A million Dallas Townsends waltzed on my brain, their pointy heels stabbing each fold.
I peeled my eyes open.
The room rocked back and forth as if I’d stowed away on a sinking ship.
“Shouldn’t have finished that Pappy Van Winkle by yourself, buddy.” Oliver’s spirited voice echoed from the depths of a toilet. “Sharing is caring.”
Zach tsked from a distance. “For the last time, von Bismarck, that Agent Provocateur model didn’t want a threesome.”
I hissed into a silky pillow at the Grand La Perouse Hotel, regretting every decision I had made that landed me in this hellhole.
Spurred on by a last-minute discovery, the three of us had arrived in Chapel Falls half an hour before the ball.
Presently, we occupied the four-bedroomed presidential suite. Not so much because we enjoyed each other’s company, but because we knew some schmuck had booked it ahead of the ball.
Taking joy in other people’s misery was one of the smallest pleasures in life.
One I often indulged in.
Oliver ambled into the room, his mouth enveloping an unlit cigar.
“You needed to numb the pain away. Erase the memory of fingering a prepubescent girl in front of Fortune 500’s finest.” He shouldered into a polo. “The tab was forty grand on alcohol and cigars alone, by the way. We should get into the business of throwing debutante balls. The world would never be short of privileged young women in need of billionaire husbands.”
The idea of ever wasting my time like this again revolted me. “You’d turn the place into a gambling joint and father a few bastards before the first waltz.”
He plopped onto the edge of my bed, hiking up his riding boots. “Yes, to gambling. No, to bastards. I always pack my meat. No glove, no love.”
Considering he viewed women as a conveyor belt of warm holes to park himself inside for the night, I doubted Oliver was familiar with the notion of love.
He paused, his lips bowing around the cigar. “Not everyone is scrupulous enough to practice your method of ensuring no illegitimate children are in line for the throne.”
Zachary Sun—tall, lithe, obnoxiously genius, and as emotionally available as a pet rock—breezed into my room with his laptop tucked under his bicep. “What’s Rom’s method?”
He’d opted to stay in the hotel yesterday.
His presence at the ball would have been redundant.
Just the thought of her son marrying a Southern girl would send Mrs. Sun into heart failure. No common woman could suit their old-money lineage, which traced back to the Zhou Dynasty
“There’s one hole he never fucks, and it’s the one where babies come from.” Oliver delivered the piece of information with unnecessary jollity.
Zach frowned, probably recalling my past. “Recently or ever?”
We shared the same worldview—that the oxygen provided by Earth’s dwindling forests was a privilege wasted on humans.
Against my better judgment, I’d made one exception in my thirty-one years of life. Which I’d come to regret.
In spectacular fashion, too.
“He’s been abstinent long enough to be considered a born-again virgin.” Oliver shrugged into an equestrian blazer. “Not to mention—a loser.”
If the words were supposed to offend me, they missed their mark by about two thousand miles.
Women didn’t interest me.
Neither did people in general.
Zach observed me with equal wonder and confusion. “How come I never knew that about you?”
“You must’ve missed my three-month ad on the front page of the New York Times.” I emptied a water bottle in one gulp, placing a piece of mint gum on the tip of my tongue. “What’s the time?”
“Glad you asked.” Oliver lit his cigar and sucked hard. A plume of smoke crawled up from the amber tip. “It’s high time I remind you what happened last night. The incident that preceded you polishing off an entire bottle of brandy in hopes you’d die of alcohol poisoning after you returned from the Townsends’ premises.”
I slam-dunked the bottle into the trash. “Have your moment in the sun. Tell me how bad it looked from the outside.”
“It didn’t look bad.” Zach parked his laptop on the table in front of my bed. “Bizarre? Yes. Scandalous? As intended. But you came off as a good guy trying to win over a girl. At least in the videos plastered all over TikTok and YouTube, many of them viral. They call it the proposal of the century.”
Oliver whistled. “You have your own hashtag.”
I’d never created a scandal in my entire life, and I certainly did not relish being a part of one now. However, the ends justified the means.
I’d done it.
Stolen Madison Licht’s fiancée and made her mine.
The little cretin always ended events with an underaged gold digger, who thought she could keep him for more than one night.
Imagine my surprise when, two days ago, Oliver overheard him waxing poetic about his fiancée’s delectable body, perfect face, and luscious hair.
For once in his miserable life, it appeared he hadn’t lied.
I rubbed my chin. “Was she at least as beautiful as I remember?”
“Exquisite. Chef’s kiss.” Oliver brought his fingers to his lips. “Also: hardly pubescent. Is she even legal, Rom?”
“Legal.” A teeth-shaped valley at the tip of my chin rippled across my fingertips. The manic little vixen had bitten me and left a mark. “Been in college for at least two years.”
Three or more, if she hadn’t exaggerated about failing her semesters. How one could fail in English Lit evaded me, but leave it to this hell-dragged phantom to manage it.
“Zach, when I tell you that woman was livid…” Oliver shook his head. Smoke poured from his nostrils like a demonic dragon. “She nearly stabbed him to death. I think the only thing that stopped her was the likelihood of embarrassing her family further.”
Thankfully, Dallas Townsend harbored a red line.
Based on our fleeting introduction, it was her only one.
I’d be hard-pressed to conjure a woman as colorful as her. She remained in constant sixth gear, ping-ponging from stealing food to running her mouth like it was a Boston Marathon contestant.
Her mere face made me want to pop four Tylenols and wash them down with brandy.
If I’d known her personality prior to acquiring her as my newest investment, I would’ve chosen to hear that pasty brute wax on about her for the rest of his pathetic life over marrying her myself.
Oliver slapped his knee, laughing. “She gave him hell.”
“I’m sure he’ll retaliate in kind once they tie the knot.” Zach typed away on his laptop, only half-invested in the conversation. “What happened after you got to her house?”
I propped against the headboard, massaging the foot my future wife had pierced a straight hole through with her heel. “Her father sent her to her room. Then we closed a nice sweetheart deal. I’m going to hemorrhage donation money into his non-profits for the next five years and introduce him to some people he wants to pitch businesses to.”
And for what?
I could count on one hand the number of times I would see Dallas Townsend after the wedding ceremony—and have fingers left over.
“Well.” Oliver tugged his brown leather gloves up his fingers, tossing the butt of his cigar through the window. “As much as I enjoy reciting the night Romeo ruined his life, I have horses to see and women to corrupt.”
Zach popped a dark eyebrow. “Any woman who is dumb enough to end up under you has already been thoroughly tarnished.”
Oliver sighed. “It’s true.”
Zach’s nose scrunched. “Aren’t you bored?”
Whereas Oliver loved all women, Zach couldn’t find a single one that lived up to his unreasonable ideals. In fact, Mrs. Sun arranged weekly dates with ABC heiresses to shipping, copper mining, and software companies.
His favorite pastime was shutting them down on absurd bases, such as too pretty, too smart, too rich, too charitable, and my personal favorite, too much like him.
“I’ll stop chasing tail when I die.” Oliver rose to his feet, slipping his wallet and phone into a sleek leather courier bag. He frowned. “Actually, even then, the worms aren’t safe from my libido. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to make the most out of this shithole before we depart, and there’s no better way I can think of spending my time than not with you.”
With Oliver off to make the world a worse place, Zach and I stared each other down.
On paper, we shared much in common.
A single entity motivated us.
Money.
Zach had two multi-billion-dollar exits under his belt on self-developed apps. Meanwhile, I reigned over my father’s company as CFO, dabbling in hedge funds and high-risk investments for fun. Since graduating from MIT, I’d tripled Costa Industries’ revenue.
We were reserved, calculated, pragmatic, and unmoved by societal expectations. Both our parents pressured us to marry. And they would go to extreme lengths to walk us down the aisle with the future mother of their grandchildren.
But our similarities ended here.
Unlike Zach, I didn’t possess a single nerve in my whole body. Not to mention integrity, a concept I found as mythical as mermaids. I did atrocious things and still slept like a baby at night.
Zach, on the other hand, was genuinely decent. It didn’t matter much, since he found ninety-nine percent of the population hard to stomach due to lack of sufficient intelligence.
“So.” Zach didn’t lift his eyes from the screen. “Think you’ll develop a conscience and let the poor girl loose?”
I swung my feet to the floor and planted my elbows on my knees, digging my palms into my eye sockets. “No.”
“Why not?”
A million reasons existed, but only one mattered. “Because she was Madison’s, and he deserves nothing good in his life.”
“So, she is good.”
“Did I say good? I meant insufferable.”
“High praise.”
“Insufferable is praise, as far as she’s concerned. The woman could drive a monk to murder.”
“Interesting.” He did not find that interesting. He did not find anything that wasn’t money, technology, and art even remotely stimulating. “I’ve yet to hear you so passionate about a woman, one way or the other, since Mo—”
“Do not speak her name. At any rate, Dublin and I will be married on paper only.”
Was I telling this to Zach or myself?
“Dublin, huh?” He ripped his gaze from the screen only to deliver a pitiful look. “Don’t underestimate the power of paper. Money’s made of that shit.”
“Twenty-five percent linen. Seventy-five percent cotton,” I corrected.
Not that he didn’t know.
“Checks, then. What do you know about her?”
Not much.
After yesterday, my curiosity wasn’t piqued, to say the least.
Seducing her had been easier than taking candy from a baby. Ironically, taking candy from her was something I didn’t think was possible without losing an arm.
“She’s beautiful, unhinged, and would rather eat her own eyeballs than marry me.”
Zach saluted me with his electrolyte water. “I’ll make popcorn.”
“Don’t be so smug. You’re next in line.”
“But the line is long.” He clicked away on his mouse, already drifting from the conversation to his work. “And I’m very good at stalling.”
