Pride and Promises ✔

Chapter 5

I sat in front of the bar and as usual, Terry, the bartender gave me a wink as he asked my drink. Since Red Diamonds was our favourite club to hang out, both me and Allie were quite familiar with Terry who just so happened to have his shift almost every time we come here.

Terry, although his real name was something else but apparently he didn't like it since he thought it wasn't as cool as his personality (his words, not mine), was in his early 20s, studying photography and in his sophomore year. He had blonde hair with green eyes and a friendly air around him that made you want to talk to him. However, there were some instances when he tried to get a little too friendly with his cool suggestive innuendos that made me want to whack him upside his head. But apart from that, Terry was a bubble of excitement that was contagious to anyone close by.

I smiled and ordered a soda while he raised an eyebrow. Then slowly, his eyes turned mischievous. A grin was about to form in his face, which, I'm sure was at the expense of whatever idiocy was about to sprout from his mouth but just as his gaze locked behind me, his half-grin became fully shut and mischief in his eyes turned into horror.

His transition happened so quickly that it was almost comical. I looked behind me and there I saw the reason for Terry's transition. 

Mr. I-own-this-club-and-half-the-United-States stood there with his hands in his pocket and an eyebrow raised as if daring him to say whatever he was thinking earlier. I then followed his gaze and saw Terry flush with embarrassment in front of his boss and clear his throat awkwardly before turning around to prepare my drink.

I turned back to Terry and felt rather than saw the devil sit beside me. I sighed and looked over to Allie and Jake who were still dancing, but then I saw Allie say something to Jake and walk towards the back. Maybe she's going to the restroom.

"Seems like you're not as pleased to see me as I am to see you, Ms. White"

His deep voice near my ear made me snap out of the dancefloor and look at the speaker only to find his face right in front of mine. I was once again startled by his close proximity and tried my best to ignore it, along with the stupid something I felt with him at my personal space.

I leaned my right hand on the counter so as to discreetly create a little more space between us and looked at him.

"Well, I think it's a common sense that if a person books a whole club for a night for some special reason, like, for example her best friend's birthday, then it means that the said person would not be so pleased to see anyone not invited in the club, no matter if he owns it, don't you think so, Mr. Stone?" I asked him sweetly.

His eyes then started twinkling with amusement making them look like sparkling water, and the corner of his mouth tilted into a knowing smirk as he said, "Of course, Ms. White, I wouldn't find it very pleasant. But I'd like to think that I could make an exception for you as I'd always be pleased to see you. We are going to be business partners after all."

If I was feeling a different kind of flush by his second sentence, his third one immediately turned it into a flush of rage. I'd never seen such a big headed man in these 26 years of my life. It hadn't fully been a day since we last spoke and this egoistic brute automatically assumed I would accept it.

I was just about to make it clear to him when Terry came with my soda, which I had already forgotten about. I had a feeling he deliberately delayed my drink and the reason was at my left. I actually felt bad for Terry because I wouldn't want to be around such an intimidating person for long either, especially when he was your boss.