“I’ll marry you instead,” the friendly, younger lawyer confided.

“What the fuck, Wes? Shut up!” Sam glanced down at the iPad then and shook his own head in disgust, or at least that’s what it seemed like for a moment. “Can we put that away now? Didn’t really plan on my father seeing that.”

“What? You didn’t want your father to see you snorting coke off some stripper’s tits while you’re getting your dick sucked? Might should have thought about that one before doing it with cameras present.”

He glared up at me then before picking up my iPad and throwing it across the room. “It’s not what it looks like,” he attempted to explain.

I simply laughed. “Even if someone had done a bang up photoshop job there, that’s the image you present to the general public on a regular basis. So, if you’re mad about your dad seeing it, imagine how your mom must feel, because I guarantee someone showed it to her and asked her about it.”

His face paled. His father’s head hung, as if he had already had to do some damage control where his wife was concerned. After the initial shock, he spat venomous words at me. “Like you’re perfect! You admitted to writing fucking dark fantasy, mommy porn. You were probably out fucking just as many people.”

I smirked in his direction. “You know the difference between me and you?” He didn’t answer so I just went on. “Discretion, asshole. I have a fuck buddy who makes my body sing when I get an itch that needs scratched. Before today, there were exactly two people who knew about that arrangement.” I glanced over at my father. “Sorry, Dad, I know you don’t want to hear this.”

I turned back to Sam, “My friend and I were together last night, testing out an idea I had for a scene I was writing, and you know what didn’t happen? There were no pictures taken, no video, no evidence that it ever took place. I wouldn’t even be talking about it to you now, especially not with my father present, but you need to understand the difference between the shit you pull and how grown ups handle their business. When you grow up and decide that your image matters to your family’s company and its brand, as well as to yourself; then maybe you will be worthy of earning your place there. As it stands now, I can’t help you, because you’re an idiot.”

Chapter 4

I snatched my iPad up off the floor from where he’d thrown it and walked out after that. There really wasn’t a good reason to stick around. Sure, our parents probably still wanted us to go through with the arrangement so they could effectively merge the companies. I was pretty sure they could do it without our marriage, but there was some bullshit loophole that cut a lot of red tape… blah, blah, blah.