Page 59 of Eye Candy

Caroline’s nostrils flared at his assessment of her. It wasn’t accurate, we both knew that. But it was kinder than she deserved.

“I’m just telling it like it is, Kiwi!” Gerard raised his hands to her, palms up. It was just like him to instigate something then pretend the fallout had nothing to do with him. “You were the one who agreed to seduce this walking lecture.”

It all made sense now.

That was her real scam—to get me so worked up that I forgot myself, then extort me. She could ruin my whole career as well as Joe’s. I’d swallowed her lies, hook, line and sinker.

“I’m sorry, Chase. I shouldn’t have done it.” Caroline placed her palms on my chest, like she could soothe me.

I stepped back and her hands fell to her sides.

“I didn’t know who Gerard was to you. I just had to make it look like Joe was still an irresponsible playboy and you were involved with your brother’s ex, and he’d pay me for my effort. That was it. Then just a bit of flirting, no big deal.”

I grunted, beyond words.

Caroline was speaking in a hushed voice, trying to avoid pulling the crowd’s attention, but Gerry made no such effort.

“Look at it this way, Chase,” he said loudly. “If you weren’t such a pious motherfucker, you wouldn’t have been as susceptible to a bit of spicy corruption. It was a light prank. A little mess between family. Does Joe even need his inheritance? He has a shitload.Youhave a shitload. What about me?”

I looked at him in disbelief. “Dad included you in his will.”

He scoffed. “After tax, that was basically nothing. I should have gotten more. Most of it went to you two fucks, despite having no clue how to run a business. If I had majority shares in the Sanford Group, we’d be raking it in. You vote against everything that would make big profit. And I could’ve globally franchised the Dragonfly by now.” The look in his eyes had gotten wild. “Your dad was a selfish asshole. Austin put me through hell. He promised us everything, treated me like a son, but then two years later he forgot I existed. Just because you share his DNA and look a tiny bit like him, you got everything, even though you can’t say boo to a fucking goose. Especially not if more than thirty of their goose friends are looking at you.”

It happened so fast I didn’t register it until Gerry was cupping his reddened cheek, looking stunned. Caroline had whirled around and slapped my stepbrother across the face.

Now people were definitely looking at us.

“Chase,” Caroline pleaded, “can we?—”

She broke off and whipped around to see the stares we were drawing, and instead grabbed my lapel and pulled me into a room off the main space. I went because I didn’t know what else to do. I certainly didn’t have anything else to say to Gerry, the greedy, cowardly little fuck.

Caroline stood in the hazy lamplight of the small receiving room, her chest heaving as if she’d run a marathon. It must have been tiring work, taking a hammer to my heart.

“Chase, please listen to me. Yes, Gerard hired me to embarrassJoe and flirt with you at Lueur. I’m sorry. But the rest of it—on the bar, in the bathroom—was because I wanted to. You have to believe me.”

I laughed. That was the last thing I had to do.

“Saysomething,” she pushed. “Please.”

“You were hired to seduce me, Caroline. I think that says it all.”

“No,” she retorted tersely. “It doesn’t. I was hired to steal from you and flirt with you, then I happened to seduce you. That’s an important distinction. Like I said, I had a change of heart?—”

“Was it the same with Joe?” I interrupted. “Did my brother make you come too?”

Her jaw dropped. “I barely spoke to Joe! You were there both times!”

I took off my glasses and rubbed my eyes. “No offense Caroline, but?—”

“Offense,” she said firmly. “I shouldn’t have let things between us go so far without telling you about Gerard. I got swept up, I’m sorry. But you don’t get to call me names.”

She thought I was going to call her a whore. Maybe I had been. Not in so many words but the gist. The sexual chemistry between us had been explosive. Liberating. And our relationship—although now I realized I couldn’t even call it that—had profoundly affected me. It cut deeply that it didn’t mean anywhere near the same to her.

She seemed to guess what I was thinking. “Chase, I feel like you’re not focusing on the important parts here. Yes, I was hired to make Joe’s life chaotic, but I did it honestly, notwithstanding the one main lie. I never once tried to—” She stopped and sighed. “I’m a flirt. I won’t apologize for that. But everything that’s happened between us is real. Everything I said, I meant. Everything with us, I really meant.”

“How would I know that?” I snapped, finally losing my temper. I didn’t raise my voice, but I was sharp. Her spinestraightened at my tone. “You’re a performer, Floss. Making men lose their minds for you is what you do.”

Her eyes flashed. “That’snotwhat I do. Burlesque isn’t for men, they just think it is. They think everything is for them.” She adopted a frat-boy voice. “Dude, if a showgirl flashes a tit and there’s no guy to see, does she evenhavetits?”

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