“You’re such an asshole now. You know that?”
“I rest my case.”
“No one says that. This isn’t a courtroom, Your Honor. Or maybe it’s Your Highness now. Maybe it’s Mr. Vanstone.”
“Whatever you like.” With a smirk at her, I continue to sip my whisky, even though my blood pressure is rising. The best way to deal with angry people—as I’ve come to learn—is to diffuse the situation by not rising to it. Calmer heads often prevail. It might be cliché, but it’s often true.
Zoe mutters something under her breath that sounds like ‘shitfart,’ but she glances down at her empty glass and pretends like she didn’t say anything at all.
I get the hint. The world might think I’m smart when it counts, tech-wise, but I’m actually smart in other ways too. I do sometimes pick up on signals and cues and whatnot. Sometimes. This is one of those times. So, while my ex-stepsister stares daggers at me and is probably doing some silent voodoo stuff that can make my dick shrivel up and fall off, I shove off the couch, grab the bottle of whisky, then sit down hard right beside her.
Judging from her gasp and the extreme look of disgust she gives me, she didn’t expect that, but I let the whisky make up for it. I fill her glass with quite a bit more than two fingers. I have my own glass too, so I fill it, and not to be outdone, I toss at least half of it back.
If looks could kill, I’d be dismembered a hundred times over right about now. Zoe never could pass up a challenge even when she knows she won’t win. I can remember at least a dozen times—which in reality is probably closer to twenty times because those memories would spark other memories, and maybe those memories would spark some others too—where Zoe acted like a crazy person just to make a point. She used to try arm wrestling all my friends and me, and even though a twelve-year-old kid isn’t that much bigger than a ten-year-old kid, we were still bigger and stronger, and she still tried just as hard, even after losing over and over again.
We had thousands of thumb wars.
Probably even more rock, paper, scissor battles.
A few times, we even tried toe wrestling.
It’s a true testament to what a shithead I am and just how in control the beast in my pants is because right now, I’m sitting here, and I can’t even claim that the whisky has kicked in yet, and all I can think about is giving tongue wrestling a go.
“So?” I raise a brow as Zoe does indeed down the whisky in a single gulp. I lean over and refill her glass. She scowls at me. “What have you been doing for the past two decades?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she snaps. Her eyes flash, and her lips curl in distaste. Her face looks so beautiful and so fearsome that it causes a massive twinge in my chest.
“I would. That’s why you’re here.”
“I’m here because you’re on some weird power trip.” Her eyes flash again, but this time with sudden inspiration. She looks so fearsome that my dick probably more closely resembles a tree trunk than it does actual human flesh. “You seem like you’ve turned into the kind of asshole who loves to make deals, so I’ll make one with you. I tell you what I’ve been doing for eighteen years, and you let me quit. No strings attached.”
“I can’t let you do that. You’re planning on going to the competition and ruining me.”
“I won’t. I’ll find something else to do, somewhere else.”
“Or I could give you the training and tools to succeed right where you are.”
“That sounds like bribery.”
“You’re the one who said I liked making deals.”
“Deals aren’t bribery.”
“Aren’t they?” I toss back the rest of the whisky. Now I’m feeling the burn. My head is warm, my chest is warm, and other things are heating up too, aching and acting strangely. I don’t think it’s the whisky as that thing was acting up even before that.
Zoe stares a few more lethal daggers at me. If she could cut me, I wonder what she’d go for first. Probably the throat. The jugular. Or maybe the major artery in my thigh. No, definitely the jugular.
“Do you want to know or not? Do we have a deal?”
I hold out my fist in front of me. “Rock, paper, scissors, and we’ll see. Best of five.”
“For what?”
“If you win, you can quit. You can go wherever you like. No repercussions even though I think it’s a poor decision. I’ll let you make it, ruin your career, whatever you want.”
“And if I lose?”
“Then you tell me what I want to know, and you keep working for me. At least for a month. Give it an honest try. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”
“If by pleasantly you mean extremely unpleasantly, then I guess you might be right.”
“So?” I give my fist a shake. “What’s it going to be?”
Zoe bites down hard on her bottom lip, which makes my cock twitch so hard that I could probably slice my own jugular with it. Maybe the whisky is finally kicking in because what kind of a mental image is that?
“Fine. But if I win, I also want you to give me some money so I can restart my life. I would have been fine if you hadn’t walked into it and messed it all up. It would technically be your fault I have no job. And I have mouths at home to feed.”
“What?” I nearly drop my empty glass.
Zoe grins wickedly. “You should see the look on your face. No, I don’t have children. Cats. I
