I was eager to have Emilia by my side again. Catering to me. Assisting me. Fucking with me.
Rubbing my hands together at the very idea of what was to come, it dawned on me that the idea of flying my PA to Todos Santos was just a little more exciting than seeing Jo’s face crumbling with agony as I laid the new laws of life in her fucking face and stripped her of the money she wrongfully claimed to be hers.
I picked up the phone and called my PA.
To say I got no response would be an understatement.
She didn’t take my calls and didn’t answer my text messages either. Not on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day or the day after. I dialed, I hit send, and each time my phone sat there silent, I wanted to smash something. Although, to be completely fair, my messages were less than welcoming.
What the fuck happened to your phone? Answer me.
He dropped dead. I need you to come here. Call me back.
I wonder how blasé you’ll be when I bend you over and fuck the rudeness out of you for not answering your boss for three days in a row.
It felt ridiculous. The sitting. The waiting. The craving.
That needed to change. I needed a distraction from this woman.
And I knew just how to change it.
“Just leave it outside,” I yelled to room service from inside my suite.
It couldn’t be anyone else, because the only person I’d invited to my hotel—Georgia, my high school casual fuck—was already inside the room. She was also pissing me the fuck off with her annoying, whiny voice. The years hadn’t been good to her. Sure, she worked out and was always wrapped in the latest designer number, but everything about her was self-involved, plastic, and overdone.
I needed to throw her out before she made a move on me. Ridiculous, considering I’d asked her here so I could fuck her and the aching memory of Emilia from my system.
So, I’d called one of my old flings to distract myself until I had the will in my hands? So what.
Georgia was sitting on the sofa across from my chair, still babbling about something that happened at Todos Santos’s country club five years ago. I wasn’t listening—I lit up a blunt.
“…and I was shocked, Vic, so shocked. I mean, it was one thing that she didn’t want to donate to my charity, but to shamelessly accuse me of founding a whole organization just so Dad would look better during his senate campaign—”
“Why did you break into Emilia LeBlanc’s locker that day?” I cut her off suddenly, smoke fanning out of my flared nostrils.
I was physically unable to hear any more of the boring shit she was feeding me. Downstairs, in the hotel bar, where we’d had a drink, I’d convinced myself that I didn’t mind her annoying voice and annoying facial expressions and annoying self. Alas, I was wrong. I minded all of these things. A lot.
“Emilia LeBlanc?” Georgia twirled a strand of her hair with her finger, blinking at me. Her mascara was too thick and obvious. It didn’t really help my disinterested cock.
“Yeah. Don’t pretend like you don’t remember her.” I blew smoke to the ceiling and twisted my wrist to check my Rolex.
“I do remember her. I’m just surprised you do.” She arched an eyebrow.
I stared at her, expressionless, rubbing my thumb on my temple with the same hand that held the blunt. “She found her calculus book in my bag, remember?”
Georgia huffed. “Because you took it from me and threatened you’d ruin my life if I ever did it again!”
“You had it coming, sweetheart. You acted like a little brat,” I countered without even blinking.
There was another knock at the door. Who the fuck hired this kind of idiot? Why couldn’t they just leave the food outside?
“Get the fuck out of here and take my dinner with you!” I shouted. I wasn’t hungry anymore. And I definitely didn’t want her to stay and dine with me. But what I really didn’t want was to touch her. It wasn’t unusual for me to throw out a perfectly good one-night stand if I wasn’t in the mood. But it was definitely the first time I got annoyed to the point that I wanted the woman out of my life for good.
“Vic, what is this?” Georgia smiled uneasily, shooting up from the sofa and striding over to me.
I took another hit from my joint and watched her. She placed her ass in my lap, and I shook my head slowly, my eyes dead. “Move your ass, pronto, Georgia. Off.”
Another knock on the door, and this time it was a brutal blow to the wood. I got up to answer, and she scrambled to her feet just in time. I didn’t care if she landed on the floor.
She grabbed my free hand and squeezed it. “I was a little wild. So what? We all were. That was adolescence. We grew out of that phase.”
“I don’t want to see you again,” I told her, setting the joint in the soap dish I’d appropriated from the bathroom. “You were a nasty bitch to her, and I suspect you’re still a nasty bitch to whoever was unlucky enough to stay in this goddamn town. This was a mistake. I want you to leave.”
I marched to the door with balled fists at my sides. If this was another hotel staff member whining in my ear that this was a no-smoking room, I was going to make them bleed. I swung the door open, ready to bark at the person in front of me. Then I froze.
“Welcome to California, motherfucker.” Dean pushed me back into the room and walked in like he owned the place.
Dean was slightly taller, slightly bigger, slightly handsomer than me. His light brown hair was cut short and preppy these days, and his style was a little more elegant than mine. He loved full suits in eccentric colors, just like the Joker. He also loved pissing me off, just like everyone else in my life.
“Hey, Georgie. What’s up?” He winked at her.
“I was just leaving.” Georgia collected her purse from the round table where I’d sat just moments ago and shouldered past us, making a beeline for the door.
I watched her bony, annoying ass disappear into the hallway and closed the door behind her.
Dean was inside, making himself comfortable, pouring himself a glass of something alcoholic from the mini bar and whistling with a smile on his face. “I’d ask you if you want something, but I’m afraid you’ll think I care.”
I pressed my shoulder to the wall and watched him, my hands tucked in my pockets, waiting for him to get to the point. “That’s it? Not even ‘sorry that your dad passed away’?” I mocked.
Dean turned to face me, tossed back a full glass of whiskey, then pointed it at me. “You’re forgetting you had endless meetings with my dad at his office. You think I didn’t do the math? I know the drill, Vic. You hate your father. You hate Josephine. You hate the whole world. Came here for the money and the estate, didn’t you?”
Wrong, ass*ole. I came here for revenge.
Dean refilled his empty glass. “Where’s our little friend, Millie LeBlanc?”