“Vicious claims hate-fucks are the best. Care to test his theory?”

Taking a side step and breaking the physical contact, I retorted, “Care to drop dead?”

There was no point in resisting him, though. He was going to follow through on his threat, and the worst part was, I couldn’t stop him. I knew I was in the wrong. Knew I should just accept the goddamn ticket. Something dark flashed across his face. Something that was always there, but only I seemed to notice.

“Pin this conversation.” He pointed at me with the hand that held his phone and swiped the screen. Finally. It was the third time that person called. “Be back in a sec.”

Dean disappeared into my hallway. I stood there, not sure what to do.

“Hello, Miss Golddigger, how may I be of help? Last time I checked, I told you not to fucking call me. Has that changed somehow?” He paused for just a moment before continuing. “But that’s the thing, Nina, my dear. You don’t get to snap your fingers and have me crawling back to save you. You made your fucking bed. Now lie in it. Not my war. Not my battle. None. Of. My. Fucking. Business.” His voice was exceptionally bitter.

In fact, he sounded so pissed, so angry, so not himself, that I visibly winced when I heard him. It ignited a foreign emotion in me I’d never associated with Ruckus before. Fear. Dean never got angry or flustered. He was the least hotheaded out of the four HotHoles. Rare were the times his feathers were ruffled—that he was truly upset—and I don’t think I’d ever heard him raise his voice outside the football field. Even earlier, when he yelled at Colton, he was scornful of the whole situation. Amused.

I pressed my ear to the wall, blatantly eavesdropping.

“I’m not coming to Birmingham.” Birmingham? As in Birmingham, Alabama? I always thought I knew Dean’s life pretty well. Clearly, he had more skeletons in his closet than Jeffrey Dahmer.

“There is something seriously fucked-up about the fact that I’m even listening to you right now. Your proposal is offensive at best and downright fucking insane at worst. You’ve had years to make this right. Years to let me see him. It’s too late now. I’m not interested. Seriously, Nina, erase my number from your contact list. Save us both time and money.”

Inhaling like his lungs were bottomless, he finished the call. A sudden punch straight to the wall dividing us awarded me with a white noise that rang in my ear. No doubt deserving that, it was my cue and I turned around, launching to the opposite side of the island.

Busying myself in the kitchen was hard, especially when I could still feel his anger floating from the other room. I opened the fridge and took out some vegetables, then a knife. Out of breath, I pretended to make myself a salad. I saw Dean’s tall figure emerging from my periphery, his phone grasped in a death grip between his fingers. He looked a little startled to see me, like he forgot I was there, but then relaxed and fixed his cocky smile back on his face, like he was rearranging a wonky picture on a wall. Loosening his tie even more, he made his way to me.

“One-night stand gone wrong?” I asked, slicing a cucumber into wafer-thin pieces.

“You can say that again,” he muttered, tousling unruly chunks of his delicious hair. “Where were we?”

“I believe you were blackmailing me.”

“That’s right. I was. Friday morning. Suitcase. Clothes. Attitude. On second thought, keep that attitude. I like all that excess energy. You just need a good place to allocate it. I have the perfect place for you.” He winked, and as if I needed confirmation, added, “My fucking bed.”

WHAT IS TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS?

Is it a lot of money? A reasonable amount of money? So little, it’s like no money at all? That depends on who you’re asking. To me, twenty thousand dollars was merely pocket change. It had zero effect on my life. Contrary to general belief, it wasn’t because my parents padded my bank account. People thought I’m a trust fund baby, and I let them, because frankly, who the fuck cares?

The reality of things was that my parents put me through Harvard University, fronted the money for my initial investment in Fiscal Heights Holdings, the company I have incorporated with three of my best friends, Trent, Jaime, and Vicious, and assisted me mentally and spiritually. A-fucking-lot. But the fact that I was swimming in more money than I could ever spend at the tender age of twenty-nine? That was all me, baby.

Me, and my savvy ways.

Me, and my persuasive nature.

Me, and my talent with numbers.

So, lack of funding certainly wasn’t the reason why I found it so goddamn hard to click the Approve Transaction button and wire her twenty thousand bucks.