For the Win

by Brenna Aubrey

  For The Win

  A Gaming the System Novel

  By Brenna Aubrey

  For the wonderful not-so-little men in my life. You are the world to me.

  Millionaire bad boy Jordan Fawkes has problems. Big problems. That molten-hot intern he hooked up with at Comic-Con is now his assistant. No one can know they're the stars of the cosplay sex tape that broke the Internet.

  Business school hopeful April Weiss has drama. Big drama. Working under the CFO of Draco Multimedia should be the opportunity of a lifetime for her, but Jordan Fawkes is the boss from Hell--a sexier-than-sin boss from Hell who holds all the cards for her future career.

  And then there's the small problem of a certain video...

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  Chapter 1

  April

  "April, wake up now. Your butt is on the Internet." Sid's panicked voice cut through layers of fuzzy sleep to reach me.

  I groaned and buried my head under my pillow. Yesterday, I'd asked my roommate to make sure I got out of bed on time this morning using any tactic necessary, short of ice cubes. I had no idea she'd resort to nonsense phrases.

  "Sid, go away."

  Her hand was on my shoulder, shaking me. "No, seriously, you need to see this."

  "Don't touch me," I mumbled. "I can sleep five more minutes."

  "No, you can't. April, there is a sex video from ComicCon and I'm pretty sure you're in it."

  I sat up, blinking, my vision blurry. "What the what?"

  I'd gotten next to no sleep over the weekend, and with all the overstimulation, drinking and debauchery, I was flat as a pancake this morning, exhausted.

  And I had to start my new position at Draco Multimedia today.

  My eyes narrowed, cutting to my roommate. I'd accuse her of playing a joke, but Sid would never get so elaborate. Nor would she ever frivolously use the S-E-X word.

  "Okay, back off and speak slowly. It's before coffee o'clock."

  Sid sighed, obviously frustrated with my grogginess. "I was on Tumblr following the tag for ComicCon, and this video of people having sex kept popping up. I kept closing it right away because--icky--who wants to see that? But one time I got a closer look at the girl dressed up in what looked like my elf costume--the one you borrowed." Her voice was shrill like she was excited or panicked. Almost as effective as ice cubes for waking me up.

  I swung a foot out of bed, still half asleep as her words rushed over me like a flash flood. There was this sick sensation in the pit of my stomach, and I had a feeling it had nothing to do with my rough weekend.

  "Please tell me you're joking."

  With wide gestures, Sid stalked over to her computer screen and angled it so that I could see. She pointed at the frozen figures. A woman, her back to the camera and naked from the waist down, was straddling a guy who sat on a chair. She had a distinctive tattoo at the small of her back, a hideous skull and snake motif.

  Suddenly, my insides froze. My tattoo. My fit of rebellion from years ago now staring back at me from the screen, mocking me.

  "So is that not you?"

  I gulped. "Uh."

  "Holy Spock on a cracker! Apes, it's everywhere. There are hundreds of reblogs on it. It's on Twitter, Facebook, all over."

  I jumped out of bed, comforter and sheets falling on the floor and twisting around my legs, almost tripping me. "Nooooooo!"

  Sid would be the last person I'd ever show this video to. She was pure as the driven snow. I was almost one hundred percent sure she was a virgin, and the girl sang--sang--while cleaning the house like Cinder-fucking-ella. And I bet when I wasn't looking she got little animals to push her broom for her, too.

  Unlike Sid, I had had sex before, though I was no expert at it. And the one time I'd ever done anything on the wild side to prove I could be a bad girl--like anonymously hooking up and making a video of it--somehow it ended up everywhere. What the hell was up with that?

  My body came alive with panic and fear, adrenaline coursing through my veins and nausea twisting my gut. This couldn't be happening! Not today! Not any day, but definitely not today. Without my asking her to, Sid clicked on the play button and I was treated to an unobstructed view of the hottest sex I'd ever had in my short twenty-two years.

  I stood rooted to the floor as I watched the entire thing play out. I'd been drunk, but not so drunk I hadn't realized what I was doing. My judgment suffered greatly when I drank, as evidenced by this crazy sex tape and the aforementioned tattoo. With tears prickling my eyes, I vowed I was never going to have another drop...ever. Because next time, with this progression, the world would probably cave in on itself if I drank.

  Or maybe just my world.

  I put the heels of my hands to my temples, my fingers threading into my hair.

  "Earth to April...did someone revenge-porn you or something? What's going on?"

  I took in a shaky breath, unable to believe what was happening. "Oh God. Oh God. Oh God. This is a nightmare."

  "Did you have sex at ComicCon, April?"

  I turned and gave her the best "duh" look I could muster. Her mouth formed an 'o' and her brows rose. She sniffed with disapproval and adjusted the heavy black frames of her glasses. "Uh, who was it?"

  Crap, my answer was only going to make things worse. My mind grasped for purchase on anything I could possibly think of. "Uh...um." Think fast. Come up with something, damn it! "It was...he--"

  "You don't know, do you?"

  Oh God, I was the worst "bad girl" ever. I swallowed bile as I waved a wild hand at the computer. "Delete that!" She was the geeky one, after all. She spent hours in front of the computer. She'd know how to make it go away.

  Sid frowned. "I can't."

  Now the sickness inside was bubbling up. Sid wouldn't lie about this to teach me a lesson. "What...why? Why the fuck can't you?"

  "Because, potty mouth, it's not my account. It was uploaded by someone else and tagged #ComicCon. I've been following the tag since, um--you know, unlike you, the undeserving non-geek--I didn't get a chance to go. And that's a good thing, because it seems like a den of iniquity!"

  Uploaded by someone else? How in the hell had that happened? Had I accidentally uploaded it to the cloud? What the hell was "the cloud" anyway, and how did it work? Had someone hacked me like those poor actresses who'd had their naked pictures spread across the Internet?

  I was going to vomit. Projectile puke everywhere.

  "Did I...did I upload that from my phone?"

  "So it's your video? April! Why would you video yourself having sex with some random guy? And how could you not know who he was?"

  "He was dressed up as that bounty hunter guy from the game--"

  "Falco."

  "Yeah--whatever. Anyway, he had that armor on, and the helmet. And...and..." My stomach churned. "Oh hell, I'm going to barf."

  "Too much alcohol, April!" Sid shouted after me as I bee-lined it to the toilet.

  Vague memories filtered in. It was the last night of ComicCon, a mere two days ago. Even in my drunken haze, I remembered that the sex had been incredible. Heated breathing, sweating through my elf costume, the feel of skilled hands sliding under my clothes, squeezing my hips so tightly they'd been sore the day after. He'd only spoken in whispers and that had made it all the hotter.

  That steamy encounter, along with the alcohol, had helped me forget for a while. Before that night, I'd been miserable the entire time because of the awful news I'd received the day before. I blinked stinging eyes and pushed it out of my mind.

  Damn it. I gripped my belly, waiting, but nothing came up. Instead, my guts were cramping into tighter knots. It was my first day working as an assistant in the CFO's office, and I had to start under these circumstances? What if people at work had seen the
video? What if those who knew my costume figured out it was me? The questions swirled in my mind, making me dizzy. How would I even be able to concentrate today?

  I stumbled to the sink to splash cold water on my face, and icy droplets soaked my temples, running down my neck and into my nightie. Then I confronted myself in the mirror, examining the blotches on my pale skin, complete with new dark circles under my blue eyes. Above the eyes, there were perfectly arched eyebrows, thanks to my makeover before the Con. I combed through my dark brown hair. I looked like hell. Felt worse. How had I gotten into this mess?

  Oh yeah, I'd gotten drunk to drown out the humiliation and had let that affect what little good judgment I had--yet again. Alcohol and April clearly did not mix and were a dangerous combo. They led to ugly tattoos and anonymous sex with a helmeted man who had a ridiculously large penis and the hardest abs I'd ever felt against my body.

  I'd been at ComicCon because of my job, and he'd been some Dragon Epoch-loving nerd that I'd picked up because that's what nice, boring, docile little April would never do. She'd never go find some random dude in a costume and fuck his brains out. But drunk April was no nice girl.

  I was like Dr. Jekyll and Miss Hyde when it came to booze, apparently.

  Ten minutes later, after jumping in the shower and toweling off, I went back into our bedroom. Sid was still at her computer, gaping open-mouthed at the monitor.

  "Umm," she mumbled when I stopped next to her. She was watching the goddamn thing again.

  "Shut it off. That's just getting creepy with you looking at it over and over."

  "This isn't the video--this is a gif that someone made from the video."

  I knelt in closer, staring at the animated gif of my pelvis gyrating over the guy's muscular legs as he dug his fingers into my hips--on repeat. A flash of heat went through me as I recalled how amazing he'd felt. My remembered pleasure evaporated the second oscillating letters appeared above us, reading, "Cosplay geeks mating in the wild."

  Shit...this was getting worse and worse.

  I straightened. "Close that goddamn thing or I'm going to put a Trojan virus on your computer!"

  Sid gave me a pitying look as I turned and headed to my closet. "It's a Trojan or a virus--not both."

  "Whatever. Now please tell me you have some ideas about how to get that thing off the Internet."

  "How on earth would I do that?"

  I froze, my hand on my smartest business skirt and matching crop sweater. "You mean, you can't?"

  "April, the thing has gone viral. There are memes, gifs. It's all over social media. Were you not listening? It's everywhere. There's no way I can get it off."

  I sank to my bed, still wrapped in my towel. My stomach took a nosedive toward my ankles. I rubbed my forehead, trying to stave off a stress headache. "Shit."

  Sid swiveled her desk chair around to face me. She was petite and cute as a mouse, with olive skin, dark hair and eyes like polished onyx framed by dark glasses that overpowered her face. She folded her arms across her modest chest and raised a thick, dark brow at me.

  "You know, it really isn't that bad. No one could possibly know it's you. You're dressed up as Princess Alloreah'la from Dragon Epoch--purple wig, pointy ears, thick glitter makeup on. I doubt even the guy you...um...you know...even knows who you are. And he has a helmet on, and you both have most of your clothes on--except for your butt. So the odds of people knowing who it is are slim."

  "Well...thank God for that. But still..."

  With my leg, I scooted aside a stack of economic theory books--my latest passion--laid the outfit on my bed and went to my dresser. Doubtful my friends who knew about the cheesy tat were the type to follow the #ComicCon tag on social media. I may have been "bookish" and "boring," but I wasn't a video game geek. And I usually kept the damn tattoo covered up. I was biding my time until I got the courage to get the hideous thing lasered off.

  Biggest mistake of my life...

  Okay, maybe second biggest mistake of my life. I sighed.

  "So...how long does it take stuff like this to blow over?" I asked, bending over to grab a fresh pair of panties and a bra. I held the panties up--dark blue lace--and decided against them, shoving them back into the drawer and pulling out a thong. This skirt showed every single panty line. So weird that my mind was grasping, beyond the panic, to find some sort of normalcy, nitpicking every item I chose to wear. But I knew I had to try to shove this cosplay humiliation behind me somehow and hope against hope that this would soon fade away.

  Scarlett O'Hara always said, "Tomorrow is another day," but for me, "tomorrow" was going to start in about thirty minutes. I had to get my shit together, or at least act like it was together. Being moved up to work with an officer of the company was a huge honor for an intern. I needed his recommendation to get into business school, and I wasn't about to blow it. Not now. I'd worked too hard for too long.

  "No. More. Alcohol. Ever," I intoned to myself as I sat on my bed and pulled on my clothes.

  Sid snorted from where she sat behind her computer. "I've heard that one before."

  I stuck my tongue out at her, though she couldn't see because her back was to me.

  "Who knows what STD you picked up on this escapade?"

  I grimaced at her. "He had a condom on, idiot."

  "Oh, well then. I guess that makes it all okay."

  "Sid, please," I begged, pulling on my boots.

  She spun around again on her chair, hands on her hips and affecting that motherly tone that she liked to use. "April...walk me through this, please, because I'm really confused. Doing something like this is so not you. Did aliens abduct your brain? Because, ya know, ComicCon would totally be the place for that."

  I blew out a breath and leaned back against the wall. "My mom called me while I was there."

  Her face fell. "Oh, criminy. And what did the Wicked Witch of the West Coast want?"

  I clenched my jaw, fighting off the renewed feeling of hurt. "She was calling me from Las Vegas, actually. She got married. Again."

  Sid's eyes widened. "Oh, holy poop. For the fourth time? You barely had a chance to meet the last husband before it was over..." Then she seemed to remember one key detail--thank God, because I had no desire to spell it out for her. "Oh no...please don't tell me... she didn't--"

  "She and Gunnar are now man and wife," I choked out. "Isn't that just sweet?"

  Sid's face reflected pure pity. It would have made me utterly furious to be on the receiving end of that look from anyone but her.

  Yeah, I was that loser. The one whose ex-boyfriend married my mother--that same mother who didn't have the wherewithal to figure out that it might hurt my feelings, nor would she care if she did realize it.

  The term "mother" could only be applied to her in the most scientific of ways, in that she carried me for nine months and then gave birth to me. Jennifer Alden probably hadn't had two thoughts together in the same day about me from that point on.

  "I'm sorry, Apes. He's such a--such a--"

  "Cock smooch?"

  "Bad person! I hate him. And your mom sucks too."

  I raised my brow. My sweet Sid was very pissed to have used such vulgar language. Or maybe it had been my bad influence. April Weiss, the worst "bad girl" ever was now corrupting the purest, sweetest person I'd ever known... I blinked, suddenly overwhelmed again, my eyes stinging.

  Her head tilted. "Oh, Apes. Please don't cry. Ugh...if I were the violent type, she'd be in trouble. I've always hated the way she uses you. Like when she takes you on shopping sprees and pressures you to pick up the bill. She's so gross."

  I forced myself to swallow the unshed tears and started stuffing essentials into my new Kate Spade bag--my laptop, phone, wallet and, of course, my e-reader for break time.

  Sid watched me with concerned eyes. I could feel the weight of her gaze. When I straightened, my eyes met hers. She spoke with soft, sympathetic tones. "So after she called you...you went to the bar, got wasted and picked up Falco the Bount
y Hunter?"

  "Not...exactly."

  She raised a brow, wordlessly encouraging me to continue with the whole sordid story. I figured I'd better let it out now. Like ripping off a bandage--get the pain out all at once. I sighed in surrender. "I was at the bar downing one vodka gimlet after another, and the other interns wanted to know what was wrong."

  "The 'other interns'...meaning Queen Meangirl?" We shared a look. Sid had met Cari once and they had not gotten along. It was understandable. Cari was an acquired taste. And many didn't acquire it. Sid continued, "She is a mean girl. I don't know why you hang out with her."

  "I've told you, it's for survival purposes. She's the type of person I'd rather have on my side instead of against me. Besides...I think some of that is just her own issues. I feel sorry for her because her twin brother was killed. It's so horrible."

  Sid nodded. "Nobody deserves that, I agree. But sometimes I don't understand why you put up with her behavior."

  I looked away, heat rising to my cheeks. A good half of the time, I wasn't proud of how I'd behaved when I was with Cari. I'd done things that I wish I hadn't done. Things I'd like to make up for. This was one of those times.

  "Anyway, with all the alcohol in me, I spilled to Cari why I was upset, and she was consoling me and even said Gunnar didn't deserve me. Then she said I was a bit too goody-goody and that's why I couldn't hang onto a man."

  "That was not consolation, that was a taunt. And I'm guessing that in your drunken stupor you thought it would be a good idea to go out and prove to the world that you aren't a goody-goody?"

  Her accurate assessment of the situation showed how well she knew me. Though we'd attended different schools, we'd been friends throughout our high school years and had roomed together the entire four years at college, as well.

  Sid had been a bit of a loner at her high school. She'd had a small group of friends, but they were picked on often. I, on the other hand, was a social chameleon who'd had a knack for appearing to fit in without actually fitting in. I'd adopted it at an early age--a child who never fit in anywhere needed that special tool in her kit in order to survive. But it turned out that fitting in often meant not being true to myself.

  "Yeah, she irked me. And yes, it was probably on purpose, but I was feeling low anyway and there was this hot guy at the end of the bar in a full costume and helmet."