Slave to Love - Julie A. Richman Page 0,3

is already annoyed with me. He’s worried that if I don’t know who the guy is, how am I going to have any meaningful conversation about his business? “Have you looked at the Forbes fastest growing tech companies over the last three years? He’s the founder and CEO of SpaceCloud.”

“Oh, okay. I’ve heard of SpaceCloud, I’m just not familiar with him.”

Cuntessa is staring at my tits and I look down. My nipples are flashing their high beams through the thin silk of my blouse. My memories of bar fucking must’ve gotten the twins excited.

“You need covers for those things,” she comments and I can see Kemp is uncomfortable.

I look at her lack of anything sizable hidden under her Hillary Clinton blazer and shake my head, “Maybe I’m turned on by you.”

“Very funny. But I bet you will be turned on by Hale Lundström. The man is drop dead gorgeous.”

“Well, maybe he’s a nipple man,” I comment, as we follow Kemp into my old stomping grounds

As if seeing an old friend that I’ve missed for years, the Maxwell Parrish mural of Old King Cole adorning the back of the bar brings unexpected tears to my eyes. I was twenty-three. He was twenty-five. And I’d never before met someone who I clicked with, in every way, like that. We’d gotten into the habit of saying, “Hey twin,” to each other because we were like mirror versions of one another.

Approaching the bar, I smile at the bartender, an older man with warm eyes and an inviting smile. He probably thinks I’m already drunk approaching the bar with such a huge grin. Either that or he’s smiling back because he too is a fan of nipples and legs.

We’re just feet away, when from the highly polished counter, a man in a navy blazer and worn jeans turns on his bar stool, immediately planting his sneakered feet on the floor as he stands, unfolding to his full height before us. His dark blue eyes are sharp and focused as he breaks into a movie star smile, taking Kemp’s outstretched hand for a hearty shake. Loose wavy curls, slightly too long for a businessman, top a handsome face graced with a square jaw and slightly dimpled chin. The look is completed with a day’s dark stubble. I’m thrown, the man looks like an Italian movie star. I was expecting a Viking with the last name Lundström, not Raoul Bova’s younger brother.

“I’d like you to meet two of the best sales directors in the country,” Kemp ushers us in. “Hale, this is Susan Smith, my east coast and now Pacific Northwest sales director and Sierra Stone, who manages the Midwest through California.”

“Pleasure meeting you, Susan.” Hale extends a hand to Cuntessa, gracing her with a smile that probably made her want to dance naked for him.

When he makes no move to greet me, I extend a hand, “Sierra,” I reintroduce myself.

He looks at me, the affect in his eyes flat. “Yes, I got it the first time.”

He doesn’t shake my hand. Douche.

“What are you drinking?” Kemp turns around to us.

“Chardonnay.” Cuntessa is so boring.

“I’ll have a Red Snapper.” The bartender’s eyes are twinkling the minute he hears that come out of my mouth and I can’t help but smile back at him. Kemp joins Hale with a Guinness.

Picking up my drink off the bar, Susan announces, “That’s a Bloody Mary. What fancy name did you call that?”

I want to slap her, but just smile. “A Red Snapper.” And I take it from her, immediately diving in for a much needed sip of the spicy treat.

“Why?”

“Because this is where the Bloody Mary was first created and the name they originally called it was the Red Snapper.”

“You are a wealth of information,” Kemp kids me.

“Well, long ago a friend of mine was the bar manager, so I’ve done my fair share of drinking here.” I choose to omit the story that is dying to come out of my mouth. See that spot on the bar right there? Yup, that one, right there. Well, one night, after four Red Snappers, I climbed up onto the bar and hiked up my skirt, (which was, yes, shorter than this one that I’m wearing tonight and I was, of course, going commando), and showed my boyfriend my brand new Brazilian wax, which he must’ve loved, because after he went down on me, he fucked me long and hard. And then he made me another Red Snapper. Obviously, on the house.

“Legal issues were ironed