Page 72 of The Billionaire's Princess

“Suit yourself, Ry,” Griffin says, then makes a show of getting comfortable by leaning back, crossing his legs and taking a leisurely sip of his drink. “Just don’t fuck it up.”

“You’ve got to get Carly back,” Ryker tells me, shooting Griffin a final sidelong glare. “You can’t go down in flames like this.”

“Sure I can,” I say, incredulous. Who among us can be surprised that I’ve screwed things up with Carly? I don’t exactly have a long history of successful relationships under my belt. “Have we met?”

“We’re trying to help you not be your own worst enemy,” Ryker says, making zero effort to hide his exasperation. “Stop being such a hardass all the time.”

Griffin frowns. “I thought I was the hardass in the family.”

“You’re the asshole,” Ryker tells him. “There’s a difference.”

“True,” Griffin says, his expression clearing.

“Anyway, Damon, what’s the issue?” Ryker says. “We’re here. Maybe you need to bounce some ideas off us.”

He waits patiently.

Griffin, meanwhile, pulls out his phone with his free hand and scrolls through emails.

I scowl. This is what my life has come to. It’s my own fault for getting myself into the pathetic position of receiving romantic advice from Bill and Ted here. Having not learned my lesson the last time I confided in one of these two morons, I mentioned the other day, in passing, that Carly and I had hit a rough patch. Now this.

Although, come to think of it, they’re both happy in their new relationships. To my knowledge, neither one of them is spending his long and lonely nights alone with only his blue balls to keep him company. Maybe, if I confide a bit more about my situation, one or the other of them might stumble onto an encouraging word of wisdom. It’s worth a shot. I can hardly be worse off than I am now.

I clear my throat.

“Carly, ah, loves me. She says she’s in love with me.”

“So, naturally, you’ve lost the will to live and look like shit,” Griffin says, still scrolling.

That’swhy he’s the family asshole.

In a sign of how close my emotions are to the surface these days, that’s all it takes for me to lose my shit. I surge to my feet and bend down to get in his face.

“You want a go at me?” I roar. Rather than respond, Griffin yawns and taps out a message on his phone. This, naturally, throws ten gallons of gasoline on the situation. I shove his shoulders. Griffin raises a hand to ward me off. “Huh? You think this is the time for your—”

“Sit your ass down.” Ryker materializes between us, puts his hands on my shoulders and backs me up a couple of steps until I jerk away to fume nonviolently. We’ve been through this drill before, unfortunately. With Griffin around, you always need a person on standby in case someone lunges for his throat. “Focus. What’s the problem with Carly? You’ve got your eye on someone else? You’ve found someone better?”

“What?”I say, flopping onto the nearest chair. The idea is so patently absurd that I can’t hide my incredulity. There’s no one better than Carly. Never has been, never will be. “No. Of course not.”

“She’s moving too fast for you?” Ryker continues.

I think about how I gave her the key to my apartment almost immediately. Then I think about how I just happened to wander into the engagement ring section at Harry Winston the other day.

“No.”

“Well, what?” Ryker asks blankly.

I shrug, struggling to put the other night’s ugly scene into words. I still can’t quite figure out how things went sideways on us so quickly.

“She, ah, invited her ex-fiancé to her show the other night.”

“Ah.” Griffin looks up from his phone, nodding sagely. “So she fucked him.”

A haze of red descends on my vision at this point, so I’m not exactly sure what happens next. All I know is that my fingertips are mere inches from Griffin’s throat this time before Ryker intervenes again. He calmly hauls me back, snarling, and shoves me back into the chair. Then he turns to Griffin.

“For once,” Ryker says tiredly.

“Sorry,” Griffin says, tapping on his phone again.

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