Page 63 of The Unfluencer

It surprised the hell out of me.

Especially because I thought I’d forgotten how to be comfortable with a woman. What it felt like when every detail, every look, sound, and scent mattered.

Nothing about that night felt meaningless.

Good God, I could’ve sat there all night, listening to her talk about her friends, the Divatantes, and her assistant Clive’s summer workouts. She was so foreign and familiar in the same breath. The food was delicious. The goddamned air crackled, and we were flirting like teenagers. And every so often she’d steady her honey-brown gaze on me like there was nowhere else she’d rather be than in that warm, low-lit restaurant with me sitting across from her.

I pretended I wasn’t completely unnerved, but Jesus, she was fucking gorgeous. And funny. Every inch of me ached to be closer, go deeper.

It’s the crux of my dilemma.

For the life of me, I can’t figure how to become a fuckboy overnight. More important, how can I make Whitney believe it, and want to have no-strings sex with me?

Why did I make that damn wager?

Casually getting to know a woman is just outside my wheelhouse. I don’t know about husband material, but it is hard to go back to just dating. Not that I’ll admit that—yet again—Cord, a certified know-it-all, was right about me.

What kind of schadenfreude Uno Reverse logic would that be? Why not invite him to throw it in my face?

Absolutely not.

Which is why it’s now seven twenty in the morning, and realizing we’ll be together for forty-eight straight hours with a postcard-perfect island as a backdrop? With her smooth, rich brown skin cast in Caribbean sunlight? With those legs stretched along my yacht? I’ve got to switch things up immediately.

But I needed to talk about it with someone. Not Cord, my mother, or Dr. Bellamy.

So I called Greer, figuring it was healthy to get a woman’s perspective.

“Ah, I see now…” Greer lets out a small laugh, prompting me to tuck my phone away and worry about anything other than the vitriol I’ve got for my best friend. “You’re not slick,” she hisses.

I chew the inside of my cheek, dragging my hand along the smooth leather armrest, fighting for my life not to laugh.

“You see what?” I ask.

Unsurprisingly, she isn’t hearing any of my rationalizing.

“Warner, you’re playing games.” She smacks her lips. “This is why we need to coordinate days off. If I’m out of office, you need to be too. Burns me up…” She trails off, still grumbling about being the one who has to deal with the backlash of my actions.

All week she’s skipped right over her usual “do you want to vent or advice” step, wasting zero time reminding me how my life imploded the day she set foot out of the office. Scathing headlines, an attempted home break-in, and now, I’ve added in a wager, and if I win, in the public’s eye I’ll remain the loveless, coldhearted cash machine who flew out a woman I was last spotted with in a restroom, doing “God knows what,” to my private island to gallivant and parade my billions before I greedily sell off my late wife’s paintings to add to my mountains of gold.

Oh, and bonus, I get to proudly claim the hit-it-and-quit-it badge.

Meanwhile, if I feel today even half of what I felt last Thursday night, Cord very well might have me on the hook for courtside finals tickets to watch the Legends.

“Out there acting like this is about the business when you’re letting that fool bait you into acting like some player.” Cord, she means. “Last week you sent a chauffeur-driven luxury car to pick her up. Now you’ve sent a rideshare service, trying to prove what, exactly?”

“First of all, Mom can wait a couple hours until we land. And second, Whitney said herself that she wasn’t fazed by the car service last week.” Or me. “I guess she’s just not the type of woman who’s easily impressed.”

Trust me, I’ve been trying.

A couple hours alone in Whitney’s presence, and she dusted me off, peeled back layers, and left me open. Hell, five more seconds in that restaurant, I would’ve asked her to be my goddamned Valentine.

If she’d asked me to fuck her right there on the table, I would’ve rushed home for my entire box of tropical condoms and eagerly complied. And still, it wouldn’t have been casual. I’d immediately want to do it again. Immediately want more everything with her, because you don’t spend a single dinner with a woman that incredible, feel that kind of natural ease of existing without the armor or the public watching your every move, enjoying each other’s company over exquisite food and exceptional conversation, and not recognize how easy it’d be to slip and fall into feelings.

Damn.

“How far out is she?” I ask.

A flutter of anticipation stirs in my stomach as I look out the window. At the foot of the stairs, the flight attendant on loan from Gold Wing Charter, who’s filling in for Tricia while she’s under the weather, is waiting to greet Whitney the second the Uber I sent pulls up.