Yeah, but it isn’t Dane who you have to work for. It’s Wyatt.
Wyatt, who’s looking at me skeptically. Wyatt, who took my virginity to win a bet, then dumped me within a week to move on to Geneva.
Makes me wonder if this “bet” was also his idea.
Would it be justifiable homicide if I stabbed him with my fork? I could get lucky and hit a major artery. And I know a lot of good lawyers, having worked for Salazar for a few years.
“You’ll basically only have one job,” Wyatt says finally. “Find me a date for a wedding.”
I raise my eyebrows. That’s such a ridiculously easy task that nobody should take four freakin’ weeks to get it done.
On the other hand, we are talking Wyatt. So maybe that’s what’s making this such a challenge.
Still, I’m not interested in working for him, even on something as silly and easy as finding him a date. “Get your assistant to go with you,” I say, barely preventing myself from sneering. The hot co-ed he must’ve hired should be able to pull it off. It isn’t like you actually have to appear smart or make interesting conversation at those things.
“Can’t. She’s married with two kids.” Wyatt’s expression indicates there’s a lot more to it than that, but he won’t be saying any of it out loud.
Still, it makes me blink. Because it isn’t even a real date, and it shouldn’t be that big of a deal for an assistant to make herself presentable for an afternoon on a weekend and some overtime pay. It isn’t like anybody has to know she’s married. How much of a dud did he get? He must’ve seriously pissed somebody in HR off. Not a surprise, given his personality. “So try Tinder. Get your assistant to screen the candidates.”
“He needs someone hot enough to make a statement,” Salazar says.
“This is L.A. It’s full of hot women.” He should know. He’s probably fucked half of them.
“Ah, but are they hot enough to stick a knife in his ex-wife’s heart and twist it around?” Salazar cocks his head at me. “For that, you need someone a step or two above just any old hot chick.”
“Ex-wife? Is this Geneva’s wedding?” I choke the words out, utterly disgusted. Spend a perfectly fine weekend pretending to congratulate that traitor? I’d rather sleep on a nest of wasps.
Wyatt looks dyspeptic, but I don’t care. “Why would you do that? Are you trying to win her back? You’d be better off just swallowing a bunch of arsenic.”
Dane gives me a reassessing look, like he’s just realized I’m not a total moron. Just a regular moron, which is what he labels people with IQs over one hundred and five.
Meanwhile Wyatt is bristling. “Why is none of your business.”
Huh. Well, I should’ve expected this kind of rudeness. He was a dick back in high school, and he’s an even bigger dick now that he has money.
The fact that he’s trying to crash Geneva’s wedding makes me want to help just a tad. I can ask my super fashionista friend Jo to help me outshine the bride, and wouldn’t that just piss Geneva off to no end? On the other hand, the idea that he’s trying to win her back makes me not want to help…not even a little. I’m sure Geneva can make him miserable. That’s her forte, making everyone around her miserable because she can—something I realized too late. But apparently he’s even more miserable without her, so I’d rather he stay that way.
That’s the least he deserves for the way he treated me back then.
I look over at Dane. “Excuse me.”
“What?”
“Move. Get up. I need to go to the ladies’ room,” I lie, since I’m sure he’s not budging otherwise.
Dane slides over and stands up. I do the same, then turn back to the table. “You know what? I don’t have to honor the outcome of some dumb bet. I’m not”—I search for the right word—“chattel you can just trade around. If you have something to collect from Salazar, Dane, it’s between you two, not me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to the office. I’ve already wasted enough of my lunch break, and haven’t had anything to eat yet.”
“You’re leaving?” Salazar asks. “But you haven’t had the crème brûlée.” He knows it’s my favorite dessert, especially when it’s from Éternité.
“Somehow, I’ve lost my appetite.” I give Wyatt a pointed look, then smartly walk out.
Chapter Four
Wyatt
“I knew it,” I say. The second I realized who Salazar’s assistant was, I knew the lunch was going to end in a total disaster.
“You should’ve told her earlier and prepped her,” Dane says to his father, like it’s all his fault, even though nothing would’ve made a difference. If I fell into a well, Kim would push large rocks down after me.
Salazar shrugs dismissively over his scotch. “Don’t blame me. It’s your fault for bringing it up so soon. She would’ve been more amenable after some crème brûlée. She loves that stuff.”
“How are you going to make it right?” Dane demands.
“Me? You’re the one who messed it up.”
I raise my hand. “Stop. There’s no point to arguing. She won’t do it, no matter what.”
“Why not?” Salazar asks.
“She and I have…a history.” Which is putting it mildly. She said I sucked in bed and decided I gave her herpes and dumped me as soon as we slept together. The memory still makes me seethe. Not because I have feelings for her at this point—but because I really, really liked her at the time.
Although, to be honest, I still have some…thoughts about her. Her body, anyway. Her personality still sucks.
But that body…
My cock became chiseled stone every time I saw those tits. And it would love nothing more than to have my hands push them together, so I could drive into the tight, warm cleavage…
When the world ends in a zombie apocalypse and somebody eats my brain. That’s when that’ll happen.
Salazar shrugs. “Eh. I have a history with half the women in the city, and I get along with them.”
Dane looks like he just chewed on some especially sharp glass. “That’s inappropriate, not to mention irrelevant.”
Salazar shrugs. “Just saying.” He opens the menu. “I’m hungry.”
“Me too. See you later.” I stand and walk out. If I’m not impressing Salazar’s assistant—and I’m not even going to try, since it’s Kim—I’m not eating anything off a menu that weirdly relabels fish that have perfectly good English names.
Otoro, my ass.
I stop by a food truck on the way to the office and grab a hot dog. It’s no cheeseburger, but at least it’s honest. No pretensions. It’s objectionable, as it tries to teach women how long and thick a man’s cock ought to be—longer and thicker than the wiener stuck in the bun—and unhealthy, as the cheesy goo on it is probably as nutritious as toxic waste from a nuclear plant.
Easily tasty enough to scarf down before a meeting.
I arrive with ten minutes to spare. The Sweet Darlings office in Los Angeles is new, barely two years old. The company branched out after West Coast operations became too big for the space in San Mateo, and CEO Alexandra Darling decided to move some of the business functions out of the headquarters in Dulles.