by Karr, Kim
To hurt me?
She couldn’t still think I cared. She couldn’t still care herself. Yet, if it was true—I could be wrong on both counts.
I should have turned and walked out the door. Right then. Put this game to an end, but I didn’t. Instead, my feet were moving before I knew what I was doing.
I hated games, but I hated to lose even more.
Weaving swiftly through the crowd, I could feel my pulse pounding everywhere in my body like a jackhammer—behind my eyelids, down my spine, and even in my fucking balls.
The two of them moved in tempo to the beat of the music. All hands and bodies. And here I was a powder keg ready to blow them apart.
Why the fuck did I care who she was with?
She must have been happy with this guy or why would she be with him? Yet, in all the pictures I’d seen of her with him, her spirit seemed faded, that fight I knew her to have, dimmed. Her sparkle, clouded.
A hand clamped my shoulder. “Where the hell are you going?”
I shoved out of Gray’s hold. The chilled asshole motherfucker had no fucking clue. Causing a scene was never his thing. Just mine. “To get her the fuck out of my head,” I admitted.
“Ty, not this way,” he reasoned. “It’s not a good idea.”
“Why not?” I gritted out over the music.
He leaned back a bit as if he was afraid I might punch him. “Because you’re only going to piss her off, and Wilhelmina might not have been too far off the mark about California Jane needing to merge with Highway 128 in order to stay afloat.”
I blinked in shock.
Was he serious?
My legacy. My fucking legacy was at stake. And he had joined the bandwagon and thought Paris Fairchild was the answer to saving it?
He had to be out of his mind.
I wanted him to be.
Before I could overthink it, Paris spun around on those high heels of hers. Looked like she’d traded in those Converse. I watched as she took Frenchy’s hand and led him off the dance floor. Still in shock, I couldn’t believe it when they strode through a door that read, “Private.”
After all the therapy, everything I’d done to change, I felt like I was seventeen again and ready to blow.
“Ty?” Gray prompted.
Drawing in a breath, I let it out. “I’m good,” I told him. “How about you call for an Uber? I’m going to take a piss and I’ll meet you out front.”
“You sure you’re good?”
I nodded and raised my palms. “All good. Swear. Just need to get out of here.”
I had every intention of using the restroom and then leaving, but I couldn’t pass the door marked private without opening it and taking a look.
Like I belonged, I twisted the unlocked knob. It was dark inside but I could make out two bodies. A male and a female. She was bent over a desk and he was hovering above her, his lips inches from touching her.
Something snapped inside me. Ten years’ worth of anguish bubbled to the surface. I knew this was well-earned payback toward me but that didn’t make it any easier to swallow. He was not touching what was mine when I was less than ten feet away.
Mine.
What the hell?
Feeling like I was exploding, I couldn’t hold back. “Get. The fuck away from her,” I hissed, striding in their direction. Ready to peel the guy from her body if I had to.
They both jumped, as if caught doing something they shouldn’t be doing. That’s when another door opened and the lights flickered on and that voice I knew all too well said, “Hello.”
My head snapped to the right.
Fuck.
It couldn’t be.
Or could it?
It was.
The silhouette of a beautiful woman, no longer a girl, in a black silk dress with a V slit down to her navel and another up to her thigh was standing tall—over on the other side of the room.
Like a blaze of fire, Paris filled the doorway. Her hands on her hips and her chin notched up in challenge.
I jerked my head back toward the table, which was actually not a desk as I had thought. Much to my surprise, standing there was the rich douche with the bartender from upstairs.
Male and male.
No female.
Hey, in my defense, it was dark.
Tyler
LAUGHTER WAS CERTAINLY in order.
A tall, dark, and witty dose, at that. It seemed rather ironic that Paris’s wine mogul was crushing on her champagne room bartender and not her.
Things were about to get interesting.
A smugness creased my brow that I couldn’t deny, just like I couldn’t deny that the look she was giving me bled disdain. “We need to talk,” she seethed.
The bartender practically ran out the door and that left three. “Me?” I asked, pointing to myself.
Her gaze narrowed. “Yes, you and I need to talk.”
Leaning against the wall, I crossed my arms. “I’m not going anywhere if that’s what you’re worried about. Not until I find out what’s going on, anyway.”
There was a frown on her full lips that I found adorable because now I knew whose dick they were never wrapped around.
Everything about her softened when she slid her attention sideways. To him. The douche that was striding her way. “Babe,” she said softly, placing her hand on his shirt, “I’ll catch up with you later.”
Babe.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up when he whispered something in her ear. In fact, the entire interaction made my teeth clench and my gut knot.
When he strode past me, he did so like I wasn’t even in the room and then just stepped right out into the club.
I think I might have growled. I hated that he shared a connection with her that I no longer did.
The past was the past.
There was no rewind.
But could there be?
As soon as we were alone, I shook myself back to reality. “So,” I taunted. “Your sex life must be fantastic.”
“Screw you,” she tossed back, blinking at me with those lush, full lashes.
“You wish,” I recanted.
She shook her head. “You haven’t changed a bit, have you?”
That hurt.
Stung.
Felt like she’d stabbed me with a knife because I had changed. Spent a lot of time and money assuring I didn’t end up like my old man.
Refraining from replying with another jab, I rubbed the back of my neck, feeling the stirring of a headache.
See, I had grown-up.
But then I said, “Actually, I have. I’m much bigger now,” and I had to wonder if I sounded that grown-up.
She made a disgusted noise. “I don’t really care how big you are.”
“You used too.”
“Used, is the key word.”
Wishing I had a bottle in my hand, I looked up just in time to catch her smoothing her dress over her slight curves.
It was a reaction I knew all too well.
I mimicked what she’d done then mused, “Nervous.”
It wasn’t a question.
Her cheeks flamed red in anger. “Don’t you even dare try to act like you know me anymore because you don’t,” she huffed.
The heat was getting to me. I was feeling hot and bothered. Rolling my shirt sleeves up, I glared at her. “No, you’re right, I don’t know you. But I know that show you were putting on out there was for me. Just like I know you’re pretending to be in love, and don’t even try to deny it.”
As if amused, she gripped the edges of the break table she had strode over to and leaned against it. The expanse her silky smooth flesh had my mouth watering. “Okay, great, you caught me. Now what?”
I puffed out my chest. “How about we start with you telling me why you have a pretend boyfriend.”
She crossed one ankle over the other and I felt my dick go hard in my slacks. Down boy. Not a good time. “I don’t think so. You said start, so what’s next?” There was no smile. No laughte
r. Only hatred bleeding through every single one of her words.
I pushed away from the wall, and for the second time that night, I gave her my back. “Now, I leave,” I gritted out and trotted for the door.
“Stop being a coward, Tyler.”
With my hands clutching the jams, I glared over my shoulder. “What did you just call me?”
Those luscious red lips smiled like the devil. “A coward.”
“You know that’s not true. Now or then.”
Her lips pursed. “Do I?”
My fingers squeezed the metal. “Sorry, Paris, but I’m not going to play games with you.”
She stood up straight and tall. All red hair, long legs, and sex appeal that was bewitching. “That’s what I thought,” she snapped, and then she turned and swayed her luscious ass as she walked toward the door she’d come through.
Spell. Instantly. Broken.
No way was she walking away from me again.
Screw that.
I lunged forward, my steps becoming faster and faster the closer I got to her. Just as she was about to slam the door in my face, I reached for her and took hold of her wrist.
Up close I could see what a true knock-out she’d grown into, and for a moment I lost myself in her.
That mass of lush red waves that rolled all the way down her back. That smattering of freckles across her porcelain skin. That perfectly upturned nose and those pouty lips.
Frankly, I really had lost it because the next thing I knew I was pinning her to the wall and grinding my body slowly against hers. “You aren’t going anywhere. We aren’t finished, yet,” I managed to say.
After tonight, I had to wonder if we’d ever be finished.
Teasing me with the barest taste of her lips, she slid her mouth to my ear and whispered, “Oh really, we’re not? I thought we were . . . a long time ago.”
That smart-ass tone really got the adrenaline pumping through my veins. Needing to take control, I pressed against her navel, making certain to get her attention. “Leave the past in the past.”
Her head shook.
I had to ignore all that. “There’s something we need to talk about, now.”
I couldn’t believe I was going to open Pandora’s box.
A smile pierced her lips and she arched her back as she got on her tiptoes. “Don’t you think you should be on your knees, first?”
Quirking a brow, I pulled back, a bit surprised that she was going to get flirty so easily. “Say please and maybe I will,” I teased, returning to the way things used to be with her much easier than should have been possible.
Dragging her teeth over her lower lip, she sighed and scrunched her nose. “I don’t think that’s the way it’s supposed to go.”
Games.
More with the games.
I hated the fucking games and loved them at the same time.
Curious about her statement, I boxed her in with my arms, and with my lips hovering close to hers, I asked, “Why don’t you tell me what you’re talking about?”
She tapped her chin. “It’s down on one knee, right? That’s it. You’re supposed to get down on one knee, not both.”
Easing myself back, I had to work at playing it cool, which was fucking hard to do with the way the floor felt like it was crumbling from beneath my feet.
She knew.
She already knew the plan I never had any intention of actually executing.
Fucking Wilhelmina.
Paris Fairchild
I HAD HIM at hello.
Or maybe it was the down-on-one-knee comment that really got his full attention. Either way, he was standing there with his mouth open wide like a fish out of water.
It shouldn’t have delighted me, but it did.
His eyes went wide and I couldn’t stop the tingle that ran down my spine as I stared up at him. God, he was the same and different all at the same time.
Those eyes.
Those bedroom eyes.
Still bluer than any Bahamian sea. Still bottomless like the depths of the ocean. And still so expressive.
One look from him and I swore a girl wanted to pull down her panties all on her own.
He hadn’t changed a bit.
I hated it.
Hated that his nose was still so straight and his cheekbones so well defined. That those too-full lips which donned him the moniker, Pretty Boy, despite his best efforts to ditch it were still so inviting. Don’t even get me started on that masterfully tousled dirty-brown hair; it did always make me go weak in the knees.
I detested that, too.
Tyler Holiday was always tall, dark, and cocky, but now he had become a man. All grown-up and deliciously so.
For one rapturous second, time rewound, and I got lost in a face I once thought I’d stare at forever. That mouth a little crooked grin and that masculine jaw now covered with at least a week of scruff.
Yes, he was definitely all man.
Standing before me with his hard-as-stone body and handsome-as-sin good looks, it was difficult to recall why I loathed him so much.
But then he shrugged as if what I’d said hadn’t just rocked his world, and when he did, the hardness in his eyes became glaringly apparent. “I should have known you were in cohorts with the Wicked Witch of the West. Deceit always was your thing.”
Trying to control my emotions, I stepped back, my cheeks burning under the heat of his intense gaze. From this vantage point I could see his face had become a perfectly blank mask. “Now that’s not nice, Tyler, and you know it.”
Rather than admit defeat, he darted his gaze to the ground but allowed his lips to turn up just a bit more, smug-like. “You know nice isn’t my thing.”
Right. That’s the exact moment I remembered exactly who he was. Oh, how I remembered.
The party boy.
The aloofness.
The arrogance.
Time had refined who he was, but his removed disposition hadn’t changed one bit. It was like a neon sign blinking with the message that he lived high in his own castle.
It was received.
Coming to my senses, I cocked a hip. “Wilhelmina called me after she dropped you off. I’m sure she knew you’d never see it through because come on, Tyler, commitment was never your thing.”
He gave me another shrug. Playing at indifference was also his thing. Yet he forgot something—if he thought he knew me, then I definitely knew him.
And the way his teeth started to clench and the way his forehead rose to his hairline were his tells. Tells of shock. Tells of surprise. Tells of anger. And maybe something a little darker, too.
Yes, I had most definitely caught him off-guard.
His disposition was almost endearing, and it would have been if I didn’t still hate him. Hate him with a passion that threatened to burn down the very walls of my being.
His grown-up swagger and carefree attitude might have made me want to stab him, but the way he looked at me with that devilish smirk provoked me to want to stab myself—in the heart.
Okay, not really.
I just despised the way my most vital organ did this wild thump, thump, thump because he was near. Because he almost kissed me.
It absolutely made no sense. He’d broken me ten years ago, and I knew he would break me once again if I let him.
Even considering an alliance was insane. I ruled it out about two minutes after I heard the idea. Besides, I’d found a way out of my predicament. It wasn’t ideal but it was doable. And much safer.
He stepped closer.
I didn’t step back.
Danger. Proceed with caution. Trouble. Trouble. Trouble. Those were the words that were stamped all over him.
His warm breath whispered across my cheek, stoking the old flames of desire. I knew better than to let him get too close, and yet I couldn’t back away.
The voice inside my head kept shouting, “Play with fire and you’ll get burned.”
I should have listened.
I didn’t.<
br />
Then again, I never did listen to anyone, not even myself.
“So, tell me?” he chuckled darkly, “Did the idea of being my wife make you wet?”
The snicker that bubbled up my throat let him know the concept in itself was preposterous. “Hardly, it made me want to sew my vagina closed.”
His returning smirk was a dangerous cocktail of amusement and desire. Warmth trickled down my spine from just the tilt of his full lips. Damn him. He hadn’t laid a finger on me, yet I felt his touch everywhere. “You’re a liar,” he said matter-of-factly, eyeing the way my pulse was throbbing in my neck.
“It’s so nice to see you, too, and after all this time.” Now I pressed my back against the wall, looking for distance, seeking relief from the fire he’d lit in me the moment I saw him standing on my driveway.
He shook his head.
“What, can’t say it back?”
Some kind of emotion I couldn’t decipher flashed in those baby blues but it was gone in an instant. “Well, if I did, that would be a lie, and we both know I’m not the liar here. Besides, to be honest, it isn’t nice to see you. As a matter of fact, I hate the fact that you’ve allowed yourself to go from seductress to mere arm candy in only ten short years.”
Anger and regret spun around me. I closed my eyes and re-opened them. Jutting my chin out, I didn’t want to drink in the sight of him yet I couldn’t resist.
I might have hated the way things ended between us, but I despised what he had done even more. And I couldn’t forgive him for that. For not seeing what was real. So I had to turn my feelings off. Play the girl the world saw—the party girl. “And I see you’ve successfully graduated from jerk to asshole in less than a decade.”
His wry smile disappeared. And the frown that replaced it was accompanied by a glacial stare. “What are you doing with that guy?”
Telling him Henri and I were hopelessly in love was useless. He’d already seen the truth. “I already told you, it’s none of your business.”
His hard body pressed against mine. “You don’t think I figured it out the second I saw him bent over a dude? That you’re Henri LeBlanc’s veil to the world and he must be your savior.”
I shrugged. “Paint the picture however you like,” I told him. “Either way, Henri and I are getting married.”
