Ties That Bind Us (EBOOK PUBLISHED)

Chapter 4

Nick

It had been over a month. 38 days. 912 hours since that woman had walked out of my hotel room and simply vanished into thin air. That was the only explanation I could think of. My best men had been scouring the area for her for weeks and there was nothing. It was a trail colder than the dead of winter. Zane had brought me a few pictures to look at but none of them had been her. None of them had been my Jules.

I had been at the restaurant every night since then, hoping she might stumble through the doors once again. That had turned out to be a big fucking waste of my time, too. Micah was getting irritated with my crusade and had suggested more than once I give up on finding her and take my frustrations out on another girl. It seemed like a good enough idea in theory, but I knew it would never work. Sleeping with someone else after her would be like having water after whiskey. I knew everyone would fail in comparison to her, at least until I could taste that sweet kiss again. This girl had my number and she was off in the wind somewhere.

All week, Micah and Zane had both been bugging me about a party that was happening in the marina. Apparently they thought it was just the distraction I needed. The guy hosting was a pompous ass who owned a tech company in the city. We dealt with him only because we had to, but I hated the guy's guts. He knew nothing about business and would have already run his company into the ground if it hadn't been for his daddy bailing him out like usual. Guys like that made my blood boil. I worked for every single thing I had and I sure as hell wasn't going to let anything slip once I got it.

Normally, this was the kind of thing I would be looking forward to, but not tonight. In fact, it was about the last thing I wanted to do. It was on a yacht, and would no doubt be overflowing with hot, desperate women and strong alcohol. At least that would help with clearing my mind. Not being able to find Jules was only the tip of the iceberg. There were all kinds of issues at the warehouse, the biggest being the rat who was shorting our shipments. The good news was that we had found the guy, a supplier out of Miami, and had been able to extinguish the threat before he became any more of a problem. That also meant we could stop playing nice with the Morettis and go back to our own business. We were meeting Monday to officially end the deal and then it would be back to business as usual.

"I can see this shit show from here." Micah groaned as we pulled up to the parking lot of the marina. He, Zane and I had all ridden over in the limo together. Early on, we'd found it was easier to suffer through these kinds of things together.

"Do you think Kyle's dad is paying for all of this too?" Zane scoffed, climbing out and stretching his arms over this head.

I laughed. Was there anything in this guy's life his father wasn't paying for? "I wouldn't be surprised. How long do we have to stay here tonight? I'm already ready to go home."

Micah slapped my back. "Would you relax and enjoy yourself a little bit? Let's go find you a pretty face and tight dress to get you out of this funk tonight."

"Now that's what I'm talking about." Zane agreed with him, no doubt thinking that if I found someone else to occupy my time, I'd take him off of this wild goose chase he was on trying to track down my mystery girl.

"Let's just see how the night goes, okay?" I conceded, raising my eyebrows. Neither one of them would let me be if I refused, so humoring them a little bit couldn't hurt. Besides, I hadn't even kissed another woman since that night and maybe it was what I needed. Maybe if I found someone who awakened my senses and turned me on like she did, I could forget all about my sweet little Jules. It wasn't necessarily my top choice, but I wasn't sure how long I would be able to ride this out. Our resources were needed elsewhere, and I couldn't have Zane occupied hunting down homegirl I was hung up on for much longer.