by Kira Graham
“If you don’t stop doing it, then you won’t have a pulse!” I warn her, my heart thumping when it occurs to me that she could know about the clinic—but no.
No, I lost the security that day. I know I was successful because I had to apologize to Adonis, and all the guys who follow me, for scaring the living hell out of them. When I realize that there’s no way that Rosetta could know about that, I breathe deeply and relax, focusing on the fact that my life has become a circus. Ever since my cousin Cleo was attacked, Rosetta was almost framed for murder, and Alex was kidnapped and left in the woods, we’ve all been under the watchful eye of our various security teams. I’m grateful for that on most days, especially when I slip out of my apartment in the wee hours of the morning and go for a run in the dark to work off the emotions I can’t escape. On most days. But on some days—like right now, for instance—I hate knowing that nothing I do is private.
“Don’t you dare threaten me, Sinai! You know you scare me a little,” Rosetta chokes out, reluctantly admitting to her fears.
“You should be scared. I can’t believe the two of you read my diary.”
“Well, how the hell else were we going to figure out why you’ve been so messed up lately?”
“Have not!”
“Have too! Did you know that I have those financials from Helos on my desk as we speak? I know exactly what a mess you’ve been making lately, Sin, and I know for a fact that you are not stupid enough to think that it would work. That leads me to think that you’re purposely trying to get your ass fired—and completely ruined. You’ll be lucky if the IRS doesn’t charge you with something,” she hisses, her words prompting Tee to flinch and turn to me, her expression questioning.
“I dropped the ball. End of story. Fix it for me, and we’re even,” I say, shrugging casually, though inside I am terrified by what could have happened.
It’s no small crime to play around with money the way I’ve been doing with Helos, but to be fair, I’ve been under a lot of strain lately, and the emotional shit I’m dealing with isn’t helping, either.
“Oh, I fixed it,” Rosetta mutters with a curse. “I now owe a date to a former FBI agent who doesn’t seem to be bothered by the fact that I am married, or that my husband is homicidal at the thought of me having dinner with another man. One more date like this, and I’m going to be phone-sexing Zeus through plate glass. I can’t get pregnant through plate glass, Sinai,” she says through gritted teeth.
Normally, I’d laugh and point out that she should be more concerned about the possibility of her husband spending his life in prison than about not getting pregnant, and also maybe ask why it is that she’s so obsessed with starting a family when she’s the least maternal person I know. I can’t, though. I can barely breathe when she starts talking about family and babies and all that happy stuff that everyone keeps shoving down my throat.
“What do you want me to say? I fucked up. I admit it, and I take responsibility for it,” I yell back, zipping my lips when Alex and Cleo walk in, looking at us questioningly.
“Everything okay?” Alex asks, while I and the others gape at Cleo.
The thing she’s wearing is, hands down, the ugliest, most unattractive…I can’t call it a dress. It’s not a dress at all. It’s a sack. Made almost entirely out of the ugliest lace that I have ever had the misfortune of laying eyes on. It’s…the dress that Princess Di wore to her wedding, added to the dress that Fergie wore, and then sprinkled with enough—is that a string of pearls hanging down the back?
“Oh, my God.”
“Sweet mother of…”
“My eyes!” Tee hisses dramatically as Cleo jumps up and down in delight, clapping her hands with glee.
“It’s perfect, right? Oh my God, I cannot wait until Adonis sees me in this dress!” she trills, missing the looks of reluctant amusement that the rest of us are busy exchanging.
Especially Rosetta, but then again, we all know that Cleo’s real wedding is already completely planned, that she has her perfect dress, and that it will all really happen. God willing.
“Adonis is probably going to laugh his ass off,” Rosetta mutters out of the side of her mouth, causing Tee and me to snicker behind our hands and avoid Cleo’s gaze.
“He’ll want to do her in that dress—I’d bet money on it,” I quip, starting a haggling war that Tee and Rosetta will both lose.
I hope. Since I don’t have ten grand to lose on a bet. Not after the shambles I’ve made of my trust fund.
“You don’t have ten grand to lose to either of us,” Rosetta points out knowingly, echoing my thoughts, before she sighs, watches Cleo skip off alongside Alex, and then carries on. “I’m not betting money against you. But let’s make this a little more…interesting, shall we? If I win, and by that I mean if Adonis takes one look at that dress, has a fit, and then storms out, then you have to tell Tee and me what the hell is going on with you. Uh-uh! Let me clarify, before you try to cheat your way out of full payment. That means that you will spill everything, Sinai. You’re going to tell us about what’s been happening with you, what upset you so much that you treated Paris to your acid tongue, and also why you had the utter gall to just hand in your resignation,” she says seriously, nodding when Tee gasps and blinks questioningly.
“You resigned?”
“I need a break,” I mutter.
It’s not a complete lie, either. In fact, after the talk I had with Doc Tory yesterday, I believe it more than ever. She’s been telling me for a while now to take some time off to get away and focus on myself, and she finally got through to me yesterday, after I trashed her office and then had a crying fit that would have shamed me—if I’d been able to find the will to care.
“A break? You? Are we talking about the same woman who spent three days catering two weddings back to back, and then cooking for an Italian family, all without sleeping?” Tee asks, reminding me of just how much of a rock star I really am.
God, I am awesome when it comes to food, I think, needing that reminder to dig myself out of the pity party that I am dying to throw for myself. Invitation for one!
“I’m tired,” I try again, hissing through a failed hug when Tee sinks her teeth into my arm, necessitating a leap off the couch and a napkin for the blood that’s starting to seep up from the wound. “Goddammit, you rabid bitch!”
“Stop lying. The next time you lie, I’m going to ignore my decency and bite one of your huge-ass nipples off!”
“My nipples are not huge.”
“They’re freakishly big, and you know it. Now, shut up and listen to me. You need help, Sinai. Whatever you’re going through, you need to talk to someone— ”
“I am talking to someone. I’m seeing a therap—shit! Dammit!” I scream, realizing my mistake when Rosetta smiles darkly.
She’s got so many “friends” that it has become basic knowledge that she can hack, steal, or buy any information out there that she wants to. It’s no small feat to have the FBI step in and help cover up what amounts to fraud, or embezzlement, or…whatever it is that I was doing with the books at Helos, so you can just guess what she’s planning to do now.
Shit. I’ll have to call Doc Tory and have her delete my records.
“First of all, therapists are wackos.”
“You’re a therapist!” I yell at Tee, eyeing Rosetta, who picks up her phone and starts texting, all while keeping her eyes on mine and smiling darkly.
“Correction: I am an anger management therapist. It’s different. We don’t talk about feelings—”
“I thought that that was the whole point of therapy. No wonder four of your patients ended up in prison.”
“Meh. I warned them to be smarter about it when they lose their temper. It’s not my fault that they’re too weak to control their impulses.”
Someone should revoke her license.
“Shut up, both of you. You’re arguing about moot points here. Hmm, let me see…” Rosetta muses, her eyes dancing as she reads her phone sc
reen, only to let a scowl break free when she realizes something very, very important.
I’m not stupid enough to tell anyone, and I mean anyone, anything that I don’t want Rosetta or Tee knowing. Does that mean that I wanted them to know that I like Paris? I wonder silently, my inner turmoil growing until I shove the thought away and box it up, leaving it for later exploration. Muuuch later.
“What is this bullshit?” Rosetta asks, her scowl growing darker and then lightening when she obviously reads something that I probably don’t want her to know.
“I presume that it’s my file—a file that is confidential,” I point out, shaking my head with a mocking sigh.
“Did you think that I was stupid enough to go to a therapist and give my real name?” I ask.
I still need to call Doc Tory, but at this point, it is so worth it that I’ve been going to fake therapy sessions with Dr. Brown every Monday evening. That’s the file that Rosetta is reading right now. A file that is real…but also fake, because everything I tell Dr. Brown is bullcrap.
“Dammit! You’ve been going to fake therapy sessions just so you could psyche me out?”
“Yep.”
Totally worth it, I tell myself, as Tee reads Rosetta’s phone over her shoulder and splutters out a laugh.
“You told this guy that you have sex dreams about the Teletubbies? Which one? I’ll bet it’s that purple one that everyone thinks is gay. I like the green one—he’s got some meat on his bones. Raawr,” she teases, giggling when Rosetta curses and sucks her teeth in disgust.
“I should have known that you wouldn’t be as easy as Alex or Cleo.”
“Is that reluctant respect that I detect in your tone?”
“Shut up. Don’t you think that I won’t find the answers, Sinai. I will. And it’ll be much easier on you if you just tell me what I want to know.”
I know that—except that it’s not true in this case. This secret is something that only God and I know, and it’s one that I will not give up willingly.
“What you want to know doesn’t exist, Rosetta. I’m burned out, tired, and in need of a break, and after the huge disaster that I’ve made of things at Helos, you should agree.”
“But…but you can’t quit your job, not after all the hard work you’ve done. You’re so close to achieving your dreams,” Tee whispers, for once not putting on the tough act with all her easy insults.
What she doesn’t know, though, is that I had more than one dream. There was more to what I wanted than just some stupid star to prove to everyone that I’m the best, and now that that’s within reach, but everything else is so far out of reach, it just doesn’t seem to matter to me anymore.
No, that’s a lie. It still matters, but it pales in comparison.
“This one is perfect!” I hear Cleo shout when she comes back with dress number three, proving that things can always, in fact, get uglier.
I give it an eleven out of ten for hideousness and spend the next hour laughing my ass off while she strives to find something worse. When she finally does, I’ve won two hundred dollars off Rosetta, made dinner plans with Tee, who seems to have moved in with me while she’s “on sabbatical,” and decided that I’m okay with giving up Helos.
Really.
Chapter Four
Paris
“You need to calm down. Three months is a long time, and, contrary to Sin’s opinion on the matter, that three-month notice period in her original contract is more than enforceable. You have time,” Zeus tells me as I pace Adonis’s office and drum my fingers against my thigh.
The move is a nervous habit that I’ve had ever since I was little—not that I’ve allowed myself to indulge in it all that often. I’m the happy-go-lucky, easygoing Hart boy that everyone likes to hang out with, not this man who’s been nearly out of his mind with worry for two days.
“You don’t understand—she meant it, Z. She really wants to quit. What the hell am I going to do if she walks out of Helos, jumps on the next plane, and goes off to vegetate in Greece? Did you have to offer her the island?” I demand, my temper fraying at the edges, especially when a heretofore silent Adonis chuckles at my expense.
“What did you want the man to say when she asked?”
“No,” I grate, scowling so hard that Zeus should be in flames by now.
“Are you insane? If I say no to one of Rosetta’s sibs, I’ll wake up with one of my balls missing.”
“This isn’t a joke.”
“Trust me, fucker, I don’t consider the continued health—or placement—of my balls a joke. Rosetta is already crazy enough as it is. If I piss her off, I’ll get another three a.m. wakeup call and find her standing beside the bed, watching me sleep while she smiles in this really sinister way,” he says, shuddering.
“She does that to you, too? Cleo does it to me all the time. That’s why I installed those sensors under the mattress that go off when her weight isn’t on them,” Adonis sighs, though his smile is full of love when he talks about the psycho he’s trying to marry.
I say trying, because at this point, it’s not looking like a done deal. He’ll be eighty before she becomes slow enough for him to run down. If he’s lucky. My money’s still on Cleo; that chick is crafty. And insane.
“That shit sounds creepy,” I point out when Zeus sighs, too, his smile and faraway look telling me that he’s daydreaming about the nut he married.
“It’s romantic. Trust me, man, if they didn’t love us, they wouldn’t try to scare the hell out of us.”
“Cleo would just kill me while I’m sleeping.”
Christ!
“There’s something very wrong with you people.”
“At least we’re nuts together. You’ve spent the last three months licking your wounds and pretending that you aren’t still in love with Sin,” Zeus snorts.
“I’m not—”
“Cut the shit, Paris. We know you, remember? You’re the guy who believes in love and happily ever after—”
“I was that guy. I’m not him anymore,” I remind them, my body shuddering when I think of everything I’ve done in the last few months.
I’ve screwed so many women that if I weren’t fastidiously careful, I’d have a disease by now. I’ve also partied so hard that I can’t tell you how I survived it, and that soft inner core of mine has now turned to steel. There’s no going back for me, not after the way Sin shredded my heart, but that doesn’t mean that I like where she’s heading.
My brothers think that it’s love driving me to near insanity right now, and I’m going to let them keep thinking that, because something tells me that confessing to Zeus and Adonis that my plans are to seduce and then heart-stomp Sin, isn’t going to go down well. Hell, I don’t like myself right now for even thinking it.
“Then who the hell are you? Because I’m going to be upfront with you, man—you’re starting to behave like a bitch on the rag. One minute, you’re partying your ass off and working yourself into the ground while defying my every order, and the next, I have to deal with you throwing a hissy fit about Helos and Sin. What is it that you want, Paris? If you’re over Sin and you can forgive her, then do it. If you want to keep Helos, then keep it. If you don’t want her to leave, then make it worth her goddamn while, but don’t stomp around here like an angry kid with no clear plans in mind,” Adonis huffs.
Oh, I have plans, brother. The problem is, part of me is fighting them, and that is what has me spinning in circles right now. The reason that I didn’t yell and scream and fight Sin to the death two days ago is that a part of me felt relief when she handed me that resignation. I’m not happy to admit this, but when that small piece of me that still loves her, at least a little, realized that she would be out of my reach soon, it rejoiced and breathed a sigh of relief.
Christ, this revenge shit isn’t easy.
“Paris. Brother, what is it that’s got you so tied up?” Zeus asks softly, his knowing stare pinning me to the spot.
“I don’t know, okay? It’s b
een months, and I have moved on.” They both snort and give me disgusted glares. “Yeah, yeah, I know. The two of you don’t agree with my partying and womanizing—though you have no room to judge, Adonis.”
“Dude, it may be true that I have no room to judge, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t tell, from experience, that empty relationships are a waste of time.”
“They aren’t empty, and they aren’t relationships. I get exactly what I want and need out of them, as do the women.”
That’s not exactly true. Sex for the sake of sex can be great at first, but over the past few months, it has started to pale in comparison to what I know my brothers have. At one time, I wanted that with Sin, but seeing as how she’s a heart-shredding villainess, I’ll take the sex and just walk away—
“What’s that look?”
“What look?”
“That look! Did you see it, Z?” Adonis asks, his eyes going narrow. “Why were you smiling like that while thinking of Sin?”
“Who’s thinking of Sin?” Chilli asks as he strolls in easily, one baby under each arm for all of three seconds before Adonis and Z grab them.
Greedy bastards!
“Let me hold one.”
“Screw off and make your own.”
“You make your own. You guys are married—or all but. Knock your wives up, and let me hold one of those boys for longer than two minutes.”
“Cleo won’t have babies yet. She says it’ll ruin the ugliest wedding dress in creation,” Adonis snorts good-naturedly, his smile turning wicked enough that I curse and hand Chilli the hundred dollars he just won.
“I can’t believe you found that sexy enough to get you all steamed up,” I mutter, grimacing when the asshole shrugs and coos at Axel.
“It’s not the wrapping, bro; it’s the whole package, and believe you me, what Cleo has under all those ugly clothes is more than enough to get me all steamed up. Now, back to what we were discussing. I’ll catch Chilli up. Sin gave this bonehead her resignation, and he’s having a fit because he can’t decide if that’s a good or a bad thing.”
“Bad. It’s bad. Alex once told me that Sin’s whole life has been about that restaurant. Are you telling me that she’s giving up on her dream of owning it one day?” Chilli asks, his eyes going hard as he looks over at me.
