Stripped (Stripped, #1)(16)
Author: H.M. Ward

So when some rich a**hole starts with me, I don’t back down. "Take your silver spoon and shove it up your ass." My voice is dripping with disdain. After the words fly, I expect Sean to be irate—I expect him to fly off the handle—maybe even try to force the answer he wants out of me, but the guy only laughs.

He f**king laughs in my face. "Wow. Just wow."

I glare at him. His reaction caught me off guard. No one likes to be insulted, but this guy acts like he loves it. What a freak. "Fuck off."

"You had me at, you’re wrong." He tilts his head back and looks me over as his arms fold over his chest. The designer suit he’s wearing accentuates his frame, and I have no doubt that there’s toned muscle under all that fabric. "Listen, Jonathan has enough issues and I can see that some things—"

"Jonathan? That’s what you’ve gone nuts about?" I drop my gaze and the tension in my shoulders drops to the pit of my stomach like a lead ball. "You don’t have to worry about Jonathan. He hates me. End of story."

"No, because he knows you. Beginning of story. Why does he know you? Obviously, he had no idea you’d be here tonight, which begs the question—who are you and how long have you known him?"

A vacant expression is on my face. I feel it inch across, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Hearing Sean say those words pulls the emotions back from the void, from that hollow spot deep inside my chest where regret still lingers. There was no way to fix what happened, and the worst part was I didn’t mean for it to occur. Yet, it was my fault. All of it. The look in Jon’s eyes, it was so much like Sean’s gaze now—a sincere plea for an answer.

"I’m no one to be concerned about, Mr. Ferro. After tonight, you’ll never see me again and neither will Jon." Before Sean can say anything else the audio people walk in. They wave me over. "I have to go." Sean Ferro watches me walk away with my heart in my throat.

Smiling brightly at the audio people, we go over the usual stuff. They ask about music, and then we work out the details. I shut down my emotions and lock them away. I can cry tomorrow. Right now, I need to make every guy in the room think I want him and only him. I can’t do that if I’m not paying attention.

My first dance of the night is always for the bachelor, who has yet to show his face, so I sit behind the curtain, waiting. Just as I think the guy is never going to show, the MC says his name. The applause echoes through the room as Peter Ferro Granz is shoved toward the stage.

The announcer’s voice is filled with innuendo, but he keeps things classy. Finally, he adds, "And your brothers bought a present for you!"

Just as he says it, I step from between the slits of silver tinsel and strut straight towards Peter. Holy fuck, he looks like Jonathan. I mean, all the Ferro men have those icy blue eyes and dark hair, but Sean’s crazy face is kind of off-putting. Peter isn’t like that. He immediately fights back as his friends shove him into my arms.

Peter is trying to save face, but I can tell he doesn’t want me anywhere near him. His toned body is stiff, like he’s going to Hulk-out and smash the entire room. I smile warmly at him, giving him an out, and talk so only he can hear. "She’s lucky." Everyone else is whooping because I’m bent over slightly, and they can see my ass.

He breathes like a caged animal, too fast and too hard. "What do you mean?"

"You only want her." I smile sadly at him and offer him the out. "I’ve never had a guy tell me no." Peter doesn’t get it, not yet. I lean in and whisper in his ear. "I bet you want to strangle the guy who hired me."

"A little bit, actually." His voice is tense as he speaks, but Peter doesn’t pull back. We talk quickly, as I wiggle around him, touching his shoulders and leaning into his ear way too close, smiling and winking flirtatiously.

My hair falls over my lips and I say, "You can dump the whole thing back on him without looking less manly."

He actually laughs, "Less manly?"

"Oh come on, isn’t that why you let them push you down in the first place? What guy rejects a free striptease?"

Peter smiles and looks at his feet, as his friends tell him to do the kind of things a guy like him will never do. I feel the muscles in his face move against my cheek. "A guy in love."

"Yeah, like I said—she’s lucky. So, this is what we do…" I whisper into his ear as I sway my h*ps slowly, side to side. There has to be over a hundred men in the room, all hollering at him to grope me in one way or another. As I step away from Peter, I wink at him. Lifting my hands over my head, I egg the crowd on, and encourage their catcalls and anything else I can conjure from them.

Then, I strut to the MC, grab the mic, and say in a voice that would make my mother reconsider having me, "Oh my, it’s hot it here." My finger trails across my lips and down my neck. It lingers there until my hand travels over the curve of my breast and to the top corset loop. I unhook it. There are twelve to go, but that cl**vage move always gets them going.

On cue, Peter grins at me and nods. He’s been facing me this whole time, but he finally turns and looks back at the guys behind him. He sees his target, even though I don’t. I return his wink and the guys in the room go nuts. You’d think we were hav**g s*x on the floor in front of them. I swear, men are so stupid and I’m counting on ego for this trade off.

After I wink, Peter races toward me. Raw laughter fills the hall as Peter sweeps me up in his arms. He spins me around so fast that I think my boobs are going to fly out of the bodice, but they stay put. Everyone is laughing, saying the most tawdry things they can think of. That’s when I see him—Jonathan Ferro.

Peter walks over to Jon who is leaning against the wall, and thrusts me forward like a peace prize. "I owe you so much, little brother," Peter’s voice booms, filling the hall without the mic. "I’ll never be able to thank you accordingly, so here—have a stripper. Odds are, she’d be yours at the end of the night anyway, so it’s not much of a gift, but now you don’t even have to try."

Before Jonathan can say no, I’m shoved into his arms and Peter steps away. Jon’s jaw is hanging open and the playboy with the stunned look on his face is enough to make everyone laugh and cheer him on. They whoop and cry out that he should take me backstage right now, while I smile and bat my eyelashes at him. I f**ked up Jon’s present and I’m glad. Guys like Peter don’t want me and never will, and that’s the way it should be.

Jonathan’s eyes dart to the side, like he wants to drop-kick me across the room. The expression is gone in a flash and replaced by one of his full wattage smiles. He gives me that sexy movie star grin the papers love so much and says, "If you insist." Without another word he takes me up to the stage, and behind the curtains as the guys roar with laughter.

CHAPTER 21

JONATHAN

The silver curtain is a joke. It doesn’t give privacy at all, but it blocks the view enough that I can stop pretending that the woman in my arms isn’t poison. I glare at her. "You did that on purpose."

She has the audacity to smile at me. "Maybe. How could you get a guy like Peter strippers? He would have rather had a—"

I drop her. Cassie makes that little noise that used to drive me crazy as she claws at my shirt, trying to keep her tight little body upright. Her nails scrape down my chest, and even with the shirt in the way, it’s too much, reminding me of the sexy things she did—things I need to forget. Seriously, she’s killing me.

I grab her wrists and yank her upright. She gasps, not expecting it, and her eyes lock with mine. "You don’t know a thing about it, so don’t tell me what to do." I fling her hands away like she’s a piece of junk, even though I want to pull her closer.

God, I hate her. How can she look me in the eye and act like everything is fine? I want to scream at her, and at the same time, I want to pull Cassie into my arms and ask her how she ended up here, now. This is so unlike her, at least I think it is.

Maybe I don’t know her at all. Maybe she was pitching shit my way from day one, but Robyn—Cassie said the same things about waiting for the right guy to Robyn. It doesn’t fit into this f**ked up puzzle.

Cassie rubs her wrists and glares at me. "Gee, thanks for manhandling me. I really appreciate it, jackass."

"What’d you think would happen if you came nosing around a Ferro party?"

She stares at me with those dark eyes, and that mouth—it presses together tightly like she’s biting back words that she wants to hurl at my head. "I didn’t know. The name on the ticket was Granz, not Ferro." Her body is tense and every time she takes a breath it looks like her br**sts are going to overflow the top of her lingerie. It has Cass cinched up so tight, making her waist too small and her br**sts too big.

Trystan’s voice booms from the stage and then he ducks behind the curtain. "Everything okay back here?"

I expect Cassie to have the same reaction every other woman has when Trystan Scott enters a room, but she doesn’t even look at him. Her eyes are locked on me. All the things I wanted to say die in my mouth. Trystan doesn’t know what she did to me, no one does.

"Fucking fabulous," I say and turn away from that stare. God, she’s horrible, and beautiful.

Trystan walks over to Cassie and holds out his hand. He’s lean, all taut muscle, and toned abs that are visible through his unbuttoned shirt. Traces of make-up are still on the guy’s face, like he couldn’t scrub it off. "Trystan Scott, Jon’s best friend."

Cassie looks at his palm and grips it. "Cassie Hale, Jon’s ex-friend." Trystan raises a dark eyebrow and looks over at me.

I see the questions on his face, but there’s no way in hell I’m talking about it. Living through it once was enough. "She’s at the top of my shitlist. She earned a permanent place of honor."

"Seriously?" Trystan looks between us and shakes his head, trying to hide a smile.

Before I know it, I’m yelling at him. Pointing to the curtain, I roar, "Get out!"

Trystan laughs, holding up his hands, palms toward me, saying, "Fine, but the guys are expecting a show. Should I tell them it’s cancelled?"

Cassie shakes her head. "No, I’ll work." She follows Trystan out to the stage, but I don’t follow. I can’t watch. Seeing her strip isn’t what I want.

Sighing, I rub the heels of my hands over my face, and glance between the silvery curtains. Before I know he’s there, Peter says, "So, that’s Cassie Hale." I nod, staring blankly. Peter has this way of seeing the heart of the matter in a blink. I hate it, so I stand to leave but he stops me. "She’s the one who was with you at the museum? The girl you protected?"

I stare into his face, wishing he wouldn’t do this now. Walking away from him, I mutter, "Something like that."

Peter grabs my shoulder and steers me off the side of the stage. We head to the back of the room and for a second I think we’re leaving, but then he grabs a table in the corner. "Sit."

I stand there, shoulders slumped like a slacker. I just want to get away from the thud of the bass and the blinding spotlights at the front of the room. It has nothing to do with Cassie or what’s coming next—that her nak*d body will be displayed at the front of the room for everyone to see. The thought tries to form, but I shove it back and attempt to harden myself. I don’t care. She can do whatever the f**k she wants, and it doesn’t matter because I hate her. I can’t stand Cassie Hale. She’s a liar and she stabbed me in the back. I shouldn’t give a shit what she does. My eyes flick back to the stage where she’s dancing with a huge smile on her face and my fingers involuntarily turn into fists.