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bringing his face a hair’s breadth from mine. Oh, no. This wasn’t good. He was going to kiss me, and I so wasn’t ready for that.
    My hands shot up to stop him. “Dalton, wait!”
    He pulled his arm back, coat now in hand where it wasn’t before. “Just had to grab my jacket, Char.” He winked. “See you soon.”
    Then he left, and I stood at the door for a good ten minutes waiting for my heart to stop beating so wildly in my chest.
    ***
    In the two weeks I had been working at Abram’s club, I had made several changes. I switched out the lighting (who wanted fluorescent tube lights in a club, anyway?), I canceled his furniture shipment and changed it out for something a little hipper (which wasn’t hard considering he had ordered wicker), and I even convinced him not to put mirrors on the ceiling (since, you know, it wasn’t the seventies). But the most important change I had implemented since coming here was definitely when I convinced Abram to change the name.
    It wasn’t easy. Things never were with Abram. Even when he was there, which wasn’t nearly as frequently as you would expect from an owner, he was stubborn as an ox and completely closed off to the idea of change. Luckily for him, I could be just as stubborn,
and
I didn’t have the taste of somebody’s grandfather.
    “
I named it the Cellar because it’s in a damn cellar! How much more explanation does it need?”
he’d said when I’d confronted him about his choice of name for his establishment.
    I’d combated that quite easily:
“A cellar is dark and dank, you idiot! Who wants to go there? You might as well name it The Cesspool!”
    We settled on ‘The Castle” since it was old and majestic-sounding enough to suit Abram and because, well, it was better than The Cesspool. I mean, The Cellar. Either way.
    As I passed the club sign, I gave it a little wink, seeing it as proof not only of my effectiveness here, but also of how misplaced Dalton’s fears had been.
    ‘
That kind of girl’, my big, gorgeous ass.
    Descending the staircase (much more gracefully this time than the first time), I was surprised to see Abram locking the door.
    “What the hell are you doing?” I asked. “We only have three hours until opening. We need to be inside.”
    “You’re late,” he growled at me, which I absolutely expected at this point.
    “Pfft, twenty minutes. I had a date. Besides, I figured you’d be—”
    “It’s almost dark!” He spun toward me. The stubble on his face was fuller now, almost too full given that, just yesterday, he was nearly clean shaven.
    “Newsflash,” I said, “nightclubs are open at night.”
    Actually, come to think of it, I wasn’t sure if I had ever seen Abram around here in the evenings, much less at night. Certainly he couldn’t keep that up, though. We were about to open. He
had
to be here for that.
    “Where are you going anyway?” I asked.
    “I have to attend to some business,” he answered, gaze firmly directed toward the pavement.
    It was then that I noticed how labored his breathing was. He practically huffed at me. And the look seeping out through his eyes spoke of either pain or anger. Maybe both.
    “This is
your
business, Abram,” I said, planting my fists on my hips. “We open the doors in just a few hours. You
have
to be here.”
    “I have other things to consider.” He clutched at his gut, folding into himself just a little.
    “Are you okay?” I asked, inching forward instinctively. “Should I call an ambulance?”
    “You have a job, Ms. Bellamy.” He grunted again, obviously hurting. “I expect you to be on time, and I expect you to do what’s required of you.” He moaned, bowling over.
    “Jesus, Abram, let me call somebody.”
    He threw a hand in front of him, stopping me in my tracks. “If you want to help, you can get the hell away from me and do your damn job!”
    His teeth ground together, and his muscles clenched, flexing under his tight-fitting black jacket.
    I inched