Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Warner
Indubitably
“And for the record”—Greer’s slow exhale echoes in my ear—“wagers are childish. And making one with Cord is just asking for trouble.”
“Yeah.”
I’m only half listening when my phone vibrates on the wood-grained console beneath the cabin window, flashing a breaking news headline.
THE NEXT ACT: GENTRY NETWORK SIGNALS EXECUTIVE PRODUCER EXPANSION FOR ZEEK HARRISON ACROSS LUXE LADIES FRANCHISE
Yup, that tracks.
I swipe away the notification, rolling the tension from my neck.
“You’re probably right.” I chuckle, angling toward the window to look out at the tarmac for the third time in as many minutes.
“Pfft! You don’t have to tell me I’m right…
” Greer snorts, busy tracking Whitney’s ETA on her phone.
“Ask your mother, who’s called twice today looking for you.
I didn’t have to tell her about that silly wager; she saw the social media posts of you two at that gallery and said you’d no doubt block that blessing. ”
“Greer!”
I feign shock, but I can’t stop laughing.
Of all the outcomes I imagined when I invited Whitney to dinner last week, having an incredible time didn’t even make the list. Honestly, I thought I was getting the jump on the wager.
Luxury car, Cibo Nero’s dining room booked out on one of its busiest nights.
Surely she’d be impressed, right? Or at least slip up and expose the marriage-minded country-club socialite so I could walk away, fully vindicated.
But no.
Not only was she unmoved by lavish gestures, but she laughed at me. Then made me laugh.
It surprised the hell out of me.
Especially because I thought I’d forgotten how to be comfortable with a woman. What it felt like when every detail, every look, sound, and scent mattered.
Nothing about that night felt meaningless.
Good God, I could’ve sat there all night, listening to her talk about her friends, the Divatantes, and her assistant Clive’s summer workouts.
She was so foreign and familiar in the same breath.
The food was delicious. The goddamned air crackled, and we were flirting like teenagers.
And every so often she’d steady her honey-brown gaze on me like there was nowhere else she’d rather be than in that warm, low-lit restaurant with me sitting across from her.
I pretended I wasn’t completely unnerved, but Jesus, she was fucking gorgeous. And funny. Every inch of me ached to be closer, go deeper.
It’s the crux of my dilemma.
For the life of me, I can’t figure how to become a fuckboy overnight. More important, how can I make Whitney believe it, and want to have no-strings sex with me?
Why did I make that damn wager?
Casually getting to know a woman is just outside my wheelhouse. I don’t know about husband material, but it is hard to go back to just dating. Not that I’ll admit that—yet again—Cord, a certified know-it-all, was right about me.
What kind of schadenfreude Uno Reverse logic would that be? Why not invite him to throw it in my face?
Absolutely not.
Which is why it’s now seven twenty in the morning, and realizing we’ll be together for forty-eight straight hours with a postcard-perfect island as a backdrop?
With her smooth, rich brown skin cast in Caribbean sunlight?
With those legs stretched along my yacht?
I’ve got to switch things up immediately.
But I needed to talk about it with someone. Not Cord, my mother, or Dr. Bellamy.
So I called Greer, figuring it was healthy to get a woman’s perspective.
“Ah, I see now…” Greer lets out a small laugh, prompting me to tuck my phone away and worry about anything other than the vitriol I’ve got for my best friend. “You’re not slick,” she hisses.
I chew the inside of my cheek, dragging my hand along the smooth leather armrest, fighting for my life not to laugh.
“You see what?” I ask.
Unsurprisingly, she isn’t hearing any of my rationalizing.
“Warner, you’re playing games.” She smacks her lips. “This is why we need to coordinate days off. If I’m out of office, you need to be too. Burns me up…” She trails off, still grumbling about being the one who has to deal with the backlash of my actions.
All week she’s skipped right over her usual “do you want to vent or advice” step, wasting zero time reminding me how my life imploded the day she set foot out of the office.
Scathing headlines, an attempted home break-in, and now, I’ve added in a wager, and if I win, in the public’s eye I’ll remain the loveless, coldhearted cash machine who flew out a woman I was last spotted with in a restroom, doing “God knows what,” to my private island to gallivant and parade my billions before I greedily sell off my late wife’s paintings to add to my mountains of gold.
Oh, and bonus, I get to proudly claim the hit-it-and-quit-it badge.
Meanwhile, if I feel today even half of what I felt last Thursday night, Cord very well might have me on the hook for courtside finals tickets to watch the Legends.
“Out there acting like this is about the business when you’re letting that fool bait you into acting like some player.” Cord, she means. “Last week you sent a chauffeur-driven luxury car to pick her up. Now you’ve sent a rideshare service, trying to prove what, exactly?”
“First of all, Mom can wait a couple hours until we land. And second, Whitney said herself that she wasn’t fazed by the car service last week.” Or me. “I guess she’s just not the type of woman who’s easily impressed.”
Trust me, I’ve been trying.
A couple hours alone in Whitney’s presence, and she dusted me off, peeled back layers, and left me open. Hell, five more seconds in that restaurant, I would’ve asked her to be my goddamned Valentine.
If she’d asked me to fuck her right there on the table, I would’ve rushed home for my entire box of tropical condoms and eagerly complied.
And still, it wouldn’t have been casual.
I’d immediately want to do it again. Immediately want more everything with her, because you don’t spend a single dinner with a woman that incredible, feel that kind of natural ease of existing without the armor or the public watching your every move, enjoying each other’s company over exquisite food and exceptional conversation, and not recognize how easy it’d be to slip and fall into feelings.
Damn.
“How far out is she?” I ask.
A flutter of anticipation stirs in my stomach as I look out the window. At the foot of the stairs, the flight attendant on loan from Gold Wing Charter, who’s filling in for Tricia while she’s under the weather, is waiting to greet Whitney the second the Uber I sent pulls up.
And this whole charade begins.
“Mm hmm,” Greer says, judgmentally, letting the silence stretch.
Deep down, I should listen to her advice, quickly shut down this immature bet before my best friend tarnishes what little dignity I’ve got left. Otherwise, I’ll need to pull off some truly atrocious behavior to win.
My attention flickers to the Dazzling Palettes art coffee table book I found at the bookstore on Sunday, a collection of industry-disrupting art pieces.
I trail my fingers along the cool, bold-printed hardcover, thinking about how I couldn’t pass up the chance to see Whitney’s reaction when she read the title. Talk about a husband-coded gesture.
And I’m grinning like a fool.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t last a day,” I mutter.
“Aht! Aht! You know I heard that, right?” Greer cracks up in my ear.
I don’t even bother trying to hide my laughter. “You heard that, huh?”
“Damn right I did!”
“Look, you got me.” I throw my head back against the seat, chuckling. “Hey, I’m just being honest. This woman—”
“Might be worth skipping the wager for?” she supplies.
“Uh… yeah?”
Somewhere deep down in my bones, I agree with Greer.
Whitney is probably the only woman I’ve met in the past year who’s made me feel like myself.
This week shouldn’t be about Cord or Legends ticket bragging rights.
I need to prove to myself that I can get back out there, as just me, before my vows.
I can have conversations with an attractive woman that don’t lead to major life events.
Fulfill my physical needs, date. Or, at the least, try again.
How hard can it be?
While Sherry and I were filing for divorce, I downloaded dating apps. Just to see. But I never subscribed. I wasn’t ready then.
Am I now?
“I want you to think long and hard about that when her car arrives in less than two minutes. Because you’ll be in the air together for two and a half hours. Then on Clover Cay for forty-eight more.” Greer sighs softly. “If you want to play it by ear, take your cues from her, fine.”
“But?” I laugh.
“Would it be the worst thing if you two ended up rendezvousing again?” Greer says quietly.
There it is.
I bark out a guilty laugh. “Relax. I’m going to let that one slide, since I know Mom probably put you up to this. But, uh… it really wasn’t like that.”
Greer huffs out a laugh. “Sir, I was recharging with my sister circle at a romance book retreat in the next state, not another galaxy.” The line muffles slightly, and I hear her fingers faintly tapping.
“I’ve got eyes, and they work fine. I saw the pictures, and the way y’all were staring. It was absolutely like that.”
We both laugh.
I never could hide anything from Greer. She’s an inch into her thirties, acts like she’s a mile into her late fifties, and between her phone, laptop, and Mom, she runs my world like she’s light-years into her sage sixties.
Which is why, naturally, she spends the next minute and a half calling my bluff and asking for the itinerary to properly judge me.
“What happened to playing it by ear?” I stretch out my legs, slouching into my seat as I share the plan for the trip.
We’ll land, get unpacked, eat, I’ll show her around and get some work done while she’s doing the same.
Then she’ll have two days to complete evaluations—and possibly have sex with me.
Meanwhile, the realtor’s meeting me there to get a feel for Clover Cay, discuss a listing price, and that’s it.
If there’s something there before we’re set to come back Sunday, I’ll decide then.
“Otherwise, she’ll take possession of the collection, and I’ll show up at the exhibit. The end.”
“Simple as that, huh?”
“Cut and dried,” I say to Greer, grinning and looking out the window again just as Whitney’s car pulls onto the tarmac.
As she slides the door open, I try to quickly end the call with Greer, but not without being subjected to her stern warning: “Warner? No more games.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I disconnect the call, still laughing.
I push to my feet, preparing to meet Whitney at the plane door, when her voice carries up to the cabin.
“…this is about putting the Artery on the map,” she says.
I stop in my tracks.
“Of course, and while I hear what you’re saying, I’ve got to think about the bigger picture here.” She’s on the phone, stopped outside the car. “We need more buzz, which leads to more donations, international attention…”
My breathing quickens.
More donations. Buzz. Attention.
The advisable thing to do here would be to tune her out, accept that I don’t know the first thing about what she’s discussing or whom she’s discussing it with based off a handful of sentences in a one-sided conversation.
Except, at the Artery, when I saw Whitney talking to Zeek, I was so sure I knew exactly whom I was dealing with.
The Luxe Lady type, never takes no for answer, always calculating.
It felt like further reason I should stay away from her.
And even during our Restroom Rendezvous, I sensed she was working an agenda.
Which is why I didn’t overthink it when Cord suggested the wager.
But now I’m listening, hanging on every word, getting straight to the subtext.
Because that starry-eyed smile curving her lips when she says things like “leverage is visibility” and “this could put us in front of the right people” comes with an unyielding draw to the limelight.
It’s all about chasing public recognition and social climbing, and it gives me more than pause. It brings me to a screeching halt.
I’ve encountered countless versions of that woman. I married one.
Maybe I’m really the fool in her grand plan. Donations, spotlight, followers, viewers. It’s all the same.
There’s never enough.
And while it wasn’t my place to ask her about Zeek at dinner, wouldn’t this be the perfect storyline for a cast candidate?
Is that the bigger picture? Putting the Artery on the map, and indirectly her.
She’s seen the headlines, and wouldn’t this trip with a cold, standoffish Luxe Husband of Ellswood who solves problems with his checkbook blow the rest of the scandalous gossip out the water? Get her the donations and attention?
Maybe the vlogger got her right. Maybe the woman who sat across from me last Thursday was the lie.
I stiffen, listening.
“…I’m here. I’ll be in the air for a couple hours, but I’ll still be reachable for updates…” Whitney says, trying to end her call. “Mm hmm, yes… yes… Thank you. Okay, talk soon,” she says, smiling at the flight attendant as she slips her phone into her purse.
The plane vibrates as she leads the climb up the stairs, and in a snap judgment, I swipe the coffee table book off the seat and shove it into my leather duffel.
“Hi, sorry about that. Never fails, the second I have something to do, everyone wants to call.” She lets out an exhausted laugh. “I’m Whitney, by the way.”
“Mya,” the flight attendant says.
As they board, and Whitney moves on autopilot, greeting me with a lingering cheek kiss, I’m nearly thrown off my entire game. She’s still beaming and beautiful, running on adrenaline, as she stows her suitcase and plops into the seat across from me with a relieved huff of a laugh.
But even though I’m smiling, I already feel myself hardening, looking at her with different eyes.
No games, just refocusing on the goal.
I met with Whitney last Thursday. Same time I was set to meet at the Heartery. I invited her to Clover Cay, where she’ll have two days to assess Sherry’s collection. But being the fuckboy that the media thinks I am? Sex, no feelings? Cord and I never said it had to be with Whitney.
Straightening, I direct my smile to the bright-eyed, leggy flight attendant gazing admiringly at me.
“Mya, is it?”