Patrick woke up well into the afternoon on Saturday. Eight hours of sleep, and he still felt like shit. Not surprising though, since he’d stayed out past dawn and hadn’t bothered to undress before collapsing into bed.

Now the light was streaming in, too bright and glaring and bouncing off his whitewashed walls. He didn’t have any curtains in his bedroom. Who needed privacy when you were this high up? And anyone lucky enough to see into this room should sit back and enjoy the view.

But right now it was annoying as fuck.

He grabbed his phone from his nightstand and unlocked the screen. Sixty new email notifications, plus the unread ones he’d ignored the day before. Couldn’t he get one goddamn day off? It was the weekend, for fuck’s sake.

Dropping his phone on the bed, Patrick rolled over and stared at the ceiling.

Last night hadn’t been as enjoyable as he’d hoped. Sure, he’d had sex, but his head hadn’t been in it. He hadn’t been present, barely enjoying the sounds of pleasure he’d wrung from her, and leaving before finding any himself.

Red Sox Girl had pouted as he’d gotten dressed, saying it was late, he should stay, they could have brunch at some little place she knew of in the morning. That was always the hard part—when they wanted more. Because Patrick had nothing more to give.

So he’d gently reminded her what he’d said on the way to her place—he didn’t do relationships and was only there for the night. He was honored to have fulfilled her fantasy, and stroked her cheek once to get a smile out of her before he left.

Needing to get the day going, Patrick threw off his comforter, took off everything but his boxers and threw his clothes on the floor. Not the best way to treat his luxury dress shirt and merino wool slacks, but it wasn’t like he didn’t have a closet full of designer clothes if a few needed dry cleaning.

As long as he was trapped in this lifestyle, he might as well enjoy it.

Hitting the floor, Patrick began his daily push-up routine. Once he got through a few hundred and his shoulders began to burn, he stripped the rest of the way down and made his way into the en-suite. Switching on the shower, he stepped into the glass enclosure and moved under the hot spray. He closed his eyes, crossed his arms over his chest and let the water douse him.

The tension was still present, his limbs tight and his body worked up with the familiar edginess that was always banished by a good hard orgasm. But to be honest, he’d been bored the night before. Super-slow sex had been Red Sox Girl’s fantasy of choice. He’d been happy to oblige, but like the other women he’d bedded lately, her request hadn’t excited him.

“Blindfold me.”

“Take me from behind on our sides, like they do in porn.”

“Let’s do it up against a window for all of Boston to see.”

The last time that had actually been interesting was when he’d done it on a fifth-floor fire escape because it gave him the challenge of making sure they didn’t plummet to their deaths. But their fantasies were all mechanics. Stage directions. It left him restless, which sucked because sex was the only thing that shut his brain off.

It was his blessing and his curse, this mind of his. His aptitude for remembering and noticing everything was the superpower behind his ability to seduce, but it made him crazy too. He was either constantly overanalyzing the present or fixating on the past. Sex was his drug of choice, the best elixir because it didn’t cost him anything and it stopped him from thinking so goddamn much. Detaching from his mind and being fully immersed in his body was his only distraction from the endless time loop that was his life. For a few blissful hours, he put on an act, becoming their fantasy and turning into someone else—a man who wasn’t shackled to a future he never wanted because of a past he couldn’t change.

The need to pace had him getting antsy despite the steady stream of water. There was too damn much in his life he couldn’t do anything about. Too much he couldn’t control. Too much that pissed him the fuck off.

And, once again, Patrick’s thoughts drifted to Cassie.

She made him angry. He didn’t know what it was, but something about her brought it out of him. She was a homing beacon to his most base self, drawing out the worst parts of his personality, and truth be told, he hated her a little for it. He felt like shit when things got nasty, but it kept happening over the nine months he’d known her, and he couldn’t make it stop.

Nine months. Nine goddamn months of banter as they watched their best friends fall in love. Months of seeing how smart she was, how passionate she was about defending her clients. Of having her poke fun at his cavalier lifestyle with her holier-than-thou loathing, yapping at him that women deserved more than to go home with him only to discover they were getting a one-night stand.

She didn’t know how he ran his life. And he didn’t feel like correcting her, so he’d kept to his usual game. Upped it even, whenever he was around her, because after a while, he realized he’d started doggedly going after women to get to her.

Getting a rise out of her was as close to sex as they were going to get. But it wasn’t the only reason. He’d been waiting for something—a spark of jealousy in her eyes. Some kind of admission that she wanted him too. For a while, Patrick had told himself she was cold. Frigid. A woman that beautiful should’ve been married by her age, or at least dating someone. It had to have been a personality flaw, but he could never find the proof. She was fiercely protective of Lilly, loyal to a fault. She cared about a select number of people in her life, giving those close few everything.

And Patrick wasn’t one of them.

The dissatisfaction ate at him, like an itch he couldn’t scratch. It shouldn’t have mattered—he didn’t get involved, and certainly shouldn’t with her. A one-night stand with Cassie would’ve made the dynamics in their group incredibly awkward, so he’d settled for despising her instead.

But he wanted her. With a kind of aggravated lust he’d never felt before.

He didn’t just want to seduce her, didn’t want to only prove he was the best she’d never had. He wanted to mess her up. To get in her face when she was mouthing off, and pay her back for all the times she’d been snarky by finding all her little triggers and reducing her to a helpless, whimpering mess. To force her to admit that yes, there was something fucking there between them, even if she hated him for it.

And now, standing in his shower, he was suddenly harder than he’d been with a naked woman beneath him the night before. From thoughts about a woman who couldn’t stand the sight of him.

Fate had a goddamn twisted sense of humor.

When he was dressed and feeling human again, he started a fresh pot of coffee and read through his emails. A note from the board of directors was at the top of the list. Delete. He didn’t want to deal with their shit today. They’d send another email with the same crap on Monday. He scanned through the next few with even less interest: His head of marketing, having another panic attack over their global market share. Strauss wanting to go over the next year’s budget forecast Patrick had already looked at a thousand times.

Scroll, scroll, scroll. Delete, delete, delete.

Finally, a familiar name stopped him—one he hadn’t heard in years. A guy who could’ve only sounded more like the prep school bastard he was if he’d had a III tacked on to the end of his name. Hudson Grant had been a prick when he and Patrick were fraternity brothers at Princeton, and Patrick would bet he still was now.

He supposed he was about to find out. Because Hudson Grant, trust-fund baby and investment addict, wanted to meet for a drink.

---

The bar in the financial district was one Patrick hadn’t been to, half because it was steps from his office, and half because of the decor. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling. The rich, dark furniture matched the even richer clientele, who must not have found the giant images of blown-up dollar bills on the walls as tacky as he did. Sure, Patrick had money, but he didn’t like to flaunt it, and certainly not at places like this. But this was where Hudson had wanted to meet and Patrick hadn’t bothered to suggest an alternative.

He found Hudson seated at a table, blond hair in the same stupid ponytail he’d sported years ago, a glass in one hand as he chatted up a waitress who looked beyond uncomfortable. Back at school, he’d exclusively dated sorority sisters and thought the only reason women went to college was to find husbands. Nice to see the guy hadn’t changed. At least the wedding band he’d worn to their last reunion was absent.

Patrick approached the table and shook Hudson’s hand.

“I seem to recall a beautiful heiress on your arm the last time I saw you.” He nodded to the waitress. “Not that you’re not beautiful, of course.”

She blushed, looking at ease for a moment. Hudson took a sip of his drink. “Nah, unlatched myself from that bitch years ago. Have a seat.”

Patrick ordered a scotch, neat before the waitress seized upon on her opportunity to get away. He pulled out a chair and sat. “So, Hudson. What got you looking me up?”

Hudson tilted his glass around until the ice pinged at the sides. “I’m looking for advice. I’m having some financial struggles.”

“Again? I thought you’d been doing well.”

Hudson snorted. “Digital-only publishing isn’t what it used to be.”

“You’re telling me.” The last time they’d talked, Hudson had wanted Patrick’s thoughts on what he’d called that whole e-book thing. Patrick had offered a few ideas and gone on his way.

“You’re feeling the heat too? You’re the one who gave me the idea in the first place.”

“I told you to invest, not open up your own house.”

Hudson had forged his own press, Grant Books—an elite house that only published biographies and autobiographies about wealthy and successful men like him. Not the path Patrick had suggested, but he shouldn’t have expected anything less.

“Well, I did. And now I’m having trouble paying my bills.”

There was the rub. “And you thought I’d be able help you out.”

Hudson lifted his glass in a toast. “Zetes forever, right?”

Ballsy, to call on their Zeta Psi brotherhood after years of radio silence. The waitress returned with Patrick’s scotch, and he took a long, slow sip before answering. “I’m not going to just cut you a check, Hudson.”

“Come on. You run an international corporation. You’re telling me you couldn’t move around some money to help out an old friend?”

Patrick stiffened. Hudson wasn’t someone he’d consider an old friend, but he made himself relax, forcing a smile the same way he did at sales meetings. “It doesn’t work that way.”

“Don’t act like you don’t have that kind of power. Your name is on the fucking building.”

“Doesn’t mean I can do whatever I want with the company’s assets.”

And that was the truth. His hands were tied in a way few people knew about, other than Strauss, the legal department, Jack and his dead bastard of a father.

“I’m sure you could make something happen on the side. An account here, a stock liquidated there…”

That was why they were here. Mishandled funds. Patrick put his drink down and leaned forward in his chair. “Tell me what’s really going on.”

Hudson sighed. “My company is falling apart.”

Yeah. He’d figured that part out already. “You want to expand on that?”

“I made some bad choices, deals that went south. And now I’m about to lose everything I have. Every book with my name on it. Every partnership I’ve made in the last five years.”

“And screw every author and editor working under you while you’re at it too.”

Hudson scowled, more likely because he was annoyed at having to remember that other people would be affected by his decisions than he was ashamed. “There’s no way you can help?”

“Sorry. Wish I could—” no, he didn’t, “—but it’s not gonna happen.”

Hudson knocked back the rest of his drink. “I should’ve kept that bitch ex-wife of mine around. At least then I could’ve fucked some money out of her.”

Patrick’s stomach roiled. He might have kept his distance when it came to attachments, but he couldn’t imagine talking about a woman that way.

Hudson didn’t need money. He needed someone to teach him a lesson. About his business, and about women.

And Patrick knew exactly who should do it.

Smiling at what remained in his glass, he took one more sip before standing, threw some cash on the table and took out his phone.

“There’s one way I can help.” He drew up his contact list, then began typing out a text. “I’m sending you a woman’s name and number.”

“A woman, huh? That’ll take my mind off things for a night.”

“It’s for your business, jackass. Not your dick.”

Patrick hit send. Hudson glanced at his phone. “And what am I supposed to do when I call her?”

Patrick smirked. “Whatever she tells you to do.”