I tilted the grimy shoe in my hand, studying it.
It was so worn out, I couldn’t make out the brand. I’d done some online research and narrowed it to either Vans or Converse.
By the power of deduction—and fucking logic—I guessed it was the cheapest out of the two. The girl looked too poor to afford air.
“And then she climbed over your gate, hopped to the other side, and bowed?” Romeo punched buttons on the panel to the cryochamber. “Are you sure you experienced it and not, well… dreamed it?”
Sweat drenched my shirt from our morning workout—notably not as taxing as my little run with Octi last night.
I tugged the back, slid it over my head in one swoop, and balled the performance fabric in my fist, dumping it into a hamper. “I’m positive my mind did not conjure a con woman who knows how to play Go and walks around in see-through lingerie.”
Romeo flicked the lights to the ice room on. “Why not? Sounds like your fantasy.”
I have no fantasies, you fool. Let alone about women.
Human flesh disgusted me.
He stretched his arms. “Maybe it was the alcohol? That Jamaican rum was potent as fuck.”
“I wasn’t drunk.”
“But I was.” Ollie moseyed in from the bathroom, stark naked, swinging his dick in the air. That thing was longer than a lemur’s tail. I hoped he taped it to the side of his thigh on dates. His entire existence was one big sexual harassment. “I was smashed.”
He stopped by the panel, shouldering Rom out of the way and choosing the advanced option.
Below -266F.
Four minutes.
The screen monitored the temperature inside as it plummeted, right along with my patience. He’d spent the entire morning bitching about his hangover.
Since the three of us lived on the same street, it took all of two seconds to break into his home, pull him out by the ear, and drag him to the decked-out, three-story penthouse suite in his family-owned luxury hotel.
He’d moaned about a headache before we even lifted a single weight.
“Oliver, put that thing away.” My lips curled into a sneer. “It’s dragging all over the floor.”
“By the way, Zachy, I hope you’re not dead set on a virgin for a bride, because I popped a few cherries last night.” Oliver ignored me, scratching the side of his ass. “Okay, fine. A whole bag of cherries. Those industrial ones you get at Costco.”
Romeo barked out a laugh. “When have you ever set foot inside a Costco?”
“Never, but I’ve heard stories. Who’d you end up choosing, and why do you have Oliver Twist’s shoe in your hand?” Ollie whipped his curly blond head, frowning at me. “Please tell me it’s kink-related. The only way anything about you would ever make sense to me is if you tell me right now that you have some kind of filthy feet kink.”
“Christ.” I scoffed, shaking my head.
“What? I’m not judging. We all know my relationship with dog leashes.”
“One cannot have a relationship with inanimate objects.” I said it slowly, hoping it’d seep into his skull but knowing it wouldn’t.
Ollie jerked a finger toward Rom. “Tell that to his wife and her fridge.”
Contrary to general belief, Ollie wasn’t an idiot. He just pretended to be one so he’d be spared all the expectations and obligations a man in his position usually had to endure.
It was actually a clever setup.
One I hadn’t thought of myself.
He would be the last bachelor standing out of us three, because he’d engineered his image so that nobody, alive or dead, wanted their daughter to date him, wealth and status be damned.
He was so thoroughly corrupted, so depraved, that most families would sooner accept a pet fish for a husband than Oliver von Bismarck.
He’d also quietly doubled his natural wealth through investments no one ever asked him about because they all assumed he shared a single brain cell with a discarded sperm.
In the thirty years I’d known him, he’d never broken a heart, never had to stammer his way out of ending a relationship, and never made a single business mistake while careful to appear as though he had no idea what he was doing and managed his achievements through sheer luck.
He cruised through life without being interrupted by pretending to be an idiot. Which was the most genius thing one could do.
I pushed my running pants down and dumped Octi’s shoe on a wooden bench. “It belongs to someone who trespassed here yesterday.”
Rom chuckled. “A hot nerd who came wearing lingerie and fed him a nice dose of his own bullshit. There’s only one problem—he doesn’t know her name.”
This was the least of my problems, actually.
Even if I could, indeed, consider someone as an actual wife, the little octopus definitely wasn’t prime material.
She was a liar, clearly below my station, and a blonde. My mother would never consider her for the position.
Even if she did, I wouldn’t.
She possessed none of the qualities that had made it to my list.
And yes, there was a list:
• Filthy rich.
• Open to a clinical arrangement.
• And above all—obedient.
I did not tolerate love.
Couldn’t stand romance.
Actively loathed homo sapiens.
And she was very human indeed. All messy flesh and blood. Hot temperament and even hotter body.
The cryochamber screen beeped three times, signaling it was ready.
“What’s the problem?” Ollie stuffed his giant feet into slippers, yanking the door to the walk-in cryotherapy room. White-blue smoke rolled out in thick waves, tumbling along the floor. “Just go through your guestlist.”
I followed him, teeth clenched. “If she were a part of the guestlist, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
I was not in a great mood.
I did not like to be outsmarted.
No, let me rephrase—I was not used to being outsmarted.
The child bride of Satan blew into my life like a tornado. Slipping into my castle, going through my shit, very nearly winning a Go game against me.
And then, to top all of that off, she’d run away cartoon character-style, climbing over my towering gate like a lizard.
Whoever she was, she wasn’t a cushioned heiress with extravagant dreams in her head and a black Amex in her vintage Birkin.
Rom entered the chamber last, closing the door behind him. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Ollie is right.”
The digital clock above our heads began counting down from four minutes, white clouds of ice obscuring it for the most part. Both men shivered.
I, as always, felt nothing.
Rom rolled his neck, flexing his abs. “Even if she wasn’t on your guestlist, she came in with a guest. In their car. There is literally no other way to get past security. It’s too heavily guarded. And you have that shoe to go by.”
“It’s a common shoe,” I growled.
But it was not a common shoe size for a woman.
Size ten, narrowed trim.
She was tall. Sprightly. Almost androgynous in frame. An amorphous creature.
I couldn’t even tell if her face was traditionally attractive or not. I just remembered wanting to look away every time our eyes met, because she stared at me like a Rubik’s cube she wanted to figure out, not like a meal ticket.
“You’re a resourceful man.” Ollie flicked a chip of ice from his shoulder. “And it worked for the prince from Cinderella.”
“That was a fairytale.” Those appalled me. I detested the idea of happily-ever-afters. Downer-tragic-ending was more my brand. “Plus, in the Brothers Grimm version, Cinderella’s stepsisters amputate their feet to fit the shoe.”
Romeo jogged in place to shake off some of the cold.
We worked out six times a week, together when our schedules allowed it, then went through the ritual of the ice chamber, ultra-red lights, the dry sauna, and IV drips, usually at my place but occasionally at The Grand Regent when I craved a space Mom couldn’t find me.
“Fairytales exist.” Romeo gestured to himself. “Look at me.”
My upper lip curled into a sneer. “What you have with your wife isn’t a fairytale.”
“What would you call it, then?”
“The worst financial investment in the history of humanity.”
“He’s not wrong.” Oliver barked out a laugh. “You know I’m a fan of Dal, but I’ve met private jets more cost efficient than her.”
Rom blew out a cloud of air. “You don’t believe in fate?”
As if he’d believed in it before he’d become wildly obsessed with his other half.
Or should I say—his other quarter.
His wife was a tiny thing, but she made a lot of noise.
“I’m more of the chaos theory kind of guy. And she seems like anarchy, personified.”
Romeo had forced Dallas into marriage, which resulted in a whirlwind relationship with ups, downs, and enough angst for three historical C-dramas.
Over one year and four-point-three million dollars in the red later, he seemed happy with his wife. But I’d met some people who felt happy while infected with Lyme disease.
Humans largely had no standards.
“Anarchy or not, she caught your attention, and no one else has in the thirty odd years I’ve known you.” Romeo glanced at the timer. Probably counting down the seconds until he reunited with Dallas. The two of them sickened me. “That must mean something.”
“It means she’s deranged,” I supplied. “Completely unhinged and stupid enough to enter my lair uninvited.”
“She got in and stayed there for a few hours.” Ollie graduated to cupping his balls to protect them from the cold. “That means you enjoyed her company.”
“I’m not looking for her.” I watched my skin as it turned a nice shade of blue, wondering why it still felt the same, before and after.
The clock showed two minutes. Ollie and Rom had started chattering, shivering, jumping around. They were so soft. So alive and in tune with their stupid bodies.
I couldn’t decide if I was jealous or annoyed by it.
Rom migrated toward the exit. “Why not?”
“Because I have no use for her.”
“You haven’t finished that Go game.” Ollie snapped his fingers. “You know you won’t be able to live with the knowledge she could’ve beat you at it.”
“She couldn’t have. She barely survived the duration of our game.” I was certain I’d forget her soon.
Her measly existence hadn’t exactly left an imprint on my life.
“He’s going to look for her.” Romeo ran a hand over his dark mane, staring at the clock above our heads. “Fuck, it feels like I’ve been here since Thursday. Time crawls when you’re freezing to death.”
“I will not be looking for her,” I countered, not moving an inch, the icy smoke not penetrating my flesh even remotely.
I was numb.
So numb.
Always fucking numb.
Ollie elbowed Rom, leaning in to whisper. “What do you think they’ll call their children?”
Rom shoved him away.
Ollie’s dick swung with movement. It hadn’t shrunk a centimeter smaller in the subzero cold. It was probably a medical condition.
One of many, if I had to guess.
“Get the Fuck Out and Stupid Egg,” I hissed out through clenched teeth.
Ollie quirked his head sideways. “Is that in Chinese?”
Romeo trembled. “It’s in Zach.”
Twenty seconds left.
They’d progressed to pacing around aimlessly, trying to gather some heat.
I stayed put.
Oliver fingered his chin. “She’s the first woman he’s ever talked about.”
“And the last person he should be with.” Romeo elbowed Ollie away when he tried to huddle for body heat. “She’s a con woman. Remember?”
Ten seconds.
I refused to partake in this conversation. I had no reason to encourage these two morons to explore this topic further.
“Zach’s life is neat as shit.” Oliver began strolling toward the door, making a show of rubbing the ear we’d grabbed him by this morning. “He needs a little mess. She’d be good for him.”
Five seconds.
Romeo shook icicles off his hair, following Oliver. “I’d pay good money to get a front-row ticket to his downfall.”
The buzzer from the clock above our heads erupted.
We strolled out, single-file. Ollie grabbed the digital thermostat and pressed it to the back of his leg.
Then Romeo’s.
Then mine.
“Shit, Zach. You’re still at sixty-five.” Oliver cackled. “Are you fucking kidding me? Are you even human?”
I was not, in fact, very human at all.
And I wished to stay that way.
Humanity was messy, mediocre, and prone to mistakes.
I’d made up my mind.
I wasn’t going to find her.
I was better off forgetting she’d ever existed.
