The Businessman's Tie (The Power to Please, Book 1) by Deena Ward Page A

leaned out of the window so I could see him. I blinked
when I recognized his face. The Businessman.
    The Businessman. Again. Tonight. Curious.
    I couldn’t imagine what he wanted. I couldn’t resist finding
out.
    I walked over to the car, not tottering in the slightest.
    “Can I give you a ride home?” he asked with a friendly
smile. “It’s probably not safe for you out here.”
    “I’m waiting for a cab.”
    “I’m here right now. And I won’t charge you the way a cab
will.”
    I leaned forward and looked into the car, mentally shaking
myself for being unable to block another vision of those hookers.
    The Businessman was alone in the back seat. In the front,
behind the steering wheel, sat a man wearing a suit, obviously the driver.
    I thought, what the hell. I still had a desire to know The
Businessman better, to know him at all. If I said no, I might never see him
again.
    He opened his door and I got in the car.
    I slid into the back seat. The interior was all black
leather and dark wood accents. It smelled of new car, the leather itself, and a
hint of The Businessman’s spicy scent. I well-remembered that spice.
    I gave the address of the bar to the driver, then The
Businessman pressed a button on an instrument panel, raising a smoky glass
divider between us and the front seat. Though the interior of the town car was
not as large as that of a limousine, the back seat area was still lengthy
enough to retain the feel of spaciousness.
    “That address sounds familiar,” The Businessman said.
    “It’s a bar, the bar, where we met. I left my car there
earlier.” I tried not to sound awkward, failed all the same.
    He looked sharp, put together, fit in a midnight blue shirt
tucked into dark grey trousers. I wondered why I hadn’t noticed what he was
wearing when I saw him earlier in the evening. Oh, yeah, because I’d been too
busy noticing how pissed off he was.
    Illumination from passing street lights and the glow of the
instrument panel provided enough light to see with some clarity. I looked at
The Businessman. He wasn’t angry anymore. He appeared convivial in the role of
host and benefactor of free rides.
    “Ah, of course. I certainly remember that bar, and that
night,” he said.
    Free ride, I thought, wincing at the double entendre, and
looked away.
    He surprised me then. “I’ve thought of that night more than
once in the last week. Have you?”
    Well yes, I had, I might have answered. Only thought and
thought about it so many times that I came out tonight looking for you, and
somehow, in the course of the evening, wound up being fucked over by a hot guy I
just met. And, oh yeah, I’m probably an exhibitionist. And a moron. Don’t
forget the moron part.
    I settled on a simpler answer. “Yes.”
    “Good,” he said.
    There was something about this man. He said the word “good”
and I felt a tiny burst of what I can only describe as happiness. Good. And I
was happy.
    The emotion was short-lived, gone with his next question.
“How long have you known Michael Weston?”
    “We just met, tonight,” I answered.
    “At Private Residence?”
    At what? Oh, I remembered. That was the name of the sex
club. “Yeah.”
    “I see. Are you in the habit of letting strangers fondle you
in public?”
    “What?” The man certainly had a way with the blunt
questions. “That’s none of your business.”
    “I didn’t mean to offend you. It was an honest question. I
was looking for an honest answer. That’s all.”
    He sounded so reasonable, I distrusted my initial response.
He’d seen me with Michael, Michael’s hand in my bra, in public. The Businessman
himself had been with me in a public hallway, my ass bare, and me panting when
he talked of someone seeing us there. If he came to certain conclusions based
on those facts, well I could hardly be offended by a logical assessment of my
actions.
    “No,” I said, “I’m not in the habit of letting strangers
fondle me in public.”
    “I thought as