Page 2 of Three Corporate Kings and a Hands-Off Bride

“You almost gave me a heart attack,” she cried. “It’s the middle of the day. What are you doing here?” She stepped into her bedroom, dressed in a long skirt and tank top, a bunch of fresh roses in her hand, and a camera hanging around her neck. Whatin the hell was she planning to do? Take fucking dick pics of her conquest?

“No, what are you doinghere?” Baxter asked, spreading his hands to encompass her room. “With this beckoning prick boudoir, you set up for whatever dimwit you planned to ensnare.”

“Who is he?” Cade asked. Patience was not his strongest suit.

“Who is who?” She asked, setting the roses down and rearranging a damn cushion on a Persian rug on the floor. Did she plan to have sex everywhere in her room?

“The poor clueless bastard on his way to you,” Eli demanded. “Who is he?”

“Oh. Oh no. This is for my scrapbook. I’m manifesting the event, the mood and the theme.” She twirled around as if reconsidering her surroundings. “Maybe I’ll go a little darker than this. I don’t know yet.”

Cade turned to look at his friends. She had no idea about the wordless conversation they were having with each other. They’d rushed over here ready to break bones and bury the evidence, only to find she’d set this up to take pictures for her fucking scrapbook? A scrapbook?

“I have a scrapbook for everything now,” she said before going to her desk and handing Cade a very colorful book, the cover littered with embossed flowers.

“Lots of things to manifest. Plus, it’s really fun,” she continued. “You should try it sometime. I mean it’ll probably be about dull things like the stock exchange, core competency, paradigm shifts, KPIs, that kind of thing but hey whatever floats yourfetish,” she said distracted now that she held up her camera and started taking shots of her handiwork.

With Eli and Baxter standing on either side of him. Cade flipped through pages.

Fucking hell. She had pictures of lingerie and then stuck real feathers and ribbons to the images. There was a page for oils and lipsticks. The scent she wanted to remember when she lost her virginity—lavender and vanilla. And… a page dedicated to what she wanted to try after her first time.

Blowjobs. Hand jobs. Handcuffs. Bondage. Quickies. Spanking. Toys. Shower sex. Cowgirl. Reverse Cowgirl. The Socket—

Cade felt a burst of heat spread under his skin with the force of a tornado. He couldn’t breathe for some weird fucking reason. His tie was strangling him and he controlled himself just enough not to jam his fingers into the collar and rip it open.

He’d grown up with Eli and Baxter. They came from middle-class families and lived on the same street through all their childhood. They went to college together. They opened up their first business together by the time they were eighteen, guided by Tom Robertson, who offered them advice for free before they were able to retain him with a very lucrative package.

Cade, Eli, and Baxter shared a bond stronger than if they were brothers. They worked well together; they complemented each other’s strengths and weaknesses. And what Cade was feeling at the sight of her scrapbook, which she titledV Card Nixed,Eli, and Baxter were feeling the exact same.

“This is not going to happen,” Baxter said, and she turned around to face them, hands on her hips now. “This is the equivalent of a stranger danger van, but for unsuspecting bros.”

“We’re not going to let you ruin some poor bastard’s life when he falls for you so hard, he’ll crack his skull and all his common sense with it. Think of it as a community service to mankind. All of mankind,” Eli said.

“And we can’t trust you not to give away all your money to the first guy who tells you he loves you just to get into your panties,” Cade added.

“Okay, seriously,” she said, “I can’t be a man-eater whose going to put a spell on a guy and lure him into the… cupcake between my legs but then also be so dumb that I’ll give the whole of my trust fund away to the first guy who says he love me. Assassinate my character with one flaw at a time, please.”

“It doesn’t matter. The only guy who’ll be taking your virginity will be the guy who puts a ring on your finger, and only after we approve of him as your husband,” Cade said.

“So you’re allowed to be ‘Captains of Bang City’ with a bevy of different women every night, but I’m supposed to marry a man before I sample his wares?”

Sample his wares?

“Yes,” they all three said in unison.

Alicia sighed and looked as if she were getting ready to bang them except on their heads with a speech on feminism, which meant now was as good a time as ever to leave. They didn’t care that their argument was illogical at best, they just knew as far as Tom’s daughter was concerned, they were right, and she was wrong.

Cade walked out of her room, Eli and Baxter following.

“Hey, give me my journal back, you man sized hypocrites,” she called after them.

“No. Start another and manifest crocheting.”

They were going to burn the darn thing. That nunnery seemed more and more like a better idea. Surely Tom would approve. Cade wondered where he would find one.

Surprisingly, she didn’t come after them. She didn’t demand her book back. She didn’t threaten them with an explosion of more pink in what was once their very streamlined bachelor existence or invite her New Age friends for a seance that would keep them up the whole night with their chanting, or exchange their beds for water beds while they were at the office.

“She gave up too quickly,” Eli said, as they walked into their study and poured themselves a drink.

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