Chapter Four
CHAPTER FOUR
Zane
I meet Ashton Black at the gym bright and early the next morning for squash and breakfast.
Still stinging from the night before, spoiled and pampered run through my head, and other words I despise when people in my circle use them to get what they want: “Don’t you know who I am?”
Stella does. She already knows the real me, or thinks she does, and how is that supposed to make me feel? Although, how can I complain? I pulled my cock out of a nameless woman only ten minutes prior to meeting her.
She didn’t want to be sloppy seconds. Even mine. I can’t do anything but admire her for it.
“What bit you in the ass?” Ash asks, an eyebrow raised, holding out a racquet.
Ash Black is one of few who can speak like that, but instead of sounding like a prick, he’ll have whoever he called to task eating shit out of his hand—and feeling grateful for it.
I yank the racquet out of his grasp and frown.
Immediately, he looks chagrined. “Sorry. Sometimes I forget...”
I wish I could. Wish I could lose all memory of the night my father’s attorney came by and told Zarah and me what happened. The scent of Lucille’s chicken parm will be stuck in my nose forever. I’ll never be able to eat it again.
“Not a problem.” Ash is my best friend. We went to school together. From Kindergarten to graduating from Columbia with matching degrees.
We’re as close as me and Zarah.
Closer.
Ash knows me in a way a female never could. Well, maybe Stella. If she’d let me in, but she never will. Good on her for having some brains.
He bounces the little rubber ball, and the thwacking shoots pain through my skull. I don’t think playing is a good idea. He’s going to beat the shit out of me if I’m not careful.
He engages me in the game and doesn’t pull any punches. He’s doing it to distract me, and I’m grateful. Besides, I need the workout, and by the end of the match, sweat drips off my chin. I wipe my eyes. They’re stinging from perspiration and tears.
Crying isn’t an option.
I haven’t broken down.
Not yet.
“Has there been any news?” Ash asks, passing me a bottle of water.
I guzzle all twenty ounces before I answer. It rinses away the burn in my throat.
“No. The FBI is still investigating. The NTSB hasn’t recovered the black box.”
My parents’ bodies haven’t been found, either, but I don’t add that. Ash went to the funeral, had been a rock through the entire thing. Prayed over the empty coffins as tears ran unabashedly down his cheeks.
“I’m sorry. That really sucks,” he says, lightly slapping my bicep in a show of support.
“Thanks.” Since the second we heard the news, Ash and his father have been our greatest supporters, taking Zarah and me under their wing, and I couldn’t be more grateful or humbled we have such good friends.
“Let’s go out tonight,” he says, leading me off the court and into the locker room.
Two older men are waiting for their turn, and they glare as we walk by.
“Who’s us?” I wanted to hold off on the social circuit a little longer. The society pages are carrying on quite nicely without me.
“Me, you, Zarah. You can find a date.” He doesn’t care about the short notice. He knows I can call any woman I want or pull some unsuspecting girl off the sidewalk and she would have little complaint.
“Zarah?” I ask, squeezing my empty water bottle until it crackles.
The locker room is almost empty, a couple of men changing into workout clothes and talking near the bank of lockers. Spotting us, they straighten and drop their voices to a hushed whisper, but I couldn’t care less if they’re gossiping about me. Ash grabs a clean towel off the top of the stack near a scale and wipes his face. Choosing a shower stall, he turns on the water and says, “You know I’ve been trying to date her forever. Her eyes, man. She had me doing whatever she wanted by the time she was five. Remember? All those tea parties because I couldn’t say no.”
It’s true. Ash has had his eye on Zarah practically since Mom popped her out. Among the available men in King’s Crossing, she can’t do better. Ash will take care of her, and she would want for nothing for the rest of her life.
Ash steps under the spray, and I peel off my damp clothes to do the same. The hot water eases my muscles, and I try to look forward to an evening out with friends. Maybe it won’t be so bad if I can convince Ash to let us enter through the back door of the club. That’s a big maybe, though. He likes being front page news.
“Where were you thinking?”
“Temptations. I already booked a VIP.”
My favorite club. Ash would do that to sweeten the invitation. If he’s not spending time at Ladies and Gentlemen, a strip club he owns, he visits a different, dirtier, club. A place where the girls are more scantily clad, and where the cover buys you more than a stamp on your hand, if you get my meaning. I’ve never asked why he pays when as rich and as good-looking as he is, women would pay him for the privilege.
“Okay,” I relent.
Ash turns the water off. “Who are you gonna bring?” he asks, pleased I gave in.
I’ll ask Zarah to text Stella and see if she wants to come along if she doesn’t already have plans. A pretty girl like her won’t be available on such short notice, but I’ll figure something out. I have a couple of girls who wait on standby, or I could go alone and pair up at the club.
I don’t care about any of it, but Ash wants to help me climb out of this funk. I can’t tell him it’s not a funk. Living without Mom and Dad, taking over the company. It’s more than a funk. It’s my life now.
“Don’t know. I’ll send out a couple of texts.” I turn the water off, wrap a towel around my waist, and step out of the stall.
“Great.” Ash pulls on khakis and a navy blue button down. No socks. “I’ll send a car for you. Now, let’s eat. I’m starving. You can catch me up, and there’s a business opportunity I’m looking into. I’ll cut you in if you think it sounds good...”
My attention drifts, and his words fade.
I don’t want to talk business. Don’t want to talk about responsibilities that shouldn’t be mine. I need to mentally prepare for tonight. It will make news I finally poked my head out of my shell.
It would help a helluva lot if Stella’s there.
Exhausted, I lay on Zarah’s bed after Ash and I eat brunch. She sits next to me, her chin resting on my bent knee.
“I told you not to steal her,” she says, playfully poking at my ribs. I may have sounded too eager when I suggested Stella go out with us tonight, but whenever I think about seeing her again, my heart thrums and my cock hardens, wanting her.
“I’m not. We’ll just go out, have a good time.”
“So I can watch you two fall in love over champagne?”
“Who said anything about love?”
“You did, but not with your mouth.” Zarah rolls her eyes and sighs. “You can have her if she can still be my friend.”
“She’s not a thing,” I say, throwing a stuffed giraffe she still keeps on her bed into the air and catching it.
Throw. Catch. Throw. Catch.
“I know. But if she’ll make you happy...”
“It’s only a night out, Z.”
“I’ll ask, but you going out tonight will be complete chaos. ‘The Bad Boy of King’s Crossing. Who will help him heal after his parents’ tragic deaths?’” she says sarcastically, mimicking a headline that will be sure to appear online tomorrow. “She’s a payroll clerk—she’s not going to want to party with us.”
If I hadn’t met Stella, I would have scoffed at my sister’s statement, but Stella doesn’t take anyone’s shit and I can see her having little patience with clubbing. “Tell her the bill will be taken care of.”
Zarah glares. “Why? That’s crass.”
I laugh. “You’ve never had a poor friend, have you?”
I wouldn’t have either, but there were a few students at Columbia who attended on full scholarships and couldn’t cough up cash to party, at least, not on our level. They either stayed home, saved up for one crazy night out, or hoped a friend would carry them. We usually did. Spending our mom and dad’s money made it easy to spread it around. “Stella won’t go if she can’t afford it. She won’t hang out with us for the very reason you like her. She’s not impressed, and she’s not a user. You picked a good one, I could tell the minute she didn’t let me have my way. Ask her to meet us in the lobby at nine. Ash is sending a car to pick us up.”
“You know a lot about her all of a sudden.”
“I tried to kiss her last night,” I admit. It’s better Zarah hears it from me now, than Stella telling her in the ladies’ room at Temptations.
Zarah cups my face between her hands. “Zane. I love you, and you’ve been in a fog since Mom and Dad. If you think Stella . . .”
I’m relieved she’s happy for me and not resentful since she warned me off last night, but this is too much, too soon. “I don’t know. All I know is I see the same qualities in her that you do. It would be nice to talk to someone who isn’t calculating how much the conversation’s worth.”
She gives me a smacking kiss on my cheek. “Then I support you. Did Ash ask about me?”
“He did. Specifically invited you. You’re going to have to let him reel you in if you want him. He won’t hang around forever.”
“I’m biding my time, but I’ll make it worth his while.” She grins saucily.
“I’m sure you will, but be careful, huh?”
“Ash would never hurt me.”
Zarah’s twenty years old, almost twenty-one. She has brains and knows how to watch out for herself. I shouldn’t worry, but now that Mom and Dad are gone, Zarah’s my responsibility. She lies next to me, and I hug her close. We’re all each other has now, and I’ll protect her until the day I die.
Stella’s face floats into my mind, her pretty blue eyes, her pert nose, her lips that taste of red wine and cheesecake.
I’ll protect her too, if need be.
A thought comes into my head, and I bat it away. It’s too soon. I have no idea how she feels about me.
I’ll protect the women I love.