The words were brutal and jarring.
For one, some of them – the part about being a child and leading a life of dissolution – were exactly my worst critiques of him.
But the other parts made me angry.
“He doesn’t just leech off his uncles,” I snapped. “He’s actually made them a lot of money, and they repaid him by stabbing him in the back and partnering with you. And I can tell you from firsthand experience, he’s not only concerned about his own pleasure.”
Domenico smiled. “It sounds like you still have feelings for him.”
Damn it – another trap.
“No,” I insisted.
“Why do you keep refusing to acknowledge what is plainly visible to everyone else?”
“Because it’s not true.”
He edged closer. I hadn’t realized how close he was until he was right there, just inches away from me. I could feel the warmth radiating off his body, could smell a hint of his intoxicating cologne.
“Then tell me… what are you doing here with me?”
My heart was beating faster.
What WAS I doing here, exactly?
“I’m having a drink. That’s all.”
“Are you here because you truly have no feelings for him, and perhaps you want to explore something more with me… or are you here to convince yourself you have no feelings for him, and are simply using me as a prop in your little self-deception?”
His words rankled me. Got under my skin like a splinter.
I slugged back the rest of my wine, then set the glass down. “I finished my drink. I’d like to go now.”
He smiled again. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“You didn’t offend me.”
“You have a very difficult time confronting the truth. Do you know that?”
“You have a very difficult time not being an asshole. Did you know that?”
He laughed. “I have been told on occasion, yes.”
“I want to go.”
“Alright,” he said. “Come with me.”
He led me out into the foyer of his home, to the private elevator that went down to the lobby. “Would you like my driver to take you back?”
“No. I’ll get a cab.”
“You know… I was merely sparring with you. I would not have done so if I thought I would offend you.”
“Well, we both know that’s a lie.”
“How is that a lie?”
“‘It was something to do,’” I said, throwing his own words back at him. “‘A game. A jest.’”
“You are not Vic,” he pointed out.
“Yeah, but I get the sense that what you said about Vic applies to a lot more people than just him.” I got in the elevator, then turned around. “I’m not a game or a jest, Domenico. I’m not something to amuse you. And you know what? That’s another way Vic is your better – he never treated me as an object to amuse himself with.”
“Not you, perhaps… although I would not say the same about how he treats other women.”
“I’m not other women, either.”
“No, you are not,” he agreed. “You are quite formidable.”
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me all night.”
“Is it enough for you to consider having another drink with me?”
“No,” I said, and stabbed the LOBBY button.
The last thing I saw was his smirk before the door closed and blotted him out entirely.
When I got outside on the street, though, I could hear the concert music still playing – and it comforted me, calmed me, reminded me of a man with more humanity than the one I’d just left.
I think I finally understood Katie’s differentiation between assholes and bad boys.
105
Vic
The concert was over. In fact, even the after-concert was over. One hundred lucky fans had gotten to hang out with Derek and the band for a couple hours, and now all that was left was for the techs to disassemble everything.
Derek and I sat on the main deck of the barge and sipped on beers as we talked and stared out at the lights of the city. It was just after 3AM.
“How much did we raise?” Derek asked.
“The last total with the streaming, the telethon, and the auction for the backstage passes, was over $50 million. Say half for expenses… at least 25 million for the charity. Plus whatever we get from Amazon or HBO.”
Derek laughed. “Vic, you are one incredible motherfucker.”
“It was pretty impressive, wasn’t it?” I asked, fishing for some more compliments.
“For throwing something together in 24 hours? It was monumental.”
Monumental.
I wondered if Monica would have given me the same amount of credit.
“I have to admit, though, I was a little surprised about one thing,” Derek said.
“What’s that?”
“Where’s the entourage of honeys?”
I forced a laugh. “Oh, yeah… I had a rough breakup recently, so I’m takin’ it easy.”
“Sorry to hear that. Was it that girl I saw you with in Vegas?”
“…yeah, it was.”
“Mutual breakup?”
“I don’t know what the hell it was. Everything was great, and then all of a sudden it just imploded.”
“You still think about her a lot?” Derek asked.
“A little,” I lied. I didn’t feel like I could keep my Cool Card if I said Basically every fuckin’ minute.
“Why don’t you get back together with her, then?”
“I don’t know, man.”
“What have you got to lose?”
“A lot of hot women, for one.”
“Can you even remember the names of the last ten chicks you slept with?” Derek asked.
Okay, I had to stop and think about that for a second.
“Uh… Chantal… uh… well, I’m pretty sure there was a Brandi in there somewhere…”
But only one name stood out:
Monica.
“Let me tell you, I’ve been with hundreds of women in my lifetime,” Derek said as he took a sip of his beer. “Maybe over a thousand. And there’s only one that ever meant a damn to me.”
“You back together with her?” I asked.
“…sort of.”
“She still didn’t forgive you?”
“No, she forgave me – but she didn’t forget.”
“So, what – are you back together or not?”
“…it’s complicated.”
I was intensely interested in whatever the hell this thing was that Derek had going. “So, what – like an open relationship?”
“Sort of.”
“So you get to bang other girls?”
“I could, but I don’t.”
I couldn’t believe that. “What the hell, dude! So you’re not sleeping with anybody else?”
“Nope.”
“But you don’t have what you want with her, either.”
He shrugged. “I have enough.”
“You could have any woman in the entire world, Derek. Hell, you could practically have all the hot women in the entire world.”
“I know,” he said with a wry smile. “But I only want one.”
Actually, I knew what THAT felt like.
He shook his head regretfully. “I royally fucked things up, and I did irreparable damage to the one thing that meant anything to me. Don’t make the same mistake I did – fix it before you lose your one shot at being truly happy.”
Across the barge, a chick’s voice yelled out, “DEREK! TIME TO GO! THERE’S AN AFTER-PARTY I GOTTA GET TO!”
It was their drummer Riley, a five-foot-tall, 98-pound package of crazy who could drink even me under the table.
Derek got up with a groan. “I better get goin’. We may be rock stars, but we like to be in bed before dawn these days. Well, except for Riley.”
I got up and hugged him along with a couple of backslaps. “Thanks for taking a gamb
le, man.”
“Absolutely. Thanks for making it happen, brother. Let’s do it again sometime.”
“Count on it,” I said.
I watched him walk off across the barge and join his bandmates in a small boat that would ferry them to the shore.
It had been a hell of a night, with a ton of stories.
It occurred to me that there was only one person I wanted to tell them to.
I remembered Derek’s words:
Don’t make the same mistake I did – fix it before you lose your one shot at being truly happy.
I pulled out my phone – but I knew it was late. And the chance that she would actually answer were slim to none.
And there was a chance she was… ‘busy’ with Domenico, which I didn’t even want to fuckin’ think about.
Do I take a gamble?
I laughed out loud.
I’m Vic Cortelian.
Of COURSE I take the gamble.
106
Monica
I was lying in my hotel bed awake at 3AM. I’d been watching concert footage on the internet, and I was too amped up to sleep. All I could do was wonder what the hell Vic was doing right now.
And then he called.
I hesitated when I saw his name on the smartphone screen, wondering if I should answer… but then I thought, Ah, screw it. Let’s see what he has to say.
“Hello?”
“You’re up!” he said in surprise.
“Why, were you calling me to leave a voicemail?”
He laughed. “No – I just didn’t know if you’d answer.”
“Well, I did.” Despite the bantering tone of the conversation so far, a little bitterness crept into my voice as I asked, “What do you want?”
“Just to hear your voice.”
“Well… here it is.”
“Are you still in New York?”
“Yes.”
“You’re up late.”
“Yeah, I know, somebody called me.”
“Why’d you answer? Don’t you shut off your phone when you sleep?”
“You’re on my Preferred Contacts list.”
He chuckled. “Still?”
“It was an oversight. I’ll be sure to correct it after I hang up,” I said, half teasing, half not.
“Did you hear about the concert?”
“I didn’t just hear about it, I heard it. And saw it.”
“Really?!”
He was as excited as a ten-year-old boy on Christmas, and I couldn’t suppress my smile when I heard his happiness. “Yeah.”
“Did you like it?”
“Kind of messed up my business meeting with Domenico.”
“Awwwww…” he said with fake pity.
I laughed. “I have to ask – was that the only reason you did all this?”
“It was an added benefit. But we DID end up raising $25 million for breast cancer research.”
“Impressive,” I said, and meant it.
“Thank you.”
“But you did it here, in New York. Did you do it specifically to screw with my dinner?”
“…maybe.”
I sighed in amused exasperation. “You’re a piece of work.”
“That’s what this one girl always told me.”
“Yeah. Well, she was right.”
His voice softened. “I missed you tonight. I wish you could’ve been up there on stage with me.”
“From the way your face kept getting projected up on the fog, I felt like I was.”
He was back to being the ten-year-old boy again. “You DID see me!”
“Yes, I did. It was, like, the biggest cock-block ever in the history of the world.”
I think that delighted him more than anything else I’d said.
“Hahaha! So I cock-blocked him?!”
“For a while.”
“Ow,” he said.
I thought about toying with him for a moment, then decided I didn’t want to do that. I got no pleasure out of cruelty. “I didn’t sleep with him. And I’m not going to.”
There was a hopeful lift to his voice as he asked, “Why not?”
“Because, dumbass, he’s your mortal enemy. I wouldn’t do that to you.”
“…you really DO still care about me, don’t you?”
“No,” I said playfully, “I hate you.”
He laughed. “I hate you, too.”
“Don’t get all mushy on me.”
“You know… we were really great together.”
“Yeah,” I said, and got a little choked up.
“ You know… we could still BE great together…”
For some reason when he said that, panic rose up inside me.
I wasn’t ready to hear it.
“I’ve got to go, Vic,” I said.
“…alright… ”
“Goodnight.”
And then he said it.
“I love you.”
My heart jumped into my throat.
I waited a full five seconds before I could finally bring myself to say it back:
“…I love you, too.”
“Goodnight, babe.”
“Goodnight.”
I hung up the phone, unsure of what I’d just done or how I felt about it. Lightheaded, dizzy, afraid –
On cloud nine.
107
Vic
As soon as I hung up the phone, I pumped my fist and let out a roar that rolled across the Hudson.
The remaining concert techs on the barge looked at me, then grumpily went back to their jobs.
I was happier than I’d been in weeks.
The whole damn concert had been worth it just to hear those three little words.
This was it, I knew it.
Time to plan phase two.
108
Monica
I didn’t wake up until my phone rang.
I blearily opened my eyes and looked at an alarm clock across the dim room.
11AM?!
Then I remembered my body was on West Coast time still, and for me it was only 8AM. On a Saturday. After I’d been up until 3 in the morning.
I rolled over and checked the screen.
If this was Vic, I was going to wring his –
But it wasn’t.
It was Sal Cortelian.
Jesus – what had Domenico told him?!
Had I insulted my way out of a job?
“Mr. Cortelian, hello,” I said with a croak in my voice.
“Good morning, Ms. Ames. I assume the meeting with Mr. Arias went well.”
“It went… fine.”
“‘Fine’? ‘Fine’ doesn’t sound like it went ‘well.’”
“Let’s just say… I have questions about Mr. Arias’s personal motivations for wanting me as the liaison for this job.”
At least if they fired me, I could sue the assholes for sexual harassment. Or for firing me for not giving in to a sexual harasser. Whatever.
“Well, his motivations don’t appear to be have gotten in the way of your business relationship. He called me to let me know he would be signing the paperwork and sending it to us today. Congratulations – you are henceforth the fully instated Vice President of Operations, based in New York City, with the full salary we discussed when we hired you, effective immediately.”
I sat up in bed, mouth agape.
“Ms. Ames?”
“I’m here, I just – Domenico requested I move to New York?” I asked, trying to clarify.
“That was the arrangement we agreed upon before you left San Francisco.”
“Right, but – did he say he specifically wanted me here since then?”
Sal sounded annoyed. “Yes, he said he looked forward to working with you.”
“And when exactly did he call you?”
I had a sinking feeling in my gut.
I fully expected Sal to say ‘Yesterday afternoon.’
He didn’t.
“Five minutes ago, right before I called you.”
�
�Five… minutes ago…”
Did something happen last night between me and Domenico that I was forgetting? Something other than insults and cold shoulders?
“Congratulations on your permanent position,” Sal continued. “And congratulations on the additional fact that you are no longer responsible for reigning in my nephew.”
Vic.
Damn it.
“Have you talked to him yet?”
“No. It seems he went and staged some sort of concert last night in New York City. I wonder who he could have been trying to impress?” Sal said wryly.
I didn’t really have a witty comeback to that one, so I went with the truth, however obliquely. “I think we both know the answer to that.”
“Did he contact you?”
“Yes.”
“What did you tell him?”
I thought to myself, It’s not so much WHAT I told him as WHEN I told him.
“It was 3AM when he called,” I said, avoiding the question. “We didn’t exactly talk long.”
“He’s not there with you now, is he?” Sal asked in alarm.
“God no.”
“Good, let’s keep it that way. Domenico will send the papers by courier. You might as well come back to San Francisco tonight.”
“Why?” I asked, mystified.
“I figure you have at least a few loose ends here you might want to tie up before you move east.”
Oh.
“Right,” I mumbled.
“Congratulations again, Ms. Ames. Especially on being free from my nephew.”
He clicked off before he could hear my response – though it wouldn’t have mattered, because I didn’t have one I would say out loud.
Congratulations… on being free from my nephew.
There was just one problem: I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to be free of him.
Actually, there was another problem, too. The entire exchange had left me feeling like a pawn in a chess game. No one had ever asked if I wanted to move to New York. No one had ever asked if I wanted to work alongside Domenico Arias.
Strip Poker: Bad Boys Club Romance #2 Page 28