Page 11 of Wicked Beautiful (Wicked Games 1)
“Yeah, boss?”
“Stop talking now.”
She mock pouts. “Oh, so you don’t want to know about Victoria Price?”
I realize I’m being punished. Not for touching Bailey’s arm, but for showing interest in Victoria Price in the first place. I’m irritated, not with Bailey but with myself. I should know better. Bailey has made her interest in me patently obvious, and even though I’ve made my non-interest perfectly clear, no one likes to have the competition rubbed in her face.
“Not if you don’t want to tell me. And I have something else to apologize for.”
Now it’s Bailey’s turn to blink. “What?”
“That comment I made when she walked in.”
She makes a very unladylike sound and crosses her arms over her chest. “The one about her looking so fuckable, you mean? Gee, why would you think that would be annoying?”
Sighing, I run a hand through my hair. “You’re right. It was rude, not to mention chauvinistic. I don’t know what’s wrong with me tonight. I’m being a complete idiot. I’m sorry.”
Bailey takes pity on me. She gives me a friendly little shove with her elbow and chuckles. “Don’t worry about it. You’re a guy: you can’t help being a complete idiot. Comes with the junk.”
She flashes a look to my crotch and then grins.
I grin back. “I’ll do better. I mean, I’ll try. My junk might get in the way, but give me credit for the effort?”
I’ll give her this: when Bailey really smiles, she does it with her whole body.
“Deal,” she says, appeased. “And since you’re being so nice, I will tell you about the ice queen in white. But prepare yourself. It isn’t pretty.”
She leans around me, peering out the doorway into the restaurant to where Victoria and Darcy sit. I follow her gaze. Victoria turns her head in our direction, and Bailey jumps out of sight behind the wall.
“Busted,” she breathes, hand over her heart.
“Bailey, why are you hiding? It’s not like we’re plotting the woman’s death back here.”
“Ever heard of resting bitch face?”
I chuckle. “Yeah.”
“Well, she’s got resting bitch everything. I’m afraid she might turn me to stone with those iceberg eyes.”
I glance at Victoria. Once again, she’s glaring daggers at me. I say drily, “I’m familiar with the effect.”
Bailey says, “She’s known as the Queen B. And not bee like the insect, or Jay-Z’s wife. The letter B, as in beyotch. She first made her money with a self-help book she wrote called Bitches Do Better, which became a number one New York Times bestseller when she was only twenty-one. Then she wrote half a dozen more Bitch books, started doing speaking engagements, and became a life coach for some über-swank clients. Teaching them her bitchy secrets for success, apparently. Which all must be pretty damn lucrative because she lives in a penthouse in the Flatiron district that cost twenty-five million bucks.”
Here Bailey pauses.
“What else?”
“Well…she has a bit of a reputation.”
“Over and above being the reigning Queen B? I can hardly wait. Does she skin kittens alive?”
“More like she skins men alive. Or, more precisely, eats them alive. Loves ’em and leaves ’em, wham, bam, thank you man, your money’s on the dresser. Never sticks around for more than a few dates, never commits. She’s never been married or engaged, never been in a long-term relationship as far as anyone knows.” As an afterthought, she adds, “Like you.”
I ignore that last bit. I know a minefield when I see one.
“Not to bring up a sore subject, but earlier you said she didn’t like to fuck. And now you’re telling me she’s a man-eater? I don’t see how those two lines ever cross.”
Bailey rolls her eyes as if I’m the biggest idiot to ever walk the earth.
