“The only thing that would make this trip perfect,” Amy continues, “is if JD weren’t so stressed about work and if she wasn’t here.”

I follow her gaze to the swim-up bar in the pool where a beautiful young woman wearing a glittering gold one-piece swimsuit that has less fabric to it than a bikini sits. I wish I could reassure her that she has nothing to worry about, but I just don’t know Darren’s cousin well enough. I’ve caught JD glancing at other women with appreciation in his eyes, which doesn’t automatically make him a player or disqualify him for relationship material, but I still get a less than trustworthy sense. I should probably apply that sentiment to Darren, even though he seems to have rebuffed the women who have come onto him during our stay here in Phuket. Noting that Darren’s most recent ex-girlfriend is a lingerie model, I think it’s probably a matter of time before he does give in to the attentions of women hotter than me.

Well, it would have been fun while it lasted. Frankly, as much as I’m attracted to him, I’m not sure that Darren’s relationship material either. At least not for me.

Chapter 3

DARREN

Present

I release her hair and her head falls back toward the table I tied her to. Stepping back, I survey her body stretched across the surface, her dress bunched at the hips, exposing her ass. It’s a little more supple than I remember it, but it felt as good as before. Tight, too. So maybe she was telling the truth when she said she hadn’t let anyone back there since she left me about two years ago.

“Wh-Where’s Josh right now?” she asks.

I had let slip the name of the guy back in Denver whom I had paid off to secure a date with her. After Josh had cut short their date, claiming his grandfather was ill, one of my men, pretending to be a cab driver, was waiting for Bridget when she walked out of the restaurant.

“You think I give a fuck?” I reply. “What’s the matter? You worried about your boyfriend?”

Jealousy roars through me. It feels like she cheated on me, even though we aren’t together. I know a guy who used to run extortion for the Jing San Triad and who shot his girlfriend for cheating on him. The basement we currently occupy is a good place to kill someone. ‘Old Dog,’ a hired hitman in the triad, owns the house and told me he tortured a triad traitor for days in this basement. There’s a drain in the floor, and a hose that can attach to the cement sink in the corner. Ideal for washing away the evidence.

But I’m not that cold-blooded, though I wish I were right now. When I’m through with Bridget, she’s going to wish she never crossed me.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” she denies. “He’s just some guy I met at a cafe.”