“Like you’re checking out this woman’s tits?”
“Allow me to introduce you to Cady.” Zack said, his hand flourishing in the other woman’s direction while his attention remained on Rachel. “We used to date.”
Cady hooked her hand on her hip as she regarded Rachel with contempt. “You the latest he’s dating?” She looked her up and down. “Your dress doesn’t even fit right… and is so two years ago.”
“I’m just his friend.” Rachel scooted into the booth and briefly looked for Tatiana’s black dress in a sea of other women in black dresses. “We haven’t even done it.”
Zack spat out the water in his mouth.
“Isn’t there a club of Zack’s ex-girlfriends for you to go join? Try the bathroom.” It was only then that Rachel remembered it wasn’t a boobie-measuring party going on in the bathroom. Oh well. Cady looked the coked-out type. Good thing Zack got rid of her.
“Whatever.” Cady walked away from the table, her ass sashaying in her tight dress in ways Rachel could never hope to achieve in her own clothes. “
“Wow.” Zack put his glass down. “That did not go how I thought it would.”
“Oh, I’d love to know how you thought that would go.”
“First of all, I thought I would be able to get rid of her before you got back. That was the fastest trip to the women’s room I’ve ever seen in this place.”
“Probably because I actually went in there to pee and not to get high.”
“If you saw something, you really should tell an employee. They crack down on that pretty hard here.”
“Not sure security could clean that up in ten minutes. Looked like a pack of heiresses who got off on… no, wait a minute. You’re changing the subject. That woman was flirting with you.”
“I don’t know if I’d say flirting, but she wouldn’t be opposed to me flirting with her, that’s for sure.” Zack shrugged. “She came up and said hello. Asked me how things were going.”
“With her cleavage, huh?”
“Ooh, you noticed Lizzie and Georgiana too, huh?”
“Lizzie and… oh my God, is that what she calls her breasts?”
“She’s a big Jane Austen fan.”
“That’s…”
“Bored heiresses in a nutshell. When they’re not snorting the blow because they have nothing else to do with their lives, they’re naming their tits after Pride & Prejudice characters.”
“You’re changing the subject again!”
“Are you jealous, Rachel?”
She looked away, pouting. “No.”
“Good. You shouldn’t be. I’m not going home with a girl if I’m already out with you. Unless, of course…”
“We are not having a threesome with one of your exes.”
“But we could have one with a total stranger?”
“Shut up.”
“Zack scooted up next to her and whispered, “Hate to break it to you, but I’ve probably slept with half the women in this room.”
“You’re lying.”
“Nope. Now, I don’t remember all of their names, but…”
“I get the point.” Rachel could only bring herself to glance at some of the other women in the room. Before, she had admired their flawless skin, beautiful hair, and gorgeous outfits that made them look like they stepped out of an Old Hollywood movie.
Right now, however, she’d rather pretend that none of them existed. Their drunken stumbling and constant fawning over mediocre-looking men was grating. Their high-pitched, shrieking voices were so fake and unnecessary. And their hair? Dyed. Fake tits. Filled cheeks and asses all implants.
The only woman to pass by who didn’t reek of a million procedures or tacky fashion tastes was a tall blond woman who carried more grace in her steps than Cady had in her pinky.
“Speaking of threesomes.” Zack shouted to the pass woman, “Hey! Kathryn!
She stopped with a sudden jerk in her steps. The blond woman had barely turned around before she sighed in Zack’s direction. “You’re not a face I normally see around here,” she said, her French-tipped nails grazing against her sheer beige wrap-dress. Strappy white sandals showed off the sparking purple polish on her toenails. This woman’s on a whole ‘nother level! She reeked gobs of money but without the puffed-up pretentiousness. Like she had achieved such a level of familial success that she began to gently descend to Earth, back from her sojourn to Mt. Olympus.
She lost most of her composure – but only for a second – when she spotted Zack.
He motioned for her to come over to their table. With one quick glance over her shoulder, Kathryn approached them with body language that suggested she didn’t have more than a minute. Whatever Zack wanted, he better make it damn quick.
“Decided to pop in for a fun Friday night. I hear this club is the place to be during the summer. I mean, there’s a reason you’re here, right? Let me guess.” Zack flashed her one of his most damning smiles. Oh my God. Stop flirting with women right in front of me! Then again, a Zack Feldman who wasn’t confident enough to flirt with every woman he felt like flirting with – in front of Rachel or not – wasn’t the man she had gotten to know over the past month. “You have a platinum titanium diamond-encrusted membership.”
Kathryn genially grinned. Rachel couldn’t deduce if that was genuine amusement or the most practiced swing at amicability on the eastern seaboard. “Just platinum, actually.”
“My bad.” Zack turned to Rachel. “Allow me to introduce to you my neighbor, the illustrious, beautiful, radiant, and oh-so-gracious Kathryn Alison.”
The sarcasm dripping from his fangs almost made Rachel laugh. Kathryn cut in, saying, “He forgot magnanimous. And you are?”
“Rachel Taylor.” She extended her hand across the table. Kathryn hesitated before taking one last large step forward and shaking it. Her grip was unexpectedly firm, albeit the shake itself was short. “I’m, uh… Zack’s friend.”
“Friend, huh?” Kathryn placed her hands back on her hips. “With him? Surely, you could do better.”
Zack filled Rachel in before she could feel more awkward in this situation. Even more awkward than with Cady! “This is the neighbor I told you about.”
“I hope by that he means the one he keeps asking out. I’ve turned him down about a hundred times now.”
Rachel’s mouth dropped, No wonder her name had sounded somewhat familiar. Kathryn… I heard that name… on the other side of the bedroom… wall…
“Holy shit, you’re the one we heard, uh… uh.”
“She and her boyfriend are big kinksters around here.” Zack coughed. “Aren’t you?”
“He’s not here tonight,” she said in lieu of anything else. The only signs of being physically shaken were the slight movements of her arms and one shift of weight between her feet. “Dropped by to see some of my friends from college. They have reservations in the Diamond VIP lounge. I’d invite you, Zachary, but…” she glanced up at the balcony overlooking the main room. “Girls only.” She winked at Rachel before turning around. “Nice meeting you, Rachel. You can do much better than this third rate heir, though.”
“And you can do much better than that first rate heir you’re with!” Zack called after her.
Rachel still confused. “Does she normally wave at you with her middle finger?”
Zack drummed his against the table. “Every day.”
“So she’s the one you’re really in love with, huh?”
Even after saying that, Zack only had eyes for Rachel. “It’s complicated. Yes and no.”
“How so?”
“Ah… you don’t wanna hear it.”
“No. I wanna know all about these women you’re apparently in love with.”
“I am not in love with her. She’s hot, though, yeah?”
“Stop changing the subject!” And trying to redirect the topic back to my sexuality! The more Zack drank, the more of a cad he became.
Zack slipped out of the booth and gestured for Rachel to follow him. “Walk with me, and I’ll fill you in a little.”
Rachel pulled herself out of the booth and took Zack’s hand. He yanked her to one of the back rooms, careful to steady her when she wobbled in her borrowed heels.
“She an ex-girlfriend of yours?”
“No. We’ve never gone out. She’s way out of my league… and I’m not submissive enough for her. Ahem.”
Okay, then. Sounds interesting. “How is a woman out of your league? You’re the guy who gets supermodels with an appointment to walk in the Victoria’s Secret fashion show.”
“It’s different when it comes to heiresses, and she’s the biggest one in the city. Not just financially, although it’s a huge deal that she’s the sole heir of the Alison fortune.”
“Never heard of them.”
“Not surprising.” Zack tapped on a waitress’s shoulder and politely asked if there was a private party in the back rooms. When she gave the go-ahead for them to go through the guarded hallway, Zack continued, “They mostly live off their investments from decades ago. Their job is to make more money from their money, period. I think her great-great-grandfather was in neighborhood development or something… her family is so old and has been so rich for so long that they’ve fallen off all the maps. Helps they’re not in any public corporations now. That’s why my family still has middle-class name recognition. People still have to buy steel.”