by Stella Rhys
I didn’t even look at her as I changed the channel on the TV.
“It means he’s a very rich, busy man who likes things done fast, but please go ahead and tell me about how you think he’s in love with me.”
Mia kicked me lightly with a fuzzy-socked foot. “I actually wasn’t going to say that, smart ass. I don’t think he’s in love with you right now, but I do think he wants to see you naked in his bed. Or his office. Or wherever is private enough for him to do very bad things to you.”
My cheeks flushed despite the genuinely dubious look I shot her. “Mia,” I said, to which she laughed.
“What? I’m serious. That man is harboring an almost-debilitating need to fuck the shit out of you, and he’s so afraid of caving to it that he can’t even risk being in the same room as you again. There is literally nothing else that explains him pulling the asshole moves he did, and you know I’m right,” she said, tipping her nose up. “You just won’t admit it because you’re afraid of ‘wasting your time’ on another ‘pointless crush.’”
“Yes,” I said bluntly, deciding not to tell Mia about just how much time I’d wasted on Iain Thorn—in particular, the five weeks crying myself to sleep after he disappeared from my life. Because while he’d seen me as a lonely kid he mercifully hung out with here and there, I’d quietly regarded him as my world. It was absolutely pitiful, and a version of me I had no intention of going back to. “You are absolutely right about that, and that is exactly what I’m afraid of.”
“But, come on. It isn’t a pointless crush when you’re a woman now,” Mia argued. “And when there are glaring signs that he is extremely attracted to you.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” I said, frowning hard at the TV while chewing the hell out of my lip. “Besides, he has a girlfriend,” I blurted. “A serious one. And even when he and Adam were like, crazy people who broke the law and got into bar fights every weekend, he still talked about cheaters like they were the scum of the earth. Plus, I’d never be the other woman, so can we skip the juicy theory part and go straight to the foolproof plan to get in contact with him?” I pleaded. “Because I am not sleeping on that bed tonight.”
“Agreed. You’re sleeping on Iain Thorn tonight because we’re going to see him in a few hours at The Atrium,” Mia said with a placid smile, tossing my phone back to me and popping up off the couch.
Dumbstruck, I blinked at her, watching her disappear into her room before taking my phone and cocking my head at the screen, because on it was a new text from A.J.
Replying to a message from a minute ago.
That I had most definitely never sent.
“Mia!” I hissed, my wild eyes scanning the texts.
ME: I saw online that there’s a party at The Atrium after the All-Star game tonight? Is there a list to get in and are you and my brother on it?
A.J: Yes and yes. So sad we have to miss it! Why do you ask??
Mia didn’t reply after that, but I didn’t need any explanation. My mouth was already hanging wide open, and my eyes were unblinking as I looked up from my screen to see my roommate waltzing back out into the living room—suddenly wearing a big, broad grin and a little black dress.
She burst out laughing at whatever stunned look I had on my face, and took both my hands to pull me up off the couch.
“Just for the record, your name is Adam tonight,” she crowed, holding my hand up in the air and giving me a twirl. “And my name is A.J. And in case you haven’t caught on, we’re about to have the best fucking night of your life.”
I was still stupefied, gaping at Mia as I tried to figure out how I even felt about this.
“But… how do you know Iain will be there?” I asked, earning myself a look from Mia that said please.
“The party’s hosted by Drew Maddox and that’s his client-slash-bestie according to the tabloids, so yeah. There’s no way he won’t be there, and there is no way…” She disappeared back into her room, returning to chuck something short, white and slinky at me. “That he won’t need to fuck your brains out when he sees you wearing that.”
Catching the dress against my chest, I looked down at it, then back up at her. She snorted.
“Oh, don’t even give me that wide-eyed look,” she said. “We both know this is happening, so get your ass moving, ‘cause we still need to find shoes.”
7
HOLLAND
I went with the plan—but for three reasons only.
Bed. Futon. Job. That was it.
That is all you want or need to talk about tonight, and once that’s done, so are you, I reminded myself.
Still, my decision didn’t feel real. Nothing was sinking in, even as Mia zipped me into her dress and helped with my makeup. Even as we rode uptown in the Lyft, eventually pulling up along the water to an absolutely massive venue with humongous arched windows on each side of the building, and purple spotlights beaming up the limestone walls.
There were flashing cameras, a red carpet going up the grand steps and not one, but two lines of beautiful people snaked around the building that I couldn’t even see the ends of.
It was beyond intimidating, and easily the fanciest thing I’d ever been anywhere near. But before I could even groan or doubt our ability to get in, Mia grabbed my hand, marching us to the front of the line and cranking up her bartender charm to about a thousand-and-one. And before I knew it, we had gotten past the wall of suited bouncers—as Adam Maxwell and Adrienne Tan.
“Wait… did that really just work?” I burst out laughing, gasping for air as a gleeful Mia pulled me hastily into the building, our twin ponytails swinging in the air as our heels clacked away on stone.
“Yes, but only because he knew I was lying!” she hissed, giggling nervously and forcing us to run as if the bouncer might change his mind any second.
She only let us stop only once we’d gotten far enough inside, and though we’d been yelling back and forth just a second before—her about how I needed to run faster, and me about how I physically couldn’t due in my nearly four-inch heels—all conversation quickly screeched to a halt.
Because once we were fully inside, our eyes went starry, and all we could do was look all around at the soaring ceiling, the giant bar, the gorgeous crowd and the handful of faces that I swore I recognized from seeing somewhere at some point, be it on television or Instagram.
Silent, still squeezing Mia’s hand, I stared at all of it.
And only then did it all sink in.
I was actually here—in the glamorous, upper-crust world of Iain Thorn that I normally couldn’t know, and normally had no access to whatsoever. It was a place for only the rich and famous, where Iain thought he could avoid me forever, which was cold and unfeeling, and so fucking arrogant it made my toes curl in my heels.
The prick.
Just knowing that he was somewhere in here, laughing it up with his friends, leisurely living his life and giving exactly zero shits about what he did to me had me quickly and completely riled up again, and I was pretty sure Mia could tell, because suddenly she squeezed my hand back and nodded toward the roped-off stairs.
“Fuck getting a drink first. Let’s go up there,” she said, referring to the upper floor that we had the VIP bracelets for.
So off we went.
I was in eighth grade the first time I ever laid eyes on Iain Thorn.
It was December, and I’d known all day that I’d be coming home from school to find my brother home for winter break, along with his best friend from Stanford Law.
For a full week prior, Mom had fought Dad about hosting “this boy.” “This boy” was wild and reckless just like my brother, and one Adam was hard enough, Mom argued, so two would be unmanageable, and letting him stay even in the pool house was completely out of the question.
But Dad spent days going out on a limb for Iain, arguing that he didn’t have anywhere else to go, and by whatever miracle—despite the fact that he never did—he won the argument.
Which meant that all
day at school, my heart pitter-pattered at the idea of going home and getting to meet somebody new. Somebody who was older, and probably cool like my brother. Being thirteen, I’d obviously thought about the prospect of him being cute—how tall he was, what color his eyes were. For days on end, I’d hyped myself up with hormonal fantasies about how hot my brother’s best friend could be.
And still, none of it prepared me for what I actually saw.
“Go introduce yourself. They’re fixing his motorcycle in the garage,” Dad had said when I got home that day.
And though Mom had staunchly planned to come with me, the dirty look she shot Dad wound up getting her caught in a whisper-fight with him, so as they bickered back and forth in the kitchen, I went alone to the garage, feeling my cheeks heat up at just the sound of clanking tools, low voices and boyish laughter.
Just be natural. Be cool, I coached myself on repeat.
But that plan bombed, because the second I opened the garage door, my eyes landed on abs.
Naked, rippling abs as Iain wiped the sweat off his brow with his dirty white T-shirt peeled halfway up his lean torso. His six-pack tightened and un-tightened before my eyes as he caught his breath from working or laughing or both.
Whatever it was, I was hypnotized.
And that was before he even let his shirt down and stunned me with those bright green eyes, that perfect bone structure, and for the love of God, that smile.
I remembered just standing there, squirming in my school uniform and wondering if this was what it was like to watch porn, because it was this instant tingling sensation. The most sudden and unexpected flood of wetness I’d ever felt in my life.
At least until now.
Fuck.
My heart stopped when my eyes found Iain on that upper floor.
He was in the back corner of the room with a large group of friends. No jacket. No tie. Just a white button-down with the sleeves pushed up on his muscled forearms, and the left pulling tight against his bicep as he lifted his glass in a toast. His expensive watch gleamed in my eyes when he took a drink of his neat whiskey, and his sexy dimple caught me off guard as he let out a laugh, saying something or another to easily command the focus of the group.
For God’s sake, he was fully clothed in public, yet everything about him screamed sex.
And power. And though I’d hated that about him the other night, tonight it was tantalizing, because I hadn’t seen him like this yet—in his element. Being smooth, professional, charming. Smiling for people the way he hadn’t for me.
It didn’t hurt either that he looked like a mix of Hollywood and royalty in that luxuriously crisp shirt that was so perfectly fitted to his long, tapered torso, and so starkly white that it served as almost a spotlight for those stupidly sexy, tanned forearms.
“Okay, so that man isn’t real,” Mia said, the both of us staring.
And I had to agree, because in a sea of professional athletes, Iain was still the sexiest by far. He was broad and built but lean, sculpted by the inch to such painstaking perfection that it made everyone around him look bulky, sloppy, and excessive.
Can’t even blame you, I thought as a pretty brunette went up to him, shamelessly boxing out his smirking friends to offer her hand along with a big, flirty smile.
“Oh, fuck that,” Mia said, nudging me urgently. “Well? What are we waiting for? Aren’t we going to get in there?”
I didn’t take my eyes off of Iain as I said, “We can’t.”
We might’ve been in VIP, but apparently VIP had its own VIP, and that was where Iain was—in a special section of the upper floor that was squared off by a bunch of huge, leather couches, and guarded at the entrance by a guy who didn’t give a crap about your special bracelet, since he was only letting in the truly important people whom he actually knew or at least recognized, greeting them with big smiles and those high-five-handshakes.
Mia cursed under her breath. “Well… at least try to get in his eye line!” she protested in a huff.
And though I had an excuse for her already lined up on my tongue, I didn’t use it, because my body had a mind of its own, and my heeled feet were already bringing me in a dazed auto-pilot toward Iain.
By the time I got close to him, he was excusing himself from the brunette, who was refusing to give up on him just yet. I watched her touch his arm and step closer, trying but failing to keep his attention as from the depths of the crowd, somebody called his name. It was the perfect out, so with a goodbye and a polite smile, Iain turned away from her.
But as soon as he did, he found himself facing me head-on from ten feet.
His smile faded as he immediately slowed his step, and I bit my lip as a flash of shock lit his green eyes. A thrill coursed through my body as I watched his eyebrows pull tight and his jaw tick with that signature look of displeasure.
Though it wasn’t just displeasure this time, it was surprise.
Astonishment.
I had him caught off guard in a way I’d never seen before in my life, and I reveled in it. Because for those two exhilarating seconds, I had the upper hand.
Of course, that upper hand wavered as Iain slowed his step to a full stop and let his stunned gaze transition swiftly into a cold glare. There was contempt in his eyes as he stood at the edge of VIP, just staring at me. And for the next few seconds, our eyes locked in a heated standoff.
But then, with an oddly calm drink from his glass, he took half a step back.
And then with a slight tilt of the head, he dropped his eyes down the front of my body.
A shock of sensation erupted between my thighs as he looked right at them, letting his gaze travel leisurely across the hem of my short skirt before bringing it up my dress, till his heavy stare was fixed unapologetically on my thoroughly pushed-up breasts. I felt my breathing go jagged as he let his dark eyes linger there—for so long that he took another drink from his glass. Casual and relaxed. As if he were enjoying a painting. Or a sunset.
My swollen lips hung parted by the time Iain brought his steely gaze back to me, with a look that fully acknowledged the fact that he’d just eye-fucked the hell out of my tits.
Happy now?
His lifted eyebrow asked me the wordless question, letting it sink in with me for a single hot second before he turned cruelly around, disappearing back into his ultra-VIP crowd and leaving me to just stand there—as royally pissed off as I was completely turned on because holy hell, that just happened.
He’d just checked me out.
Iain Thorn. My childhood crush who used to ruffle my hair and call me “kiddo.” Who wouldn’t even talk about PG-13 topics if I was in the room. That same guy just stripped me naked with his eyes and devoured my tits like they were his favorite meal.
And then in true Iain form, he disappeared right after, reminding me yet again that he could do whatever he wanted, however he wanted, and that I was helpless to stop him.
Except this time, I really wasn’t.
“Another round for you ladies?”
Mia burst out laughing when I promptly nodded yes.
Seated at the bar, it was about to be our third round of shots in less than an hour, which was risky for me on any night let alone a night when I had yet to eat dinner.
But oh well, I didn’t care.
Tequila was doing me a world of good right now.It was easing my wrath over being ignored, and calming the heat I still felt from his eyes all over my body. It was keeping me sane amid all the crazy.
And best of all, it was pissing off Iain.
“Bottoms up!” Mia shouted as we knocked back our third shots, barely grimacing this time because we were thoroughly loose, and starting to feel all happy and buzzy.
Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I slammed the empty shot glass down. And after licking the bit of salt off my mouth, I raked my bottom lip between my teeth, because I could feel that familiar tingle darting up the back of my neck.
My little sign that once again, Iain was watching.
My eyes were bleary as I peered back in his direction, and though I was fuzzy from the latest shot, my heart stopped just the same.
Because he was standing with two friends in the back corner of VIP, his body angled toward them.
But his eyes fixed on me.
They didn’t look away when I caught him. They only burned into me with a look of warning that made my skin tingle, because apparently, I did like the way Iain looked when he was mad at me—when I was the sole focus of his attention, despite the clear fact that he didn’t want me to be.
It was intimidating yet hot as all hell, and it had me thanking God that I was already drunk, because sober me would definitely not know how to handle this right now.
He finally looked. And now he won’t stop watching you.
It was starting to look like Mia’s theory was right, which was an insane thought to process.
So I didn’t try.
“I think she wants you to join her,” the bartender chuckled, nodding behind me at Mia when he came around to clear my empty glass.
I spun around to see her long, dark hair flying as she danced with abandon out on the floor, shimmying against the cute guys who’d been sitting next to us at the bar and doing her best to lure me over. Come to me, she mouthed, drunkenly beckoning me with both hands when I caught her eye.
I shook my head with a laugh, opting instead to taunt her by stealing her margarita.
But as soon as I wrapped my fingers around the cold glass, I felt a shiver move up my spine.
And as soon as I took a drink, I heard that low voice sound behind me.
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”