Page 5 of After-Party Consequences

‘Clearly you don’t readBlush,’ Cade growled.

‘The women’s magazine?’ Adam looked nonplussed, clearly not as clueless as Cade about trashy celeb culture. ‘You read that?’

‘No, I don’t read it,’ Cade snarled...because...really? ‘But my PR consultant does. He just texted me. Did y’all know we are the star players in their latest dumb article? “The Billionaire Bachelors Least Likely to Marry.” Apparently, we three have been tagged the One Date Wonders... The guys with the longest odds, and they’ve already started a tally on how many dates we’ll have racked up by Labor Day.’

‘You’re kidding?’ Zane said, looking more amused than outraged. ‘Who I date is no one’s business but mine. And I’m not going to stop—I’ve no plans to settle down. Ever.’

‘Neither do I,’ Adam added, not sounding remotely amused.

Me either, Cade thought but didn’t add.

‘They’re turning our sex lives into a joke—and getting a lot of traction,’ Cade continued. ‘And that’s not the kind of media attention I want for my business. Do you?’ he finished.

He hadn’t worked his butt off his whole life to be taken seriously only to garner this kind of attention.

‘Exactly how much traction are we talking about?’ Zane asked, the smug grin gone.

‘The hashtag One Date Wonders is the top trending topic in the US on most of the main apps today. That much,’ Cade answered. ‘And just about every American female online seems to have an opinion now about our sex lives... We’re basically the red meat at the centre of a social media feeding frenzy.’

Adam winced. Zane looked thoughtful for once.

‘My PR team are freaking out about it,’ Cade continued. ‘Personally, I don’t give a damn what a bunch of clickbait junkies and their enablers think of my dating habits...’ Except he did, kind of, or the article wouldn’t have made him so mad. ‘But no way in hell am I letting anyone make me look like a jerk who can’t keep his junk in his pants.’

‘We need to find a way to shut it down,’ Courtney said.

Silence fell. But as the temperature in the sauna rose, so did the hackles on the back of Cade’s neck...

Maybe deMarco and Courtney weren’taspissed about the hit to their reputations, but then, they’d never had to fight for respect the way Cade had. Courtney came by it naturally, being from old money in the UK, and deMarco was enough of a bad boy not to give a damn what anyone thought about him.

But Cade did give a damn. And somehow, the more he thought about it, the more furious and frustrated he became.

‘What if we take ourselves off the market?’ Zane offered, with the reckless twinkle in his eyes Cade recognised from when he was about to make a killer shot on the squash court.

‘Forget it,’ Cade said. Was deMarco nuts? ‘No way am Iactuallygetting hitched to shut this down.’

‘Absolutely not... It’s out of the question,’ Adam concurred.

At least two of them hadn’t gone to the dark side.

‘Did I say anything about getting hitched?’ Zane said, as if they were both fools. ‘This is a countdown, right? So how about we stop the clock before it even starts. All we have to do is date one woman—and one woman only—from now until Labor Day. Simple.’

‘You’re kidding. You actually want to pander to this garbage?’ Cade said, a little astonished. Having his sex life ridiculed on social media was bad, but having to curtail it to suit some glossy rag’s clickbait agenda was worse.

‘Not particularly, but I’m betting you two are going to break long before I do,’ Zane said, with that feral glint still in his eyes.

‘I’ll take that bet, because the last time I looked, you’re a bigger serial dater than the both of us,’ Cade replied wryly.

‘You don’t even know what the stake is,’ Adam pointed out. As if they were actually going to bet on their sex lives...

‘My Helberg shares,’ Zane shot back, surprising the hell out of Cade, but also making his heartbeat slow—the way it did whenever he was about to close on a sweet property deal.

‘Hold on a minute. You’d bet on Helberg?’ Cade asked, sure he could not have heard that right. ‘Are you serious?’

deMarco’s feral grin answered the question before he did. ‘Sure. Why not? It’s Independence Day today,’ Zane continued. ‘What if we meet back here on Labor Day. Winner takes all accumulated shares and has an unimpeded run at Helberg.’

Cade frowned.Damn. Despite how uncomfortable it made him feel letting the press dictate his sex life for the summer, the bet was mighty tempting. It provided a way for the three of them to square off over Helberg without driving the share price up any higher—while also nipping all the unwanted social media attention in the bud and minimising the hit to their reputations.

And best of all, Cade could totally win this bet.

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