Page 32 of The Playboy

I finally looked at him again. “I would, asshole, if I had her number.”

“You didn’t get it from her?”

My brows shot up. “Why are you so interested in my sex life?”

“Ohhhshit. I know. She didn’t give you her number, did she?” He laughed. “That’s where all this attitude is coming from.”

“I always have attitude.”

“True, but you always talk about the women you fuck—except for this one.” He reached forward, clasping my shoulder while he laughed. “You finally met a woman who’s just like you.” His laughter turned to a howl.

And as he got louder and as it lasted across a span of several seconds, my anger built.

“You can stop, you know. I get the point.”

“I can’t. This is just too funny.” He took a sip of his bullshit drink. “How does karma feel? Is it stinging a little? Biting the cheek of your ass, and you’re doing everything to swat it away and you can’t?”

My friends gave me a lot of shit for my lifestyle, but before each of them had settled down, they had been no different. It seemed like the women they were chained to had given them amnesia, where they couldn’t remember anything before dating them.

“Listen, when I hook up, I make it clear what my intentions are. Chicks don’t wake up the next morning and expect a proposal and a guy who’s going to fulfill every one of their dreams. Shit, most of the time, I’m not even there the next morning. I’m long gone before they wake up.” I took a drink, chomping on an ice cube before I said, “If I lied to them, then I could accept this karma crap, but I never lie. They know going in, they know coming out.”

“Would you have stayed the night with her?” His voice turned serious.

I didn’t have to think. I already knew.

Because I’d wanted to go to her place, because I’d wanted to keep the night rolling.

And as those thoughts simmered and sank in, I didn’t know who the fuck I was anymore.

What had happened to me.

What had she done to me.

Why this mentality was even a consideration when I’d normally be pleased with the results of last night.

“Yeah,” I replied, “I would have.”

“So, now what?”

I shrugged. I didn’t know.

An island that had an area of over five hundred square miles and more than seventy thousand people—that was a shitload of ground to cover.

Did I attempt to look for her?

Ask around?

Have my assistant dig through social media to see if my Tiny Dancer had ever posted a photo from the club?

Fuck me.

“Now, I—” My voice cut off when a beep came from my phone—a special ringtone dedicated to Walter. I picked up my cell and checked the screen, reading a round of questions that were coming at me, one after the other, like rapid-fire. “Fuck. I need to run up to the room. I have to send my uncle some spreadsheets before he loses his shit.”

He moved back into his chair, extending his legs across it. “Will you be a while?”

“I shouldn’t be more than a few minutes.” I got up and nodded toward the crew in the water. “You should join them. I promise not to videotape you from the room, where I’ll have the perfect view of you fools.”

“Dick.”

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