Page 66 of Faking It
“I mean, if I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I would have been certain that this was some kind of bullshit play—”
“What are you doing?” Zane asks, taking a step forward toward him, his body taut. We are both more than aware that people are listening. “Is it pissing you off that much that the market for your investments fell and you’re having to start all over?”
“I’ll be just fine,” Kostas murmurs.
“If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I need to use the ladies room.”
Zane gives me a kiss on the cheek for good measure before I head the opposite way of them, wondering what in the hell that was all about.
“MIND TELLING ME WHAT THE fuck that was all about, Kos?” I ask the minute the waitress serves our drinks.
“Whatever do you mean?” His laugh rings out in the club around us. It’s dark and swanky with velvet seats, music that’s low and bluesy, and women who are milling around the VIP section where we’re sitting hoping for an invite up. “Don’t be so uptight. Live a little. You’re stuck being a bitch to that investor of yours, you probably need to be blown seven ways from Sunday to relax any.”
“I’m good, thanks,” I say to Kostas from where I look at him across the table, grateful to have him away from the event and Robert’s all-reaching ears.
“I’m sure you are.” His chuckle is irritating, his voice condescending.
“Is it that hard for you to come to grips with the fact that you might not win this?” I throw back, ignoring his innuendo about Harlow. “Does it mean that much to you that you’d come here to try and sabotage my stake in this?”
Privileged fucking rich boy. I love the asshole to death but hate the nasty side that comes out—the
tantrums he throws—when he doesn’t come out on top or get his way. It’s never bothered me before . . . but something about the way he looked at Harlow—like she was up for grabs—rubbed me wrong.
I know how he operates. How he uses and then discards without a thought. And I know when he saw Harlow, he was already figuring how to have her.
Fuck that.
“I told you, Zane. I’ll be fine. The market is on an upswing. I’ll make back what I lost and then some. When have you ever known me to fail?”
“Then why are you here trying to fuck with mine?”
“I’d fuck with her . . . no doubt there. Is Harlow that good that you’re a one-pussy-loving-man now?”
“She’s not available.”
“They’re always available when it comes to me.” His chuckle again. “Look around, Zane. There are twenty women here vying for your attention. They’d love to let you stick your dick in them . . . why are you wasting your time with one woman when you can have one, two, three of them at a time?”
“I love you to death, mate. You’re like a brother to me. But this—SoulM8—and her—Harlow—better stay free of your fingerprints. We’ve known each other way too long for you to pull bullshit like that with me.”
Kostas holds my glare and brings his glass up to his lips without breaking eye contact. He’s not used to this, being challenged. And he sure as hell isn’t used to being told no.
He looks over his shoulder to find the waitress, lifts his finger to signal another round, and then like a man always used to getting what he wants, points to three women on the outside of the ropes and motions for them to sit with us.
He watches them walk our way but speaks to me. “So this is real then? She’s real? It’s not some negotiation tactic to sell your company?”
“Why would you say that?”
The women stand at the foot of the U-shaped couch and wait for Kostas to point them where to sit: one beside him, one between us, and one on the other side of me.
But I don’t look their way. Don’t meet their eyes. I refuse to give them an open invitation to something I don’t want to give.
“Because you’re you. A dog when it comes to getting what you want. Besides, I’ve never seen you like this with a woman.”
“People change,” I murmur and then remove the perfectly manicured hand slowly sliding up my leg and return it to its owner without a glance.
“Only when they are motivated by something.” He turns his face and kisses the woman on his left. “So she somehow has to tie into this. Into you winning. That much I know.” A kiss on the lips of the woman to his right. “Either that or her pussy has to be of the magical variety, and if that’s the case, you’re holding out on me.”
“Not your business,” I say, bringing my glass to my lips and shifting away suddenly when the woman beside me leans in and tries to place a kiss in my cheek. She groans in protest.
