“I’ll say,” he agrees before turning my direction. “I know you have a few other people you want to talk with before dinner. Would you like me to head to our table to be there to welcome our guests?”
We may not have a traditional marriage, but on nights like tonight I’m reminded why I’d married Tristan Miller. Unlike the devil across the room, the husband on my arm was an asset with the Manhattan elite.
“Thanks, I’d appreciate that. I’ll meet you at the table in about ten.”
After a small peck of a kiss on my cheek, Tristan heads in the direction of the dinner tables. I move deeper into the guests still congregating, shaking hands, and exchanging small talk.
By the time I make it across the venue to table nine, several of the guests I invited to join my table are already seated, chatting away. The one person I expect to be seated, however, is nowhere to be seen.
I push down my annoyance that Tristan wasn’t there talking with my guests. I’m unwilling to give anyone else in attendance a sniff of my own dirty laundry. As far as the world is concerned, I landed America’s most eligible bachelor when I married the real estate mogul and financier.
I glance around as nonchalantly as I can, careful to make eye contact with enough people that anyone observing would assume I’m just scanning the event for acquaintances. It’s hard to maintain the ruse, however, when I spot my other half in the corner of the room, behind the bar—his hand resting intimately on the hip of his newest mistress as he leans in to whisper something against the shell of her ear. Even from a distance, I can see her deep blush.
Tears sting my eyes, not because he dared to cheat on me, I’d grown used to that long ago.
But does he have to flaunt it in my face here? He’d promised not to embarrass me tonight. I’m not a religious person, but I take the time to say a silent prayer that no one will notice my shameful secret.
“Is that number eight or nine?” I hear behind me.
God has a sick sense of humor.
The gravelly, masculine voice is too close and unbearably smug.
When I don’t respond, Dex has the balls to shift forward until I can feel the front of his tuxedo brushing against my bare back. Even if he’d stayed silent, I would have known it was Dex from his trademark scent. The fragrance is about the only thing that remains constant between the public philanthropic guise and the private criminal version of the same man.
I fight to contain the full-body shiver that always happens when he’s close, unwilling to let him see that he can still affect me. Taking a deep breath, I work to keep my pulse from racing as it always does when I go head-to-head with my ex-business partner.
It isn’t until I feel his hand on my hip that I spin around, confronting him with my special brand of polished poison I try not to unleash in public. “How dare you invade my space. It’s bad enough they let men like you attend in the first place, but I shouldn’t be forced to breathe the same air as you.”
“I see you’re still on your high and mighty horse, Katja. Too bad. It’s gonna hurt like hell when you fall from way up there.”
Chapter Two
DEX
In a room full of beautiful people, she shouldn’t stand out above them all… but she does. Katja Belov is by far the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.
Not that I’d tell her that.
She already has a big enough head. The power she holds by owning The Whitney, her reputation, and the way she has her finger on the pulse of New York City, puts her right up there with the most feared and respected men and women I associate with daily. Though she doesn’t walk among the underground and criminal worlds like I do—disappointingly squeaky clean—she still has the notoriety of being a woman not to mess with.
And she knows it.
I try my best not to get mesmerized by the green in her eyes or notice the way her plump mouth glimmers from her lip gloss under the chandelier light. The annoyance painted on her face, with that pert nose raised slightly, causes my dick to twitch. What I wouldn’t pay to have the opportunity to tame her inner brat. I clench my fist by my side to control the urge to run my fingers through her dark locks, take hold, and pull her head back so I can taste her neck by force.
“You don’t belong here,” she says, snapping me from my wicked thoughts. Katja slaps my hand off her hip, but I notice that she allowed me to hold it there far longer than I anticipated. “You’re beneath the people in this room.”
“And you’re above them,” I counter with a smirk. “And yet, here we both are.” I glance at her ass of a husband who isn’t doing a good job masking that he’s more interested in his next mistress than anything, or anyone, at the Gala. “And you are most certainly above him.”
Katja gracefully takes a few steps away from me, turning so she doesn’t have to see her husband. “I don’t think I asked for your opinion. Now, if you don’t mind, I have other guests to—”
“Take notes on,” I cut in.
On the long list of things I both like, and hate, about Katja is just how much she’s like me in this one regard. We watch people. We study their moves, their actions, their words. We pay attention to how they interact with others, we listen to the hushed secrets, and we take notes on it all. Knowledge is power and both Katja and I know this. We were taught this at a young age by our fathers.
Watch, listen, study, and save it for later. You never know when it will become useful.
Her lips quirk. “You act like you know me so well.”