17 Cutter #2
I know what she’s thinking. Why can’t I just move on? And who knows, maybe if it had been with anyone else, I might have. Maybe our relationship would have survived it. Maybe not. But that alone wouldn’t have been the end of the world. It certainly wouldn’t have sent me on a five-year bender.
Trouble is, it wasn’t with anyone else. Callum and I had already started growing apart by that time.
I saw the kind of person he was turning into and I didn’t like it.
But once, when we were younger, we were as tight as any two non-twin siblings could be.
I worshipped the ground he walked on. He was my big brother.
My protector. My best friend. And while he outgrew that person, I still loved him.
In some ways I still do. And that, more than anything, pisses me off.
I should be able to hate him. That’s what I want. I want to push him completely out of my life.
Out of my mind.
I meet her eyes. “It was with my own brother.”
“Ah,” she nods. “I guess that explains the bad blood between you two.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, kinda. What do you do when the two people you trust most in the world betray you?” I take a sip of cold coffee and savor the bitterness. “If you’re me, you crawl into a bottle and go scorched earth on your whole life.”
“Everyone reacts differently to trauma. You blew up your life. Hey, I understand. I kind of did the same thing myself, though on a lesser scale.”
She told me there was history; stuff she didn’t want to talk about. “The past should stay in the past,” she told me when I asked, and because I had my own skeletons I was trying to protect, I respected her wishes.
“Want to talk about it? I showed you mine.”
She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Promise you won’t hate me?”
“Why would I hate you?”
“Poor little rich girl problems.”
“Everyone has problems. Rich or poor. Different problems, but they’re no less important to the person having them.”
“I don’t know whether you actually believe that, but I’m going to pretend you do.” When I open my mouth to protest, she holds up her hand. “We’re doing this, right?” I nod. “Okay then, here’s my story.
“I grew up with money. And, according to my father, when you have money, people always want to be your friend. ‘Ruthless’ should have been my father’s middle name.
He judges people by how useful they are to him, and he tried to instill that attitude in Selena and me from the time we were children.
His lesson was that people were always going to be out to exploit us, so we had to be on guard to protect our family.
Which really meant his fortune. Even his marriage to my mother was a business transaction.
“As you can imagine, he controlled our social lives growing up. Friends, classmates, extracurricular activities. Anyone we dated had to be vetted and preapproved. Selena was always going against the grain, but that was just her acting out because she’s more like my father than she would care to admit.
She measures everything in how it will advance her own agenda, including relationships. ”
I think about Daryl. Does he know what he’s gotten himself into, and does he even care? For all I know, he’s using her as much as she’s using him.
“What about you?” I ask.
“I’m not a fan of conflict, so I went along with his meddling through high school and college. The truth was, I didn’t care either way. I had my own goals in life and dating was just a distraction. The men I went out with were nothing more than a means to satisfy my own needs.
“Then I met Jack. He was messy and chaotic and spontaneous–everything I wasn’t.
I fell hard. We maintained a secret relationship for two years.
As far as I was concerned, we could have stayed in the shadows.
As long as we were together away from the prying eyes of my father, I didn’t need the light.
“But the secrecy started to weigh on him. Whenever I had family obligations, I would leave him at home. He wanted to know why he couldn’t meet my family. Was I ashamed of him? I tried to explain my reasoning, but he insisted it wasn’t as bad as I made it out to be.
“I should’ve gotten suspicious when he started asking questions about my family’s business and worth. As time passed, his questions became more persistent and pointed. We fought about it a few times and each time he would apologize and insist he was just trying to get to know me better.”
“He was using you,” I blurt.
She nods. “Only I was either too naive or too much in love to realize it. And then I overheard him on the phone one day. He was assuring someone he just needed more time to get close to me. When I confronted him about it, he finally admitted the whole thing. He was hired by one of my father’s competitors to get close to me so he could access our accounts.
The whole time I thought he was the love of my life he was using me.
Just like my father said people would do. ”
“You couldn’t have known.” Just like I couldn’t have known about Amber and Callum. And if I hadn’t come home that day and caught them, how long would it have gone on? Would she have told me? Or would she have just pretended things were normal?
“I came clean to my father about it, and he ruined both Jack and the man who hired him. Then he turned his scorn on me. And I let him because I felt guilty. He had warned me my whole life and I didn’t get the message.
I moved back home, partially out of remorse and partially from heartbreak, and threw myself into my business.
“For three years I did everything my father asked of me until I finally admitted to myself this wasn’t how I wanted to live my life.
I had built a business independent of my father’s influence.
It was time to throw off his yoke once and for all.
I let Selena talk me into moving in with her until I decided where I wanted to live, mostly because she wanted me to manage her career.
It’s not perfect, but it’s working for now. ”
“If I was a drinking man, I’d buy you a beer,” I say.
“We’re a pair, aren’t we?” She drains her tea and settles her gaze on me. “So, are you going to fuck him?”
I’d forgotten my own problems for a minute. “As a friend, what would you suggest? And don’t give me that shit about enjoying all the experiences.”
She chuckles. “Look, Cutter, this guy has obviously gotten under your skin. I don’t profess to know what kind of person he is–”
“He’s a fuckboy.”
“Okay. So what’s wrong with a little harmless fun? You do the deed, you see how you both feel, and you go from there.”
I stare at her. “Who are you and what have you done with Evie?”
“What? Most of my relationships since Jack have been meaningless flings and one-nighters. I’m a big proponent of the ‘getting it out of my system’ method these days.”
“I thought you said that only applied to potato chips.”
She waves my comment aside. “I said it doesn’t always work that way. But if you go into it knowing that, there’s no reason why you can’t have fun with it.”
“Did you miss the part where I said he’s a fuckboy?”
“So there should be no danger of him wanting to get involved. You can have your one-off and go back to your monastic life.”
I quirk a brow. “Monastic?”
“You tell me. When’s the last time you had sex?”
“Um…”
“Don’t answer that. Maybe it’s time to forgive yourself. Go out and do something spontaneous. Fuck your fuckboy. Who knows? It may open new doors for you.”
Maybe that’s what I’m afraid of.
? ? ?
My gut is a bundle of nerves when I swing into the Eros parking lot on Sunday afternoon.
I’ve waffled back and forth about this for two days and I’m still not sure what I’m going to do.
All I do know is I have to do something.
Aubie dances tonight and I’m sure he’ll find some way to seek me out. I have to be ready.
But that’s a later problem. Right now I have to get the club ready for open stage night.
I really hate Sunday nights. Security is tighter because we have nonemployees in the house.
Six outside dancers make the guest cut each week.
They’re vetted ahead of time when they fill out the request to ensure they don’t send up any red flags.
And yes, we’ve had the occasional journalist or private investigator try to gain access, so we have to be vigilant.
After they pass a rudimentary background check, they’re Emil’s problem.
We get a lot of repeat performers, mainly guys who just travel and dance. Some are really good. A few are good enough to garner a request to stick around.
That’s how Aubie came to be here.
I curse the day he learned about this club. I was content in my safe bubble. Sure it could get boring, but after my lost years, I discovered an affinity for boring. For avoiding drama.
Now…
I don’t want to think about it.
Emil pops his head in my office before I even get a fresh pot of coffee started. “Got tonight’s list?”
“Jesus, give me a minute.” I swipe the paper off my desk and hand it to him. “Why the rush? I was going to bring it to you.”