Page 142 of Boyfriend of the Hour

“Tonight, I found my brother’s apparently ‘serious’”—Carrick mimed air quotes as he said it—“new girlfriend serving drinks topless at an underground gambling club. Call me a concerned citizen.”

I sighed. I wanted to fight him, but I didn’t quite have the energy.

Also, I could see his point. Carrick was an asshole, but he was standing up for his brother. I’d probably give him the same third-degree if I’d been in his shoes. God knew my family had given Nathan grief for a whole lot less.

“This, when she’s supposed to parade around our family and half our board of directors in a few days dressed like a Stepford Wife,” he continued. “If word of this gets out, every deal I’vemade in Washington goes to shit, not to mention the family’s good name. So, yeah, I think it’s all my business, babe.”

And now that feeling was gone.

“You’re an asshole,” I snapped.

“Yes, I am,” Carrick bit right back like the wolf he was as he turned fully toward me. “But if you want me to keep this little secret of yours, you’re going to tell me what I want to know. What exactly is your connection to Shawn Vamos?”

I paused, examining him a bit longer. But Carrick wasn’t going to let me off easy.

“Shawn used to…do things for me,” was all I would say. “We met when I was younger, and, I don’t know, we were kind of together. We’d hang out. Now, we don’t. That’s it.”

“Well, that’s a bullshit story if I ever heard one,” Carrick said. “What do you know about the Antoni Regime?”

I blinked. “The what?”

Carrick rolled his eyes. “Don’t play dumb. Your boy Shawn rolls in with some of the toughest gangsters on the East Coast, and you don’t know any of them? I just watched you give Lis Antoni two lap dances. It was all I could do not to vomit all over my cards.”

I cringed at the memory. It hadn’t been my finest moment either. But I’d had to give several lap dances tonight, and I still didn’t know any of the recipients’ names, much less whoever this Lis Antoni guy was.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” I said. “I work for Kyle, the organizer, and this was my first night. I wasn’t expecting Shawn to be there any more than I was expecting you. He and I have barely talked in months. I was just doing my job.”

Carrick looked at me for a long time. “Are you serious?”

“Yes!” I exclaimed. “Look, man, some of us weren’t born with trust funds and giant houses. Some of us have to do whatever’sneeded to pay our way in the world. Nathan knows and accepts that about me, so I don’t see why you shouldn’t either.”

I lifted my chin, waiting for him to cut back or start another interrogation. But Carrick only continued to examine me before he finally shook his head and muttered, “Goddammit. Not again.”

I scowled right back at him. “What does that mean?”

“It means my brother has a fucking type,” Carrick spat. “God, this is some kind of déjà vu. It really is. And I am not going through this shit again with him. It was hard enough the last time.”

I opened my mouth to ask him to elaborate, but before I could, our conversation was swallowed by the rush of the incoming train. The doors opened, and I stepped in, not even looking to see that Carrick was following me.

We took seats on one of the long plastic benches in a car that was empty except for a bum sleeping in the far corner. This was about as private as it got in New York City.

“What ‘last time’?” I pressed once we were moving. “What are you talking about?”

Carrick huffed under the harsh fluorescent lights. “What, he didn’t tell you? And I thought you two were so serious.”

Maybe it looked bad, but now wasn’t the time to pretend I knew what the hell he was talking about.

“I don’t knoweverythingabout your brother,” I said. “So if there is something important, maybe just quit the bullshit and give me the truth.”

Carrick turned, his wide shoulders blocking out the subway tunnel passing by the window. “You want some truth, twinkle toes? All right, here it is. You’re not the first gold-digging gutter mouse our perfect Nathaniel has dragged home. Thirteen years ago, he got wrapped up with another so-called ‘dancer’ who wasaddicted to anything she could sniff or snort. She had all sorts of ‘friends’ just like your Shawn Vamos too.”

I stiffened in my seat. “Nathan’s never been involved with anyone like that. He had a girlfriend in college, and was engaged once, but that’s it.”

Carrick stared at me, disbelief coloring that unnervingly handsome face, so similar to his brother’s and yet so icily different. “You don’t know. Holy shit, he hasn’t told youanythingabout himself, has he?”

I bit my lip, wishing I had changed back into more substantial clothes. It was freezing under that soulless gaze.

“The college thing is right. Nathan met Lindsay when he was at Duke. At a strip club, actually, when the baseball team took him there for his twenty-first birthday. Stupid idiot fell for the first girl to shake her tits in his face, then let her bleed him dry formonths. Meanwhile, he had no clue it was because she was hooked on meth and had a kid to take care of. Nate was nothing but an easy mark.”