Page 310 of The First Taste
I purse my lips. Glancing over my shoulder toward the back of the apartment, I weigh the pros and cons of having Burn in the apartment. It’s too risky while Talia is just out of sight with the doctors attending to her. Something cold slides through my gut, and I clench my teeth.
"Dare? Are you going to be a normal human being and let me up?"
"No," I say finally. "I’ll be down in a minute. Don’t go anywhere."
I take the emergency stairs just beside the elevator, and I hit the ground floor in about a minute. Pushing out of the steel door, I see Dante, the doorman, standing beside my twin brother Burn. Dante raises an eyebrow, but I wave him off.
"He’s fine. He probably won’t be visiting again, will you, Burn?"
Burns lips thin but he gives me a cool smile. "We will see."
He pulls a white rectangle of paper from inside his suit's jacket pocket and smirks at me as he hands it over. It’s heavier than I anticipated when I take the card stock from him, glancing at it. "Save the date," it proclaims. Burn and Daisy's wedding date is listed as two months from today at the bottom.
I look up at Burn, my eyes narrowing on his face. He lifts his chin, flicking his hair out of his face, and smiles.
"Well? Are you going to congratulate me?"
I purse my lips, reminding myself to control my expression. I give him a pleasant smile and a raucous clap on the shoulder.
"Congratulations."
He brushes off his shoulder and gives me a little glare. "Thanks, I guess."
If I am being completely honest, I am not even listening to the words coming out of his mouth at this moment. I'm trying to figure out if I can move my wedding date closer to my twin’s as a kind of fuck you.
"I want the whole ceremony to be at the Manhattan Four Seasons. But Remy made a strong argument for having our wedding at the Morgan estate. Daisy says she doesn’t care, so I had to give in to Remy’s demands."
I look my brother up and down, trying to pretend to be unimpressed. "Is that it? Did you just drop by to taunt me with your save the date?"
Burn looks past me at the elevator, squinting. "No. In fact, I came to ask who you are holed up in here with. If it’s some sleazy hooker, that’s one thing. I can just go. But if it’s someone else, I sure would like to know who."
I half a laugh. "Don’t worry about her. It’s none of your concern."
He arches his brow. "So it is someone, then? I’m assuming that it isn’t just a prostitute. Or are you so desperate that you are trying to pull off a pretty woman?"
"You’re an idiot. You know that right?"
I sneer. “We’ve got the same DNA, so if I'm an idiot, so are you."
“Then I am going to tell Remy that you are traipsing around with some hooker, telling her that you are going to marry her. If he finds out that you have paid for a wife..."
I cut Burn off. "Remy is a true capitalist. He would probably love me more for it if that were the case. But, and I cannot emphasize this enough, it is not. I have a girlfriend upstairs, and she has never been a prostitute in her life."
"Sure." His skeptical gaze rakes over me. "Keep telling yourself that."
"Yeah, yeah. You’re just upset because I am making gains against you in this inheritance race."
"Ha. You wish. You’ll win the inheritance race over my dead fucking body."
I lean closer, licking a canine tooth. "That can certainly be arranged, brother."
Burn growls at me, but I just look at my watch and shrug. “Well, this has been fun. But I have to get back upstairs and fuck my girlfriend, so…”
I stalk over to the elevator doors, pressing the button to call the elevator down. The doors open, and I give Burn a little wave. He flips me off and I hear his threat as I disappear inside the elevator.
"You’ll never win. Just give up now. Morgan Drilling will be mine."
The doors sink shut, and I wait until the elevator starts to ascend before unleashing my fury by pounding my arm against the nearest wall five times. It doesn’t hurt the elevator, but it definitely leaves all my nerves jangling. Who does Burn think he is?
