“Please stop making that face. Do you have to look so damn annoyed?”

Camden set his draft beer down and scowled across the table at Tate. It was bad enough she’d forced him into this dinner, but then he got a text from her telling him to arrive at the restaurant twenty minutes early so they could talk.

“I am annoyed,” he quipped, turning his focus on her husband, Declan, who sat beside her. “You know, I blame you for this. She was so much more fun before she started managing. Now she’s just a pain in my ass.”

Declan lifted his own beer in the air with an arrogant smile on his lips. “She’s adorable, isn’t she?” Of course that was something he’d ask. As far as he was concerned, his wife was absolutely perfect and could do no wrong.

“Not the word I’d use to describe her,” Camden muttered, turning from his friends to look out the windows at the crush of photographers hovering just outside, gagging to get pictures of the celebrities inside. “Goddamn vultures.”

“Sweetie.” At the sound of Tate’s soft, sympathetic voice, he returned his gaze to his friend. “I know you hate this. I hate it for you.”

“It’s totally fucked,” Declan chimed in, showing his solidarity. There was a time when the two men couldn’t stand each other. Declan and Tate had been tight since childhood, and that turned into being high school sweethearts. But life had kicked them in the ass, as it was prone to do, and Tate ended up brokenhearted. When Camden met her, she was only just pulling herself together, and watching her struggle with that made him hate the man who’d hurt her.

Declan hated him for a totally different reason that had everything to do with jealousy. It took him a while to believe Cam and Tate were nothing more than friends. He’d been threatened by their relationship at first, but now it was all out there, and Camden was not only tight with Declan Forrester but with the rest of the guys in Civil Corruption as well. And having friends in the industry who understood the scars it could leave on a person’s soul was a boon he’d never expected to have.

“Just give it time,” Tatum carried on. “You know how this goes. Eventually someone else will screw up even bigger and this story will be old news. You just have to wait it out.”

“Wait it out,” he repeated, the words tasting bitter and wrong on his tongue.

“Yeah. And in the meantime, give Sutton a chance. She’s a great girl.”

“She’s a goddamn ice queen,” he grumbled.

Tate’s face scrunched into a tight, displeased expression. “She is not. She’s just quiet and keeps to herself. You barely know her.”

He wanted to argue, but he knew Tate well enough to know it would be pointless. When she dug her heels into something, there was no convincing her otherwise.

Instead of pushing, he decided to change the subject by asking, “So you wanna tell me why you forced me here earlier than your girl?”

“Because I care about you and wanted to make sure you were okay. We haven’t really had a chance to talk yet, and I wanted to be your friend here before I have to go back into manager mode.”

“You mean before you have to ream my ass for having a sex life.”

“Something like that,” she replied with a smirk.

“Hot damn,” Declan murmured behind his draft before letting out a low, approving whistle. “Check out the piece that just walked in. Too bad Tate couldn’t have hooked you up with a chick like that.”

Tate let out a giggle as Camden turned to look over his shoulder at the woman who’d caught Declan’s attention so easily, and every bit of air expelled from his lungs.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

Declan’s voice was full of bewilderment as he asked, “What’s so funny?” But Cam was too busy staring and fighting against getting hard to answer. Fortunately Tatum wasn’t having the same issues.

“It’s funny because that’s exactly who I hooked him up with.”

“No shit?” Declan looked back at Cam. “Dude. What the fuck? You call that chick an ice queen?”

They all turned to Sutton again, and he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Her dress wasn’t what he’d consider revealing, but the little belt she was wearing accentuated her tiny waist and killer rack and highlighted the fact that she had a pretty goddamn great ass as well.

It was like staring at a completely different person. Sutton 2.0. He knew she was hiding something amazing beneath those shitty clothes, but he hadn’t realized just how fucking outstanding it really was.

She wasn’t flaunting it, not by a long shot. But his traitorous dick had turned into a divining rod, and she was the only thing it wanted at that very moment, whether he liked it or not.

Right then Sutton looked like the very definition of the cute girl-next-door type Tate and Deidra wanted him seen with. Pure class through and through, and damn him if he didn’t find that class sexy as hell.

However, she still wasn’t his type.

The maître d’ shook his head at something Sutton said, and from his vantage point, Camden saw the way her creamy cheeks burned red and she fidgeted uncomfortably as she appeared to plead with him. They were gaining the attention of the crowd gathered at the entrance, all waiting to be seated, and there was no missing the discomfort etched into every inch of Sutton’s petite frame.

When the man appeared seconds away from booting her adorable round ass out the door, Camden shot to his feet without so much as a backward glance and headed in that direction.

“There a problem here?”

The prick turned his sneer from Sutton and gave a start at the sight of Camden before schooling his expression. “Mr. Knight. I apologize, sir. There’s no problem. This woman,” he said with a sneer, “came in insisting she was with your party. I was just about to have her removed from the premises. I hope she didn’t interrupt your dinner.”

Camden knew men like him. He fucking hated men like him. The ones who got the slightest bit of power and thought it made their dicks six inches bigger. There were too many assholes like that in the world.

“Oh, I think you’re wrong there, my man. There most certainly is a problem. See, this woman,” he started, adopting the guy’s sneer, only this time it was directed at the maître d’ in great risk of losing his job, not Sutton, “is my date. Something you’d know if you bothered to do your job and come ask instead of jumping to conclusions and behaving like a world-class prick.”

“I-I… I’m s-so sorry, sir.” The man’s eyes threatened to pop out of his skull as he stammered to make the situation right. “I didn’t know—”

“You would have if you’d done your job,” Cam growled, only then noticing the continued clicks coming from the cell phone cameras of those around them.

“Camden.” Sutton’s small voice pulled his attention from the scrawny man. “It’s okay.”

“Like hell it is. This guy owes you an apology, not me.”

“Please.” At her whispered desperation, he stopped, his ire on her behalf burning out just as quickly as it appeared. He glanced down at her in confusion when she looped her arm through his and gazed up at him adoringly. “Can we please just go sit? I’m starving.”

It took him a second to realize it was all for show, for the cameras currently aimed right on them. Damn, she’s good. For a moment there he’d forgotten all about their sick game, and once reality set back in, it only pissed him off more.

“Yeah,” he clipped, tightening his grip on her arm. “Let’s get you something to eat.”

They were halfway between the entrance and their table when her voice came to him in a quiet hiss. “Was it really necessary to make a scene like that?”

So much for appreciation. Having to keep a smile on his lips while their hushed argument pissed him off even more was one of the hardest things he’d done in a long time. “That asshole was a second from kicking you to the curb. Is a little goddamn gratitude too much to ask for?”

Her fake cheerful expression drooped into one of contrition, something Camden hadn’t been expecting or prepared for. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“Wow,” he drew out. “Just how much did it hurt to say that?”

And just like that, the apologetic look was gone, and the Sutton he’d seen over the past two years came back out to play. “God, just when I think you actually have a decent bone in your body, you go and prove me wrong.”

They were a foot away from the table when he leaned down and whispered in her ear. “Careful, honey lumps. You don’t want these people to think we aren’t crazy about each other, now do you?”

“I hate you,” she seethed through a brittle grin.

“Feeling’s mutual, baby,” he returned, sugar sweet. “At least knowing what you’re rockin’ under all those hideous clothes will make up for havin’ to put up with your ass.”

He wasn’t sure why pissing her off gave him such a thrill. All he knew was it seemed the feeling was mutual, because something in his gut told him she really didn’t hate him nearly as much as she claimed. And he was beginning to think he didn’t really hate her either.

And that was a huge fucking problem.