Read Online The Stand Off by Z. Stefani - Free Book Online

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secretary hang up the phone and shake her head vigorously.
     
    “He’s busy right now, he can’t be
disturbed.”
     
    “Save it,” she said as she
dragged it to the door.
     
    “He’s on an important phone
call.”
     
    “Not for long,” Lux said before
she knocked on his door and immediately opened it; thankful that it was not
locked.
     
    The secretary poked her head in
the door and cried in her cartoonish voice, “I’m sorry Mr. Blake; I told her
that you were very busy. I tried to stop her.”
     
    “Leave us,” he said to his
secretary, who promptly nodded and closed the door.
     
    Dean sat at his desk and watched
with curiosity as Lux dragged the road block into his office. Lux dropped the
end she’d been holding up and it hit the floor with a loud thud. She stood
before the road block, her hands on her hips as she stared at him.
     
    “What is this?” he asked.
     
    “One of the many road blocks that
your men are putting up in my building.”
     
    “What section?”
     
    “You know what section.”
     
    “I own that section,” he reminded
her.
     
    “You don’t own the section where
they put the barriers.”
     
    “Does it really make a
difference? The part that I own happens to be a big portion of that nightclub.
Your part of the lounge will be useless once my half is in a pile on the
ground.”
     
    “That lounge is the only thing
that keeps us going financially, the one thing that allows us to continue.”
     
    “With what I offered you, you
could open a new lounge.”
     
    “I told you, I’m not giving up The
Music Hall,” She snapped at him.
     
    “Then get used to the blocks. Now
if you’ll excuse me,” he said dismissively, and Lux narrowed her eyes.
     
    She stomped over to his desk,
grabbed the pen from his hand, and threw it across the room.
     
    “No I will not excuse you.
You call your men right now and tell them to remove those blocks! We have a new
band debuting, we need that club cleared.”
     
    He rose from his chair and walked
around the desk to stand before her. Her little display of anger had turned him
on beyond reason. He looked into her eyes to see the thin, gold flecks sparking
in the hazel-brown depths. She was something else; something he still couldn’t
put his finger on. He’d never met anyone like her before. She, alone, managed
to provoke these foreign emotions in him.
     
    “And what would you do for me in
return?” he asked unflinchingly.
     
    “I’ll hold off on exposing all of
those dirty little secrets.”
     
    “Of course you will; that’s your
leverage. If you use that card now, you won’t have it when you need it. Besides
if I really cared, I would have already done something about it.”
     
    “You did. You called off the
original wrecking date.”
     
    “I had a deal with the governor I
needed to see to before I let you release those photos. Our deal is set in
stone; those pictures could never affect it now.”
     
    “I’ll pay you.”
     
    “I don’t want your money; I have
more than enough as it is.” He took another step towards her.
     
    “Then I would thank you and tell
you that you’re not the egomaniacal, tyrannical, greedy, hotheaded, spoiled,
dream-wrecking yuppie that I believed you were.”
     
    “I could pay a room full of
people to tell me that. What could you give to me that I can’t buy from someone
else?”
     
    “What. Do. You. Want? Stop
playing games and just tell me.”
     
    “Recently, very recently,
I’ve come across something that I may want almost as much as that property.”
     
    “What is it?”
     
    “Not what… who.”
     
    “What do you mean by whom ?”
her irritation was growing with his fragmented sentences.
     
    “By who, I mean you .” When
he spoke, his words seemed to echo through her head at top volume. “Your
attitude is refreshing, albeit infuriating. I would love to have you at my
disposal.”
     
    “Like I would ever willingly be
at your disposal. I’m not into