Page 34 of Obeying His Rules

“What makes me say that? Like everything you just told me? I thought that would be obvious.”

“I don’t agree with that.” I shake my head.

“You don’t?” This time it’s her that’s frowning. “You’re just going to ignore all the signs? Rain, you haven’t been seeing him long enough to be making excuses for him.”

“No, I don’t agree,” I reply as the waiter drops off my second mimosa. “You should have seen the way he treated me the first night. I felt like I was being given the princess treatment or something by one of the richest men in New York.”

“Oh, my good gosh,” Taylor groans.

“He even warned me from the start not to get involved with him. He wasn’t coming on to me with cheesy pickup lines or trying to rizz me up or get me drunk so I’d go home with him like some stupid frat boy.”

“You don’t have to be a stupid frat boy with cheesy pickup lines to be a misogynist, Rain,” Taylor says. “You just have to not respect women.”

“I don’t think he doesn’t,” I reply.

“He just doesn’t care enough about you to let you into his life or do anything but use you as a fuck toy,” Jasmine replies stonily.

“Well, when you put it like that…” I sigh again.

“How else can I put it?” she asks.

“What about the necklace?” I ask. “See, I think the necklace means something. It’s obviously not a guy’s necklace, and it clearly means something to him. What if that’s what’s important to him, and it’s holding him back somehow?”

They both groan.

“She’s not gonna listen to us, is she?” Taylor asks Jasmine.

“Nope. She’s not.”

“My man must be giving that good dick.”

They both laugh, and even I have to smile. I wish I could explain my fascination with Marlon after only knowing him this long, but I can’t. There’s just something about him. It’s like he sank a hook into me the day we met at the bar and I just haven’t been able to get it out of me since.

“Okay, it’s drinks time,” I say, standing. “I’ll buy. What do you two idiots want? I’m getting a mimosa. You want one too, Jaz?”

“I want a mimosa like you want Marlon’s dick!”

“Oh my goodness–”

“I’m gonna go full J.D. in Scrubs and get an Appletini,” Taylor says excitedly. “And if they don’t have those here, then get me a sex-on-the-beach please and thank you.”

Laughing, I head over to the bar and try to get the bartender’s attention, but he’s busy serving a threesome of girls in tight black dresses who are clearly being a handful. I look for someone else who could serve me, but the only other person working is a girl who looks like she’s restocking ice.

I accept my fate and lean up against the high-top and gaze out across the crowd as I wait, knowing it will be a few minutes before I’m served.

There’s a girl at one of the booths whose dress catches my eye. It’s very interesting teal, one-shouldered with a nice taper that stops mid-calf, and I am wondering whether or not I could actually just go talk to her about it and come back before the bartender is ready when I feel a presence behind me and a whiff of Givenchy, Gentleman Society, cologne invades my nostrils.

“Excuse me, but do you like raisins?” a voice asks.

Oh God, not now. Please not now.

I turn around and find myself staring at one of the Wall Street bros who didn’t get the booth he wanted because of us. He’s wearing a dark blue Canali suit with a white shirt underneath and Ferragamo loafers. His brown hair is slicked back, and he has a pair of Jacques Marie Mage sunglasses tucked into his breast pocket. Guys like this are a dime a dozen in this area of the city, and they all think they’re the next Gordon Gecko and that every girl wants to go home with them and worship them for simply existing.

“Did you just ask me if I like raisins?” I reply.

“Yeah.” He grins. “Do you like raisins?”

I internally roll my eyes. “Um, sure.”

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