Taking the Score(27)

Damn your pride, girl. What in the hell use was it to her this minute? She should have confided in Brody sooner—about Daisy, the debt, how Ray wanted her to work him for profit. She could see how that conversation would go now.

Well, it’s like this, babe. Telling you I was stripping to help out my drug addict sister was just so embarrassing. Then I didn’t want it to look like I was selling my body for a roof over my head, yanno? But hey, turns out my loan-shark strip-club boss has a video of us doin’ the deed, so maybe you might want to cover my debt after all and throw in a little bonus to keep him from bringing a world of shame down on you and your family. We take Amex and cashier’s checks!

A loud thud dumped her out of that nightmare conversation. Emma froze. What if it was Ray, following up on his videogram in person? She quickly dismissed that thought. Not even Ray could get past the doorman on the first floor.

She crept forward, wishing there were a peephole, but that wasn’t really penthouse-door style.

“Brody, open up,” Olivia called out.

Relief flooded her chest and she pulled open the door. “Hey, Brody’s not here.”

Disappointment clouded Olivia’s pretty features, uncertainty that seemed strange on someone so strikingly confident. “Oh, um…” She turned to leave, then seemed to think better of it and stepped inside. “I was hoping to see him. We were supposed to go to dinner tonight but he bailed and he’s not answering his phone.”

“I think he went out with Flynn, one of his business partners.” Brody had actually texted her to say he’d be late because Flynn needed some guy time. That he had bothered to inform her at all had made her chest glow at the domesticity of it all.

Olivia nodded absently, her vacant gaze sharpening as she arced it over the all-white living room. A couple of colorful throws Emma found in one of the guest rooms made it less “padded cell chic.” With Kevin curled up on the sofa, an open book on corporate restructuring Emma had plucked from the library, and her half-eaten PB&J, the space looked positively lived in.

“The white was doing my head in,” Emma offered into the lengthening silence.

“His ex-fiancée decorated it.”

Oh.

Olivia took a seat near Kevin and gave him a rub. He did his usual who the fuck are you hissing thing, but Olivia seemed not to notice.

“He’s like that with everyone at first. He’s only just started to warm up to Brody.” She swallowed her nerves. “Could I get you anything? A drink? A sandwich?” A knife in case your stabby eyes of death don’t cut it?

Olivia shook her head but otherwise remained silent. Did Emma have to do everything herself, including opening the awkward conversation on her intentions toward the poor defenseless billionaire?

“How would you like to do this? Is there a standard spiel you give to unsuitable women for your brother or do you vary it up depending on the recipient?”

Brody’s sister’s eyes flashed, and her mouth quirked slightly in admiration. So like Brody.

“How long have you known my brother?”

“Subtext: Am I here to bilk him out of everything he owns?” Damn, Chardonnay likely knew shit about “subtext.”

Her gaffe appeared to go unnoticed. “Honey, you could steal a billion dollars and he’d still have billions to spare. I’m not worried about his money. I’m worried about his heart. He had a rough time last year with his ex. She was a money-grubbing ho and she moved on to the next model who had slightly more billions. It crushed him.”

Cherchez la fucking femme. This shouldn’t have surprised her. Beneath that controlled exterior, a man of inordinate passion reigned. The bitch he had the incompatibility issues with had left him broken.

“I’m not here to use him or take his money. He’s just”—saving my life one steamy moment at a time—“a fling.”

“A fling who’s made herself at home.” She waved a hand around the penthouse. “Why are you even here?”

“He wants me here.” Emma shot a blast of titanium into her spine. “While he works me out of his system. There’s no future for us, so don’t worry about Brody’s heart or his wallet. Both are very, very safe.”

She would make sure of it when she removed her toxic presence. She would do what she must to protect Brody from Ray.

Olivia inhaled a deep breath and waited an extra-charged beat, perhaps trying to decide if she should take what Emma said at face value. Then she burst into tears.

Oh. Shit.

Faster than greased lightning, Emma moved in and sat beside Olivia. “What’s wrong? Is it something I said?”

Muttering obscenities under her breath, Olivia fumbled for her purse and ransacked it, then finally upended its contents all over the white sofa. An open lipstick swiped a pink gash across the fabric. More tear-blurred fumbling ensued until she found her target: a tissue. She swiped at her tears.

“My fiancé doesn’t look at me like Brody looks at you. Within twenty seconds of walking into that kitchen I could tell my brother is crazy about you.”

Emma’s heart hitched, but she shut that dumbass piece of machinery down. “He just likes boobies, like all men. It’ll pass. It always does.”

Olivia snorted. “I’d like to have something passionate enough to be at risk of eventually fading. I’m not even sure he—” She blew hard into her tissue.

“Not even sure he what?”

“Well, he’s always so busy. That’s Peter, my fiancé, the congressman. He has to travel a lot to DC and he’s always tired. Hell, I’m tired. This wedding is driving me off a cliff. My parents are divorced and it’s hell on earth when they’re both trying to have it their way.”

Emma squeezed her arm. “It’s your big day, so it should be whatever you want. But maybe there shouldn’t be a big day if you’re having second thoughts. Maybe you should sit down with your fiancé and tell him how you’re feeling.”

Horror crossed her brow. “The Kanes do not tell anyone how they’re feeling, honey. If it’s not about football, big tits, or who’s boppin’ who, the conversation is just not worth having.” That little show of bravado seemed to cheer her up. Straightening, she sniffed, a sound that pronounced the emotional nonsense as behind her. “You know, you’re kind of sweet.”

“For a stripper,” Emma finished her thought.

“For a stripper,” Olivia repeated, just as deadpan as her brother. She winked, and Emma laughed, enjoying this sisterly moment. She really missed Daisy. Regret ached in her chest. Under better circumstances, she suspected she might have gotten along really well with Olivia.

Olivia blinked at the mess on the sofa. “Brody is not going to like that. He’s kind of anal about that kind of thing.” She made no move to clear it up, just continued to assess her handiwork, then turned to Emma, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “So, Char, whatcha doin’ Saturday afternoon?”





Chapter Sixteen

Brody stepped into the lounge area on the terrace, belly warm from a couple of scotches, a smile already building at the thought of seeing Emma. She stood at the balcony wall, her face tipped up to the night sky, her hand wrapped around Kevin’s leash. She’d expressed concern that the demon might take a leap over the side, so Brody had bought a leash and a jeweled harness to put her at ease. No doubt Kevin hated that girlie restraint, a notion that pleased Brody immensely.

He was playing mind games with a cat.

“The view of my ass is a lot better close up,” she called out without even looking at him.

“Oh, I dunno. Lookin’ mighty fine from here, Ms. Strickland.”

She turned, a move that took her mighty fine ass out of his vision field, but gave him a whole other vista of gorgeous to feast his eyes on. A light breeze whipped her hair, the city nightscape casting beams of twinkling light in it. She would look amazing on a yacht, in a convertible, on top of his body, milking him dry.

As he walked toward her, she said, “Your sister stopped by.”

“Did she bring a houseplant?”

“No, just a warning about my gold-digging ass.”

“Hell and damn—”

She touched a finger to his lips. “She’s protective of you, and she has every right to be suspicious. Here I am, making myself at home with my cat. She doesn’t know me from Adam. You don’t know me from Adam.”

Yet he did. He knew that crease she got between her brows when she was annoyed or worried. That subtle lift at the corner of her luscious mouth when she had a smart-ass comment ready to deliver. He knew the sounds she made when he was inside her and the way her breath quickened when she was in his arms.

He wanted to kill Liv. She knew how much Kerry had hurt him. One minute he was on top of the world—a beautiful fiancée, a kid on the way, his life mapped out—and the next, he was wading in a shit pool created by his dumb naïveté. What he did not appreciate was his sister playing his personal bodyguard, matchmaker, and all-around pain in his ass.

“About my sister, she’s sort of, well, crazy. Overprotective, no filter, and spoiled rotten. She expects everyone to kowtow to her every whim and she also assumes she’s right about everything. The whole stripper thing sort of threw her. She doesn’t meet a lot of people outside her circle.”