Strip Poker: Bad Boys Club Romance #2

by Olivia Thorne

  There was something else I couldn’t tell Vic, either – partially because I didn’t realize it myself. Not at that exact moment, anyway. It took another couple of weeks to fully sink in.

  When he offered to help me with my father…

  That was the moment I really started to fall in love with Vic Cortelian.

  85

  Business trips where we had to get off the boat and fly somewhere were rare – but one of them took us to Prague for the day. Coincidentally, some old friends of Vic’s were in town, so we went to join them at a fancy café after the business meeting.

  We walked into the place, which had an amazing terrace overlooking a valley of red-roofed houses with cathedrals and castles nestled amongst the hills. Over at the table with the best view sat a cute woman and an astoundingly hot guy with blond hair and scruffy facial hair.

  “Surfer Girl!” Vic called out boisterously. “And Mr. Surfer Girl!”

  The woman stood up for a hug, then laughed as Vic picked her up and twirled her around.

  The guy was less enthused. He just put out his arm to shake hands.

  “You don’t get away that easily!” Vic said as he pulled the blond guy into a backslapping embrace.

  The guy sighed and looked like Why me? “Why did I agree to see you again?” he asked.

  “Because I’m your best friend!”

  “No… no, that’s definitely not it…”

  “So who’s this?” Katie said as she smiled at me.

  “Guys, I want to introduce Monica, my – uh – business associate, I guess you could say. Monica, this is Ian and Katie.”

  Katie looked slightly perplexed as she shook my hand. “Business associate?”

  “I guess you could call her my handler-slash-babysitter-slash-pain in the ass,” Vic said playfully.

  I shot him a sarcastic smile, then turned back to Katie. “And he’s my rehabilitation project.”

  Katie’s gaze jumped back and forth between the two of us. “So… you guys work together?”

  Vic and I answered at the exact same instant:

  “I manage him.” “She works for me.”

  We glanced at each other, though the look I gave Vic was definitely more acerbic than the grin he gave me.

  We both turned back to Katie, and said again at the exact same moment –

  “No I don’t.” “No she doesn’t.”

  Katie’s brow scrunched up. “You don’t work for him, and she doesn’t manage you?”

  “No,” I said. “Yup,” Vic nodded.

  Katie still looked slightly confused – but the sort of confused where you sense there’s more going on than meets the eye. “Okay… so, not a dating sort of thing?”

  Panic.

  She knows!

  I felt like I’d accidentally walked out on stage naked with an entire audience looking at me.

  “Oh no,” Vic said. “God no,” I babbled.

  Vic looked at me, incensed. “‘God no’? Really?”

  “Okay, hell no,” I said, then turned to Ian. “Are you Ian McLaren?”

  “…yes…” He looked a little apprehensive when he said it, like he wasn’t sure what I wanted.

  I reached across the table to shake his hand. “We actually spoke on the phone about a month ago.”

  His face relaxed as he remembered who I was. “Oh yeah – you wanted to know what kind of a mess you were getting into with Vic.”

  “What did you tell her?” Vic asked Ian.

  “The truth.”

  “That I’m an awesome guy and a business savant?”

  “Idiot savant, maybe. Or maybe just an idiot.”

  “Hey!” Vic said, feigning outrage.

  “So, you guys want to sit down?” Katie asked, and gestured at the empty seats opposite them.

  “YES – time to start drinking,” Vic said as he rubbed his hands together enthusiastically.

  86

  It was a great lunch, with lots of Czech beer, delicious food, and fun conversation. Lots of stories, too – chief among them how Katie and Ian had met just a year before, and how Vic had figured in their romance.

  “I helped bring that whole thing together,” he bragged.

  “You did? Really,” Ian said sarcastically.

  “Dude, we used my private jet,” Vic said as he pointed at Ian.

  “Uncles’ private jet,” I interjected.

  “Whatever,” Vic said. “And I spent three hours on that sand castle!”

  “…that’s true,” Ian admitted.

  “See? THAT’S why I’m your best friend!”

  “So not true.”

  Katie was the more ebullient and energetic of the two. Ian might have been hot, but he was something of an acquired taste – slightly dour with a very dry sense of humor. He was the polar opposite of Vic, who was more like an energetic puppy dog that’s totally in love with life.

  When the analogy about the puppy dog crossed my mind, I realized that was one of the things I secretly loved about Vic… but probably wouldn’t admit to his face.

  “So what are you guys doing in Prague?” Vic asked when we were well into our second round of drinks.

  “Just taking a little vacation,” Katie answered. “I thought people were lying when they say they get island fever, but it’s a real thing.”

  “Island fever?” I asked.

  “We live in Hawaii,” she explained. “You get this kind of claustrophobic feeling, like you’re trapped on all sides by water – ”

  “Which you are,” Vic said, like DUH.

  I bumped his arm with my elbow. “Don’t be like that.”

  He shrugged. “It’s the truth.”

  “What, you want her to feel more claustrophobic?”

  “I’m just sayin’.”

  The entire time Vic and I were arguing, Katie was looking back and forth between us like she was watching a tennis match. Out of nowhere, she asked, “Are you guys really not dating, or are you just trying to keep it on the down-low?”

  “NO!” I exclaimed.

  “I wouldn’t call it dating,” Vic said.

  I blushed red as a fire engine as soon as he said it – and then I glared at him.

  “Babysitting!” Vic said playfully, like Come onnnn! “That’s what I’d call it – babysitting!”

  Katie pointed at me with a smile. “So you ARE doing something!”

  “Why would you think that?” I asked, trying to contain my panic.

  “Because you’re blushing!”

  “No, she just does that when she’s mad at me,” Vic said, trying to casually play it off.

  Katie narrowed her eyes. She obviously didn’t believe him. “Plus you two are behaving like an old married couple.”

  Vic almost did a spit take with his beer. “What?! Haha – well, we know THAT’S not happening!”

  “What?” Katie asked.

  “Getting married!” Vic said.

  “SO not ever getting married,” I agreed hastily.

  “To me, or in general?” he asked.

  “To YOU.”

  “Wow, thanks.”

  Katie made a face. “I didn’t say you were married, or that you were going to get married – I just think it’s funny.”

  “What’s funny?” I asked, and Vic said, “Nothing’s funny,” at the exact same time.

  Katie turned to Ian excitedly. “Do you see it?! You totally see it, right?!”

  Ian kept the most deadpan expression imaginable as he said, “I’m trying to ignore this entire situation.”

  “See what?” I demanded.

  “What situation?” Vic asked.

  “Uh, the ENORMOUS amount of sexual tension between you two,” Katie said.

  “No – there IS no sexual tension here,” I insisted.

  “Yup, we worked all that out before we came here,” Vic said.

  I smacked him on his arm.

  “What?!” he asked. “In a discussion! We worked it out in a discussion!”

  Katie crossed
her arms and shook her head. “You might as well quit pretending. You’re not fooling anybody.”

  I looked at her – and then I bent over and put my head in my hands. “Oh God…”

  Vic was confused at my reaction. “So, what, are we coming clean now?”

  I sat back up and hit him repeatedly on the arm, whap whap whap whap!

  “Ow!” he laughed.

  I sighed and turned to Katie. “What gave it away?”

  She grinned like the cat who ate the canary. “Well, like I said, you’re acting like an old, bickering married couple – but you’re sitting right up next to each other, rubbing up against each other’s arms. And you – ” Here she pointed at me. “ – keep taking any excuse to touch him, even if it’s hitting him.”

  Katie was right. It was so obvious now that she stated it.

  “See, it’s your fault,” Vic said humorously, then leaned back in his chair and grinned at Katie. “Lookit you, Little Miss Body Language Expert.”

  Katie smiled. “So when did you two start your, uh, ‘business relationship’?”

  “She lost a bet,” Vic said matter-of-factly.

  “OH MY GOD,” I cried out. “STOP.”

  “I thought we were coming clean,” Vic complained.

  I pointed my finger at him. “And YOU were the one who lost the bet, asshole.”

  “Yeah, I know, but we both thought you lost in the beginning.”

  “That’s the only reason I did it!” I snapped.

  By this point, Katie was thoroughly confused. “Wait – you guys slept together because of a bet?”

  “Well, the first time,” Vic explained.

  I groaned in mortification.

  Katie frowned. “The first time you slept together?”

  “Well, the first time she lost the bet.”

  “I DIDN’T LOSE THE BET, and I want to stop talking about this,” I said.

  “Okay…” Katie said, looking like Holy crap, what did I get myself into?

  Vic turned to me. “What, are you ashamed of me or something?”

  “No – I – this is supposed to be a professional relationship!”

  “It is!” Vic insisted, then added, “…outside of bed.”

  Katie started laughing. “Okay, I get it now.”

  “Get what?” I asked.

  “You’re both a big challenge for each other. The womanizer who wants the one girl he can’t have, and the woman who only likes assholes.”

  “That’s not true,” I protested.

  “And I’ve already had her,” Vic joked. “Multiple times this morning, in fact.”

  I hit him again. “STOP IT!” Then I turned to Katie. “I like nice men.”

  “I’m nice,” Vic protested.

  “We already had this conversation in Vegas,” I snapped. “No you’re not.”

  “Oh, yeah – no, I’m not,” he agreed with a grin. “So I guess you do like assholes.”

  “No, I…”

  I paused, thinking through my answer carefully.

  “Yes?” Katie asked, an expectant smile on her face.

  Vic kicked back, smirking, and waited for my reply.

  “I like powerful men who play by their own rules.”

  “Who go out and take what they want?” Katie asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Bad boys,” she said decisively.

  “No – I never wanted some tattooed douchebag who thought he was the shit.”

  “Except Derek Kane,” Vic teased, and I smacked his arm again.

  “That’s your problem right there,” Katie said. “You can’t tell the difference between bad boys and assholes. You think they’re one and the same.”

  I still wasn’t convinced. “Eh…”

  Vic snorted. “For chicks, the only difference between a bad boy and an asshole is one you want to bang, and the other one you’re mad at.”

  I glared at him. “Calling women ‘chicks’ isn’t exactly helping your case that you’re not an asshole.”

  “See?! That’s my point exactly! You’re mad at me right now, so I’m an asshole. Asshole, badboy – whatever. It’s usually the same guy. Just depends on what he did to piss you off that day.”

  “That’s not true,” Katie protested. “A bad boy doesn’t care about how other people see him, but he cares about the woman he’s with. An asshole doesn’t care about anybody but himself.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Vic said dismissively, then looked at me. “Just admit it: you like assholes.”

  “NO, I don’t. I like it when men are nice to me,” I insisted.

  “Who was the first boyfriend you really fell in love with?” Katie asked.

  “Why?”

  “Just humor me.”

  I didn’t even have to think. “Mike Polizzi.”

  “How old were you?” Katie asked.

  “Sixteen – no, seventeen. It was the end of my junior year.”

  “How’d you meet him?”

  “Uh… we got arrested together.”

  “What?!” Vic asked, astounded.

  “Okay, let’s hear it,” Katie ordered.

  I groaned, then laughed. “We were all drinking out at the park one night. I’d come with this senior who’d gotten the booze for everybody. I can’t even remember his name. Anyway, the cops busted us and threatened to throw us all in jail unless we ratted out whoever bought the liquor. I expected my date to fess up, but he just kept quiet – which made me really mad at him.

  “Anyway, the cops were about to arrest us all when Mike stepped up and said he did it, even though he didn’t – and I was immediately like, swoon. But the cops were total assholes to him. They pushed him around and roughed him up as they were putting on the cuffs. He mouthed off to them, which made them act even worse – and then I mouthed off to them, because he wasn’t even guilty and they were treating him so bad. So then they arrested me, too. That was our first date – us talking in the back seat of a police cruiser on the way to the station.”

  “So that’s it,” Katie said.

  “What’s it?” I asked.

  “That’s where it all started.”

  “Where what started?”

  “You not being able to tell the difference between assholes and bad boys,” Katie said.

  “I can tell the difference,” I insisted.

  “I don’t know. This guy sounds like a bad boy with a heart of gold – but if you take away the part where he took the fall for everybody else, then he could just be an asshole.”

  “No, he was basically just an asshole who had one redeeming moment. He cheated on me over the summer with Annette Sorrentino.”

  “Douchebag!” Vic exclaimed.

  “I know!” I agreed. “I totally should’ve broken up with him…”

  “You didn’t break up with him?!” Katie exclaimed.

  “No,” I said, both embarrassed and defensive.

  “Why not?!”

  “Well, I mean, they only made out – they didn’t have sex – ”

  “So?!”

  “I don’t know! I was young, and stupid, and he was my first boyfriend, and – ”

  “He had a big dick,” Vic said smugly.

  I knew he was acting so confident because he had a huge one, so he wasn’t at all intimidated by somebody else from my past who might be above average.

  Which irritated the hell out of me for some reason.

  “NO,” I snapped.

  “‘No’ he didn’t have one, or ‘no’ that wasn’t the reason?” Vic smirked.

  “‘No’ he didn’t have one.”

  “Well, he must’ve been doing something else right in bed,” Vic said.

  I stayed silent, but I blushed deep red again.

  “Oooh,” Katie said excitedly, and leaned forward. “Spill it.”

  “Yeah,” Vic said, though this time he sounded a little less jocular. Like he might even be jealous.

  “I… we… he liked to have sex in public,” I said, my face growing hotter and hotter b
y the second.

  “What?!” Vic asked, astounded.

  “With other people around?” Katie asked, her voice hushed but gleeful.

  “Not WATCHING! Just… you know… we were out in public, like in an alleyway or in a park or something. Behind the bleachers at school.”

  “So… you could get caught,” Katie said with a knowing smile.

  “Yes.” I was sure my face could have melted lead, my skin felt so hot.

  “And you like that?” Vic asked, concerned – like, How come you didn’t tell ME about any of this?!

  “No,” I said, embarrassed.

  He kept looking at me.

  “…maybe. Okay, yeah,” I finally admitted. “It was… it was hot.”

  Katie howled with laughter.

  Vic looked perturbed. “Do you do that a lot?”

  “NO!” I snapped. “Only with him.”

  Vic was getting more and more agitated. “Why only with him?”

  “Because it was way too dangerous. I could’ve gotten caught, and I wanted to go to NYU, so…”

  “So what?”

  “So I wouldn’t do it anymore, and he broke up with me.”

  “Asshole!” Katie said.

  “Yeah,” I agreed.

  “I rest my case – you’ve had trouble distinguishing between assholes and bad boys from the very beginning.”

  I sighed. “Maybe…”

  “Exhibit number one, right here,” Vic said proudly as he pointed to himself.

  “No, I can distinguish just fine,” I said. “You’re an asshole.”

  “Ah – that’s why you hate me,” Vic teased.

  “I hate you so bad,” I said flirtatiously.

  He grinned. “Time to be more of an asshole, then.”

  “More of a bad boy,” Katie corrected him.

  “Whatever – just until she gets mad again, which is pretty much all the time.”

  I smacked his shoulder in protest.

  Vic held out his arms. “See?!”

  Katie turned to Ian. “What do you think?”

  He answered in a deadpan voice, “I think that next time you suggest a trip somewhere, I’m staying in Hawaii.”

  87

  Shortly thereafter, we all said our goodbyes. Katie and I hugged and promised to stay in contact – and I meant it. She was incredibly fun, and the whole lunch made me feel like we were old friends.