by Piper Lawson
The man took advantage of my mom, flitting in and out of her life, leeching off her and us. Making promises he couldn’t keep until he finally walked out for good when I was twelve.
It took me two years to admit he wasn’t coming back.
When he finally did, I was in college. It wasn’t to see me, but to take up with my mom and leech off her again.
My longest relationship is with my cleaner, a woman named Monica. She takes care of this place whether I’m in the city or not, and doesn’t have an opinion about my life. Or if she does, she keeps it to herself. What I know of her is mostly from overhearing her talking on the phone to her son, whom I helped find a job at Soar—a charity whose board I’m on. They help kids and teens with mental health challenges learn science and engineering skills and apply those skills concurrently with getting counseling and other support they need.
I know firsthand how much it helps to have something good to focus on when you’re struggling with the challenges life throws at you.
Of the boards I sit on, Soar means the most.
Today I take the subway to work like every New Yorker, where I review my schedule. Two meetings with current holdings, a lunch with a prospect, and a dinner with another firm. After dinner, we’re all going out for my brother’s birthday.
The box in my pocket is something I found at home for Tris. He took our father's abandonment harder than me, and in different ways. Like Mom, he still wishes Dad were different.
I’m striding into our building when Holt accosts me at the elevator.
“Why do I get the feeling you’re trying to fuck with me?” he drawls.
“Paranoia. You should talk to someone about that.” I stare him down as the elevator doors close and I hit the button for our floor. “Heather’s going to quit unless you lay off.”
“Who’s Heather?”
“The new associate from Stanford who arrived last month.”
His face scrunches up. “I’m still waiting on something I assigned her two days ago.”
“Her grandmother died. The funeral was yesterday.”
Holt’s sharp gaze narrows. “Stay out of my business and I’ll stay out of yours.”
“This company is our business. Both of ours. Don’t tell me you’re still sore Xavier’s leaning toward my recommendation.” I think of how Monday’s meeting went down, the decision our third partner decided to defer for the time being.
“That’s an exaggeration. He asked for more information. But the health care services company is a great fit. I don’t think you’ve even looked at them.”
“We’re in for thirty million. Their valuation has doubled in the last six months on the basis of… what? They don’t have the skills to scale, and their estimated market demand is inflated. We got in, and now it’s time to get out.”
He frowns. “This is better than taking on new risks for no other reason than that you get off on calling the shots.”
I wait until the doors open and we step out. “I know it was Xavier’s idea to bring me on as a partner. Maybe that's why you're sore. Because he nominated me for this award too, even though I’ve only been with the firm two years.”
Holt's jaw clenches. “It doesn’t mean he’s going to vacate his seat for you.”
"No. But it means he’s thinking about it."
Tris emerges from his office as we start down the hall.
“Watch your back,” Holt states before brushing past us with a nod to my brother.
“That sounded pleasant,” Tris says.
“He’s pissy he lost.”
“He didn’t lose. Not yet anyway.” Tris shakes his head. “You want to know what I think about the investment you’re proposing? Holt’s proposal has a better downside.”
I cross my arms. “How do you figure?”
“Your founder boy left an engineering job at one of the world’s biggest companies right before starting his own company.”
“Half the start-ups in the Valley have the same story.”
He shrugs. “This is a pretty close move from his last stop, and they’re getting a lot of public visibility. Makes you wonder what else might be going on.”
I cock my head. As much as I want to discount my brother’s analysis, he sees things I don’t. But unless he can give me a firm reason, I’m not changing my recommendation.
He smirks before changing the subject. “Oh, one more thing. Mom called about the gala. Your assistant put her through to me. Don’t know why. She’s still figuring out that I’m not a substitute for you where Mom’s concerned.”
The edge in his voice has me crossing my arms. "Don’t pretend you wanted to be a substitute for me. Every time Dad fucked up, I was the one who picked up the pieces. If I wasn’t there to fix things—”
“Maybe she’d fix them for herself.”
“It’s not that simple and you know it.” I reach into my jacket pocket and produce the small box, shoving it at his chest so he’s forced to catch it. “Happy birthday, asshole.”
He opens it and his smile dies as he takes in the watch our father owned, one of the few nice things he left behind. “Where did you…?”
Without answering, I turn on my heel toward my office.
My dinner runs long because I’m getting intel for Daisy and I don’t have time to go home after. So I ditch my jacket and tie at the office, deciding to swap my shirt for a fresh one from a cupboard of them, before taking a town car to the club. When I get there and go in the front doors, I’m reminded why I don’t go clubbing.
One, I’m too old. At thirty-one, I’m too old for a lot of things, because “too old” simply means you’ve stopped telling yourself the lie that you like something, or should. Two, even at this exclusive, high-end place, it’s mostly model-like women looking to get messy and men with deep pockets looking to help them.
But my friends are different. We go back, and loyalty trumps money, old or new. Hunter and Jake are old friends. Wes is the new guy, but he’s growing on me. What he lacks in money, he’s made up for in brains, and I respect that.
But it’s Tris’s birthday. Not only is he younger—he craves the sensory stimulation. Because he spends his days deep in documents rather than meetings, this is how he comes up for air.
“You decided to show,” my brother calls from the booth.
I nod to Jake, Hunter, and Wes. “Where are your more attractive halves?”
Hunter grins. “Got a head start.”
I look in the direction he’s pointing to see the women’s heads through the crowd.
I wind my way toward the bar where the women are. Most people step aside as I pass, a few men and women checking me out and one trailing a hand down my arm. I shrug off her attention. I have a goal for this evening and it’s not satisfying myself but looking as though I am.
By the time I get to the bar, I think I’ve lost sight of Daisy. But when my gaze locks on a fire-engine-red dress, I realize it’s the other women who’ve vanished.
Her smooth back has heat curling low in my gut as I remember yesterday in the change room.
It’s not as if I’ve never seen her in a bathing suit or a dress. I know the outline of her body, the profile of her face, can pick her out from a crowd by the way her hair swings in a shiny curtain.
But I’ve never given myself permission to just look at her. Yesterday, I did.
And what I saw stole my breath.
I stop behind her, leaning close to her ear. “Your friends abandon you, darling?”
I've never called another woman that, but it rolls off my tongue easily, playfully.
Daisy turns. My best friend's eyes are normally dark-rimmed, her lips the color of plums. Today, those lips are slicked red like the dress, and I can’t decide which is more worthy of my attention.
So I stare at both, feeling like a bull preparing to charge.
She looks me over head to toe before her expression dissolves into a smile. "You made it."
She throws her arms around me, and I force m
yself to keep up and remember the key information.
Friend.
Safe.
Hug.
Warm.
But whether it's the long-ass day or Holt's aggravation or the fact that now that I’ve let myself look at Daisy like a woman, it’s hard to turn it off, and my body processes other sensory data as she presses against me.
Voice.
Tits.
Smell.
Close.
“Kendall and Rena went to the bathroom,” she murmurs against my shoulder, oblivious to my sudden descent into barbarism.
“I thought women had to go in packs.” I pull back.
“They’re not wolves."
No, they’re not. But tonight, I feel like one.
"Tris said you’re in a bad mood.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I check her out again. “I want to talk about this dress.”
With her hair razored to a sharp edge, shorter at the back than the front and in a straight curtain, her lips painted red to match, and wicked heels, she’s a goddess. A beautiful creature designed to steal a man’s soul, to reduce him to ash with a look.
“Thank you. My boyfriend bought it for me.”
Her voice is laced with irony, but I don’t even care. I grin. “Damn straight.”
“It was gratuitous. And unnecessary.” She sighs, running her hands down the fabric. “And I kind of love it.”
Satisfaction swells in my chest, like an animal stretching. “That makes two of us.”
“You look nice too.”
“I changed after work.”
“For me?” Her eyes widen in pleased surprise.
"Yes." I order a G&T from the bartender, then raise my glass and toast her.
She takes a long drink of hers. “Tris said you got him something special for his birthday but wouldn’t say what.”
I shift. Daisy’s the only person in the world—other than my brother—who gets what we went through as kids, because I’ve always been straight with her about it. Some people figure if you have money, you have everything, but it’s not like that at all. “It was a watch of our dad's. He left it to me before he went. I never told anyone. But Tris used to look at it, back when our dad was still around.”
Her fingers thread through mine and she squeezes my hand. “That’s sweet of you. What’s going on with you and Tris lately?”
I shake my head, wishing I could use our point of connection to draw her closer. “He’s had a bigger chip on his shoulder since Mom checked herself into rehab. He accused me of being the good son. He’s too young to remember how things were. With her, I can be patient, but by the time I’m done dealing with her, I don’t have it in me to deal with him.”
Daisy cocks her head, eyeing me over her drink. “You can love your family. Doesn’t mean you have to like them.”
I can’t do anything but stare at her, because right when I’m feeling off without knowing why, there she is, fucking getting me.
“Ben and Daisy! We need to grill you.” Kendall and Rena appear, and they drag us back to the booth with the guys.
This is the moment we’ve been preparing for.
I hold Daisy’s hand as we head back to the booth, aware every step of the feel of her fingers through mine.
“So,” Hunter says, “how’d you start dating? Because you’ve known each other a long damn time to make the change now.”
We exchange a look.
Stick close to the truth. “I needed D to help me with a problem with my…” I trail off. Maybe it's the long week that has my brain stuttering to come up with a lie.
Her eyes widen on mine, and she’s on the same wavelength. “Bomb."
“Bomb?” I mouth, and she shakes her head.
“Yes,” she goes on slowly. “Ben got one of those bath bombs as part of a corporate gift. You know, the kind you drop under the water? And he didn’t know how to use it.”
Dear God.
My best friend is either a worse liar than I thought or a sadist, because the guys are dying of laughter and the women are keeling over on their high heels.
“So you explained it to him?” Rena drawls.
Fuck me and my engineering degree.
Daisy tries to pull her hand away and I tighten my grip. Hell no. I didn’t need to wear a Boss suit and drag my ass to a club to have a woman to cut my balls off in front of our friends.
“I knew how to use it. But I invited her over to demonstrate in person. Turned out she’d been wanting to get me naked for a long time.” I rub my thumb against her palm and she squirms.
“He did,” she answers levelly. “See, Ben’s had this mole on his back he wouldn’t let anyone check, including his doctor, so…”
Tris is wiping his damp eyes, and that’s fucking it. I'm taking his birthday gift back, because he's getting more than his money's worth laughing at me, courtesy of my fake girl and—after tonight—ex-best friend.
I drag her closer, bend my lips to her ear. “You’re going down for this.”
“Sounds epic,” Hunter says when they stop laughing long enough to respond. “So why did it take you guys so long to get together?”
This time, we’re both caught in the headlights.
It’s a legit question. I let her answer, because I’m honestly curious what she’ll say.
“When you get comfortable with someone who accepts you as you are,” she says, her hand tightening in mine, “it’s hard to change the scope of a relationship. It's a risk. You put your heart on the line, everything you've built, everything you said you wanted just by asking.”
I turn that over. She’s not wrong. As usual, she sees beneath the surface way too damn easily.
Daisy leaves to use the bathroom. After another round of drinks at the booth, I excuse myself to track her down. I find her in a corner, frowning at her phone. I know without asking she's working.
“I had a dinner tonight about Aiden Vane," I say.
She straightens. “Really? Did you learn something?”
I nod. “He was implicated in an antitrust issue on behalf of his dad’s company.”
“Huh. Do you think he did it?”
“I don’t know. But I sent you what I have.”
"Thank you. You're a lifesaver."
"I am." I pocket her phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Rescuing my girlfriend. Even though she’s been very bad and doesn’t deserve it.”
I pull her toward the dance floor, where some of our friends are already dancing. The music is upbeat and not what I’d choose, but I don’t care.
"If I was trying to impress you,” she starts, “I'd stay far away from a dance floor. A podium? That I can rock."
My mouth twitches. “You'd seduce me with public speaking?"
“My oration skills are second to none."
“Fuck, that’s hot. I’m a sucker for a beautiful woman monologuing.”
Daisy settles into a spot in front of me, the laughter fading from her eyes. “So what Rena said yesterday, about the way I look at you… it's bullshit."
"That's disappointing. It would be nice to know you rub one out to me once in a while.”
Her eyes widen. “Seriously, Ben?”
I grin.
“Wait. Do you jerk off to me?” The way she sucks in a breath has my abs tightening.
Call me an asshole, but I want her to wonder. I want it to keep her up at night.
When I decided Daisy would be the ideal fake girlfriend, it seemed natural, but in this club, the possibility of running our venture firm feels far away, and the stakes of our friendship are real and important and everywhere.
My hands tighten and I pull her close on instinct.
“Are they watching?” she asks, thinking that’s why I grabbed her.
I glance over the crowd toward the table. “Yes.”
Her body stiffens, dark lashes blinking. I want to see inside her head, to know what’s responsible for that reaction. If she can feel my tou
ch through this dress I bought her without permission, and whether it sent a little jolt through her body like it did mine.
Now those distracting tits are brushing my chest through my shirt.
We’re pretending, I remind myself. But the implication—that there are consequences of under-acting, of failing to look interested—provides a racy carte blanche under the dark lights of the club.
“I’m glad you came tonight," I say over the music.
“I almost didn’t, but I told Marc I’d get a drink with him later this week.”
My grip tightens on her hips hard enough she flinches. “You’d rather be with Wall Street than with me?”
The question is more earnest than I’d like.
“He has one thing going for him. He’s not pretending to like me.” She loops her arms around my neck, making her lips shine in the flicker of neon lights swirling across the dance floor. “Not all of us are happy alone. I want someone who makes me feel like I’m what they want, and not just a means of getting it.”
Her words rock me.
I didn’t know she felt that way. I’d never pegged my best friend as feeling so alone, never thought of her wanting that.
We took on the world together. Suddenly, I’m blaming myself for missing this.
"Besides," she goes on, "he wouldn't have barged into a change room, not to mention tortured me while he was there."
My hands experimentally stroke up her back, finding bare skin above her dress. The jasmine scent of her skin is familiar and appealing. “You’re right. I’m not him. If you were really my girl and I found you in a dressing room wearing this, I wouldn't have untangled you."
Her gaze comes back to mine. "Why not?"
"Because you're the strongest woman I know, and I like watching you struggle because I know you'll win."
I can’t read the emotions chasing one another across her face in the dark, but I wish to hell I could.
"You overestimate my abilities with zippers," she says at last. "What if I couldn't get out?"
A ghost of a smile pulls on my lips. "I would've ripped the dress off you—slowly—and fucked you against that mirror until you didn’t care.”