There was nothing.

I wasn’t sure why that bothered me, but it did.

My hand drifted to my bracelet again…

The brief moment passed, and he gave a small nod. He slid his whiskey glass toward me. “I’ll have another, straight,” he said, then paused for a second before lifting his eyes to mine. “Please.”

That one small courtesy tacked onto the end of his sentence was enough to shut the man beside him up immediately. The man turned to look at me like I was about to grow a second — maybe even a third — head, while I was busy thinking that Vincent’s voice sounded exactly the way I remembered.

Firm. Authoritative.

And yet strangely soothing, with a tone that sounded pleasant to the ear.

My gaze dropped to his hands for a moment. Of course they were clean, well-kept — but strong too. And veins…

As hard as I tried to look away, to focus on anything else, I couldn’t pull my eyes from the sight of those veins. I blamed every romance novel I’d ever devoured obsessively for that.

With effort, I dragged my attention to his arms.

Thick. Muscular…

God. I needed to stop.

But arms like that should be illegal under clothing. Actually, on second thought — looking like that should be illegal.

“Of course,” I said, picking up the glass in front of him. The man beside him was already convinced I wasn’t going to grow extra heads or horns and jumped right back into whatever he was saying. Something about bureaucratic obstacles. Endless nonsense.

I almost felt sorry for Vincent.

Almost.

Of course, if I’d seen even the smallest sign that he’d recognized me.

I was just about to turn away when I noticed Vincent’s gaze fixed on the man’s nearly empty glass.

Oh.

Was that… a flicker of hope?

When I came back with Vincent’s drink, I was carrying a beer for the man beside him too.

Even now, I still can’t be entirely sure why I did it.

Maybe I was annoyed that he really hadn’t recognized me. Maybe I just wanted to irritate him more and get a kick out of it. Or maybe I had a twisted sense of humor.

Who knows.

Honestly, I’d pay good money to understand why I do some of the things I do sometimes.

I set Vincent’s drink in front of him. Then I slid the beer toward the man beside him, a coaster tucked neatly underneath it. And — because apparently I have no survival instinct whatsoever — I even winked at him.

“On the house,” I said.

Vincent’s hand froze mid-reach. His gaze shifted to me, his head tilting slightly to the side like a wolf sizing up its prey. His eyes narrowed with suspicion. I didn’t care. I declared myself the winner of that round and turned on my heel, walking away to savor the moment.

If the man had been thinking of leaving, he stayed. Kept talking. For another forty minutes.

During that time, I actually started to feel sorry for Vincent. Maybe he’d had a long day and come here to shake off some of his stress, instead of drinking in one of his own hotels or at home. And I had just made sure this would be a mistake he wouldn’t repeat.

Still — every time the man laughed at his own jokes, Vincent’s right eye twitched, and I enjoyed it.

At the same time, I couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t already gotten up and left.

When the man finally left — with a wide smile that made it painfully obvious he had no idea how exhausting he’d been — I let out a slow breath.

Before Nell could take over, I found myself heading back toward Vincent with a small plate of mixed nuts and dried fruit in hand.

His gaze found me again. This time there was something almost playful in it. But his eyes were so dark they might as well have been designed to give nothing away.

I set the plate down beside his glass like a peace offering, tilting my head slightly toward the stool the man had just vacated. “Sorry about that. I wouldn’t want to be misunderstood.”

For a second, I thought he might not understand what I meant. But over the rim of his glass, as he brought it to his lips, he said, “No. You’re not.”

His tone was flat. But the distant, bored look he’d been wearing for hours was gone, replaced by real interest. I almost wanted to pinch myself.

I supposed that counted as progress.

I was about to smile, turn around, and get back to work when he said, “You’re not going to say that the companion of a victim suffers more than the victim, are you?”

I froze for a split second.

Those were my words. From the day we first met.

So he remembered.

Fuck. Why did that matter so much?

I turned back to him, not even trying to stop the smile spreading across my face — and gave him his own line back from the Met, with a wink. “How can you truly renew yourself unless you become ashes?”

He took a sip of his drink and set it back down. A low, amused sound slipped from his throat. Calling it a laugh wasn’t a stretch. It was probably the closest thing he allowed himself.

Maybe he wasn’t as cold as I thought.

Before speaking again, his gaze dropped to the glass in his hand, and his lower lip caught briefly between his teeth. My eyes tracked the movement, and I swore a swarm of deranged butterflies launched a full-scale attack on my internal organs. “Are you seriously going to quote Nietzsche?”

He remembered everything I’d said to him at our first meeting, word for word.

I let out a laugh before I could stop myself. “And you’re intelligent too.”

“At least I should be glad you didn’t try to quote Weber and say, ‘If man didn’t always desire the impossible, he couldn’t achieve the possible either.’”

I gave him his own words back from years ago. “The only quote I could make about Weber would be to define the state as the monopoly on legitimate violence in society. I think that would confuse you even more.”

God. No — he really hadn’t forgotten how to smile. The darkness cleared. The sun came out. All that was missing was a chorus of angels.

The smile spreading across his lips was enough to bring out his dimples — familiar from years ago, and yet telling entirely different stories. I had never let myself stop and think about what lay beneath that smile before. This time, I wasn’t so sure I didn’t want to think about it.

It was seductive. Provocative. Full of promises, and the certainty that he would keep them.

My fingers found my bracelet again, restless.

“Is there anything I can do for you, Mr. Douglas?”

I should have left. I should have gotten away. Immediately. Mexico, maybe. Or Tibet. I’d read somewhere that New Zealand was the farthest country from Boston. Why not?

This was both a victory and an entirely foreseeable catastrophe. Because that smile had brought out his dimples too, and apparently that was a problem for me. That smile shouldn’t have made my stomach tighten. It shouldn’t have made me feel like this.

The only conclusion I could come to was that I wasn’t acting like a grown woman — and that it had been too long since I’d slept with anyone.

“I thought we agreed on just Vincent, Scarlett.”

He leaned on my name just enough to make it deliberate.

Right then, I noticed them again — the two men sitting at one of the back tables, directly behind him. Dressed in all black, they blended into the atmosphere easily enough, but there was something in the way they held themselves that set them apart. Maybe it was the tension in their bodies, as if they were expecting trouble at any second. Or the way their attention covered the entire room while still staying fixed on Vincent. I couldn’t be sure.

But his security was there again. The broad, olive-skinned man, and the short-haired blond beside him. Even from where they sat, they made it clear that any wrong move would have consequences.

I nodded, not wanting to linger any longer. “Can I get you anything, Vincent?”

Right then, the phone in his jacket pocket rang. My eyes drifted, uninvited, to the one already sitting on the counter in front of him. And the moment I caught myself wondering why he had two phones, I wanted to slap myself.

He held the one in his hand for a moment without answering. The way he glared at the screen, I half expected the thing to explode. Without even looking up at me, he answered, “No, thank you.”

I went back to work quickly, throwing myself into the crowd so thoroughly that I almost forgot he was there at all.

It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes later, and without even letting myself look at the stool he’d been sitting on, I already knew he was gone.

That presence — the kind you felt physically, in the air, in the room — was gone with him. Not a trace of it left in the air of the club.

I didn’t know exactly what it was. But I knew one thing: this man was dangerous for me. Thinking about him, getting stuck on him, wouldn’t end well.

So I filed him away under my “have some dignity” file. Right next to stupid drunk decisions. And the topless selfies I’d sent to Henry Cavill.