Page 23 of Obsessed with the Heartbreaker

Chapter 7

Henry

“You’re throwing a party?” Antony asked. Tension and apprehension tinted his voice as he stared at the now open, yet empty, doorway.

Where had cocky Antony gone? He’d been here, pushing my buttons the way he always did, messing with my head, and yet now he looked stiff, the line of his shoulders slumped. He looked almost smaller.

I didn’t like it.

Getting up from my chair and forcing him to step back unless he wanted to bump against me, I closed my laptop with a final thud.

Those internships could wait another day.

“This is the second part of your task,” I told him. “You’ll be helping us finish setting everything up for the get-together, and then you’ll be agood valetand stay by my side. Sound good?”

“I’m thrilled,” he said in his most deadpan tone.

It still couldn’t mask the unease.

I stared at him, studying him closely, still standing only a few inches away from each other because none of us was willing to move away. “What, are you nervous about one little get-together? I’ve seen you go to parties with Scott and Eliot before.”

He had, in fact, come to one of my own.

“It’s not about that.” Antony looked away, out one of my windows, like he couldn’t meet my eyes.

I knew Antony wasn’t the biggest people-person, but I thought this reaction was unwarranted.

“Then what is it? Because if you’re going to chicken out better say it now—”

“Will you be hooking up with anyone tonight?”

The question made me freeze.

It was direct.

And very, very revealing.

It made me think things I shouldn’t think, things that were impossible. But Antony’s green eyes were now staring at me, almost defiantly, like he was making himself meet my gaze, and I couldn’t forget the way he’d sounded when he’d spoken to and about Maddox not twenty minutes earlier.

This had jealousy written all over it.

My mind was playing tricks on me.

Pushing away from my desk and needing just some fucking space tothink, I said, “I don’t plan my nights in advance, there’s a thing calledspontaneity.”

Lies. I hadn’t hooked up with anyone for months, and tonight wasn’t going to break my dry spell.

Especially when Antony was here, so close, muddying my senses and my better judgment.

Antony huffed in a humorless chuckle, looking down at his feet, making my chest seize.

Words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them.

“I’m pretty sure I’ll be too busy tonight to grace anyone with a new broken heart, though, given the new valet I have to train. So tell me. Are you coming down to help, or should I find a new victim to annoy to death?”

It was a dare. A nonsensical one at that. Because we had a deal, and if he didn’t do what I told him to do, it should have been him breaking his promise.

I still couldn’t help giving him an out.

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