“She can burst my balls anytime.” Jack gives a low whistle. “Sorry, Tristan, but the girl gets hotter every time I see her.”
“Careful, Mathews, ” He growls. If Tristan could send both his sisters to a convent in the mountains, he would. Since their dad had done a runner and left Tristan with the three Finnegan females, he took on the dad role, which involved vetting boyfriends. If there was ever so much as a sniff of any of us going near Charlie, he would have our balls in a vice.
“I paid for her and her friends’ dinner as a peace offering.”
“It backfired,” I continued through gritted teeth. “She threw it back in my face. I went to pay my bill, and she had paid it. Saying something about me trying to buy her.”
Tristan throws his head back, laughing. “You can’t seem to win with Charlie. What did you do to rub her up so much the wrong way?”
I squirm in my seat as I think about the look she fired at me after she crushed her breasts against my chest. Like I was the worst man in the world. I can do no right with this girl. I pay her and her friends’ fucking cocktails all night, and she takes a strop? This is why I don’t date 28-year-olds.
He turns to me. “Want me to talk to her?”
“No,” I reply, too quickly. The less Tristan talks to Charlie about this, the better.
I know I was too hard on her over the redundancy offer. I thought giving her the offer myself would make it better, but it made it too personal. She knows exactly how to push my buttons, and I handled the situation like a jackass.
She was right, Mike was useless, and that wasn’t her fault.
I thought she’d be happy getting a generous payout. I had her new company write into her contract an open start date. She could take some time off and go travelling. Why wasn’t she happy about this?
Of course, Tristan knew that too, which was why he was being so reasonable.
“Mate, I know I’m going to get lynched for saying this,” Jack keeps going. “But as a red-blooded male, I think you need to keep Charlie out of that cesspit friendship circle of yours. She had half the city’s financial district trying to mount her at that party.” My eyes widened. Drop it, Mathews.
“They wouldn’t fucking dare,” Tristan growls, narrowing his eyes at Jack. “That goes for you too
Mathews, get any ideas of my sister out of your sordid mind.”
Jack laughs. “I wouldn’t go there. I like having my balls attached to my body.”
“It’s just a warning, Finnegan,” He shrugs. “She looks good. Every dick in that party was standing to attention. If you insist on inviting her to the same parties that you invite your sordid lecherous mates to, well, you only have yourself to blame.”
“Fuck sake, Mathews,” He glowers at him.
I need to steer this topic away before I’m exposed as a sordid lecherous mate.
“You’ve made your point, Mathews,” I say. “Don’t make him as uptight as me, for god’s sake.” “Maybe you’re uptight because the waitress is eyeing me rather than you.” Tristan grins.
“I can soon change that,” I responded, raising my glass to her suggestively. She smiles back flirtily.
“She’s all yours,” Tristan smirks at me. “You and Jen aren’t exclusive then?”
I shake my head. “No. Although I might need to reign her in a bit, she’s getting clingy.”
“I’ve made it very clear, no illusions of commitment.”
Jack tips his head back and laughs. “You’re 41 now, Walker. You’ve got a beautiful young human rights lawyer who wants to have sex with you every night despite you having the charisma of a cockroach and you still don’t want to commit? What exactly do you want?”
“Variety.” I grit my teeth. “I’m not interested in commitment.”
“He’s got the right attitude,” Tristan says dryly. “No commitment, no chance of a fucking bitch exwife to deal with.”
“Here, here,” I raise my glass, thinking of my own disastrous divorce.
“What’s happening now?” I ask.
Marrying Gemina was Tristan’s most financially and emotionally expensive mistake, 11 years on, and he is still paying for it. As far as divorces were concerned, this one was as hostile as they come. The woman was pure toxic; she let him think that Daniel was his son while she was shagging behind his back. He had lived through 4 years of thinking he was Daniel’s paternal father only to find out it was some bloke she met in a club in Monaco.
Now Daniel is 6, and he still treats him as a son but has few rights.
He hasn’t a leg to stand on legally, meaning Gemina can demand an extortionate amount in spousal and child support to fund her diamond fetish.
He immediately stiffens. I don’t know why I brought it up. He needs to talk about the situation, to deal with it, but it pains me to see how much strain it puts on him, like a dark shadow hanging over him.
I know he lies awake at night worrying about never seeing Daniel again, that she’ll just up and leave with some rich old geezer never to be seen again.
“She’s demanding I buy her a holiday home in France,” he replies flatly. “Says she needs to be near her sister.”
“You’ve already bought her two houses.” I seeth. “How many does she fucking need?”
“If it’s not a house, it’s a boat or a car or fucking island,” Jack says. “How do we sort this bitch
out once and for all?”
“No, Jack, we can’t have her offed.” Tristan rolls his eyes.
“I just have to keep paying if I want to see my son.” His face darkens. “I can’t lose my son.”
“You won’t,” I say quickly. “We have enough cash to keep paying her until we fund a better solution. Like death.”
“Glad I chose a rich godfather,” he chuckles as I beckon the hot waitress over to us.
She sashays over, and my cock twinges in appreciation.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me.” I drain the rest of my scotch glass. “Hi.” I flash her a smile. “What’s your name?”