Arrogant Bastard - Julie Capulet Page 0,21

does she do that?

She doesn’t look happy to see me.

She doesn’t look happy to see Kyle either. At least I can take heart in that detail.

“Kyle,” she says, pissed off. “Can you stop with the t-shirt? Take it off.”

Kyle grins at her and peels off his shirt, showing off his weird muscles, which makes me want to punch him in the face. I almost do it.

What the fuck is wrong with me? I am absolutely on the verge of tackling this douchebag to the ground and pummeling his face with my fist.

Luna doesn’t appear to find Kyle’s muscles as impressive as he clearly finds them. “Go inside and put on one of the merch t-shirts,” she says.

“Do they come in extra-extra-large?” dumbass asks. “’Cause that’s the only size that will fit me.”

Fucking hell.

Luna looks mildly repulsed, I’m happy to notice.

Kyle slings his t-shirt over his shoulder. “I heard the Tucker Brothers Band is playing at a secret location in Key West tomorrow night. My friend might be able to get me tickets.”

At this, Luna’s eyes light up. “The Tucker Brothers? Really? Oh, I love them.”

My torment is three-headed at this point. A) She loves their music, like millions of people do, that’s all. And am I … jealous? Is that what this enraged, rip-their-hearts-out feeling is? B) I’m already so hot for this girl with her beatific face and ludicrously perfect body in its skimpy little sweat-dampened yoga outfit, my cock is on red-hot overdrive and I’m seriously struggling to conceal it, and C) she’s glaring at me like I’m somehow even worse than the muscle-bound dipshit over here who’s in the middle of asking her out on a date, which she’s clearly considering.

“I’ve got tickets,” I hear myself say. “VIP seats. They’re my cousins.”

“The Tuckers are your cousins?” Luna asks.

This pisses me off even more. I don’t need my goddamn cousins to get me a date.

“Aww, man,” says Kyle. “Can you get me a VIP seat?”

“No.”

Luna’s still staring at me. “What are you doing here? It’s a little early for whiskey, isn’t it?” Not exactly welcoming.

This doesn’t worry me. I’ll thaw her out. I just need some time with her, to give her a chance to succumb to my charms, like they all inevitably do.

Josie lowers herself into a chair, holding her round stomach. “He wants to discuss a business proposal with us.”

Luna looks at Josie, then back at me. “What kind of business proposal?”

I pin a glare on Kyle. “Would you excuse us?”

He gives me a blank look, then wanders away, thank fuck.

“What did he mean when he said you’re an investment guru?” Josie asks.

“Ladies, if you’ll sit down with me for a few minutes, I’ll explain exactly what my offer is.” Keeping my leather briefcase strategically in front of me, I take a seat. I pull out an envelope and place it on the table.

Luna makes no move to sit.

What I have in mind is riding on Josie, so I slide the envelope towards her. “Your business, including real estate, as well as existing structures, fixtures and chattels, is valued at one point one million dollars. According to records—which are all public, by the way—you owe a total of one million and thirty-five thousand dollars, which gives you an equity of sixty-five thousand dollars, divided in half, more or less. I wasn’t eavesdropping,” –a glare from Luna—“but I did happen to overhear, Josie, that you own fifty-one percent of the business, which would mean that you personally own thirty-three thousand, one hundred and fifty dollars of equity.”

“Um … yes.”

“I’d like to buy out your share for four hundred thousand dollars.”

Josie blinks at me. “What?”

“That’s my offer, but it rides on me retaining the majority share. I’m not willing to negotiate for less.”

“But … that’s far more than it’s worth,” Josie points out.

“Yes.” Which is the only way Luna will ever agree to it, because Josie is desperate and this will solve all—or at least most—of her problems. “I see good potential in this business. I think there’s a lot more you could do with it. You could expand the deck into a destination with a much larger seating area. We could retain the character of the place, spruce it up and build on it. I have a yacht we could offer as a special event charter. There’s a potential to expand the event calendar, too, with big name musicians and so on. I can discuss it with my cousins. I’m sure I can talk them into being