Fuck him. Fuck his sleazy eyes and his seedy tone. “You’re the lawyer. Prenuptial. Isn’t the key in the word?”
“Clever,” he says, pointing a finger gun my way around his glass. “Remind me, where did you and Raif meet?”
“At my gallery, not that it’s any of your business. And it’s not what I came to speak to you about.”
“Ah, yeah. I remember now. That’s why you married him, right? To keep it going.”
I gasp—the audacity!
“No need to be embarrassed.”
“I’m not embarrassed.” I’m repulsed as he leans onto one butt cheek, and for a minute, I think… But he’s just pulling out his wallet.
“I was the one who looked into your financials,” he adds, pulling out a credit card. And a baggy a third full with white powder.What the fuck?“It was how Raif came up with the sum, the million sweetener.” He carefully opens the bag, tapping a little of the powder onto the table. Using his credit card, he fashions it into two lines before pulling a fifty from his wallet. “Personally, I thought it was a bit much.” His tone is conversational as he rolls it across the width, making a thin tube. “Especially given the state of your P&L accounts. You would’ve settled for much less, and I said so.”
He offers the rolled bill my way. I shake my head, disgusted. Not that it registers as he shrugs.Your loss.
“It’s gone five,” he says, as though feeling the weight of my judgment. This is a man in power—a man still in his office. Couldn’t he leave this shit until he got home? “Almost the weekend.”
“Wouldn’t a straw be more hygienic?” I ask as he bends forward, pressing it to his nostril.All those hands that thing has been in. Dropped to dirty floors. Maybe stuffed into thongs in strip joints. By all means, shove it up your nose.
“Ah, but that would be possession with intent,” he says, pausing. “As far as the law is concerned. Whereas a fifty with traces of coke on it can’t really be linked to me.”
“Except for your eyes,” I say, only just noticing his pinprick pupils. And a blood test, maybe?
“You know, he could’ve had women lining round the block for that deal—one look at him, and most would’ve thrown in sex for free.”
“I don’t like what you’re insinuating.”
But he’s no longer paying attention as he inhales.
“Fuck, yeah.” He sniffs, then wipes his knuckle under his nostrils. “It does make me wonder what kind of magical pussy five million gets you.”
“What theactualfuck?”
“No offense—quite the opposite. That’s what I’m saying. He could’ve dumped you the Monday following the wedding without owing you a penny, legally speaking.”
“What are you talking about? Why would—”
“Maybe he was still thinking about your brother at that point.” His shoulders rise and fall. “He must feel like he’s done with that now.”
“My brother? You mean Whit?”
He waves his hand, which I take as a no. This is like a conversation going in circles.
“The other one. The one who banged Celine. Raif thinks I didn’t know,” he says, tapping his nose, “but she told me. Told me then she shagged me to spite him. Our secret. If you want to avail yourself of the same…”
“Dream on.” My lips curl as I eye God’s less-than-stellar gift to women.
“Please yourself.”
“I will, thanks. But my brother and Celine? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
He nods heavily and uses his hands to mime bending a figure over before giving a repulsive flex of his hips.The pig.“He walked in on them in the act.”
“Raif?” Because it just won’t compute. The pieces of this puzzle seem to be floating in the air, and they won’t stay still. Won’t let me make sense of them.
“Still, it’s not a bad couple of months work for you. I would’ve gone gay for that level of pay and married him myself.”
