Freddie had always told him to take the win when he could get it. Well, this was about as much of a win as he was getting today and he sure as hell wasn’t going to let it slip out of his grasp.
“Toodles, darling.” Tamara waved her fingers at Bianca as the elevator doors closed.
He turned on his ex-wife. Oh hell yes she was his ex, no matter if some technicality of paperwork not being filed had them still tied together.
She met his assessing gaze head-on. She was ballsy, he’d give her that. She always had been. Whatever it took to get what she wanted, Tamara was going to do—whether that was landing a rich husband, winning a beauty queen title or getting whatever it was she was after now. And she wanted something from him. The woman wouldn’t be standing in his living room unless she did.
He stalked through the loft to the living room, stopping a foot in front of his ex-wife. “What game are you playing, Tamara?”
“The only kind that matters.” She trailed one sharp fingernail down his bare chest as she peeked up at him through thick eyelashes. “One for your heart.”
Bile rose in his throat. Their marriage hadn’t been about love so much as it had been about a merger of beauty and brawn, with lots of money and wild sex to smooth the way.
He wrapped his fingers around her wrist, pulling her hand away from him before she reached the towel at his hips. “I’ll need confirmation you’re not lying about the paperwork not being filed.”
“Oh Honey Bear, you make all the calls you want to your lawyer when his office opens back up on Monday. He took the week off you know. I tried contacting him first before the idea to surprise you at home came to me.”
“Lucky fucking me,” he grumbled, shoving his fingers through his hair.
Bianca
Bianca stared at the oversized map of the small islands making up the Indulgence Resort that was projected onto the wall at the B-Squad’s official headquarters, one floor down from the loft where Taz and…her stomach churned…his wife were.
Saving Gidget.
Taking down the mystery drug kingpin.
Keeping Genie’s Wish from being unleashed on the world.
If she just focused on that, she could get through this. Otherwise, she was going to curl up on the floor under her desk and turn into a pathetic gooey mess of tears and snot. That wasn’t an option. No man would break her—not even the one she’d thought she’d loved.
Glad she wasn’t the one leading the briefing, Bianca settled back in her chair when Lexie stood up. Platinum-blonde hair shot through with acid-green streaks, a tattoo or five peeking out from the top of her low-slung jeans and the short sleeves of her My Cat, My Overlord T-shirt, she strutted to the front of the room.
“Okay demon seeds, let’s get this show started.” Lexie looked out at the crowd and then sent Bianca a questioning look. “Where’s your dude?”
Bianca’s stomach collapsed in on itself, but she refused to break down because of it.
“Upstairs…with his wife. It seems their anniversary is next week.” Her voice didn’t crack at all. Sure, she sounded a bit like a robot being squished in a trash compactor, but who hadn’t sounded like before?
Keir, Marko, Duke and Lash, the four men Taz called his brothers—who all shared his tawny skin, smoldering good looks and muscles, even if they didn’t share DNA—froze.
Her girls Lexie, Elisa and Vivi, on the other hand, exploded into a near-deafening cacophony of obscenity-laced questions and vivid threats about what they should do to Taz’s testicles—some of which sounded pretty fucking tempting right about now.
Taz
Taz tried to process what had just happened. He was married. He’d lost Bianca. Everything had changed. But Tamara was still the same. He’d bet money on it.
“What do you really want?” he asked.
“You, Honey Bear.” A saccharine smile from her Barbie-pink lips. “Even though you’re breaking my heart with all this talk of divorce.”
He snorted and headed back to the bedroom. “If you had one, I’d be worried.”
Grabbing a pair of jeans from the pile of clothes he’d dropped into the obnoxious designer suitcase, he kept his back to Tamara as he willed himself not to give in to the frustration and anger about the shitstorm threatening to drown him. He whipped off the towel and pulled up the jeans.
“You deposit a million dollars into this offshore account and then I’ll file the divorce papers and walk away,” Tamara said, her voice full of brass and bravado. “You’ll never see me again.”
His fingers stilled on his jeans zipper. Money. Of course. Isn’t that what it always came down to with Tamara? Shaking his head, he zipped and buttoned his jeans. His bank account could take the hit and a lot more, but he knew Tamara. If he gave in too easy, she’d see him as easy prey and circle back for more.