“Oh, tell me another one,” Karen scoffs, smiling at her guests in that way she’s perfected: I’m glad you’re here. Thank you for coming. I’ll deal with you later and can’t you tell I’m in the middle of something. “I see the way you look at that girl.”
“How?” I ask, certain that I’ve disguised my hunger for Banner.
“It’s rude to stare at a woman’s ass like that.”
My shout of laughter startles us both. Apparently, I haven’t done a good job after all.
“And you don’t usually laugh this way,” she adds. “I like how you are with her. Where’d you find her and does she have a sister we could trick into marrying Bent?”
“No one said anything about marriage.” I give her a quelling frown. “I can really like her and want to . . . well you know.”
Fuck her . . . again . . . and again . . . and again . . . and repeat.
The look Karen returns tells me she does know all too well.
“I can want that without wanting marriage,” I say. “I don’t know how I feel about that institution. Everyone isn’t as lucky as you and Kip, or as my dad and stepmother.”
“Hard to be faithful to one woman?” she asks.
In ten years no one has measured up to Banner in the dark. Banner on a narrow couch, rushed, hurried. Frantic and perfect. I’d trade every woman I’ve had since for one more night like that with Banner.
“I think I could be faithful.” I grab a glass of the champagne lemonade Karen’s parties are so famous for from a passing tray. “Though I haven’t ever met a woman I wanted to test that theory with.”
“Until Banner, you mean?” Karen wears that pleased grin my stepmother sports whenever she mistakenly thinks I’m going to “settle down” with one of the nice girls she introduces me to. Who wants a nice girl when I could have Banner painfully extracting a pound of my flesh every night?
I search the crowded yard for Banner’s bright dress. A splash of scarlet by the pool gives her away. She’s chatting with a man Kip simply calls Baron, a German businessman whom I’ve never even seen smile. He’s talking animatedly with Banner, probably in German, a besotted grin hanging between his two oversized ears. Everyone falls for Banner. Whether they feel like she’s the daughter they never had, like Karen does, or like she’s the best thing that ever happened to their business, like that blowhard Cal Bagley. Or that she’s the only girl for them, like Zo does. Too bad about Zo because she’s actually the only girl for me. He’ll find someone else. I have faith in him.
I go through the motions of our divide and conquer strategy, basically confirming with the sponsors who’ve already signed on that they’ll hear from me this week, and stay close enough to Banner so that when the dancing starts, which Kip and Karen always have at these things, I’ll be within striking distance.
When the band gets in place on the small stage set up with the ocean as its backdrop, I make my move. Banner’s talking with a guy from San Jose who developed an app that made him a millionaire several times over in less than a year. He’s on his way to a billion and has already signed on to sponsor the golf tournament.
“So the app tracks my diet, nutrition, exercise,” she’s telling San Jose when I walk up.
“That’s fascinating,” he says, eyes dropping to her breasts every other word.
“It is,” Banner agrees enthusiastically, clueless that his next move will be to touch her in a nonthreatening way and get her somewhere alone.
“And your client, Quinn, developed it?” he asks, taking her arm and steering her slightly away from the cluster of people surrounding them. “Could we step over to the terrace? I feel like we’re hav
ing to yell, and this app is so—”
“Fascinating,” I cut in. “You mentioned that.”
They both turn surprised eyes to me. Banner smiles, but San Jose, rightfully sensing a threat, frowns.
“Jared, hey,” Banner says, her heavy-lidded look telling me she’s had enough of the champagne lemonade to make her relaxed but not enough to make her careless. “I was just chatting with . . . Oh, gosh. I didn’t catch your name.”
“Miller,” he grits out, clearly disappointed she doesn’t already know him or isn’t enraptured by his net worth. “Kyle Miller.”
“That’s right.” Banner taps his shoulder. “You were going to tell me about your app. Maybe you could collaborate with Quinn to work out some of the kinks in Girl, You Better?”
She blinks long lashes at him over her champagne lemonade, full lips wrapped around the rim of the glass as she takes a sip. A droplet trails down her throat and into her cleavage.
“Oops. Spilled a little,” she giggles.
Banner never giggles. And where’d she learn that? When did she start doing that?
She catches the wayward droplet, shrewdly watching Kyle tracing the path her finger takes as she scoops the lemonade from between her breasts and sucks it from her finger. By the time he looks back, she’s blinking her lashes and smiling again.