“I’m barely going over the speed limit.”
“Yeah, but it’s raining.”
I ground my teeth and eased off the gas.
“There’s a party at Feddy’s tomorrow,” she said. “AJ invited me.”
“Talk to him a lot now, after your reunion?” I sounded like a jealous boyfriend. Fuck, I evenfeltlike one.
“A little. And I think we should go. Everyone there will either be from my parents’ circle or trying to break into it.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Why not? It’s a room full of bored rich people. They’re literally your dream clients.”
“I don’t need it. The guest list is pretty much set and it’s too late to vet new ones. Plus, it’s better to keep it small and exclusive.”
“But fewer people mean less money.”
“Not if one of them gets shit-faced and blows through three million in one night like Blake did.” It was a dumb thing to say, and I knew it, but I was in too shitty a mood to try and fix it.
Stella blew out a breath. “You’resuchan asshole.”
“I’ve never claimed to be anything else.”
“Then hopefully the night is a great success, and we’ll never have to see each other again.”
I gripped the steering wheel. “Desperate to get away from me, Sunshine?”
“Can you blame me?” she said, her voice rising. “Since you barged into my life, I’ve taken on millions in debt, experienced my worst flare in years, lost money because I’m missing so much work, and then, tonight, to cap it all off, I had another ugly fight with a woman I hate, because you dragged me in there!”
“I didn’t drag you anywhere,” I snapped. “You chose to follow me. I was perfectly fine to handle her on my own.”
“No, you weren’t. Threatening Maddie clearly didn’t work the first time, and it wouldn’t have worked a second. Whenever life gets hard, she runs straight to her parents.”
“You don’t know that that’s what would have happened.”
“Yes, I do. Before the night of the accident, she was my best friend. Shealwaysgoes running to them.”
I shot a look in her direction. She’d been best friends with that monster?
“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t you fucking darejudge me. You are a fuckingbookie, Theo. You ruin people’s lives for a goddamn living. Where the hell do you get off looking down your nose at anyone else?”
“Been holding that in a while, huh?” I said, my voice low and ugly.
“Yes. And something else, too.” She leaned toward me. “You might not be able to see it, but you arejustlike the people you claim to hate.”
“Shut up.”
“You take and take, with no remorse and no empathy for those you prey upon. And I know for a fact that not all the people you go after are corrupt, because you went after my brother.”
“Stop it, Stella.”
“At the end of the day, you’re as bad as they are, maybe even worse, because you do it for profit.”
“I saidshut up!”
Headlights flashed across the windshield. A horn blared. I shot my arm to the right, holding Stella back as I slammed on the brakes and cut the wheel to avoid a car that had blown through a stoplight. Stella screamed as I swung back the other way to keep from hitting a driver who’d careened into our lane while dodging the first vehicle. More horns blared, and I let Stella go because I needed both hands on the wheel to get us out of the chaos.
