13. Luka
LUKA
I have no idea what the hell just happened. One minute, I’m getting ready to spend all night worshipping my wife’s body and feeding her strawberries, and the next, she’s kicking me out of the bedroom without so much as an explanation.
“Brooklyn! Open the door, please.” I wait a minute and try knocking again.
Nothing.
And still nothing when I call, text, and speak firmly but politely through the door.
After about fifteen minutes of this, I’m all out of patience and done being ignored. I get dressed, head down to the lobby, and hit up the first bar I find on the casino floor. Now I’m sitting at a high-top table by myself, trying to figure out what I did wrong this time.
I’m not sure how much more of this I can take. Every time I think Brooklyn and I are back on track, something happens that derails us again. Is it me? Is it her? Maybe we’re just not compatible and we’re incapable of coexisting peacefully in the long run.
No. That doesn’t feel right even as I think it.
Something must have happened. Something triggered her while I was in the shower.
I’d be a fool to ignore the fact that she probably resented being forced to have dinner with Monica, but I pulled out all the stops to focus my attention on my wife, not her nemesis.
And every time Monica crossed the line, I firmly but gently rejected her advances.
Maybe I wasn’t firm enough for Brooklyn’s liking, but after all, Monica is DRM’s biggest model.
I’m trying to support her while maintaining a neutral but pleasant working relationship.
Apparently that isn’t good enough for my wife.
But what does she expect me to do? Fire Monica? Lose the agency the biggest campaign it’s ever seen, alienating Maxilene in the process? Stefan would shit a brick.
Fuck it.
I take a slug of my drink—a double whiskey neat—and survey the crowd. The bar is packed, but no one is paying attention to me. Good. Every woman in the room is wearing a skintight dress, yet all I can think of is Brooklyn in her pink sheath.
A groan works out of my throat at what I’m missing out on right this minute. She looked so hot at dinner, I could barely stand the wait to get my hands on her. Now all I’ve got is blue balls, a headache, and no clear answers to any of this.
Maybe it’s time to finally move on. Admit to myself that it’s just never going to work. Hell, maybe it is me. Did I really think I could just marry a stranger and live happily ever after?
Yeah. I guess I did. And I’d really thought we were finally getting somewhere. Until I agreed to go on this godforsaken trip to Vegas, and now everything’s in shambles. Again.
Slamming back the rest of my drink, I wave over the cocktail waitress—some young blonde in the hotel’s female uniform of three-inch heels, a one-shoulder white minidress that vaguely resembles a Roman toga, and a thick gold belt.
“Another whiskey neat on your tab, Mr. Zoric?” she asks, batting her lashes at me.
“You know what? Make it a double,” I say. “Please.”
“Coming right up.”
She flashes me a flirty grin and returns a minute later with the whiskey, setting it in front of me with a wink before walking away. That’s when I notice her name—Skylar—and number are scribbled on the bar napkin under the glass. I turn the napkin over with a scowl.
Clearly I assumed too much from that first kiss Brooklyn planted on me after she rolled up on the photo shoot and overheard Monica asking me to take her out for the Maxilene dinner.
It was probably just for show. In fact, Brooklyn had specifically mentioned flying out to save my reputation, hadn’t she?
Something about a PR nightmare and social media gossip.
God, I’m an idiot. Of course she didn’t come to Vegas to surprise me. She came to act as a buffer between me and Monica. And to protect our—and Danica Rose Management’s—image. Everything I thought was happening between us has all been in my head. Wishful thinking.
My mind is made up now. I need to get over my wife.
But that’s easier said than done.
The drink is warming me from head to toe, so I try to take my time with it so I don’t get roaring drunk before I head back up to the room. The last thing I need is to fuel the fire by proving to Brooklyn that I’m the same exact hot mess I used to be.
Checking my watch, I realize the night is still young—it’s not even ten yet. I should give my wife some more time to cool off. Maybe some space is all she really wanted. You never can tell with women.
I guess I could hit the casino floor and try my luck at the tables, or have some fun with the new Star Wars slot machines I saw earlier.
Just mentally check out for a few hours, give myself over to some mindless entertainment.
The noise and lights and music should do the trick.
Maybe I’ll even blow a few thousand, just for the hell of it.
If I get drunk enough, I won’t even remember any of this tomorrow.
Yeah, my big plans for a night of gambling and drunken debauchery sound great…until I remember that I have another round of Monica’s photo shoot to supervise tomorrow. Being hungover, or worse, still drunk, won’t win me any favor with Guy.
“What else can I get you?” a perky voice asks.
I snap out of my brooding and see that Skylar has returned. She’s looking at me expectantly, eyes darting between the cocktail napkin she wrote her name on and my face.
“I’m off work in a few minutes,” she adds.
“Just a water, no ice. Thanks.”
A furrow appears between her brows and she hesitates a second before nodding and swishing away in that semi-toga.
“Water? Since when does Luka Zoric drink water?”
Damn. I try to pretend I didn’t hear Monica just now, but the noxious cotton-candy scent of her perfume says she’s too close for me not to acknowledge her.
“Monica. How are you?” I say, wishing I had a legitimate excuse to run.
She slinks her way onto the leather stool across from mine, taking time to adjust the very short skirt of the fire-engine red dress she apparently changed into after dinner. It’s an off-the-shoulder number, her breasts practically spilling out. Not one for subtlety, that Monica.
“You look like you could use some company,” she tells me.
“I’m fine, actually,” I say. “Surprised you don’t have somewhere more exciting to be.”
“Nothing’s more exciting to me than this table right now,” she purrs. “Unless you’re implying that I should be in bed with some hot, wealthy asshole who left his wife at home so he could have a little man-cation, find some arm candy, and gamble his money away.”
Pretty accurate. “That sounds about right.”
“And here you are.” She smiles, spreading her hands.
When I don’t return the smile, or the flirtation, she peers more closely at me.
“So what happened after you pulled the Irish goodbye with the ice queen? I can tell by looking at you that you two didn’t fuck.
You’re way too pouty and high-strung. Losing your magic touch? ”
Skylar the toga-wearing waitress returns with my water and asks Monica what she wants, though I notice her tone is significantly cooler than it was when she was taking my order.
“Dirty martini,” Monica says. “On his tab.”
After the waitress leaves I sip my water, wishing it were another whiskey now that Monica is here to monopolize my evening.
“You know, there’s no need to sit here all pent up by your lonesome. We’re in Vegas, after all, and I have my own suite. This is a situation in which friends help each other out.”
“Monica. I’m married.”
She laughs loudly. “Well, I never. It’s a cold day in hell when Luka Zoric doesn’t feel like fucking. God, what has that frigid little wifey of yours done to you?”
It takes all my willpower to keep a disastrous reply from flying out of my mouth. There’s a fine line that I need to walk with her. The Maxilene campaign is going to keep DRM in the black this fiscal quarter, and I can’t risk her walking away from the agency.
But I’m not in the mood for any of her shit, either.
“If you’ll excuse me,” I say, strolling over to the bar to close my tab.
When I return to the table, she’s halfway through her martini already and waiting for me with a smirk. “Are we getting out of here already?” she asks.
“I am,” I tell her. “I paid for another martini, so that’s on the way if you want it. Otherwise, see you on set tomorrow and have a lovely night.”
As I turn away, she grabs my sleeve, tugging me back.
“Luka, wait,” she says, her tone oozing seduction. “There’s one more thing. I seem to have…misplaced my panties.”
Pinching the bridge of my nose, beyond exhausted with the sexpot shenanigans she’s made me put up with all week, I say, “I don’t think I can help you with that.”
She nibbles a fingernail, eyes rolling down my body. “So you haven’t found them yet?”
I haven’t found…
Oh, fuck.
It finally hits me. When Monica was all touchy feely with me over dinner, she must have slipped her underwear in my jacket pocket.
She’d been pawing at me all night, so it’s no wonder I didn’t notice when it happened.
Brooklyn must have picked up my jacket when I was in the shower.
I’ll bet she was devastated to find them in my pocket. No wonder she locked me out.
What a douche she must think I am.
“Monica, we’ve known each other for a long time. I’ve always considered us friends,” I say, my voice dropping to a low, steely register. “And although you can be difficult to work with, I’m happy to maintain a relationship with you—on a professional basis.
“But it’s obvious I wasn’t clear enough with you before. So now I’m setting a boundary. From now on, you and I will communicate about business matters exclusively. I will be cordial and respectful and you will offer me the same courtesy. My personal life is off limits.”
“Why are you dancing around me like this?” she asks, frowning. “Are you playing hard to get? You know I won’t tell anyone. Brooklyn never has to know.”
My jaw clenches. The only reason I’m exercising restraint right now is because she’s a client. And the bar is full. The last thing I need is for pictures of us in a verbal brawl to explode all over the celebrity gossip sites and social media.
“You are not a good person,” I finally grind out.
With that, I stride out of the bar.
Once I’m out on the casino floor, I make a beeline for the nearest bank of elevators and punch the call button over and over again with impatience.
As I ride the car up twenty-plus floors, I try to imagine the conversation that awaits me back in the room.
How do you explain something like this without it sounding like a flat-out lie?
When your wife was already uneasy about the person in question?
I hope it’s not too late to set this right.