I turn my back to the couple and start cleaning up my workspace to keep busy while the two of them spar.
"Lift the bandage, and take a look."
"Why are you so stubborn. If you had to get this damn tat while you're still pregnant, then why didn't you use my guy? No offense," he says to me.
"None taken," I reply.
"If you would stop grumbling for one second and take a look."
I love how this woman doesn't take his shit. They are a great match. I'm glad she trusted me to do this for them.
When he lifts the bandage and reads the words, he grins, and looks up at her as if she's the most amazing woman on the planet.
"Do you see the colors I used?" she asks him.
"Blue."
She waits a second for it to register.
"Blue? We're having a boy?"
"Yes!" she says excitedly.
He grabs her face with his palms and plants a huge kiss on her lips. I don't want to watch, but then again I can't look away. Their obvious connection makes my ovaries want to applaud.
"And you know what that means," she continues. "It means that I won the bet."
His face drops.
"Oh shit."
"Oh shit is right, Mr. Masterson." She smirks.
"What do you want?" he asks with a wariness to his voice.
"You have to give it to me. A bet is a bet."
"What. Do. You. Want. Nerd."
"I-want-us-to-get-married-in-Vegas-so-your-mother-can-come," she blurts out.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me."
"Uh-uh."
"Um, Zoe, we're going to need the room."
Is he kicking me out of my own space?
"Well, I'm going to be closing–" I say before he cuts me off.
"Here's a hundred as a tip for the nice work, but we'll be needing the fucking room, or you can stay and watch. Your choice."
Uh ...
"On your feet, Duchess."
"A bet is a bet," she says again teasingly.
I can't believe she's still egging this maniac on with a victorious look on her face. I was scared to leave her alone with him for a moment, but now I'm starting to think that she's totally got this. Maybe she does realize her own power over this man.
"And I'm going to honor your bullshit bet, because I love the ground that your pretty little ass walks on; but right now you're going to lean on the chaise, lift up your dress, and spread your fucking legs."
"Masterson," she exhales harshly.
"Good thing your panties are already off, or I'd rip those fuckers to shreds right now. Now let me have a taste," he growls.
And that's my cue to leave.
My work here is done.
Well done.
BONUS EPILOGUE
Jade & Camden
I'm doing something that I haven't done in a really long time, and I know I'm probably going to regret it tomorrow, but I'm meeting my younger sister Jana for lunch. I may be three years older than her, but she has always been smarter, more mature, and more successful than I ever have–and she never lets me forget it.
"Has a waiter come over yet?" she asks, while plopping her overpriced handbag on the table.
"Hello to you too, Jana."
"Oh yeah, hi. Happy New Year and all of that. Sorry that I'm a little snappy, but I'm hungry as hell. I had a really long class this morning and skipped breakfast. The professor I work for is so demanding. You're so lucky you didn't pursue this type of career path, Jade."
I have the strongest urge to pluck my sister in the middle of her forehead like I did when we were kids. Jana enjoys throwing in my face any chance she can how she's a teaching assistant for a prominent professor at Temple University, while passively aggressively reminding me of how I barely made it out of high school algebra.
"The server said he'd be right back," I say dryly.
"Is the service here okay?"
She looks around with her nose turned up as if my selection of restaurant is beneath her. As if she has no recollection of how our parents idea of dinner out was a Friday night at McDonald's.
"It's fine," I say with an attitude. "I've eaten here twice before with Roman. You know him right? My rich boss."
"Yes, yes Jade. I'm well aware."
After I flag down our server, a very sluggish boy with freckles and a sandy brown Mohawk (my sister probably isn't too far off about the service here) takes our order.
"Still eating salads every meal I see."
"That's right," I reply smirking. "I need to keep my girlish figure."
This is one of the other things between us. Jana is about twenty-five pounds overweight, and I've always been small and pretty fit, which I attribute equally to good genes, exercise and a decent diet.
"You could stand to eat a burger or two. You look thin. Too thin. Is that boss of yours working you too hard?"
She always tells me stuff like this. I'm used to it by now. That's Jana speak for you look better than me, bitch.
"I helped him plan a very romantic proposal to his girlfriend last week, but other than that, work is pretty easy going nowadays."
Our waiter brings us both glasses of ice water with lemon wedges and also a Sprite for Jana. I play around with the lemon inside of my glass as I wait for Jana to get to the real point of this lunch. There's always a point.
"So … I saw Dad the other day."
I should have seen this coming, but if she was trying to spring a daddy conversation on me, she should have taken me out for drinks not lunch. I need to be totally trashed to talk about that bastard.
"So."
"I think he may be sick. Seriously sick."
I twirl the ice around in my water with the straw, watching as bits of lemon pulp swirl around inside, turning my water cloudy. Like my mood.
"So."
"So … I think you should go see him."
"And why would I do that?"
"So he can apologize to you before he leaves this earth, which by the looks of him is going to be relatively soon."
I take a long sip of my water. Staring at my sister like the unbelievable turncoat that she is.
"Maybe you were too young to really remember him at his worst, Jana. So I'm going to chalk this conversation up to your youth and ignorance, but let me tell you something …"
I pull my straw out and point it defiantly at her. She watches as drops of lemon water drip down on the table, driving her absolutely nuts.
"Our father is a motherfucker, and I don't care if he's gasping his last breaths right this very minute. I have no interest in visiting him, talking to him, and certainly no interest in forgiving him."
Her eyes bulge.
"Gosh, Jade, you're so nasty when you're hungry. Where is Mohawk dude with our food? This place is so slow."
"It's worth the wait."
I have a bad habit of sitting on my phone, and cracking the screen at least twice a year. I really need to carry a bag, but I'm a bit of a tomboy and never really got used to them. They just get in my way.
I feel my phone buzzing in the back pocket of my jeans. It's just a feeling, but I think I already know who it is. He's relentless.
KingKong: You still avoiding me?
Me: No
KingKong: You're not?
Me: I was never avoiding you. I haven't even been thinking about you.
KingKong: Now we both know that's a lie.
Me: I'm busy right now. Leave me alone.
KingKong: Busy doing what?
Me: Lunch
KingKong: With who?
Me: My lover. A famous Brazilian soccer player. You don't know him.
KingKong: That's a very specific fantasy lover :)
Me: Do you know a real one? I'd like to meet him.
KingKong: I'm going to ignore that.
"Are you going to text your fuck buddy during our entire lunch?" Jana interrupts like a splash of cold water.
"What are you talking about? Fuck buddy," I mutter.
"I can tell by your facial expressions that you're texting a man. A man whom you have either fucked or want to fuck. You're smiling quite devilishly."
"Lower your voice," I demand.
"Am I wrong?"
"It's just one of the other guys I work for."
"One of those hot twins? Are you sleeping with one of them now?"
"They aren't twins," I say flatly. "They're nothing alike."
"Oh. I just assumed. Well which one are you messing around with?"
"We're not messing around."
"Which one were you just angry texting then?"
I sigh.
"The older one."
KingKong: You still there?
Me: What. Do. You. Want.
KingKong: You know what I want.
Me: Is this about Baltimore?
KingKong: It's about me inside of you in Baltimore.
Ugh. He won't let this shit go, and I'm about sick of it. I went to Baltimore on a fool's errand, but still, it was completely my own business. Then here he comes running after me. Inserting himself in my damn business.
Okay so maybe I did slip and fall on his dick in a Baltimore hotel, but while I may not have Jana's book smarts, I have plenty of common sense, and I know better than to do that silly shit twice. Not going to happen. No matter how much he pushes the issue.
Me: Stop texting me about this. We have to work together.
KingKong: Or I can work that tight pussy of yours again.
I'm erasing these messages as soon as I get up from this table. He is so disgusting.
Me: You didn't work it well before. So I pass.
KingKong: Such the little liar. You better bring your sweet little ass to the club by nine, or you and I are going to have a much bigger problem than my dick in your mouth.
Oh my God. I can't stand him. The worst mistake I ever made was spreading my legs for that arrogant, computer hacking, asshole. I mean seriously. He's touched in the head. Completely nuts.
"Where is our damn food?" I slam my phone down on the table livid by the exchange I've just had with Camden and irritated that it takes thirty minutes to get a chicken Caesar salad in this place.
"Excuse me!" Jana turns around and yells at a group of servers who are by the register. "Somebody better bring us our food real soon or somebody's going to catch a murder charge."
I can't help but laugh. Jana can be pretentious, and a pain in my ass, but sometimes I forget that she and I were raised in the same dysfunctional home, and sometimes some of that fire kicks in. Her approach works though, because lo and behold our food, which evidently had been ready and waiting for Mohawk to pick up is delivered.
"Sorry 'bout that," Mohawk apologizes. "We're short staffed today."
"Uh, huh," my sister says unconvinced. "Can you please just bring us some ketchup and some extra napkins? Like right now?" she snaps.
"Of course." He raises one of his eyebrows at that finger snap. "I'll be right back with that."
"He's going to spit in your ketchup." I chuckle. "This is a nice restaurant. It will be easy for him to do because they bring it in a little dish, not a bottle, and he's pissed."
"Nice restaurant my ass."
I take a bite of my salad. It's delicious like I remembered. They make a great Caesar dressing here. No one can pick an out of the way restaurant with great food like Roman.
"So how's school?" I ask, sincerely wanting to know.
"Professor Owens is working my ass off, of course. I'm staying up all night grading tons of papers, and he's taking all the credit."
"Well isn't that what teaching assistants do?"
"Yeah, but now that I am one, I see the gross inequality of it all. Seems like everyone in academia works their asses off when they're young, so that one day they can sit back and not have to work at all when they're forty. It's called tenure."
"Isn't that what you want?"
"I guess. It's part of my fifteen-year plan. Guess I shouldn't deviate from it now."
"Guess not."
"So tell me everything."
"Tell you what?"
"Tell me everything about the twin."
"Not a twin," I say annoyed with an edge to my voice.
"Right. What's his name?"
"Camden King."
"Right. So tell me about him."
"There's nothing to tell, Jana. You know I don't do relationships."
"I know you haven't had any relationships since Tyson, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't. For God's sake, Jade, you two were only kids then."
"I understand that, but it doesn't really matter. I have zero interest in ties or relationships. I work at a place where I meet sexy, amazing men every night. Who wants to be tied down to one man when I'm always in the middle of the best smorgasbord ever?"
Jana puts her fork down for a moment.
"Not every man is horrible, Jade."
I don't look at her and continue eating.
"I never said they were."
"Mom wouldn't want you sleeping with every Tom, Dick and Harry."
"Is that what you think of me, Jana? You think I'm a whore?"
"Of course not."
"And why bring our mother into this?"
Our mother died five years ago from ovarian cancer. She was a warrior. A saint. Bringing her up is just fighting dirty.
"I'm not. I'm sorry I said anything. Just tell me about your boss Camden. I want to know why after he texts you, something lights up inside of you. Like sparklers."
"You watch way too much television. I'm just annoyed. There is nothing lighting up inside of me."
"Then why does he annoy you so much?"
Did I mention that my sister is a psychology graduate student? On track to have a rewarding research and teaching career.
"Because he won't leave me alone."
"In a creepy way?"
"No, not like that."
I've called him a creep before, but I'm not going to let my sister think he's one.
"Did you sleep with him?"
Might as well confess.
"Yes."
"Does he want seconds?"
"I don't know what he wants."
"Ah, so that's it. He doesn't just want your body, he wants more."
"He doesn't want more. He's just playing around. He's never been in a serious relationship in his life."
"Oh so he's damaged just like you."
"I don't think he's damaged, and neither am I by the way."
"What's wrong with him then?"
I might as well tell her. She won't stop asking questions.
"I've known him for a long time, Jana. He knows all about Tyson. He was there when it all went down, and Rome got me out of there."
Jana looks down at her plate. This is exactly why I didn't want to talk about this. Anytime I mention Tyson, this guilty look spreads across her face. We had a falling out back then. She told me, begged me, many times over to leave my ex, but I wouldn't.
At the time I felt trapped. I think that I felt like if I left him, that no one would love me again. My warped thinking and inability to get out of my toxic relationship created a wedge between me and Jana, and we stopped communicating for a long time.
That's why she thinks she failed me, because she wasn't around to help me when the shit really hit the fan. But I don't feel that way at all. She's three years younger than me. We were both young, our mother dead, but she was really a kid. It was my job to take care of her. Look out for her. Not the other way around.
Unfortunately her guilt, our sibling rivalry, and my inability to put up with a lot of her passive aggressive bullshit is why I have to keep a certain amount of distance from her. So we talk occasionally. See each other rarely. And I think it works best that way. Especially since she started speaking to our father again. I want nothing to do with that sinking ship.
"So you're embarrassed that he knows about that part of your life or something?"
"I'm not embarrassed about anything. I've accepted tha
t I've made some bad choices. People do it all the time. I'm just saying that we know so much about each other. Too much."
"You must be really attracted to him then."
"What? Why do you say that?"
"After everything you just said about what he's seen and how much he knows, you still slept with him. That tells me a lot."
"We all have slip ups now and then."
"I don't believe in accidents, Jade, only fate."
♥ ♥ ♥
I stroll into The Lotus at 9:23 p.m. on purpose. I know exactly where all the cameras are located in the club, and I know that my creeper is probably watching them from his perch up in the club's office.
I stop to talk to Marco, the bar manager. I flirt with him from time to time, because it's just fun. Nothing serious. Nothing that's ever going to lead anywhere.
I can feel his eyes on me everywhere though.
Watching me.
Clocking my every move.
He's probably sitting in his chair practically seething because I'm late. That and the fact that I'm being so cavalier about it.
Uh-oh, here comes the other one.
"I think my brother is looking for you, hobbit." Cutter King says with a mischievous smile.
He calls me hobbit as if I don't already know when I wake up everyday that I'm vertically challenged. It just baffles me why all three of these jerks have to remind me of it every single day of my life. I mean is that all they've got?
"Why?" As if I didn't know.
"The hell if I know, but it probably has something to do with the fact that he fired Ray today."
Ray is our night manager that we never really needed. He kind of did the work that the old manager Larry used to do. Day to day stuff. But with all three of us working out of the club, and the boys having only a few clients, there really wasn't a need for Ray. Yet, I have an inkling that his firing is about something else entirely.
I make my way to the office and knock, something I usually don't do, but I have a feeling that I better this time.
"Come in."
When I enter the office, Camden is sitting at the desk with his laptop open, but the screensaver running. He's in here stewing about something.
Cousins In Love: An Alpha Bad Boy Romance (Book 3) Page 27
