Page 20 of No Longer Safe

“Usually, I would ask you to share your wild schemes with me when you get that look in your eye but unfortunately, I am not interested today.”

“You’re trying to change the subject. Why do you care about the strippers?”

He waved his hand before patting the seat beside him. “I don’t.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

He shrugged. “I don’t care. It’s none of your business.” He changed tactics on me and this time I let him. There were only so many circles I was willing to go through with this brother. “She gets under your skin and you hate it, don’t you?”

I shrugged as I slid onto the bench seat beside him. Miraculously, he was able to drive the golf cart straight for about five minutes before I noticed us veering to the left and the right. It was slight, I almost missed it.

He was right. I didn’t know why I cared. I didn’t know how she was possibly getting under my skin. Maybe it was the fact that she looked delicious with dark red lipstick. Maybe it was the slight twang in her voice. Maybe it was that she wasn’t like all the other women that were in constant rotation around here. She didn’t care about the money or she would have already thrown herself at me. She wasn’t impressed with me. She avoided me at all costs. Why? I was an eligible bachelor. I was rich, handsome, and had an Ivy League college degree. Why didn’t that impress her? It made no damn sense and I supposed it was driving me insane. Driving me quite literallyWilde.

“I think I have a plan,” Dimitri looked at me instead of the manicured path between the gardens and any other time I would have cared, but I was too drunk to mind. I hoped we ran straightthrough all of my mother’s perfectly meticulous hedges. I hoped we made a new path. No such luck. Somehow Dimitri still stayed on the path, even if it was a little wobbly. “You need to get under her skin the way she gets under yours. You need to give her a reason to not stop thinking about you.”

“Okay,” I would hear him out. I would take his ideas into consideration.

“You make her crazy about you, get under her skin, and then leave her wanting. You’ll hopefully never see her again after all this wedding shit and maybe you’ll be married off by the next time you do.”

“Get on with it.”

“You start texting her.”

Chapter Fifteen

Audrey

It had beena little bit since I’d been home last. My apartment smelled a little musty and everything I left in the fridge was expired. I knew that would happen when I left but it felt weird coming home to such an empty place. It felt even stranger to not have Carina just down the hall from me. I hated this.

A text pinged on my phone and I smiled. Brian hadn’t forgotten about my flight home!

UNKNOWN

Did you make it home safely?

Who’s this?

UNKNOWN

The sexiest man in your world.

I frowned down at my phone. Did Brian get another number? Surly not. He wouldn’t text me like this. I was pretty sure he had never referred to himself as sexy before.

I think not.

UNKNOWN

Ah, you’re no fun.

Who is this?

UNKNOWN

I’m tall, dark, rich, and you can’t stop thinking about me.

Damn it all, how had Alexei gotten my phone number?

How did you get my number?

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