He looked so angry when I mentioned it—like he was about to tear someone’s head off.
Kind of like the way he looks now.
“That’s none of your business,” I snap.
“Harley…” He draws out my name so it sounds like a warning. “I thought Griffin gave you a pay increase. Are you that short of money that you have to meet up with jerks like that?”
I roll my eyes and huff. “Griffin might be your best friend. But that’s still none of your damn business. And as my boss, he shouldn’t be sharing things like that with you.”
He doesn’t even flinch, just parts his lips, answering in a beat. “He didn’t. I heard you talking on the phone to your mom last time I came by the office.”
I close my mouth and frown at him.
Nosey ass.
I didn’t use to see much of Reed. He lived in LA, working as the deputy mayor. I would just hear his voice on the other end of the phone whenever he called to speak with Griffin. They are lifelong friends ever since they went to some posh, snooty boys’ school together.
But then the phone calls turned into visits, each one longer than the last. And ever since the New York press went hungry hyena, batshit crazy over a huge scandal at the New York Mayor’s office nine months ago, resulting in the previous mayor quitting, Reed has been around more.
Toomuch more.
And now he’s running in the election to be the next Mayor of New York. A role, which, if he wins, means he will be around indefinitely. Not that it affects me. I mean, except for when he comes to visit Griffin at work all the time and I hear the two of them laughing in the office when I’m trying to concentrate. Then there’s the fact that he’s currently staying in a penthouse apartment in the private residences tower of The Songbird. A penthouse that my friend Maria, Griffin’s girlfriend, stayed next door to for a while. A penthouse that Maria said had so much wall banging action every night that I wonder whether Reed Walker thought it was his personal mission to test it for its ability to withstand earthquakes. Only using his owndick-terscale as a measurement of seismic activity instead.
“Harley?”
I blink, realizing that I’m still staring at him, and he’s waiting for an answer.
“What I do with my evenings is none of your concern.” I arch a brow at him. “I could join a group of yodeling nuns and practice my soprano range while wearing a scuba-diving suit, and it would still be none of your business.”
He rolls his lips, and I swear the corner of his mouth twitches.
“That may be so. But you were not yodeling, nor were you with a group of nuns. And you are definitely”—his eyes drop over my pink dress, then back to my face—“not wearing a diving suit. But what you were doing was being felt up by a jerk who wanted nothing more than to take you to a hotel and screw you all night…Julia.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “I wasn’t going to go with him.”
“I know that. You have better taste.”
“I was—” I stop as Reed’s backhanded compliment registers. “It’s just work.”
He holds my gaze, his voice hinting at a growl. Just a tiny one. A miniscule rumble, vibrating in the back of his throat. “I don’t like you doing it.”
“Well, it’s not up to you, is it?” I blow out a long breath and break his interrogating gaze to stare up the street. I’m not about to admit to him that I hate it, too. I hate the pretending, the dressing up, the fake flirting, the loose, roaming eyes, hands… morals.
I hate how with each new trap where I meet yet another lying, cheating man, I know that there’s another woman out there with a broken heart, wishing… praying that I’m going to report back that he passed the test. That he didn’t flirt with me, ask for my number, try to kiss me, or invite me back to his hotel. That he’s different.
In more than two years that I’ve been doing it, not a single man has passed.
I guess they wouldn’t though, would they? To get to the point where you’re willing to pay hundreds of dollars to catch out a spouse must mean you’re pretty certain they already are, or have been cheating. A lot can be said about gut instinct and intuition.
Yes, I hate every part of honey-trapping.
Except the money.
The money is the only reason I do it. It fits perfectly around my job at The Songbird. I could do bar work or something like that, but the money wouldn’t be as good. And this—catching cheaters out—seems kind of symbolic, given what happened. A kind of retribution.
The familiar tightening returns to my chest again, and I ignore it as I look back into Reed’s intense stare. He must sense I won’t back down. He doesn’t understand my reasons, and I’m not about to enlighten him. It’s none of his business.
His gaze darkens as his brows flatten. “If itwereup to me—”