“That’s fucked up, Kat.”
“I agree,” she says with a sigh. “But it is what it is.”
“I’ll come back with you.”
No way am I letting her walk into the lion’s den without backup. I don’t know who this Cleo is, but sleeping with someone’s boyfriend, especially someone you live with. She’s not a person I want Kat around.
Kat stops and turns to face me.
“Jax, you really don’t have to. If you could just drop me home, that’s fine.”
I shake my head. “Kat, stop arguing and get in the car.”
“Eli’s?”
Kat chuckles.
“It was an emergency, he wasn’t using it, and he’s insured Zach and me on it.”
Kat smiles and touches my arm. The tiny hairs, standing upright at the contact, send a shiver down my spine. “I know he did. You’re a good friend to my brother.”
I place a hand over hers and squeeze gently. “I’m your friend, too.”
“I know. Thank you.”
I unlock the car and hold the door open while Kat jumps in. I move around to the other side and reverse out of the space.
“The girls you were with, they seem nice.”
“They are. They’re lovely,” Kat says.
“I thought you said you didn’t have any friends.”
Kat turns her head to look at me. “I didn’t. I met them after I started dating Danny. We went to a house party. Danny got drunk with his mates, Carol, Claire and Rach were there, we got talking, and as they say, the rest is history.”
“You hit it off. Why did you stay with him if you’d achieved your goal?”
Kat’s nose wrinkles, making her look super cute and incredibly sexy.
“I couldn’t get rid of him, he was like superglue. Tonight, I found out why. He’s a Frazer money hound.”
“I’ve heard you guys use that term before.”
“I’m sure you have. It’s girls and guys who see our parents’ bank balance, not us,” Kat explains.
My heart lurches at the thought.
“It’s not just potential lovers, it’s also friends. People befriend us for who we are and what they think they can get.”
“I’m sorry, I never realised.”
Kat places her hand on my leg.
“You wouldn’t.” The look she shoots me tells me I should know this. “You’re not like them. You befriended Eli because you’re similar, share the same drive to succeed.”
I cough, she couldn’t be further from the truth. Eli and I are polar worlds apart. My parents are divorced, and I’m up to my neck in student loans. Even Elijah doesn’t know by how much.
“I don’t mean in terms of money,” Kat says, as if reading my mind. “I’m talking in terms of your ambition, determination to succeed. You’re both relentless. You’ll keep going, fight on, until you get to your destination. Eli admires that in you.”
