Free Billionaire With a Twist 3 by Lila Monroe Page B

cleavage.
    I risked a glance over at Hunter. His
face looked like it was only a matter of time before either his brain
or the vein in his temple exploded. Don’t take the bait,
don’t take the bait, don’t take the bait, I prayed
silently.
    “Oh, don’t worry, I don’t
need to take your girl too,” Chuck said with a grin, careful to
emphasize that last word. “I’m just surveying the goods.
One of the perks of the business, I’m sure you remember.”
    Oh sweet baby Jesus, let Hunter not
kill him , I prayed.
    Fortunately, we were interrupted by the
waiter, wanting our drink orders. Chuck ordered a martini, and Hunter
and I both said we preferred to just keep drinking water. It fit the
bill of the desperate, soon-to-be-impoverished losers much, much
better. Also it kept the mind strong and clear much better than
alcohol could, which I just possibly may have known from my own
personal experience.
    “Good idea,” Chuck said.
Under the table, his foot began to trace figure eights along my bare
calf. It made my skin crawl, but I couldn’t retreat. “After
all, we both know what Ally is like with a little liquor in her.”
    Hunter ground his teeth so hard I was
pretty sure he would be financing his dentist’s next vacation
single-handedly. “Let’s stick to the business at hand,
Chuck. Please,” he added with just the right mix of shame and
desperation.
    Chuck took the bait. “Well,”
he said. “When you put it like that.”
    His foot traced a little higher up my
leg.
    We had him right where we wanted him.
    Now we just had to get through another
hour of this.
     
    #
     
    “Are you two sure you won’t
have any more of this caviar? I don’t expect there’ll be
very much of it in your future, you might as well take advantage of
it while you can.”
    “No thank you,” Hunter said
with a tight smile that made him look like the victim of an unskilled
plastic surgeon. “You go right on ahead.”
    “Don’t mind if I do!”
Chuck said, and proceeded to down the rest with a disgusting slurp.
    Hunter’s and my plates were both
nearly untouched. We had lost our appetites nearly forty minutes ago.
Not even fine caviar, a French cheeseboard sampler adorned with a
selection of organic stone fruits, steak seared to just the point of
tenderness, and tiramisu light and fluffy as a cloud off St. Peter’s
gates could undo the damage of having to spend time in Chuck’s
hideous company.
    He’d spent those last forty
minutes not only displaying appalling table manners, but leering at
me, putting down Hunter with not at all subtle barbs, and being so
rude to the wait staff I was honestly surprised none of them had
thrown a drink in his face.
    At least he had stopped that thing with
his foot after Hunter ‘accidentally’ stepped on his toes.
He’d had to follow that up with abject apologies, and I was
still worried that it might swing Chuck to deny our plea just to
spite us, but I was still glad that Hunter had done it. I couldn’t
have stood another second of that creep touching me without bursting
into tears.
    “I’m considering this plan
of yours,” Chuck went on. There was a particularly large piece
of steak stuck between his front teeth. I tried to ignore it. “It
does have certain merits, but honestly, I’d be doing you a huge
favor. I’m not sure I can stretch my charity so far.”
    He was lying out his ass, of course,
but we couldn’t let him know we knew that. I glanced over at
Hunter when he didn’t respond immediately. His shoulders and
jaw were both clenched tight; putting up with Chuck’s shit was
taking a definite toll. I snuck a touch to the small of his back, and
he jolted back into the moment, sparing half a second to shoot me a
secret smile before his game face slid back into place.
    “Of course,” he said to
Chuck. “We understand completely. Take all the time you need to
make your decision. Only…not too much time?”
    I thought that bit of groveling at the
end was a nice touch, and by