Page 9 of Dangerous Men (Fortune City Mafia #1)

SYDNEY

I was livid the day I caught Chase cheating. Angrier than I’d been in years. Angry enough the sheer force of it had scared me.

I’d been suspicious of the new girl he was working with ever since I’d seen them together at one of his work events a few months before.

We’d been chatting happily with his boss when Chase had excused himself to grab us more drinks.

When twenty minutes had gone by and he still hadn’t come back with my Prosecco, I went to look for him.

I knew. The moment I saw them together, somehow, I just knew . Maybe it was the way he was standing at the bar, his face mere inches from hers, chatting and laughing. Maybe it was the way she was slowly stroking his arm. It wasn’t the way you would touch a coworker. It was intimate. Sexual.

But I didn’t want to cause a scene. I never wanted to cause a scene.

I wanted to be good. Calm. So, instead of confronting them, instead of walking over and demanding why the hell she was touching my boyfriend like that, I simply…

wandered back in to the party, a sick, dizzy feeling starting in my head and working its way down to my belly.

When Chase finally found me, almost half an hour later, I had gone through enough of my deep breathing exercises and therapy mantras that I’d finally calmed down to the point where I could almost convince myself to let it go.

But I didn’t. I knew I shouldn’t have said anything to him about it; I knew he would just get defensive. But I couldn’t help myself.

“Who’s the blonde?” I asked him icily when he finally handed me my drink.

“Who? Caroline ? We just work together, babe.” He said it so dismissively, waving the mention of her away like it was nothing at all.

“You guys seemed close, is all. You certainly have chemistry .” I was seething as I said it, the words coming out caustic.

Chase didn’t even acknowledge that I had said anything at all. And he never brought her up again.

But, months later, when I walked in on them fucking on our couch—the couch I had inherited from my grandmother and brought to his apartment, the couch we watched movies together on, cuddled together on—this was the moment he pointed to.

The moment he claimed absolved him of all of it.

After Caroline had grabbed her clothing and run out the door and I was sobbing on the floor of our apartment, Chase had leaned over me, lifted my chin, and told me, “It didn’t mean anything, babe.

I don’t even find her that attractive. It’s just…

you kept going on and on about how we have chemistry.

And it just…it made me look at her differently. ”

And then he said the words that broke me. Truly broke me. “Really, this is your fault, you know,” he’d told me. “I never would have even considered it if you hadn’t put the idea in my head. ”

Even remembering it makes me sick with rage. Makes me want to break something. Makes me want to?—

“Earth to Syd!” Jade’s hand appears in front of my face, waving. “Hello? You still in there?”

I blink, pulling myself out of my thoughts and back to reality. The anger I was feeling dissipates into nothing, leaving me feeling oddly shaky and empty in its absence.

Shit. I must have zoned out. What were we talking about? I glance down at the tickets next to the register and remember, my stomach sinking. Oh, right . The charity event.

“No. That’s not happening,” I say decisively. Well… semi-decisively. There’s a little decisiveness in there, I swear. I push the tickets back toward her.

Jade’s eyes are big as a kitten’s as she stares at me. “Oh, come on. Please?”

I draw a deep breath. Jade’s hair is purple today, a startling change from the pink, but like all the fashion colors she chooses, it suits her somehow. I used to think there was a method to her madness, an emotional explanation behind every color Jade picked when dying her hair.

Now? Now I suspect she just gets bored and grabs whatever bottle of hair dye she finds first, to hell with any logic or reason.

“You have been looking forward to this for months , Sydney,” Jade whines. “You can’t just not go!”

I frown at the tickets. Expensive tickets. Printed on expensive paper. The calligraphy is handwritten, not printed. Everything about them screams wealth and class. “Yeah, I was looking forward to it. But that was… before,” I finish.

Before . It feels like my life is now permanently divided into two parts: before , when I was still with Chase, and now . When I’m alone.

“You have two tickets!” Jade presses, tapping them with a fingernail. She’s painted them purple too, I notice, to match her new hair. “I’ll even go with you if you need company! But you can’t let that dress go to waste, Sydney. It would be a crime . And I will call the police. I swear I will.”

She’s not wrong. The dress I picked out for the annual Sterling Charity Banquet is extraordinary. And there’s no way I could return it now, so long after buying it and with no idea what happened to the receipt. It would be a waste of money to just let it sit in my closet, forever unworn.

When I first picked up two tickets to the charity banquet almost half a year ago, I was so excited to go I could hardly think of anything else.

It sounded like a dream, like something out of a fairytale or one of my romance books.

Chase and I, all dressed up and fancy, rubbing elbows with Fortune City’s elite.

Sure, the tickets had been way too expensive, and the dress had a price tag that almost made me faint when I first saw it, but it was all for charity! And the idea of going there together, of dancing with my boyfriend? It sounded magical. Special.

He'd laughed at me.

I came home so excited that day, giddy to surprise him with a night just for us.

Not with our friends, not arguing in our apartment, not in tears.

Just one magical night to go back to how things were when we first met.

Maybe this would be the thing to fix us.

Maybe this would remind him I was supposed to be the love of his life.

He would hold me close, press a kiss to my forehead, and we’d dance the night away. Hopelessly, deliriously in love.

But instead, he’d laughed at me.

He said it “wasn’t his thing,” and that was that. Discussion over. I hid the dress in my closet and haven’t felt excited about it since.

I groan, putting my face in my hands and pushing the memories away .

“You have to go, Sydney,” Jade insists. And I know she won’t give up until I agree.

“Fine. I’ll go,” I mutter into my hands. I feel Jade break out her victory dance next to me but refuse to dignify it by looking. Even though her victory dances are glorious. The stuff of legends, really. “But only if you come with me!”

“Yes!” Jade squeals. “Oh, I’m going to meet a rich sugar momma, just you wait. This time next week, I’ll be retired on a private beach in Fiji.”

“And leave me here, to run this place all on my own?” I lower my hands to glower at her. “You wouldn’t dare .”

“The heart wants what it wants, Sydney. What can I say?” Jade lifts her shoulder in a casual shrug. “You wouldn’t stand in the way of me and true love, would you?”

“I would if it means I have to handle all of our bookkeeping myself,” I grumble.

Jade throws back her head to laugh. Out of the corner of my eye, I see someone approaching the shop counter, book in hand, but I can’t resist getting in one extra jab.

“You’re immediately making me rethink attending this stupid thing. You know that, don’t you?”

“Attending what stupid thing?” a velvety voice asks.

I glance over at the customer, instantly recognizing the wide shoulders, the dark, perfectly styled hair. Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome himself.

“Hello again, Sydney,” Alec says with a smile. I shiver. I wonder if he says my name that way on purpose, in an octave just slightly lower than he says everything else. It sends heat through my veins every time I hear it.

“Good evening, Alec,” I greet him, swallowing all my naughty thoughts and giving him a work-appropriate smile. Jade saunters away after shooting me a conspicuous wink, leaving me all alone with him. “Did you find everything okay?”

“I did,” he tells me. “But you haven’t answered my question. What event are you attending?”

“Just a charity banquet thing,” I answer, glaring at Jade’s retreating back. Traitor . I turn back to give him my least flirtatious smile. Nothing but professional. “For the Sterling Children’s Foundation. They have one every year. Have you heard of it?”

His lips twitch. “I’ve heard of it.” There’s a subtle amusement in his tone that makes me think it was a dumb question to ask him.

It probably was a dumb question. Of course he’s heard of it. I mean, just look at the man’s suit. He’s exactly the sort of person who attends charity banquets and silent auctions and… and ballroom dances, I imagine.

I bite back a sigh and hold out my hand to take his book. When he passes it to me, I can’t help but smile, any embarrassment at my social faux pas dissipating into the ether.

It’s the second book in The Prince’s Knife trilogy.

“You’ve already started it!” I laugh, noting the bookmark lodged in the pages about a quarter of the way through.

“I did,” Alec confesses, almost sheepishly, sliding his hands into his pockets. “I couldn’t resist. I hope that’s all right, to read a little before purchasing it.”

“Of course,” I assure him. I often encourage customers to read the first few chapters of a book before they buy it.

I’d much rather they leave with something they will read and enjoy than end up with a book that’s just going to sit on their shelf for years gathering dust. I scan the book at the register and reach out to take his credit card. “Are you enjoying it?”

When I glance up, Alec’s face says it all. My stomach falls.

“You’re… not enjoying it,” I interpret.

His frown deepens .

“No, I am ,” he says, choosing his words carefully. “I’m just… concerned.”

“Oh?” I hand back his book with the receipt tucked inside the front cover. “Concerned about what?”

“I enjoyed the romance in the first book. Quite a bit. I liked Malachi and Phaedra’s dynamic. It was… electric.”

I nod enthusiastically. His words from before, about his favorite scene, jump into my head, and I force myself not to dwell on them.

“But…” Alec taps the new book, frowning. “Now there’s this other man.”

“Zayden,” I supply.

“Zayden,” Alec confirms, frowning at the book in his hand like it somehow offended him. “And he and Phaedra are becoming close.”

“Oh!” I laugh. “I see. You don’t want her to lose what she has with Malachi, right?” When he nods, I smile reassuringly. “Don’t worry. This is a why choose series.”

Alec stares back at me blankly.

“I have no idea what that means,” he admits.

“It means the main character can have more than one love interest without giving up any of them,” I explain.

The trope has become so popular lately, I’ve had this conversation at least three times just this week.

It’s a concept I’m getting good at explaining.

“ Why choose , as in… why choose between the two of them, when you can have both?”

Alec still looks confused, so I continue, “You are picking up on the chemistry between her and Zayden. There’s obviously romantic tension there, but that doesn’t mean she’s giving up on Malachi.

They both offer her different things, right?

Zayden is safe, and he makes her laugh. Malachi would burn the world down for her.

She isn’t going to pick one over the other, if that’s what you’re worried about happening. She’s going to be with both of them.”

Alec blinks slowly. There’s something unreadable in his gaze as he stares at me. Something unexpectedly dark.

Oh dear. I feel a blush creep over my cheeks. He probably thinks I’m some sort of pervert now.

“So—and I want to make sure I’m understanding this, Sydney—you’re saying Phaedra can be with Malachi, and also be with?—”

“Zayden,” I finish, nodding. “Yes.”

His face is still unreadable as he regards me. “I didn’t know that was a thing in these books,” he admits, voice husky.

“Some of them,” I say. “Certainly not all. It’s more accepted in certain genres.”

“And is this common in the books that you enjoy, Sydney?”

His gaze is so focused, so dark, and I know I’ve ruined it. He, officially, thinks I’m some sort of deviant. Great.

“Well, I read a lot of books,” I tell him, noncommittally, fighting the urge to fidget. I’m not going to admit to him that… yes, actually. It has quickly become one of my favorite tropes. The idea of being shared between two men? Or maybe even… more?

It’s thrilling in a way I can’t quite explain. Sinful and selfish, sure, but thrilling. And there’s a part of me—a small part, sure, it’s there—that wants to know what that would be like. That wants to experience that outside of the pages of a book.

“I see.” Alec licks his bottom lip. “Thank you, Sydney. That was… very informative.”

“Anytime,” I answer, my voice a little small.

Informative. Yeah.

He definitely thinks I’m a pervert now.