The Billionaire Bad Boys Club (20 page)

“Can men and women be friends?” she asked.

“Sometimes,” he answered cautiously.

“Do you have any?”

“You’ve got me there,” he confessed ruefully.

“Raoul is my friend, but he’s married. And older. I think I’m kind of a daughter to him. Maybe men and women can be friends as long as they don’t want to have sex.”

She made him sadder than he could say—not for philosophical reasons, but because he craved a tie to her. If friendship were all she’d give him, he’d take it.

“I like to think,” he said, “that with the proper motivation, people can set aside one sort of desire in favor of another.”

Rebecca burst out laughing. “I think I’m drunk,” she said. “That actually sounded good to me.”

“Maybe I should take you home.”

She looked at him. Her pupils were dark with wanting and something else, something that went deeper than attraction. Did she know it was there? Would she let it matter? She reached out, fingers brushing the hand he’d flattened on the table. Though her touch retreated almost at once, tingles radiated up his arm.

“That’s nice of you,” she said, “but I’m pretty sure a taxi would be safer.”

~

Zane was doing a piss-poor job of forgetting Rebecca. He’d tried not thinking about her, but whenever he let his guard down, she crept into his thoughts. This annoyed him immensely. Screw the woman if she couldn’t realize they might—
might
, he emphasized—have the makings of a special connection.

Might doesn’t pay the mortgage
, his father had liked to say, usually as a prelude for pimping Zane out at Alexander Sporting Goods. God, he’d hated those workdays. High school football hero stuck with his dad’s jokey arm around him, hawking number jerseys to kids while his latest bruises throbbed on his back or thighs. He’d loathed being used that way, knowing if he said no, he’d get a worse beating.
A real man earns his keep
, his father would say.
Don’t tell me you aren’t one
.

Grimacing, Zane shut down the computer on his desk. Things were bad if he’d started down memory lane with his shit of a dad.

“I’m here!” Mystique announced, appearing at his office door in a cloud of Dior and expensive hair products. “Don’t everyone stand up and clap at once.”

Her real name was Missy Kroner. Mystique was what she went by for modeling. Fluent in French and English, she was amusing, sexy, and an undeniable hard worker. Zane had seen her intermittently over the last three years, though he took care not to date her too often. Mystique’s ambitions most definitely included becoming Mrs. to a high-profile wealthy man, someone who’d add luster to her mystique—if you’d pardon the pun—without overshining it.

“Hello, Missy,” he said, getting up to kiss her soft cheek. Even in her stilt-heeled white go-go boots, he was taller. Humming with catlike pleasure, Missy twined slender arms behind his neck. She was fully made up and, as a result, didn’t tongue-kiss him.

“I forgot what a lovely big brute you are. Clearly, it’s been too long since we’ve seen each other.”

She pouted, which wasn’t his favorite expression, though her expertly painted mouth was beautiful.
Not as beautiful as Rebecca’s
, his treacherous memory pointed out.

“Oh, you know,” he said vaguely. “We moguls get caught up in doing mogul stuff.”

“More like bad boy stuff,” she quipped. “I can’t believe I convinced you to come away for the whole weekend.”

Zane was having qualms of disbelief about that himself. “I like Montreal.” He stepped back slightly to stroke her shining brunette waves over her shoulders. “And you know I enjoy having you polish up my French.”

“I’ll show you what I’ll polish,” she teased, slapping one perfectly manicured hand around his crotch.

It was six thirty on a Friday. They were in the empty hall outside his and Trey’s executive offices. With the exception of the janitors and him, headquarters had cleared out. Zane let Missy back him leggily into the nearest wall. As she intended, a few squeezes of her fingers got a rise out of him.

“You’re a naughty girl,” he said, palming her narrow butt. Continuing the theme of the go-go boots, she wore a sixties style flowered minidress. Under it, he discerned a teensy thong.

“The naughtiest,” she assured him, her voice husky.

Missy loved sex and he liked having it with her. Nonetheless, when she batted her fake eyelashes, he couldn’t help thinking of centipedes. He was shamefully grateful when a shadow moved in Trey’s office, distracting him from her. Trey had left earlier. No one ought to be in there.

“Excuse me,” he said to Missy, pulling free of her groping hands. “I need to check on something.”

Trey’s office was closer than his to the elevator. He must have forgotten to lock up, because the door was open.

An older woman in a yellow polyester pantsuit was rifling through Trey’s desk. The papers on top were scattered, and she had his bottom left drawer open, the one where he stashed rubbers and Zane’s favorite hand job assister. Clucking her tongue, she thunked the box of prophylactics and Albolene onto the clutter.

Zane categorically refused to blush over them.

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded. “And how did you get in here?”

“She came up with me,” Missy answered from behind him. “She said she’d forgotten her ID and could I let her up.”

The guards knew Missy and that she was expected. No matter how harmless this white-haired old lady looked, they shouldn’t have let her sneak past them.

“You’re Trey’s aunt,” he said, hard and cold as she gaped at him. “Constance Sharp.”

“You’re a dirty man,” she returned querulously. “You and my nephew both.”

This did bring heat into his face, though he fought it down. “That’s enough,” he said, striding in and taking her by the arm.

She was seventy if she was a day. She couldn’t hope to resist his strength. She fought though, going so far as to cling to edge of Trey’s desk. “I need to be here,” she cried. “I have a right to speak to my own nephew!”

Zane wasn’t in the mood for this. As carefully as he could, he wrapped his arms around her middle and lifted her off her orthopedic shoes.

“Zane!” Missy said, shocked at him. “She’s a little old lady.”

“Get the elevator,” he ordered.

He must have sounded stern enough. Missy ran ahead to press the button.

“You’re dirty too,” Trey’s aunt said to her, devaluing whatever stock she’d earned with the model.

Thankfully, the elevator came quickly. Missy squished herself into a corner to accompany him to the ground floor. This was due to Trey’s aunt having decided her best strategy was to spend the journey kicking his shins like a two-year-old. She repeated her claim that Trey ought to talk to her, adding that her father was worth ten of them. Zane couldn’t tell if she had dementia or was just crazy. Truthfully, he wasn’t sure he cared.

The security team rushed over the minute they exited, wide eyed and apologetic and seemingly wondering if they ought to pull their guns.

Zane handed his thrashing burden over to two of them. “Find out where she’s staying. Get her there safely and make sure she doesn’t gain entrance here again. If I hear she’s gotten ten feet into this lobby, all of you are fired.”

The guards assured him they’d take care of it.

“Sorry,” he said to Missy, vibrating with tiny tremors as Trey’s relative was carried out of sight. He was so angry for his friend’s sake that his heart thumped wildly. Trey was too good a person to have to deal with this.

“That’s okay,” Missy said, a little shaken herself. “You know what they say about family. Can’t live with them. Can’t make them go away.”

He laughed at her joke, hugging her with genuine gratitude. “I’ll make this up to you,” he promised.

Liking that, Missy smiled coyly at him from under her fake lashes.

~

Somehow Rebecca made it to Sunday night without imploding, no easy task after she’d ordered her crew to relax over the weekend. She’d heard through the line cook grapevine that Neil Montana—the jackass whose hiring had driven her out of Wilde’s—was predicting an epic fail for The Bad Boys Lounge. As celebrities went, he was a nonentity, destined to be forgotten as soon as
Monster Chef’s
next winner was announced. For the moment, he had a soapbox, and some people would enjoy hanging on his words.

To anyone who’d listen, he dubbed the Lounge “Beantown Boredom”—his idea of scathing wit.

Rebecca longed to call Trey and sound off but restrained herself. Venting equaled bonding, and she and Trey didn’t need any more of that. So what if he’d have settled her in two minutes? He wasn’t responsible for her mental state.

Too keyed up to sleep and hoping to blank her thoughts, Rebecca switched on the TV in the living room. A gossip show was on. What was Miley up to? Who were the latest Kardashian love interests? Soothed by the inanity, Rebecca was debating which of her new outfits she’d wear tomorrow when a familiar face appeared onscreen.

She slid forward on the couch so fast she almost fell off.

She couldn’t tell if the footage was live or taped; she hadn’t been paying enough attention. Whenever it had been filmed, the piece showed Zane Alexander emerging from a French nightclub, looking like expensive sex incarnate in a royal blue shirt and black trousers. A woman hung on his arm laughing. She was nearly as tall as him and drop-dead stunning. Rebecca recognized her as a famous swimsuit model. Mystique, she thought was called. Though Rebecca thought Zane was more intriguing, the video paparazzi were there for the brunette.

“Did you enjoy the band?” one reporter called to her, sticking out his microphone.

“How could I not,” she cooed, “with a fine man like this to keep me company?” She hugged Zane’s arm, and he smiled down at her.

Face and chest flaming with embarrassment, Rebecca seized the remote and snapped the TV off.

Boy, Zane hadn’t taken long to get over her dumping him—if
dumping
was the right term. And so much for what they had being more than a hookup!

She lobbed three couch pillows in swift succession against the wall. The final was aimed so wildly her framed poster of a Parisian
boulangerie
fell down. Didn’t people say Paris was for lovers? How nice for Zane to be there with his!

She might have descended into a tantrum, but her own growl of rage shocked her.

“They’re not yours,” she reminded. Not Zane. Not Trey. And what sort of idiot was she to want to claim them both?

The answer to that was simple: a female idiot with a pulse.

Rebecca’s chest hitched as if gearing up for a crying jag.

“No,” she growled for a new reason.

She wasn’t allowed to fall apart. Not over this, not the night before the Lounge opened. She forced herself to breathe—one breath in, one breath out—until she’d calmed as much as she was going to.

CHAPTER TEN

Opening Night

THE
Bad Boys Lounge put its most beautiful face forward. Flickering candles and fragrant flowers softened the men’s club atmosphere. The fat coffee table books were shelved in their built-ins, the glassware polished like crystals. Everyone who stepped through the entrance looked glamorous. Here was a female anchor for local TV news; there a player from the Bruins with a date so stunning she could have been the celebrity.

Some of the guests congratulated Rebecca on her brothers’ recent interview—either because they assumed it was smart promotion, or because they admired her courage in raising the twins alone. She accepted the slightly discomfiting compliments with the best grace she could. Mercifully, they were infrequent. Rebecca bought the “Best New Wines” issue every year, but at more than ten bucks a pop, the subscription base for
Bad Boys Magazine
wasn’t huge. She expected this was deliberate. Neither Zane nor Trey was afraid of appearing exclusive.

Then again, who was she to talk? She might not be a high flyer, but she wanted people to feel privileged to eat her food.

Given the crowd, she was grateful she’d splurged on the pearl necklace to dress up her ivory silk blouse and black skirt. Though the outfit reminded her of Zane and his fickleness, at least she didn’t stick out like a sore thumb.

Her feet already ached in the two-inch heels.

“Thanks so much for coming,” she said for the umpteenth time. She’d stopped offering her hand a while ago. The coldness of her fingers had shocked people.

She and Trey stood ahead of the hostess’s podium, greeting guests as they came in. Rebecca was no stranger to schmoozing dining rooms. Having faces to associate with a restaurant personalized the diners’ experience and made them feel valued. She simply wasn’t accustomed to being away from her true job so long. She longed to be with her crew, heading off the million and one disasters that might be unfolding.

Barring that, she wished she could focus on the action behind her back. Early sitters had ordered and received their first courses. The noise of talking and laughter obscured what she
believed
were hums of approval. The wait staff seemed slightly harried as they passed to and fro, but no more than a filling house and first night jitters could account for.