Page 148 of The Faking Game
“Not easy. Simple.” James lifts a wide shoulder in a shrug. “There are thousands of women who would take any deal you offered them.”
“I have a prenup ready, and I’ll offer cash. Live apart, courthouse wedding. But you know none of us are fit for a true marriage.” I look over at Nora again. She’s sitting on the barstool now, one of her bare legs extended and her toes pointed. She’s smiling widely. It looks real. And devastating. My hand tightens around my glass. “We’re all too fucked up to make it last.”
“You’re a bad drunk tonight,” Alex says.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” I say, my gaze shifting to him. He loves a laugh, and he loves a dare, but we all know how messed up he was all those years ago. How messed up he still is. “Will you ever get married? With your family history?”
The smile doesn’t slide off his face, but it hardens. “Yes. Definitely a bad drunk.”
“He’s scared he’s going to lose tomorrow,” Rafe offers.
James ignores them both and turns to me with steel-gray eyes. “Offer her money, have her on your arm sometimes, get your estate. Live separate lives. Handle the trust quietly and thoroughly, and if you don’t want children, leave it all to Amber’s. Divorce.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I look over at Nora right away and see her sliding her own back into her bag. Her gaze lingers on me for a moment before she keeps chatting with the bartender.
Something dark snakes up my spine and grips my chest with a cold hand.
“You make it sound so simple,” I tell James.
“Because it is,” he argues. “I’ll never understand you sometimes.”
“Not all of us can shut off our emotions,” I snap.
“No, clearly not,” he says with cold precision. “Fight the trust or give into it. I don’t care either way.”
Rafe sighs. “It’s too early in the night for a fight.”
“And it’s not even a fun one,” Alex protests. “Not like the weekend we had in Ibiza.”
All three of us groan, and Alex’s smile widens. “What? That was epic. How much damage did we do to that yacht?”
“Of courseyoudon’t know, because I’m the one who wrote the check for it,” I mutter and shake my head. “You have no respect for boats.”
“I think,” Rafe says, “that West just insulted you in the worst way he knows how.”
We were younger then, and the Lost Weekends were far more damaging. All of us had fewer responsibilities.
I reach for my phone and pull it up. And there it is. A text from Nora.
Nora
I’m practicing what you taught me.
I type a quick response.
West
I can see that.
Her response comes only a few seconds later, still from where she is over at the bar. There’s a glass in front of her with something pink in it.
Nora
And guess what? I just realized I forgot to wear underwear tonight.
My gaze snaps up to where she’s nodding at something the bartender is saying. The dark, jealous feeling threatening to drag me down tightens its grip. He’s stayed too long to chat with her when surely there’s work to be done.
My eyes drop to the length of those legs and the short hemline. A memory of how she sounded in my ear when she came floods me. How her body arched on the pool table. Her legs bent for me with her pussy so prettily displayed.
