Page 88 of Wicked Beautiful (Wicked Games 1)
Connor waves a giant paw in the air in a dismissive gesture. “I don’t sit on the job, brother.” He eyes the pair of white leather chairs opposite my desk. “Especially in something like that. The fuck is that, Barbie furniture?”
“Those are five-thousand-dollar Barcelona chairs.”
When he looks at me with his brows raised, I say, “They’re designer.”
“You paid five large for chairs that don’t even have arms?”
“No. I paid ten large for chairs that don?
?t have arms. And if you’re not going to sit, we might as well go into the living room so I can make myself a drink.”
“A drink? It’s nine o’clock in the morning.”
I blow out a hard breath. “I’m surprised I waited this long.”
Connor’s eyes, the color of obsidian, bore into mine. “That bad, huh?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. That’s why you’re here.”
I rise and leave the office. Connor follows. For such a huge guy, he’s surprisingly light on his feet; I can’t hear his footsteps behind me. When we reach the living room, he leans against the wall with his hands shoved in the pockets of his black cargo pants, and watches as I pour myself a glass of scotch from the crystal decanter on the sideboard. I raise the glass to my lips, swallow its contents, and fill it again.
Connor drawls, “Haven’t seen you this wound up since the night we met.”
The night Connor and I met—at a seedy cowboy bar—was the worst night of my life. I was twenty-two, piss drunk, and crying like a baby. I picked fights with all the biggest guys I could spot, including him. I wanted to kill everyone. I wanted them to kill me.
I wanted to die.
An hour earlier, I’d learned that the love of my life was dead.
Connor, five years older, fresh out of the Marines’ Special Operations Command and already running Metrix, knocked me out cold with a single punch, and then dragged me out to his pickup so I could sleep it off in the back. When I woke up with a hangover and a black eye, he was leaning against the cab of the Chevy, calmly smoking. He looked at me and said, “You better do somethin’ about that death wish, brother, before it comes true.”
I stare out the wall of windows into the bright afternoon. A forest of skyscrapers stares back at me. Windows like blank eyes wink in the sun.
“There’s a woman—”
Connor laughs. “With you, there’s always a woman.”
I turn to look at him. I say quietly, “Not like this.”
He examines my face for a long, silent moment. “Go on.”
I turn back to the glass. “There’s a possibility I might be a mark.”
Silence. A moment later, Connor stands beside me at the glass, gazing at the view. “Money?”
I shake my head. “Doubtful. She’s got her own. Maybe more than I do.”
He slides me a look. “Blackmail?”
I shrug and take another swallow of scotch.
“This skank got a name?”
“Victoria Price.” I turn my head and stare into his eyes. “And if you ever call her a skank again, I’ll rip out your fucking throat.”
Not even mildly intimidated by my threat as almost every other man would be, Connor looks amused. “Wow. She must have a gold-lined pussy to get you so up in arms.”
I mutter, “You have no idea.”
