Page 37 of Vicarious

Even so, I know we can’t be too careful. My security very discretely blends in with the crowds everywhere we go to make sure everything is safe and that no one is stupid enough to try to attack me while I’m on vacation. Because while the world doesn’t know I’m Viper, the world does know that I’m valuable to Stephen Pray. He’s pissed off enough people that they may come after me and the Mexican mafia princess I’m supposedly dating.

“Then what is it?”

Dele lingers to look at a mannequin wearing a tight, deep red dress that stops just at the mid-thigh, with off-shoulder straps, and a deep V in the front.

“Nothing,” she says. With one last look at the dress, she starts to move on.

I stop her when I say, “You should get it. It would look good on you.”

“Maybe,” she says as she looks at it again. “I would have to carry a purse with it.”

That’s to say, she can’t hide her guns anywhere in a dress like that.

“Then carry a purse,” I say as I grab her size off the rack. “Besides, you need something to wear for tonight anyway. Don’t you?”

Tonight being some discreet, upscale club that Cres insisted she wanted to go to. Discreet meaning the security has a strict no cameras policy. If it even looks like you’re taking a cell phone out to take a picture, they ask you to leave. In other words, somewhere Cres can find a pretty girl to fuck tonight without it getting back to her father.

“Not for something that’s barely one piece of fabric and costs that much,” Dele mutters looking at the tag.

“As if you don’t have the money to pay for it.”

“Doesn’t mean I want to use it on that.”

“Good thing I intended you to use my money.”

Dele give me an unimpressed look. “No.”

“I’m just going to pester you until you get something you like. You’re not allowed to look at the prices either.”

Dele sighs. “Adrian.”

I hand her the dress and go to find Cres. Unlike Dele, she has no reservations about spending as much of my money as she pleases, fake as our relationship is. I have to make sure she doesn’t actually bankrupt me as much of an impossibility as that is.

Nothing else catches Dele’s attention the way that dress did, so she ends up leaving with it, a pair of shoes, a matching purse just big enough for her guns, and one of those extra wide-brimmed hats she likes so much but won’t admit she likes and insists are only to help her hide her face in public.

When we’re back at the beach house, the twins insists on playing out on the beach, and by the time they’re done running around, they barely have the energy to eat dinner before taking a bath and passing out not long before nine o’clock.

Dele is clearly apprehensive about leaving the twins behind to go to this club Cres has been raving about. But between all my security, the servants I brought along and who can be trusted to watch them, and the fact that this is all so far beyond the reach of Pray’s power, she eventually goes along with it.

There’s no line for us to wait in when we get there, and no sooner than we’re safely inside and away from outside prying eyes, Cres goes her own way toward something, more likely a someone, that catches her attention. She doesn’t even wait for a hostess to show us to the booth she reserved for us well in advance.

That leaves Dele and I to follow the hostess to our personal booth. Off in a private area of the club with dedicated servants and hostesses to cater to our every whim and need that only a very large amount of money can buy.

They immediately bring Dele and I our preferred drinks before leaving us.

“That’s some service,” Dele says as she sips on her drink.

“So you’re drinking tonight.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“You’ve been so uptight lately, I wasn’t sure.”

“That has nothing to do with drinking.”

“Then what does it have to do with?”

Dele, once again, avoids answering by asking, “Are you going to dance with me tonight? Live up to your reputation as an irresponsible playboy?”

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