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“Are you alone?” I demanded. Then I felt like smacking my head.Do I really want to hear that she’s out with someone else?
“Yes,” she ground out. “Now quit being a big brother. I have two already and don’t need this from you.”
“I love when you give me a good tongue lashing, suits.” Pushing her buttons was instinctual. I fucking loved it. But I still needed to know what made her call me for the first time. Ever. “Why’d you call?” I asked, cutting to the chase. “If you’re checking up on your roomie, Sophia’s fine. All settled in, and a week deep in the family business. Best technician we’ve had.”
Not that we let Sophia anywhere near the front lines of the Bratva. Her command perch was safe in my villa, from the bank of new computers and other gadgets I’d blown a million on as a graduation present. The memory of the little rabbit’s delighted squeals never failed to make me smile.
“While I think she’s better off than being a computer tech for a construction company, I’m calling about you, actually,” Briana admitted quietly. “I...need you.”
I felt my eyebrows shoot to my hairline.
A soft snort came down the line at my surprised silence. “Yeah, well, desperate times call for desperate measures.”
The way she slurred the words slightly had me frowning. “How much did you drink tonight?”
“Urgh! You’re so infuriating! Actually, you know what? This was a bad idea. Goodbye, Viktor. I hope I never have to talk to you ag—”
“Briana Marie, get to the point!” There was a long pause at my gruff command. The muffled noises in the background, punctuated by her soft breathing, were the only thing letting me know she was still on the other end. As any good information extractor could attest, there was a time to push and a time to wait. I knew she would tell me sooner or later.
“I need a fake boyfriend for my sister’s wedding,” she finally admitted. “It’s this coming weekend in Jamaica.”
Her words stole the breath from my lungs. I ran a hand over my short hair, belatedly remembering too late that it had dried blood on it. “And you calledme, suits?”
She growled, “I hate that it’s come to this! But wait—that reminds me. Do you own a beige three-piece suit? If not, I can get your measurements to a tailor, but it’s unlikely they’ll have it done in time.”
I let out a silent laugh at her abrupt change of topic. Briana kept talking, but I tuned her out, wondering if I could leave on such short notice. Debatable. I’d have a chance if I tracked down the stolen shipment the Serbs snatched from us. The bigger question at hand was did I want to spend time alone with Briana Pelto?
Abso-fucking-lutely!
Briana was fun and cute, with that dash of annoyance my presence brought out in her. Stoking the flames and making her explode was one of my chief delights. It wasn’t because I liked torturing her; it was because I could see the show she put on for everyone else was all a lie. And I hated lies. There was more to Briana than met the eye. The person behind those walls she erected was a mystery I enjoyed dissecting. Furthermore, she challenged me when I was able to coax her out of that ice shell, and no one, not even my sister, did that. When I didn’t bring Sophia home from Boston, I’d missed a perfectly good opportunity to be with Briana. Now it seemed fate was offering me a second chance. Carpe diem.
She was still rambling, unaware I’d tuned out. She did that when she got nervous. A contract lawyer who dealt with mediation teams, she did her thinking from the comfort of a library or desk. Trial law was something her father advised her against, because he thought she didn’t have the cutthroat animosity the role required.
I could still hear the worry in my sweet sister’s voice in the days following that particular conversation held between Briana and her piece of shit father. While he’d been right, the way he’d gone about it had wounded her. Deeply.
She could have been trained. Brian Pelto should have helped her. It was what a good father did. But he didn’t, and for that he was on my list to make him pay someday.
He’ll be at the wedding,the tiny devil on my shoulder whispered. Hmm, this trip was sounding more perfect by the moment.
I decided it was time to halt her ramble and give my answer. “I’ll see you Tuesday afternoon at JFK.”
Silence from the other end of the line.
“Bri? Did you hear me?” I growled into the phone.
“You’re agreeing to this? To be my fake date?” she blurted out.
“Yes.”
“Why would you help me? You don’t like me.”
“Ah, suits, you wound me. Wait there for a sec while I check flights.” I lowered my phone away from my ear and tapped my screen, pulling up the flight schedule. I raised the phone back. “I’ll be at JFK by 2 p.m. Will that work for you?”
“You don’t have to come here. We can just meet up in Jamaica on Wednesday,” she said quickly.
“No, I want a night in New York. With you,” I purred into the phone, and was rewarded with a little gasp.
“Look, I’m going to lay this down right now,” she spluttered. “There will be rules—boundaries!—for thisbusinessrelationship, and—”
