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I had to hand it to East—he might come off as a superficial ass on the surface, but there was a layer of intelligenceunderneath it. He’d been trying to uncover who King was ever since we’d been whisked away here.
“Maybe notanything,” King said, clearly seeing the direction East was taking him. “But I’m willing to hear you out.”
In other words, he’d tell us what he wanted and not a damn thing more.
“Okay, well, at least answer this—how can a professor afford all of this? Do you invest? Stocks? Real estate? Do you have a gambling problem?”
King floated to his back, a relaxed chuckle leaving him. “Would it really be a problem if I could afford a private jet and island?”
East glanced at me, narrowing his eyes. “Look who’s deflecting now?”
He was right, of course. But where East avoided conversation with sex, King masterfully redirected your attention to a different question hewaswilling to answer.
“Oh no, not this time, Batman,” East continued. “There is absolutely nothing about you online. No business deals, no articles about you, no pictures. The only thing available is your schooling history, which,boring,I already knew all that.”
King shifted to his feet, water sluicing over his skin in a way that made me want to lick it. “Always digging, aren’t you? Just determined to find something.”
“No shit. You already had my attention with the way you fill out your suits. But the fact I can’t find shit about you online, that myhackercan’t find anything… Consider my interest piqued.”
King moved back up to the tanning ledge and lay out in the shallow water. He reached for his sunglasses, but just as he was about to put them on, East swam up beside him and snatched them out of his hand.
“I don’t think so. You said you wanted to talk. So talk.” He slid King’s glasses on and looked at me. “Who wears them better?”
The audacity East possessed was on a whole other level. I’d never act the way he did around King, but the crook to the professor’s lips told me he enjoyed it…to an extent.
“I’m going to say the original owner.”
East flicked a splash of water in my direction. “Eh, you don’t have any fashion sense anyway.”
I shook my head as he turned back to King, who was watching our exchange with an amused glint in his eyes.
“But I want to look in your eyes when you tell me yourtrueidentity. Please don’t tell me your name is Bruce. I don’t think I could shout that when you’re fucking me.”
“And that’s when you take it too far.” King let out a sigh and plucked his glasses from East’s face. “Always pushing too far.”
“In all fairness, that’s your fault,” I said, shocking the hell out of myself. “The key with East is to stop him talkingbeforehe gets out of hand. You let him go too long.”
“My mistake. Let’s see if I can rectify that. Have you ever heard of TerraKohr?”
“The mega-conglomerate of luxury establishments and brands all over the world? Gee, no, what’s that?” East said in a droll voice.
When King looked at me, I nodded. “Yeah, my family’s business has contacts with a few of TerraKohr’s restaurants. Why?”
He spread his hands wide. “It’s mine.”
It’s mine.That was all he said. So nonchalant, like he hadn’t just confessed to owning a company that had to be valued in thehundreds of billions.
I looked to East to get his reaction, but he just crossed his arms and stared down at King with a disbelieving expression.“Yours,” he said. “Really.”
“You asked.”
“I asked for the truth.” He waved a hand around at all we were surrounded by. “An inheritance, sure. Getting lucky with the stock market, I believe it. The head of TerraKohr moonlighting as a professor at Astor? Bullshit.”
“East—” I started.
“What? Don’t tell me you believe him.”
I opened my mouth to disagree, but I couldn’t. Thinking the professor I’d worked with for years was some secret mega-billionaire made absolutely no sense. “I mean… Itdoessound a little crazy.”
