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Maybe it doesn’t.
And like she’s asking for trouble—like she’s inviting anyone to come for her—she tagged the name and location of the club. I have to wonder if she has a death wish, tempting some insane motherfucker to track her down…
…and then I realize I’m the insane motherfucker. She wants me to hurry up and track her down. She’s playing games with me—and she’s doing it right in front of her tens of millions of followers.
This is classic Julia Ridgeway. I’ve never met another woman so confident in her own pussy that she would risk a fifty-billion-dollar deal to make a billionaire chase her around the world.
I order the driver to change course for the club in clipped, brusque Italian. Something about my tone compels him to flip an illegal U-turn, inciting irate honks from other drivers.
Needless to say, I’ll be giving this man a life-changing tip at the end of the night.
***
The nightclub is one of the most exclusive in Milan. It still only takes a single text message for me to get my name on the list and a personal welcome from the owner himself.
The music inside pulsates, bad and loud and unremarkable. Annoyed, I allow the owner to escort me to the VIP section. Earlier, he gave me his name and is now rambling about his other clubs and connections across Italy. He promises he can set me up with anything I want. None of it impresses me. Right now, the only thing this kid could do to impress me is leave me alone.
I came without security tonight, which leaves me feeling naked. On the rare occasion when I’m out at events, I’ve always got a guy on the wings. Not tonight. Once the club owner—Francis or Francisco or something—is gone, I find myself alone on the fringes of revelry. I can do whatever I want tonight.
I scan the vicinity, taking in throngs of young people in states of casual undress. This isn’t my scene. The distinct notes of alcohol and cigarettes linger in the air and shameless lines of cocaine decorate tabletops and the backs of women’s well-manicured hands.
So, this is the kind of shit Julia is into.
I’ve never felt more forty-three than I do after I order a drink and wait by the railing where Julia stood earlier tonight. The vodka of the night, whatever it is, tastes like shit, but I take two shots of it anyway. It’s pure gasoline in my throat and I ignore the aftertaste while I look at the crowd below—a crowd too young for my tastes.
“I shouldn’t have done this,” I mutter aloud before the sight of a young woman clearly getting fucked briefly diverts my attention. She’s against one of the walls lining the packed dancefloor below, visible whenever the flashing lights switch from green to white. The man in front of her holds her head back by her hair, lips pressed against her neck while he thrusts into her. Surrounding them, more couples—and some configurations greater than two—are devolving into similar states of debauchery.
Briefly, I wonder if Julia tempted me out here just to seduce another man right in front of me. The initial rage quickly fades into heat and I imagine how that would go: Julia fucking another guy, his hands pawing at her body, barely scratching itches I could soothe entirely. She’d regret it the minute she saw me enjoying the show, reveling in her disappointment over the mediocre dick inside of her.
I’d fuck her better than he could. Better than anyone could.
But the fantasy dissipates a moment later when I finally spot her.
Julia Ridgeway is hedonistic for an old money rich girl. Her type is usually buttoned up, careful not to engage in missteps that would mar centuries of a good name. Julia, on the other hand, dances like she wants to obliterate her father’s legacy, like she wants to chop down her family tree and watch the branches burn to ashes. Her luscious body pulses with the music, hands dragging over her own curves and occasionally shifting that little dress to reveal more shimmering skin.
It doesn’t take her long to notice me up here. When her eyes meet mine over the sea of half-naked people and throbbing lights, a triumphant smile appears on her face.
Once I see her smile, I realize my efforts were worth it. Scouring the internet for images that matched the background of the picture she sent me. Calling up the CEO of the Dorchester Collection, which owns the Hotel Principe di Savoia, so I could find out who booked the Presidential Suite tonight. Taking an impromptu trip to Milan in my plane. Drinking this shit vodka. It was all worth it to see her in the flesh, looking so damn good that I might hoist her over my shoulder and fuck her in the backseat of the car.
The look she gives me while she dances below is clear: Come and get me, August.
Such a cocky little thing.
Her eyes stay locked on mine. Her tongue pokes out through her lips to wet them, seduction practically emanating off of her. I grip the railing, trying to hold on to my power. This was my deal. My idea, my terms, my night. She keeps trying to take it from me.
Nobody takes from me—not even her.
“Fuck you, Julia,” I mouth.
She can see it; it makes her smile even harder—because her brother was right: She really is a psychopath. That much is clear when she reaches out blindly and grabs the closest guy in her orbit, inviting him to dance on her.
Right in front of me.
I’m not surprised he looks thrilled, downright grateful, to have the opportunity. In fact, he looks like he can’t believe his luck. With a desirous but still dumbfounded expression, he touches her without caution, his hands latching on her waist while she presses her body against his.
She’s a fucking psychopath.
She doesn’t know me. She doesn’t know that if I wanted, I could make a single phone call and have this man killed tonight—and nobody would suspect a thing. She also doesn’t know that I would never be jealous of some boy in a nightclub.
