Money Man (King Maker 1)

I had nowhere else to go, not just yet at least. And though she’d said the words, she would never kick me out. Still, I spilled every detail to her, needing to get it out. Maybe then the burden could leave my chest. It wasn’t like I was ever going to see the man again.

“That’s fucking hot,” Lizzy said. “From what I saw of him, he was gorg.”

He had been undeniably gorgeous. Women had stared at me with envy, bolstering my steps toward the abyss of sin.

“Hot or not, I hope to never see him again,” I admitted, heat still burning in my cheeks.

She may be my best friend, but I wasn’t one to kiss and tell, especially with details of sex. The one and only time I’d told her about Scott and me, it had been our first time together. After hearing the tale, she had immediately declared it was boring and hadn’t asked much about our doings thereafter.

Lizzy pursed her lips in that way of hers. “Bails, you have nothing to be ashamed of. You didn’t shag him alone.”

Though her words were true, it wasn’t how I’d been brought up. She didn’t know the full story about the separatist community I’d grown up in. Our lives were governed based on traditional religious views where women were expected to be as pure as the first fallen snow. There had been no such thing as sex before marriage. Without the use of technology, we had no visuals that life could be any different. Lizzy could never fully understand the life I’d escaped.

Again I rubbed over the ring that was a source of comfort and of pain. It was a symbol of the past I hadn’t yet been fully able to let go.

“He probably thinks I’m some slut.” There was that word again. I hid my face behind a curtain of my hands. And damn my childhood that I worried more about how a man saw me above my own feelings.

“Who cares? You had a great fuck on what would have been your wedding night. You basically screwed Scott by fucking that guy.”

My wedding night. I was reminded it would have been tonight if I hadn’t left Scott a few weeks ago.

She laughed at her own joke, breaking into my thoughts. It might have been funny if we were talking about someone else. But this was me. And I wasn’t that girl, or I shouldn’t be.

“I’m going to bed,” I said, rising from my seat. I just needed to sleep it off.

Being a good friend, Lizzy knew when to lay off. “Night, Bails. And don’t forget your date tomorrow with the guy my mom set you up with.”

Groaning, I rolled my eyes. The last thing I wanted to do was go on a date. Seeing my annoyance, she giggled again. I headed to the bedroom that had been temporarily turned into mine—at least until I found somewhere else to live since Scott had moved into our would be home with the woman he’d cheated on me with.

Three

KALEN

My fingers brushed over the scrap of silk I’d shoved into my pocket when I’d left the loo as I reached for cash to close out my tab. That had been an impulse move that puzzled me now. I didn’t need a reminder of the redhead.

Yet an image of her head thrown back filled my mind. As my cock began to harden, I quickly dismissed it. She’d been a distraction, nothing more.

“Bro.”

The word shattered my thoughts as a solid hand landed on my back and I turned to face the voice.

“Connor,” I acknowledged just as a leggy blonde and a curvy brunette swaggered up on either side of him.

“You aren’t leaving?” he asked with a raised brow and glanced over at his company one at a time.

The women on his arm giggled and one pointed, letting her hungry gaze drop to my cock as if she could see through my pants.

“I am,” I said.

The women were attractive but looked more like they could be bought like the scotch I’d had earlier. I didn’t pay for sex. Not that Conner did, but he wasn’t as choosy about his bed partners as I was.

“Another scotch and I want to close out my tab,” I told the bartender. Points to him for nodding and not asking me to repeat myself as so many Americans did.

Thankfully, when I turned Connor was alone. Apparently, the women took the hint and left. “I brought you here tonight to have some fucking fun, not be a wanker.”

His American accent didn’t fit with the British word, but I ignored him.

He shifted to stand next to me at the counter. “Pussy’s got your tongue?” he quipped.

His choice of words to replace “cat” only made me glare at him. He knew me well enough to hold his hands up in surrender.