“Isa, pick your chin up and smile. I taught you better than that.”

“I’m twenty years old, Lydia, not fifteen. I know what I’m doing.”

Swooping up my wine glass, I empty the contents down my throat.

“Well, I beg to differ. Why can’t you just be like your sister?” Lydia quips, eying me up and down.

“Well, I don’t know, Lydia,” I mutter sarcastically while smiling politely at a passerby. Because it’s one of the nights my father gives me and my sister the pep-talk to behave ourselves, I have to be on my best behavior. Only he doesn’t need to drill everything into Brianna’s head like he does mine, because she understands it. She knows how to handle herself—apparently I don’t, being the delinquent and all. But, I don’t see her here tonight. Oh no, perfect big sister is shacked up studying Harvard Law.

See.

Golden child.

“Maybe it’s because I have a thing called a backbone and a mouth?”

“That’s a cheap stab at your sister and you know it, Isa. Stop this.” My eyes go over Lydia’s ridiculously perfected chiffon bun and land on my father, who has his salt and pepper hair slicked back to show his strong features and bright blue eyes. My dad was strapping when he was younger, but age has not been kind to him. Or maybe that’s karma.

“My favorite girls.” He grins, his arms stretched out wide.

“Great,” I murmur from around the rim of my glass. “Dad is extra cheesy tonight.”

A foot hits me under the table and when I look up to Lydia, I catch her glaring at me. See, keeping up appearances is what my family is all about. Since my father not only has his fingers in all sorts of dealings in the US, and by dealings, I mean he’s a shady individual, he’s also the president of the United States of America—blah blah, that’s why it’s imminent that I’m on my best behavior constantly, and even more so while we’re at one of the many events we attend together as a ‘family.’ Family is a strong word to use, though. What I have, is more like a business gathering where we all barely tolerate each other—not so much a family.

My father continues to walk toward us, pulling out a chair beside his and then taking a seat. Another figure catches the corner of my eye, but I don’t look toward it because I’m too busy counting the new wrinkles that have carved into my father’s forehead, though it probably looks like I’m openly glaring at my dad in annoyance. I can neither confirm nor deny this assumption.

“Isa, I want you to meet Bryant Royal. The CEO of Royal Enterprise.” He ends his sentence with a tinge of urgency and warning, obviously hoping I’d catch his drift to behave myself. I finally bring my eyes to the man seated beside him and I have to stop my mouth from dropping open. All tied up in a sharp well-tailored suit is probably the most stunning man I have ever laid my eyes on. His brown hair is shaved short on the sides and slightly longer on the top—long enough to run your fingers through— and I wince slightly at how his green eyes watch me with burning intensity. Why the fuck is he looking at me like that. Just as I’m about to gear up with my flashy ‘I’m the President daughter’s smile,’ his lip curls up in disgust.

Fuck being polite to this prick. The way his cocky eyes narrow on me, he obviously knows how hot he is, which means, I won’t be fueling that ego.

He’s maxed out of ego fuel.

I look to my father and watch as his eye twitches in slight annoyance.

Great. Fuck my anal cavity.

“Hi.” I lean over the table, placing my hand out to him with a very forced and very toothy smile on my face. I mean, you could count all my teeth from across the room, that’s how wide this smile was. “I’m Isa.”

He looks to my hand, then looks up to my face, then back to my hand. Said hand is getting very tired waiting for his prick hand to accept. His angular jaw clenches a few times before his penetrating eyes pierce through mine with such hate, I almost flinch. Don’t you fucking flinch.

Flinch.

Fuck.

“Bryant.” His voice. I wish it was ugly and ratty. However a rat would mutter the word ‘Bryant,’ but I wish it was like that. Instead, it was like, you know when you take that first spoonful of a molten lava cake, and the moist—yes, I said moist—cake melts away on the tip of your tongue, right before your taste buds get the ride of their life with the rich creamy sauce that begins to slither down your throat?

Yeah. His voice was like that.

I tug my hand away, slightly ashamed at how obvious he was at rejecting me. What the ever-loving fuck did I ever do to him. Or maybe someone pissed in his million-dollar cornflakes this morning.

Clearing my throat, I bring my glass up to my mouth, eradicating any thoughts about his sexy voice. I can’t believe I compared his voice to a molten lava cake.

What an insult to the cake community.

I sip my wine, just as my father starts talking with Bryant about some trade deal in the PNW (Pacific North West) when my phone vibrates in my purse. I smile sweetly at my dad, even though his attention doesn’t stray from Bryant, and unfold the flap to my purse, pulling out my phone. Swiping it unlocked, I open up to a text message.

How are the Hiltons?

I smirk at my best friend’s text message before shooting one back.

What are they ever? Perfect and all that boring shit.

Lydia clears her throat rather obviously and bumps me under the table with her leg—again. I look to her and she widens her eyes at me. She’s a little unbearable at times.

I’m at a rage right now and have the biggest cock you could imagine rubbing up against my leg. Oh, Isa, oh, Isa, you have to feel his mon—

I choke on my drink, my hand flying up to my mouth to stop it from escaping. Jesus, Devon! Lydia pats my back in a nice gesture—well, nice to people who don’t know that she’s a bit savage on the best of days—and says in a soft tone, “Are you okay, dear? You almost got your drink everywhere!”

I smile apologetically at her, and then offer that same smile to my father, and then furthermore to Bryant, though his includes a slight clench of the teeth. “Yes, so sorry about that.”

Bryant leans back in his chair, propping one elbow onto the armrest and runs his index finger over his upper lip. “Something funny, huh?”

My dad shuffles in his seat, watching me carefully and Lydia’s eyes snap to mine. I can see them both glaring at me carefully out the corner of my eye. They’re both probably praying I don’t say something sassy that will land my ass in hot Royal water.

“I suppose so,” is all I answer, pulling away from his annoying fucking gaze. I hate the way he has been watching me. It makes me a little uncomfortable, and I don’t know why. He reminds me of someone or something. Something calculating. Something I’ve only witnessed on someone once in my life.

Red alert. We aren’t going there right now.

I glance back to him once I realize he hasn’t replied back to me, only to find him flicking an unlit cigarette around in his mouth. Yeah, I’m pretty sure you can’t smoke in here. He reaches into his pocket, flicks open his Zippo, and lights up his cigarette. Taking a long inhale, his eyes flick to mine, a smirk tickling the corner of his lips. Thick grey smoke slowly leaks out between his cocky lips.

Now it’s my turn to ask questions.

“Something funny?” I tilt my head my head and cock my eyebrow.

His grin deepens before he shakes his head, blowing the remainder of the smoke out through his mouth. “Nothing that concerns you.”

“Ho—”

“—So, Bryant, how was the game last weekend? Was a tight run in?” My dad interjects, knowing what I’m like and how I struggle to keep my mouth shut. Not to mention, you could pretty much cut the tension between Bryant and I with a pair of scissors—it’s that thick.

Rolling my eyes, I snatch my purse off the table. “Excuse me.”

Pushing past all the expensive frocks, fake tans, hair extensions, and dollar-dollar-bill bitches, I finally walk through the doors and step outside, letting out a long breath. God, why do I feel like I just survived The Hunger Games—foreplay version. Probably because I just did. That man had me hungrier than Katniss Everdeen right before she almost got ganked for stealing those bags of food.

My phone vibrates in my purse and I quickly grab it out.

“Hello?”

“You didn’t answer me, I thought you might have been dead.”

“Nope,” I pop the “p,” taking my smokes out of my bag and putting one in my mouth. “Sorry, still here.” I light up my cancer stick and take a long inhale before blowing out.

“You need to quit the cigs.”

“You need to quit sucking dick every day but hey! What do I know.” My best friend is bi. He tends to swing both ways. I love him to bits for many reasons, but one of them is definitely because of this. He has never cared what people thought nor has he cared for labels. If he finds you attractive—and I don’t mean that in a shallow way, I mean that if he finds you attractive in any way, he will try to sleep with you, and he usually gets his way because not only does he look like he should be on the cover of GQ magazine, but he has the gift of the gab too. He could sweet talk a nun into removing her panties in record time.

“What time are you bringing your sexy ass home?”

“I’m leaving now.”

Hanging up my phone, I put it back into my clutch before pressing my fingers into my mouth and whistling for the first taxi I see speeding toward me.