CHAPTER TWO
MASON
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One week later
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“Might have to fire her,” I say to Sebastian as we watch his fiancée and Lexi gyrating and twerking on the dance floor at their engagement party.
The speeches are done, and it’s getting late as the music pumps and lights flicker. His dad strums his air guitar—very Gen-X of him—while his mom nods her head.
“Lexi?” Sebastian asks, taking his eyes off
Emily for no more than a split second.
I sip my whisky and nod.
“Why?” Sebastian prods. “Emily said she was enjoying it, and you two were getting along well.”
Getting along well.
Is that what Lexi called it?
Why do I need to fire her? Because I’m an idiot, that’s why.
After harassing Sebastian for weeks about Emily and their disastrous fake relationship that nearly cost him the biggest investment of his life, I’m no better.
In fact, I’d argue that I’m worse.
Way worse.
“I fucked her in the stationery closet last week.” I confess, then attempt to make myself sound like a victim. “I tried Sebastian. I tried. For three long weeks I’ve tried.”
Poor me.
The only victim here is my cock.
The one I’ve been yanking, night after night, trying to get Lexi’s gorgeous body out of my system. Can anyone blame me when she wears her figure-hugging dresses, extra button on her blouse left open and the curve of her generous round breasts seems to glow like a supernova.
I stare.
I know I do, and it’s inappropriate, but I’ve dreamed about them. My cock has hardened in meetings when I glance over and wonder if her nipples are light or dark pink.
If she’s wet thinking about me right now.
Whether she’s a quiet moaner or a screamer.
How tight her pussy is.
All good questions in my mind, but not at work. Not when she’s my PA and not when she’s Emily’s fucking best friend.
Emily, who is marrying one of my best buddies.
To make matters worse, Lexi seems to thrive on the situation. Flirting by sitting on the edge of my desk, slowly lifting the hem of her skirt, licking her lips.
Then, jumping up, and catching herself.
I’m not sure if she was trying to make me suffer or waiting for me to snap and fuck her on my desk.
Turns out she won.
During the past three weeks, almost every man in the building has flirted with her. She loves it.
It’s not like I’m some sixty-something gray-haired old dude without choice. I could date almost any woman I want.
When I say date...I mean for a few hours.
With my success, bank balance and the results of a committed gym workout since high school, I’m not strapped for choice.
So why on earth has this young woman from London got under my skin and latched onto my brain cells like one of those alien viruses?
She’s different from anyone I’ve ever met.
Wild, cheeky, and doesn’t seem to care what people think about her.
God, that’s sexy as fuck.
It’s probably why the men who work for me find the stupidest reasons to come up to the executive floor and speak to her. I’ve never seen so many of them.
And frankly, I’m embarrassed for them.
“Hey, Lexi. You look extra hot today,” Raoul said one day, and I rolled my eyes from my office.
“Thanks, R. What’s happening?”
R?
“Oh, you know. I’m just looking for Amy. Have you seen her?”
Amy, who works on level twenty-five. Fifteen floors away.
“Nope. Never see her up here.”
I smirked as I tapped at my keyboard.
“I’ll keep looking. So, while I’m here...”
Nope.
Fuck that.
I pushed away from my desk and strode across the floor.
“I need you in my office,” I said from the doorway, my hands on my hips, as Raoul wrote down his phone number.
Lexi blinked. “Right now?”
“Yes.”
“What for?” she narrowed her eyes, glancing at Raoul.
“For...” I’d searched for some excuse. “A new project. I sent you an email.”
“I never got it.”
I shrugged and walked back into my office. “Take it up with Terrance.”
Terrance was one of the IT guys who were spending way too much time at her desk helping with technical issues, which I’m almost certain he’s responsible for.
I dare say his focus is on Lexi’s short black skirts and tight pants more than her hard drive.
“What has Terrance got to do with it?” she yelled out. Then I heard her tell Raoul she’d call him.
A minute later she walked into my office.
“Did you make this meeting up?” Lexi huffed.
I crossed my arms. “I’m your boss. I’m not making stuff up.”
She crumpled the note with the phone number on and stuffed it into my trash can.
I forced my smile to stay on the inside.
Sorry, Raoul.
Then I did proceed to make up some project that I still am trying to get myself out of.
“Just marry her.” Sebastian, the loved-up useless best friend that he is, replies, snapping me back to the party.
I almost choke on my Macallan, coughing and slapping my chest.
“Christ, are you insane?”
“Stranger things have happened, my friend.” Seb laughs, slaps me on the shoulder. Then he heads to the dance floor, leaving me to recover.
We all promised not to marry for anything less than love after what happened to Jack.
Sandy is what happened.
The Obsidian Viper—as we called her.
Hence the name being incorporated into our businesses as a promise to Jack that we will never forget her, and one day avenge his death.
Seb, Drew, Colt, Zander, Jack and I were all best friends at Harvard. When he met Sandy, Jack was besotted.
Honestly, she was way out of his league...well, except the part about her being a murderer... and, looking back, I guess there was no way he could have said no to her.
He never got girls like the rest of us.
Jack was tall and lanky when we were filling out and bulking up. He had dark freckles and a goofy smile. Some special woman would have loved him. The guy had the biggest fucking heart and was funny as hell.
Sandy took him from us.
Just as he’d inherited a fortune bigger than any of ours—at the time—she’d held her hand up and flashed an enormous diamond ring.
Sebastian knew first. He didn’t trust her, he didn’t like her, and it upset Jack.
Me? I saw nothing.
I defended her and was happy for Jack.
Sure, I figured there was some part of her that liked him for his money. There were a heck of a lot of wealthy guys at Harvard, so why did she choose him?
They seemed to be happy.
I was wrong.
So fucking wrong.
And I live with that every day.
When the call arrived while they were on their honeymoon that he had died mysteriously, I think that was the first time I really opened my eyes.
God.
I could have saved him.
If I hadn’t argued with Seb, if I’d spoken to Jack...if I’d...done anything, I could have saved his life.
He’d be with us right now.
But I didn’t.
I trusted blindly, and I’ll never do that again.
Sandy took Jack from us. That we are sure of, but we’ve never been able to prove it.
When you lose someone that young, it affects you. The anger we all had watching Sandy get away with murder, taking away a rich man’s life and all his fortune, stuck with us.
The pledge was made.
“Never,” I said one day when we were sitting on a yacht on the Hudson, not long after Jack’s funeral. “I’ll never fucking trust a woman. Never getting married.”
“Amen to that,” Colt said, the wind flicking his hair in his face.
“We need to agree,” Sebastian nodded firmly. “All of us. Unless it’s real love, none of us will get married. We’ll hold each other accountable and protect one another.”
“Deal,” Zander said, holding out his hand. “If another Sandy even sniffs near one of you, I’ll lock you in a room until you come to your senses.”
I chuckled darkly.
“I can’t see myself marrying, so I’m fully on board.” Drew shook, and one by one we all did the same.
We had all lived and breathed our pledge since that day.
Growing our wealth, all of us had taken our inheritances and become billionaires by the time we were thirty. If we suspected a woman one of us was seeing had dollar figures in her eyes, we spoke up.
It wasn’t necessary often. All of us had been playboys, with Colt’s club—The Obsidian Club—offering a constant flow of women who were there for the same reason we were.
Sex.
Dirty, delicious sex.
But at night, it was Sandy’s face that haunted me. Her playing the grieving widow, a subtle glint in her eyes as she dabbed at them with her black handkerchief alongside his grave.
Jack didn’t die. He was a healthy young man. We were close, and I should have seen it.
“I can’t believe how lucky I am, Mase.” Jack grinned, tossing back a shot the night of his bachelor party.
“She makes you happy. That’s what matters.” I leaned my back against the bar and sipped my beer.
In my dreams, I’ve tried to turn back time or turn into a ghost and shake myself. To tell him not to marry her.
It never works, of course.
“I know Sebastian doesn’t like her, but I love her.” Jack shared, his radiant smile slipping. “I hope he can accept it.”
“He will.” I’d taken another sip, totally unaware of what was to come in the coming days. “He’s naturally protective. Just tell him you have a prenup, and then you can prove him wrong.”
That was Sebastian’s concern.
“We don’t have one. She offered, but I told her I loved her, and she had to accept all of me. My heart and my money,” Jack told me that day.
The conniving viper.
“She’s a keeper,” I’d told him, laying my hand on his shoulder.
Clearly reverse psychology.
The hours I’ve spent staring into space—at least over the first few years—looking for the signs that Seb saw. That I never did.
Colt, Zander and Drew weren’t fans of Sandy, but they stayed quiet.
I seem to have taken on most of the guilt. I think. I don’t talk about it much.
But I’ll admit, I’m pretty paranoid about protecting myself from women like her.
I mean, fuck, if I couldn’t see my best friend being set up and killed, then how am I going to stop it from happening to me?
I could make the same mistake myself if some woman blinded me with her sweet pussy and beguiling ways.
My instincts are shit.
So I stay vigilant.
And yeah, that comes across as a paranoid wallet-clutching billionaire some days...but at least I’m still fucking alive.
And so are my friends.
No other Sandy’s are getting a single dollar of our enormous wealth, nor taking another life.
When Emily came on the scene, I surprised myself. She barely had two dollars to rub together but was so in love with Sebastian it was painful to watch.
I checked in with the other guys and asked them what they thought. More evidence that I don’t trust myself, but whatever.
We were all in agreement. Emily doesn’t have a horrible bone in her body. Then Colt made some crude joke about Sebastian’s boner.
Beating the rest of us to it.
Seriously though, Seb and Emily are polar opposites. He’s dominant and powerful. Emily is sweet and na?ve.
Unlike her best friend.
Lexi The Diva Grant.
I glance across the dance floor to where she’s currently dancing with a friend of Sebastian’s, Craig. He looks like all his Christmases have come at once, the way she’s wiggling her ass at him.
Who knew you could be both irritated and aroused at the same time?
She lifts her eyes as I lift the glass to my lips, and we almost glare at one another.
Fuck.
I might not regret fucking her, but I regret the words I said afterward.
I should have shut my damn mouth.