I mean, yeah, he was hot and a crazy good kisser. And sure, he’d made me crave sex in a way I hadn’t with Brad…or anyone else for that matter. Also, there was that big wave energy he exuded. I couldn’t remember ever feeling the way I do when I surf outside the ocean. Those kisses, though—the way he consumed me like a monster barrel…no, I’d never felt anything like that.
But whatever. I’d only known him for, like, a second. He couldn’t be what had me feeling so listless after Mika and Albie left.
I blamed my trudging through the days on other stuff: I was bummed about not being able to buy that surf school. I missed my sister and nephew. Let’s face it, living at home with your parents at the age of twenty-seven wasn’t most people’s idea of a good time. I knew that when I gave up my pro surfing career.
And it was fine. I was fine. Everything was fine.
But when the weeks became months, I finally broke down and asked my sister for Faizan’s number, even though I knew how she would respond.
“YESSSSSSS! I’m so glad you asked me. I’m sending his contact card as we speak. This is going to be great. Faizan is just incredibly kind and wonderful. You’ve got to call me after your first date and tell me every single thing that happened.
“You know I’m not going to do that,” I answered, my voice bone dry.
“If you don’t, I won’t send you his number,” Mika threatened.
“It’s too late. You already sent it. I’m looking at it right now.”
“Well, I’m taking it back if you don’t promise.”
“That’s not how text messaging works,” I let her know.
“It can be. I think Barron has some special, top-secret way to ghost delete messages from people’s phones—Barron! Barron, where are you?” she called out on the other side of the line. “I need you to make my sister act right!”
Just in case my sister’s super-genius charge could do that, I texted Faizan right away to see if he wanted to hang out.
He texted back yes in an instant. However, our definitions of hanging out were crazy far apart.
I’d figured we meet up at a shrimp truck or something. But he texted a couple of days later that he was able to get a reservation for Cyan at the Tourmaline Waikiki Grand—you know, one of the few restaurants in Hawaii where you actually have to dress up. On Valentine’s Day night!
Crap! Crap! Crap! But I supposed that was the price of dating a grown-up.
I borrowed a hibiscus-print dress from my mom and met twenty-years-from-now Jazz in the mirror. For a moment I forgot if I was going on a date or to Bible Study at my church.
I threw one of her light cardigans over it, but that only made the dowdy effect worse. It was a flower print too—like everything in my mom’s closet, including the plumeria cross-body bag she loaned me to replace my usual fanny pack.
“Seriously, mom, why?” I asked as I stared at the image of the woman she turned me into in her standing mirror. I looked like a flower garden had vomited all over me. “How do you live like this?”
“We could go shopping,” my mom offered.
“I’m supposed to be meeting this dude in less than an hour at the Tourmaline.”
Now it was my mother’s turn to demand why. Why would I wait until right before the date to ask her for a dress? Why didn’t I put more effort into my appearance? Why didn’t I try harder with men? Why didn’t I take her sensible Nissan instead of my crappy Jeep?
Why, why, why all the way out the house.
“You’re too young to be living your life this way!” she wailed after me as I climbed into the perfectly practical Jeep everybody seemed to want to malign lately.
But Faizan made all the trouble worth it.
It had been months since we saw each other last, but we fell into conversation like it had only been a few hours.
He excitedly told me how the Broken Billionaire was in much better spirits these days and was working on a top-secret project. And I told him about how Albie still hated Connecticut but seemed to be otherwise thriving.
Faizan had continued with his surfing practice and even bought an R2 Chemistry board of his own. But Diamond Head wasn’t the best place to level up his game, with the waves being so small. Of course, I had a lot of advice about that.
The waiter had to come back twice before we could stop talking long enough to look at a menu and put in our order. And when I said I wasn’t drinking because I had to drive home after our date, Faizan congratulated me on my “wise decision” and decided to do the same.
See? Grown-up!
“I’m really glad I texted you,” I said after the waiter left out with our orders.
“I am glad for this, as well,” Faizan said with a shy smile. Could he be more adorable and handsome? “You look very beautiful tonight, Jazz.”
“Thanks,” I said, pressing a hand to my chest. “I appreciate you lying about me walking in here, looking like a curtain.”
Faizan laughed, and the warm, rich sound filled up the space between us like good music.
It was a sound I got to hear often as our conversation flowed non-stop throughout dinner.
“This has been wonderful,” Faizan said after the waiter brought us our dessert menus. “I’m just sorry it was you who asked me out and not the other way around.”
I didn’t care either way, but curiosity made me ask, “Why didn’t you text me first?”
Faizan gave me another shy smile. “You are a bit young for me, Jazz. Usually, I prefer to date women my own age. But you are very mature for your years. You are dutiful, and you have a good head on your shoulders—not as wild and reckless as I feared someone with your unconventional career might be….”
Wild and impetuous.
My face burned as images of my time in the Aloha Ballers VIP Champagne Room flashed across my mind. How I’d stripped for a virtual stranger. How I lost control and came during that lap dance….
“Anyway, any reservations I had about asking you out were eliminated tonight,” Faizan said with an approving smile. “I like how responsible you are, coming back here to help care for your father. That is an excellent quality.”
My light mood wobbled a bit. Was he saying that he liked all the stuff that made me boring and hadn’t wanted to ask me out because of all the stuff that made me…well, me?
“Um, thanks,” I said, unsure how else to respond.
“You’re welcome,” he answered with another approving smile and said, “I think I’ll have the vanilla ice cream for dessert. What will you…”
He trailed off, his brow scrunching as he looked at something over my shoulder. “Aw, Jazz, do you know this gentleman walking toward our table?”
I glanced in the direction of his gaze, and oh, my God…
My heart stopped, and my stomach dropped.
It was Han. Han, who I hadn’t seen and heard from in months. He had a date with him, a willowy Asian woman with blonde hair, flawless makeup, and perfect eyelid surgery. She looked like she’d been specially designed to hang on Han’s arm.
So, you know, the exact opposite of me.
If Han was a Fae King, she was the Fae Queen. And together, they were almost too slinky and gorgeous to behold.
Unfortunately, I had no choice but to do exactly that when they stopped on a dime like luxury sports cars beside our table.
And Han said, “Hello, Jasmine.”
13
HAN
Han watched Jasmine squirm as she returned his greeting and awkwardly introduced him and Lana to her date. The SSG soldier. Han would have had to figure out how to get past this guy if he hadn’t decided to use negotiating the Golden Circle deal as an excuse to put off arranging her sister’s death until he returned to the East Coast.
Still, Han gave him a genial smile and pretended that he didn’t already know everything about this man: his status as a billionaire’s personal guard, his exemplary SSG service, even the ex-wife he’d left behind in Jawar. He was everything Han expected him to be—reserve
d, strait-laced, and upstanding.
Basically, the opposite of Han.
“We were just about to order dessert,” Jasmine said. Her tone made it evident that she wanted him to leave.
“Good, we’ll join you,” Han replied, holding up two fingers to a passing waiter.
He pretended not to notice Jasmine glaring daggers at him as he and Lana sat at opposite ends of the formerly two-person table. In this formation, he noted after taking his seat, any passerby would assume that he and Jasmine were the couple and not the other way around.
And for some reason, he refused to name, he didn’t exactly hate that idea. On the contrary, the thought of going out to dinner with her, of having her laugh with him as she’d been laughing with her real date before he came along…it sped up his heart.
Not good. He'd stayed away from Jasmine for so long. Had resisted the urge to text her in the hopes that her memory would fade. Even while he monitored her every text message. Including the ones that had let him know that she would be spending Valentine’s Day here with a tech billionaire’s personal bodyguard.
It felt like both a relief and a personal failure to find himself sitting at the same table as her tonight.
“How do you two know each other?”
Han didn’t realize he was staring at Jasmine until he had to tear his eyes away from her to answer Faizan’s question.
Her real date’s tone had been polite enough, but he regarded Han with hard, suspicious eyes.
Han paused dramatically and glanced at Jasmine. She needed to learn to disguise her feelings better. He could tell she was in a panic about how he might answer, and someone with Faizan’s background probably could, too.
“I’m one of her surfing students,” he answered Faizan while looking at Jasmine. “We have an exclusive two-year contract.”
“Two years…that’s quite the commitment,” Faizan said. “You must be progressing quite well, then. Jazz is an exceptional teacher.”
Green-edged anger erupted inside of Han at the fondness in his voice, the way he called her by that silly nickname. But he kept his voice neutral as he answered, “Yes, I’ve found Jasmine has a great many talents. There are so many things she’s excellent at—”
Han could have kept the innuendo going, but Faizan’s polite expression frosted over, and Jasmine abruptly stood up from the table.
“I need to go to the restroom. Could you order me dessert? Vanilla ice cream sounds great.”
It was all Han could do not to roll his eyes. Of course, she would choose vanilla ice cream on a date such as this.
An approving smile replaced Faizan’s suspicious look. “Great minds think alike.”
Her lips lifted briefly at his trite idiom, but then she all but dashed off to the restroom.
The doe was on the run, probably with the idea of putting some space between them and using the restroom as a reprieve. That might have worked with someone else or her considerate date. But his decade-plus in co-running The Silent Triad had taught him to be ruthless.
He flicked his eyes over to Lana for the first time since they sat down and gave her precise instructions in Cantonese.
JAZZ
I stayed in the bathroom stall as long as I could, but eventually, my dad’s voice showed up in my head, telling me not to be a coward and that I had to go back out there. Even though this was a nightmare that it wouldn’t have even occurred to me to have because who in the hell crashes someone’s Valentine date after half a year of radio silence?
My dad didn’t care. He barked at me to get off my ass and back to that nightmare disguised as dessert.
Okay, okay, you can do this, Hayes. I flushed the toilet and pushed open the stall door like a good little soldier.
Only to find that slinky date of Han’s posted up against the sink. She appeared bored like she’d been waiting a while for me to finish my freak out.
Which is why I dang near tripped over my Tom’s when she informed me, “Han wants a threesome, so you’re going to have to get rid of your date. Then you can wait for us to finish dinner in the hotel room he got upstairs for tonight.”
I jutted my chin. “Excuse me?”
She squinted, her expression becoming a little less bored and a lot more confused. “You don’t want to have sex with him again?”
“We haven’t had sex a first time—I mean, not really.” My cheeks burned with the memory of what happened in the VIP Champagne Room at Aloha Ballers. “And why would I want to end my date to have sex with him and you?”
She looked from side to side. “Because he’s Han Zhiwei. Hot and rich and nice.”
Somehow, I found myself having to explain yet again why there is nothing nice about this guy. “He’s on a date with you, and he sent you in here to proposition me—while I’m on a date.”
She shrugged and scrunched her face. “Yes, but this is Han. He’s fun. And good in bed. I haven’t seen him in a while—like, since last August. But believe me, I was more than willing to cancel any plans I had when he called and asked me to come here with him tonight.”
“So you slept with him. He ghosted you, and you were happy when he texted you out of the blue?”
“No…” she answered.
Oh great, faith in my fellow woman restored. I didn’t think anyone as dazzling as her would have so little pride.
“I didn’t sleep with him. He doesn’t let girls spend the night—that’s his policy,” she clarified, stabbing me through with disappointment. “But he makes having to take that middle of the night Uber ride home worth it. Believe me.”
She stepped closer to me, her smile flirty and wicked. “So, what will it be, surfer girl? Want Han and me to rock your world?”
The answer to that question was no. Of course, it was no. But as fast as I rushed out of that bathroom, it turned out not to be fast enough.
When I got back to the table, I found Faizan slipping several bills into a leather portfolio. Meanwhile, Han had this triumphant smirk on his face. Like the cat who’d swallowed the bird.
“What are you doing?” I asked Faizan.
He stood up and shot Han an uncomfortable look. “I have decided against dessert.”
“Good idea,” I said, glancing at Han. “Who needs dessert? Or maybe we can get it someplace else.”
If Han was insulted by how obviously I wanted to get away from him, he didn’t show it.
He merely flicked his eyes to Lana, who came cat walking in behind me shortly after my arrival. He asked her something in Cantonese, and she answered with a mocking tilt of her head toward me and a wicked laugh.
I ignored them and said to Faizan, “Please? I don’t want this date to end. Not like this.”
Faizan came to his feet and clasped his hands behind him, like the soldier he used to be.
“I do not wish to embarrass you,” he said, his voice respectful and low. But then he added. “I also do not wish to be involved in a triangle such as the one I suspect is at play here.”
“There is no triangle,” I all but hissed back. “He is nothing to me. Nothing. A client who decided to overstep on Valentine’s Day.”
Faizan’s expression loosened a little with my words. But not with trust. With pity. “I believe you would like that to be true. But can you honestly tell me nothing has happened between the two of you? That this situation we find ourselves in now isn’t because of something left unresolved?”
I opened my mouth, wanting to deny it. But nothing came out.
And Faizan nodded.
“As I suspected, you are too young for me, Jazz. Please, take care of yourself,” he told me, his tone kind but firm.
Then he left.
Left me there with my ruthless mistake.
I turned back to him, my eyes flaming.
“Sit,” he commanded. “You’re making a scene.”
I did as he said, but only because my legs suddenly felt weak.
“What did you say to him?” I demanded. But before he could answer, I decided that
wasn’t the right question. “Why are you here? Ruining my Valentine’s Day? And the one good thing that’s happened for me lately?”
He regarded me coldly and answered my question with one of his own. “What part of ‘you belong to me’ did you not understand?”
HAN
Two pairs of eyes regarded Han as if he was crazy.
But Han kept his hard gaze focused on only one of them. Jasmine.
He is nothing to me.
Her words rang in his head as he stared her down, waiting for her to answer his question.
“What is going on here?” Lana asked in Cantonese. “Is she your girlfriend?”
“Leave,” he answered without taking his eyes off Jasmine in her dowdy dress. Had she worn that beauty-muting number just for her SSG soldier?
“But, I thought—” Lana started to protest.
“I said leave,” he repeated in the voice he reserved for his men when they were dangerously close to pissing him off.
Lana left with a huff. And finally, it was just the two of them.
To his surprise, Jasmine didn’t say anything after Lana left. Instead, she just stared at him as if she was still waiting for an answer to her question.
He had one, actually. He’d prepared it soon after seeing her text exchange with the former SSG on his old iPhone. “It’s not a good idea to be seen with other men after I’ve claimed you. If word got back to K Diamond, he could perceive that as an invitation to move in on you.”
She folded her arms and pulled her chin back. “So you’re allowed to date whoever you want, but I have to act like a nun?”
He picked up one of the glasses of wine he had ordered when Jasmine was in the bathroom.
“No one has ever accused my world of being fair,” he informed her before taking a sip.
She considered his words. Then came back with, “I don’t believe you. I don’t think this is still about K Diamond. You could have texted me and said, ‘Hey, Jazz, going out on a date with a good guy is a bad look for me, so don’t do it.’ This? Sending that woman into the bathroom to ask for a threesome? Chasing Faizan off? That’s something else.”
HAN: Her Ruthless Mistake: 50 Loving States, Delaware (Ruthless Triad Book 4) Page 9
