Chapter 17: King of Pride: Chapter 17

A wave of heat, alcohol, and noise slammed into me the minute I stepped into Verve.

In my defense, I truly hadn’t planned on visiting the club that night. I disliked packed spaces, drunken foolishness, and migraine-inducing remixes, all of which nightclubs possessed in spades.

However, as a Young Corporation executive and publisher of , the world’s preeminent fashion and lifestyle magazine, it was my job to keep a pulse on the city’s hotspots. I wouldn’t be doing my due diligence if I didn’t experience Verve myself, would I?

The deep bass of the latest hit song rattled my bones as I pushed my way through the crowd. Everywhere I looked, I was assaulted with noise and people—women in tight dresses, men in tighter jeans, couples engaged in dancing that looked more like fornicating. No signs of Isab—of anyone I knew yet.

Not that I was looking for anyone in particular.

I made it halfway to the VIP lounge when one of the clubgoers bumped into me and nearly spilled her drink on my shoes.

“Oops! Sorry!” she squealed, her eyes bright in a manner that could only be attributed to drugs, alcohol, or both. She clutched my arm with her free hand and looked me over. “Oh, you’re cute. Do you have a girlfriend?”

“How about we find your girlfriends instead?” I suggested. I gently freed myself from her grip and steered her toward her friends at the bar (easily identifiable since they wore the same bachelorette party sashes as my erstwhile admirer). I flagged down the bartender. “A bottle of water for the lady, please.”

By the time he returned, she was already busy taking shots with some suit in an off-an-rack Armani.

I doubted she’d drink the water, but I left it there anyway. Being the only sober person in a club was like babysitting a room full of strangers.

I ordered a scotch for myself, already regretting my decision to come here when a familiar voice cut through the noise.

“Kai? Is that you?”

I turned, my gaze honing in on the brunette with glossy caramel hair and blue-gray eyes. My face relaxed into a smile.

“Alessandra, what a pleasant surprise. I didn’t take you for the clubbing type.”

Dominic’s wife returned my smile with a small one of her own. Objectively, she was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever met. She looked like a younger version of her mother, who’d been one of Brazil’s biggest supermodels in the nineties. But despite, or perhaps because of, her looks and marriage to one of the richest men on Wall Street, she always carried an air of melancholy around her.

Dominic was my friend, but I wasn’t blind to his faults. He was about as romantic as a rock.

“I’m not, but Dom is busy with work, and it’s been so long since I’ve had a girls’ night…” She shrugged, a brief flicker of sadness passing through her eyes. “I thought it would be nice to get out of the house. Lord knows I spend enough time there.”

Girls’ night. A seed of suspicion sprouted in my stomach, but I kept my tone as casual as possible. “You don’t have to explain. I understand.” A pause, then, “Who are you here with?”

“Vivian and her friends. We met at last year’s fall gala and stayed in touch. When she found out I didn’t have any plans tonight, she invited me to come out with them.” Alessandra tilted her head toward the elevator. “Do you want to join us? We have a table in the VIP lounge.”

. Meaning Isabella.

The knowledge lit a match in my blood, but I suppressed a visible reaction. “I don’t want to intrude on a girls’ night out.”

“You won’t be intruding. The whole point of the night is to meet the opposite sex. Well, not me and Vivian since we’re married,” Alessandra amended. She twisted her wedding ring around her finger. “But Sloane and Isabella have been fending off advances all night. Well, Sloane has been fending off and Isabella has been accepting.” She laughed. “She must’ve danced with half the single men here already.”

Something dark and unwanted flared in my chest.

“How lovely,” I said, my voice clipped. I forced an easy smile over the urge to demand the name of every single fucker who’d touched her. Normal me would’ve been appalled at the violent turn in my thoughts, but I hadn’t been normal since the moment I laid eyes on Isabella.

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The Art of War .

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“Kai?” Alessandra’s voice grounded me back in the club.

I blinked away the memory and slipped on an easy smile.

. “But I think I’ll join you after all. I’d much rather spend the evening with friends than strangers.”

“Perfect.” She returned my smile. “Vivian will be happy to see you.”

We made small talk as we took the elevator up to the third floor, but I was only half paying attention.

I hadn’t reached out to Isabella since Thanksgiving Eve. One, I’d been swamped with work, and two, I’d needed time to sort through my thoughts.

The rational side of me insisted I leave things as they were. No good would come of pursuing her any further, especially with the board watching my every move. I couldn’t afford a scandal before the CEO vote, and everything about Isabella—from her indecent conversation topics to her ability to storm through every defense I’d erected with nothing but a smile—screamed scandal. The side of me, however, didn’t give a fuck.

For the first time in my life, the irrational side was winning.

When Alessandra and I entered the VIP lounge, my eyes automatically scanned the room for a pair of familiar dimples and dark hair.

Nothing.

Vivian and Sloane sat at a corner table, but Isabella was nowhere in sight.

She could be in the restroom or getting another drink…or she could be dancing with someone somewhere else in the club.

Green spread in my blood like poison.

I’d never been jealous of anyone in my life. I didn’t need to be; I’d always been the fastest, smartest, most accomplished person in the room. I barely paid attention to the competition because there no competition.

But in that moment, I was so fucking jealous of a hypothetical person I couldn’t breathe.

I attempted to marshal my runaway emotion into a neutral expression as I approached the table. I wasn’t sure I succeeded; it was too thick and consuming, like smoke billowing from a wildfire.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I brought a guest.” Alessandra took the seat next to Vivian, whose eyebrows winged up when she saw me. “I saw Kai downstairs and figured the more, the merrier.”

“I’m here for research,” I said, preempting Vivian’s question. “

is featuring Verve in an article about Manhattan nightlife.”

Mode de Vie’

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“I see.” Amusement glided across her face. “Well, like Ále said, the more, the merrier. I hope you find some good tidbits for your…article.”

“You’re doing the research yourself?” Sloane leaned back and assessed me with cool, skeptical eyes. Alessandra and Vivian were dressed for a night out, but Sloane’s tight bun and wide-legged pantsuit looked like they came straight from the office. “Isn’t that something reserved for junior writers, not division presidents?”

“I prefer a hands-on approach to projects I’m interested in.”

“Such as those pertaining to city nightlife.”

My smile tightened. “Yes.”

“Interesting.” She looked like she was gearing up for a second round of interrogation, but fortunately, a burst of laughter from a nearby table caught her attention before she could grill me further. Her eyes snapped to her right, and her expression iced so quickly I felt the chill in my bones. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

I followed her glare to the group lounging in the booth across from us. It consisted of celebrity offspring, wild-child socialites, and a few hangers-on, one of whom was booted unceremoniously from his seat for the latest arrival.

His back was to me, but I’d recognize the tattoos anywhere. There was only one person who’d ink a rival family’s crest on his bicep.

Xavier Castillo, the youngest son of Colombia’s richest beer magnate.

Sloane stormed over to his table. He turned, a grin forming on his face despite her obvious displeasure. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but judging by her hand gestures and his irreverent expression, I was minutes away from witnessing a murder.

Alessandra’s brows knitted. “Is that Xavier? I thought he was in Ibiza.”

I was as surprised as she was to see him in the city. He usually whiled away his days on a yacht, surrounded by models and other hedonistic heirs. His father had built his company from the ground up, but Xavier’s ambition hovered somewhere south of zero.

“He moved to New York a few weeks ago. He’s Sloane’s newest client.” Vivian winced when Sloane jabbed a finger at his chest, her eyes sharp enough to pierce stone. Xavier yawned, seemingly unfazed. “They’re having some growing pains.”

After another terse exchange, Sloane stalked toward the exit. “I’ll be right back,” she said grimly as she passed our table. Xavier followed her, managing to look bored and amused at the same time.

He nodded a greeting at me and winked at Vivian and Alessandra, who watched them leave with a wry smile.

“And then there were three,” she said. “So much for girls’ night.”

“Speaking of which, where’s Isabella?” I asked casually. As fascinating as Sloane’s client problems were, I didn’t care to speculate about what she was doing with—or to—Xavier, though I wouldn’t put it past her to stab him with a stiletto.

“She’s on the second floor.” Vivian took a demure sip of her drink. “This guy asked her to dance, and we wanted to give them some alone time, so we didn’t follow her. Wasn’t he beautiful, Ale? He looked a bit like Asher Donovan.”

Alessandra’s frown deepened. “He wasn’t beautiful…”

Vivian stared at her, hard. That strange silent communication women shared must have happened, because Alessandra’s face soon relaxed. Her eyes darted toward me. “But yes, I suppose he was quite handsome. Isabella certainly thought so.”

My teeth clenched so hard it hurt. “You let her go off with a stranger? When was the last time she checked in? He could be her right now.”

Didn’t they read the news? Crime was up. New date rape drug variants hit the streets every week. They were Isabella’s friends! They should have been looking out for her, not foisting her off on every Asher Donovan look-alike who passed by.

Donovan wasn’t even that good-looking, for fuck’s sake.

“She’s an adult. She can make her own decisions,” Vivian said calmly. “Isa is smart enough to take care of herself. Besides, the whole point of tonight was to find her a one-night stand.”

“Or more,” Alessandra added.

Vivian’s eyes twinkled. “Or more.”

Neither seemed to grasp the severity of the situation.

Irritation crawled into my chest and fed the restlessness bubbling beneath my skin. “Excuse me.” I stood so abruptly I almost knocked the glasses off a passing bottle server’s tray. “It was lovely seeing you both, but I should take a look around the club. For research.”

“Of course.” Vivian’s smile widened. “Good luck with your article.”

I left them in the lounge, Vivian looking oddly smug while Alessandra simply looked bemused.

I was too impatient to wait for the elevator, so I took the stairs to the second floor. My phone buzzed with a call from Dominic on my way down; I ignored it, though his timing was curious. He never called this late, and he was supposed to be in the office. Dominic rarely paid attention to anything except numbers when he was in work mode.

But all thoughts of why he might be calling me at midnight melted away when I reached my destination. Unlike the spacious VIP lounge, the second floor teemed with drunk twenty- and thirty somethings. Reggaeton blasted through the room, and the air dripped with sex, alcohol, and sweat.

Finding Isabella so soon defied all odds, considering how packed the club was. But I turned my head, and there she was. Even in a crowd of hundreds, she stood out like a sunflower in a field of weeds.

Face flushed, eyes sparkling, cheeks dimpled with an unfettered smile. Her hair tumbled down her back in loose waves, and the urge to wrap my fist around all that raven and violet silk burned through me. One tug and she’d be mine, her mouth ripe for the taking, her neck bared for my teeth and tongue.

I hardened, my mind alive with fantasies it had no business entertaining. I’d locked my less desirable impulses into foolproof boxes over the years, but one glance at her and the bolts disintegrated like parchment in flames.

Isabella’s laugh carried over the music to my ears. She tilted her head up to look at the man in front of her. Brown hair, ill-fitting shirt, the professionally whitened teeth of a politician or car salesman.

. He looked like a fucking douchebag.

My desire morphed into the flinty edge of jealousy. It glinted, one spark away from a fire, when he snaked an arm around her waist and whispered something in her ear.

Isabella must’ve felt the heat of my stare because instead of replying, she turned her head toward me. Our gazes collided, hers bright with surprise, mine undoubtedly dark with emotions I’d rather not examine too closely.

Her smile faded, and I heard the catch of her breath from across the room.

It should’ve been impossible, but I was so attuned to her I could single out her tiniest movement in a club full of people.

Car Salesman said something to her again. She broke our stare, but my feet were already moving, carrying me across the floor and to her side.

“There you are, darling.” I placed a hand on Isabella’s back, right above the asshole’s arm, which was still curled around her waist. My polite smile masked the vicious dose of possessiveness pouring through my blood. “You didn’t tell me you made a new friend.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t take his arm off Isabella. “Who the hell are you?”

“Someone who’ll rearrange your already pitiful face if you don’t leave in the next ten seconds,” I said pleasantly. “In case your knockoff Patek Philippe can’t tell the time correctly, that would be right about now.”

Ten seconds was generous. I’d wanted to slam my fist into his jaw the moment I saw him.

Blotches of red formed on his face. “Fuck you. I—”

The man lapsed into silence when my smile sharpened. I didn’t enjoy violence outside the ring, but I would gladly knock his teeth out and feed them to him.

My pulse roared with bloody anticipation.

He must’ve read the intentions scrawled over my face because he quickly dropped his arm, mumbled an excuse, and scurried off.

“What the hell was that?” Isabella demanded. She shrugged off my hand and glared at me. “You scared off my date!”

A muscle ticked in my jaw. “It’s not a date if you didn’t show up with him.”

It occurred to me someone from Valhalla might see us, but my peers didn’t frequent places like this. Even if they did, they would be in the VIP lounge, not on the general dance floor. But honestly, I was too riled up to give a fuck. The entire managing committee could’ve been standing next to us, and I’d still be focused on Isabella.

She canted her chin up. “It is if I with him.”

“If that was all it took to scare him away, he doesn’t deserve you,” I said coolly. “If you’d left with him, you would’ve had to endure two minutes of assuredly unsatisfying fornication on a dirty mattress without a bed frame, so you should thank me. Given how he ran off, I doubt he could find enough rhythm to clap along to a basic nursery song, much less make your night worthwhile.”

Isabella’s jaw unhinged. She stared at me for a long moment before dissolving into laughter. “Wow. Fornication? Who talks like that?”

“Am I wrong?”

“I wouldn’t know. Like I said, you scared him off before I could confirm how—” Her sentence broke off in a gasp when I wrapped my arm around her waist and pulled her to me.

“Do you think you would’ve enjoyed your time with him, Isabella?” I asked softly. “Would you have screamed for him like you did for me when I had my fingers buried inside your sweet little pussy? When you rode my hand until it was soaked with your release? I can still hear your cries, love. Every damn second of every day.”

A dark flush colored her cheeks, swallowing her earlier amusement. Her eyes blazed with a fire that matched the one wreaking havoc on my good sense. “Stop.”

“Stop what?” My free hand slid from her waist to the small of her back. The warmth of her skin seared into my palm, branding me.

“Stop saying things like that.”

The noise should’ve overpowered her breathless words, but I heard her as clearly as if we were in an empty room.

Her throat flexed with a swallow when I grazed my knuckles up the bare expanse of her back. Her dress dipped to just above her waist, and her skin glided like silk beneath my touch.

“Things like what? The truth?” I lowered my head, my mouth brushing the shell of her ear. “If there’s one thing I regret, it’s walking away before we finished what we started in the piano room.”

If we had, maybe the memory of her wouldn’t have tortured me so much the past week. Maybe it would’ve satiated this savage, clawing need to etch myself in her so deeply I was the only man she could think of.

I’d abandoned an evening with my books for a nightclub, for Christ’s sake. If that wasn’t a sign of my irreversible spiral, nothing was.

A shiver rippled through her. Her head fell back when my lips skimmed down to her earlobe and nipped. “Kai…”

The breathy sound of my name on Isabella’s lips snapped whatever control I had left.

Lust surged through me, sweeping every piece of logic and rationality aside.

Few things in life were certain, but this I knew—if I didn’t have her soon, and if she didn’t want me as desperately as I wanted her, I would fucking die.

“Go upstairs and tell your friends you’re leaving.” I curled my hand around the back of her neck, my voice so low and dark I hardly recognized it. “You have five minutes, sweetheart, or you’ll find out firsthand that I’m not always the gentleman you think I am.”