Filthy Rich Alpha - Virna DePaul Page 0,20
between four and six.”
“We?”
“Me and the new guy upstairs.”
“I can hear you blushing, Iris. Louder than thunder.” And that was quite unusual for her friend. Iris got around, but a guy who could rattle her with kittens involved was a rare breed.
“Drop dead. I mean that in a good way.”
“Is he a new love interest?
“Sheesh. He moved in last week, Cara.” Another pause. “But he is cute.”
Cara smiled, liking the idea of a cute guy bringing some happiness to her friend’s life. “Keep me posted.”
“I will, I promise. So what’s going on with you and your new boss?”
“I showed him the photo.” Cara found herself unable to lie. She waited for a reply. “Iris? You still there?”
“Just picking myself up off the floor. Oh my God. What did he say?”
“He didn’t think it was anything to worry about. He didn’t seem to care at all.”
Iris pondered that. “Well, then you’re in the clear.”
“I’m not a hundred percent sure about that. Anyway, he thinks Deets will drop it and he advised me to ignore it. Just for my own peace of mind, I’m keeping an eye on that website. They took the post down. And that one photo.”
“That one? You mean there are others?”
“Oh, God, I hope not.”
Iris cleared her throat. “Just between you and me, did anything else happen at that party?”
“No. I got kissed by a master kisser. After that, I got my ass home. End of story.”
“I want to believe that. I really do. Mind if I check Deets again?”
“Go ahead. I’m coming up on a purl.”
Faintly, she heard a keyboard being tapped, the rhythm almost identical to her knitting needles. Friends forever, clickety-click.
“They dropped the item. Completely. Nowhere to be found.”
“Good.”
“Maybe not. I wonder why.”
Iris tended to be a worrywart, for all her freewheeling ways. But then again, she knew how sites like Deets operated and Cara didn’t.
“Keep purling. I’m looking elsewhere.”
A minute or more passed.
“Cara. Oh my God. Are you sitting down?”
“Yes. Why?” Her heart sank. Just her luck. There had to be a second post that was somehow more incriminating than the first.
“I think you’re going to need that drink. I’m coming over.”
Chapter 7
It was a video on HotnSaucey. A video of Branden and a woman. He and the woman were half naked, stripped to the waist. They weren’t in a room, exactly. More like a space with blank walls. He faced the lens—when he wasn’t looking at the other participant, standing directly in front of him. All Cara could see of her was her back. Yellow hair that had been styled to scary straightness swung over her shoulders.
The woman didn’t approach Branden or touch him, but as the video progressed, Branden’s hands moved slowly toward his groin, and it didn’t take a genius to know the video was teasing at him getting himself off.
“That could be you,” Iris said as they both stared at her laptop screen.
“It’s not,” Cara said quickly.
“I mean,” Iris replied as if she were choosing her words very carefully, “that could be you if people wanted to think so. Like, if you were walking away from them.”
God, she was right, but as troubling as the thought was, Cara barely paid attention to the woman in the video. Instead, she drank in the sight of Branden: golden muscle broadening his chest and tapering to taut abs. The beginnings of the sexy lines that defined his groin on both sides of his torso were visible as he slid his hands lower and lower…
The video stopped. “Is that all?”
“The clip was a free download. I didn’t buy the complete tape because that would have involved sending my credit card information to some weird little country where they laugh at the law and the joke’s on you.”
The video began again, at the beginning. This time Cara studied his face as he stared at the woman, as if he wanted her to watch him. The hot gleam in his dark eyes was familiar, and so was the teasing, sensual half smile.
Once again, she felt that dreadful pang of jealousy, the same one she’d felt when she’d Googled Branden’s name and seen all those photos of him with beautiful women.
Cara trembled, on the verge of giving in to a nameless fear that rose within her. She stared at the frozen image, stunned and silent, unable to fight the feeling that someone had looked right through her, ransacked her mind, and hijacked her private fantasies. She could have been made of glass. About to shatter.
“Okay. Here’s what