41. West
CHAPTER 41
WEST
Rafe returns, but Nora stays at the bar. She chats with one of the bartenders. He’s attractive. Smiles at her a bit too widely.
She’s in a short dress that ends only halfway down her thighs, leaving her long legs bare. She crossed and uncrossed them earlier, knowing I was watching.
She’s playing her own kind of game, and I have no doubt it’s payback for what she said on the flight here. Was your first time romantic?
“You listening?” James asks.
I drag my gaze away. “Yeah.”
He looks at me for a second too long. “Then what did I ask you?”
“If I’ll let you win tomorrow. And the answer is no.”
“The day I ask you if you’ll let me win is the day I’ve lost my mind,” James says. “I told you that you’re going to lose. It was a statement. Not a question.”
“Right.” I glance back at Nora. She laughs a little and smiles at the bartender. Like she’s flirting.
“Have you solved the estate issue yet?” Rafe asks.
“Let the man relax for one night,” Alex protests, “before you remind him that he’s losing his ancestral home.”
“Easy for you to say when you hate yours,” Rafe tells Alex. He turns to me. “Have you figured it out?”
“No. But I’m not losing it.”
“That,” James drawls, “is not an answer.”
“My lawyers called me early this morning. The last option we’re working on is likely too high risk.”
“Contesting the trust?” Rafe asks.
“Yes. There’s a possibility we could make a stronger case by making it a public lawsuit.”
“ Public ?” James shakes his head. “Don’t do that.”
“It’s not ideal,” I admit. None of us like our private business aired in front of an audience. “But it might work. There’s a clear argument that the trust violates modern-day principles of equal rights and fairness. Amber can’t even inherit the estate with the trust’s complicated rules, for fuck’s sake.”
“She must be furious,” Alex says.
“She is. As is her right.”
“What happens if you lose a public lawsuit?”
I shrug and take a deep sip of my drink. No one says anything for a few seconds.
“Well. Shit,” Alex says.
“Yeah. That’s about it,” I say. “I have the Maverick to thank for a lot, but I want to punch him for this. The lawsuit might work, yeah, but it’s too risky to do before I’m married. Once that’s settled, we have years to work on a permanent change to the trust.”
James drapes an arm along the back of his chair, his expression sharp. So much of him has always been sharp. A sword ready to stab. “Our ancestors knew how to fuck us over,” he says. “I have one of the oldest remaining estates in England, and I’m required to preserve it by historic preservation law, even if costs me a fortune to do so.”
“That’s not a problem,” I tell him. “You have several.”
The look he gives me is withering. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I thought we were complaining about things that have simple solutions. Or are you the only one allowed to do that?”
Alex laughs, and Rafe shakes his head with a smile.
“Having to get married is a simple solution?”
“Not easy. Simple.” James lifts a wide shoulder in a shrug. “There are thousands of women who would take any deal you offered them.”
“I have a prenup ready, and I’ll offer cash. Live apart, courthouse wedding. But you know none of us are fit for a true marriage.” I look over at Nora again. She’s sitting on the barstool now, one of her bare legs extended and her toes pointed. She’s smiling widely. It looks real. And devastating. My hand tightens around my glass. “We’re all too fucked up to make it last.”
“You’re a bad drunk tonight,” Alex says.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” I say, my gaze shifting to him. He loves a laugh, and he loves a dare, but we all know how messed up he was all those years ago. How messed up he still is. “Will you ever get married? With your family history?”
The smile doesn’t slide off his face, but it hardens. “Yes. Definitely a bad drunk.”
“He’s scared he’s going to lose tomorrow,” Rafe offers.
James ignores them both and turns to me with steel-gray eyes. “Offer her money, have her on your arm sometimes, get your estate. Live separate lives. Handle the trust quietly and thoroughly, and if you don’t want children, leave it all to Amber’s. Divorce.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I look over at Nora right away and see her sliding her own back into her bag. Her gaze lingers on me for a moment before she keeps chatting with the bartender.
Something dark snakes up my spine and grips my chest with a cold hand.
“You make it sound so simple,” I tell James.
“Because it is,” he argues. “I’ll never understand you sometimes.”
“Not all of us can shut off our emotions,” I snap.
“No, clearly not,” he says with cold precision. “Fight the trust or give into it. I don’t care either way.”
Rafe sighs. “It’s too early in the night for a fight.”
“And it’s not even a fun one,” Alex protests. “Not like the weekend we had in Ibiza.”
All three of us groan, and Alex’s smile widens. “What? That was epic. How much damage did we do to that yacht?”
“Of course you don’t know, because I’m the one who wrote the check for it,” I mutter and shake my head. “You have no respect for boats.”
“I think,” Rafe says, “that West just insulted you in the worst way he knows how.”
We were younger then, and the Lost Weekends were far more damaging. All of us had fewer responsibilities.
I reach for my phone and pull it up. And there it is. A text from Nora.
Nora
I’m practicing what you taught me.
I type a quick response.
West
I can see that.
Her response comes only a few seconds later, still from where she is over at the bar. There’s a glass in front of her with something pink in it.
Nora
And guess what? I just realized I forgot to wear underwear tonight.
My gaze snaps up to where she’s nodding at something the bartender is saying. The dark, jealous feeling threatening to drag me down tightens its grip. He’s stayed too long to chat with her when surely there’s work to be done.
My eyes drop to the length of those legs and the short hemline. A memory of how she sounded in my ear when she came floods me. How her body arched on the pool table. Her legs bent for me with her pussy so prettily displayed.
And now she’s here, with all these people, all these men who can’t look away from her, and she’s bare ?
Her eyes meet mine and her smile falters. I watch as she says something to the bartender and jumps off the chair with that hemline riding dangerously, tantalizingly, devastatingly high. Grabs her drink… and walks our way.
Alex pulls out her chair. She smiles and sets down her fruity drink. “I’ll be right back,” she announces.
Then she disappears inside the bar.
The guards aren’t as close by tonight, and I see Rafe rise to follow her. I shake my head at him.
“I’ve got it,” I tell him.
The grateful nod he sends me is searing. If only he knew the real reason I get up and follow her into the darkness of the bar.