Page 117 of The Toy Maker

“You should get that,” I mumbled.

He glanced down at the screen, then back at me. “You sure?”

“Absolutely. I’m not going anywhere.” I gave him a weak smile.

He answered the phone and placed his hand on my shoulder before walking down the hall.

I waited for a few minutes before deciding it was time to have a talk with Kitty.

THIRTY-NINE

POV JASON

I searched the crowd,knowing Kitty would be hiding among the guests, probably thinking I wouldn’t make a scene. She was wrong. I spotted her huddled between a businessman on his way home from work and a woman in a rave costume.

“You have two seconds to explain why Tara is up at that table.” My voice came out rough, but Kitty just shrugged. It was a sick irony, really, that I had sent her up there minutes before, so sure she’d back down on her own.

She was testing me, pushing boundaries, and I had been so damn certain she wouldn’t go through with it. But now she was on that stage, spread out like a fucking offering, laid bare before a man I suddenly couldn’t remember why I ever tolerated.

“We were down a Cherry,” Kitty responded, pretending to be bored. She was loving this. I wasn’t surprised. Ever since she was dumped by her ex, Olivia, she’d been particularly cruel.

I gritted my teeth. “So fill in yourself.” It wouldn’t have been hard. There were plenty of women in the building who would’ve jumped at the chance.

Hell, I could have picked out four replacements in under three minutes. I wasn’t sure why, but the longer a Cherry worked for me, the easier it was to convince them to participate in the elaborate shows.

But no, Kitty had chosen Tara, the one girl who shouldn’t be up there.

And I didn’t want to know why it bothered me.

Kitty smirked. “Does it bug you that much?” She was the only one who never backed down and never let me have my way without a fight, except for Tara.

And even after witnessing me fuck her friend, she was challenging me. Kitty stood her ground, arms crossed, chin tilted upward in defiance. The dim lighting caught the sharp gleam in her eyes.

I felt my mouth twitch before I wiped the expression from my face. “I care very much, yes.” The words came out clipped, but Kitty’s grin stretched wider, like she had just won something. “I care that you put one of the most inexperienced girls we have up there without even running it by me first.”

“Oh, come on.” She snorted. “You’re full of shit, and you know it.”

I took a step closer, enough that she had to tilt her head back to keep her gaze locked with mine. “And you’re not?” I challenged.

Kitty didn’t flinch. “No, you don’t get to hold Olivia over my head,” she shot back, her grip tightening around the clipboard she was clutching like a shield. “You need to be honest with yourself.”

My jaw tightened. “Honest about what?”

“Caring about her,” she fired back.

I inhaled sharply through my nose, but it did nothing to dull the sudden, unwanted thrum of something heavy in my chest.Kitty wasn’t just pushing my buttons—she was tearing straight through the walls I had spent years building.

And the worst part? She was right.

But I couldn’t let her know that.

Not now. Not ever.

I stepped closer, lowering my voice. “I’m going to say this one more time because you seem to have trouble grasping it. I don’t care about Tara.”

The words tasted like ash in my mouth.

I had spent hours with her, days, and Tara still hadn’t worn down, still hadn’t bent to me the way the others did. And the more time it took for her to realize she hated me, the more I realized that I didn’t want her to.