“You wanna tease me like you just did, you’ll have to learn to play my way,” he growled again.

Oh fuck, I wanted more than anything to learn to play his way.

With one last long stare, he let me go and walked to his car.  He opened the door, looked back at me, slid his aviators on and then got in.  As he drove off, I decided today would suck while I waited for him to return.

***

Four hours later, Sharon and I were knee-deep in shit while we dealt with crappy customers, missing stock deliveries, and an air conditioner that had decided to pack it in.  I’d just finished a phone call with one of our suppliers when she turned to me and said, “Jesus, some of these customers need a swift kick up the ass.”

I totally felt her.  I sagged against the bar and wiped the sweat from my forehead.  It was a miserably hot day today, and with one air conditioner down, the heat had filled the room to the point of irritation.  Nodding at her, I said, “Some of them need more than that.”

She grinned at me and poured us both a glass of water.  Passing it to me, she said, “Regardless of shitty customers, I’m so thankful to you for giving me this job.”

I gulped some of the water down and considered what she’d said.  “Donovan hasn’t told me much about you, but he has told me a lot about his father.  I got the impression he thinks you might leave him.”

She stared at me, and I wasn’t sure if I’d overstepped a boundary or not.  Sharon was a hard woman to read and held her cards close to her chest, but I’d sensed a vulnerability in her that led me to think she might need someone to talk to.  “I am going to leave him.  I told him this morning I was done.”

“Good for you, babe.”  I’d really grown to like Sharon while she’d been working here, and this piece of news pleased me to no end.  Marcus Cole didn’t deserve the love of a woman like Sharon.

She blew out a long breath.  “God, that was a hard decision to finally make.  After all these years together, it’s hard to walk away from someone you love even though you know you shouldn’t.”

“Why do we do that?”

She frowned.  “Do what?”

“Love men who don’t deserve it? I watch women do it all the time, and it baffles me.”

“I think, for me, Marcus was my first love.  I’ve never known anyone else, never had anything to compare him to.  And then you add in two kids, a lifetime of memories and everything in my life connected to him . . . that’s hard to walk away from.  Especially at my age, where you wonder if you’re too old to find someone else.”

“I don’t think you’re ever too old, and I also believe a woman is better off on her own than letting a man treat her like shit.”

“Yeah, I can see that now, but you’ve got to remember, I grew up in the club lifestyle and all I’ve ever known is women who put up with this kind of shit.”

“So, does your son treat his girlfriend like that?  And does Madison’s husband treat her like that?”

She shook her head.  “No, Madison would never stand for that.  Hell, she would cut J’s balls off if he so much as looked at another woman.  And although Scott has a wild temper, he’d never treat Harlow the same way his father treats women.”

“Thank fuck for that.  I thought Madison seemed to have J under control.”

She laughed and drank more of her water.  “Yeah, you could say that, although I think it goes both ways for them.  He’s got just as much control over her.”

“A good match by the sound of it,” I mused.

She looked at me thoughtfully.  “I’m relieved Marcus’s sons didn’t turn out anything like him insofar as the way he treats women.  You’ve got a good man there in Blade.  I’ve never had a lot to do with him, but I can tell he’s special.”

“He really is,” I agreed.

A customer interrupted us, and Sharon turned away to serve him.  I left her so I could go wipe down tables and clean up empty glasses.  When I came back to the bar, she was deep in conversation with a man who didn’t look happy with her.

Fuck, he looks like Donovan.

I took in Sharon’s tense body language and decided to step in to make sure she was okay.  As I approached, the man turned angry eyes on me and I noticed the faded bruises on his face.  “What the fuck do you want?”

“I take it you’re Marcus,” I said, standing my ground.  I wouldn’t let this fucker intimidate me.

“And what’s it to you?”

“This is my bar, and Sharon’s working, so you need to leave.”

He’d been leaning across the bar and now straightened.  “I’m here for a drink, that’s all.”

I raised my brows.  “Really?”

“Yeah.”  He turned back to Sharon.  “I’ll have a beer, babe.”

I watched her flinch at his term of endearment, but she quickly grabbed him a beer.  Placing it on the bar, she said, “You can sit at a table away from the bar, Marcus.  I’ve got work to do.”

Surprisingly, he did as she said and left us to go and sit at a table.

“Are you okay?” I asked her once we were alone.  “Do you want me to call Jess in so you can go home?”

“No, I won’t let him win.  This is just the beginning, Layla, and he needs to know I’m serious about this being over.”