Page 19 of Filthy Rich Ex's Brothers

Travis

Serena is making me crazy.

The party churns on around me, but I can’t stop looking at her. Can’t stop catching glimpses of her. Sometimes, she’s already looking at me. Sometimes she’s in the middle of a shot, holding her camera up to her face.

That is when she’s the most beautiful, her hips and chest hugged by the dress, body held completely still. Arms raised, a bystander in a moment she’ll compose and capture.

Beautiful.

And fucking frustrating, too. Especially when I look over and see her talking to another man.

I’ve never been a jealous person, but there’s something about the sight of her there, smiling, hair glinting under the light of the chandelier.

Flirting on the job. Flirting when I’m paying her to be here. Wearing the dress I picked out for her.

Then they shift, and I just make out the profile of the man she’s speaking to. Golden curls, rogue smile. The charismatic man that every magazine wants to feature on their cover.

Flirting with, of all people,Ryan.

From the other side of the room, I can’t fully make him out. Itcouldbe someone else. But then I recognize his movements, recognize that annoying, charming lean. I’ve seen him pick up enough women to know when he’s turning the flirting up to eleven. Seen him doing that specific lean in bars and clubs and at every ridiculously loud party he’s dragged me to.

He’s not just passing the time. He has the wattage up to a thousand now, and he’s shining it all on her.

Not happening.

Not with Serena.

It doesn’t make any sense, but my feet start to move before I really make a decision about what I’m going to do.

In the back of my mind, I register the deviation from my schedule. The plan for tonight was to make my speech, mingle, chat with our top stakeholders, then disappear and leave them to their open bar. It might be an event night, but I’m not sabotaging my entire fucking sleep schedule just to hang out with these people all night.

But now, I’m going off plan.

I’m not making my way in a perfect counterclockwise pattern around the room. Instead, I’m cutting directly through it, following the copper hair I can just see bobbing through the crowd.

Is she… running from me?

Maybe it’s stupidly primal, but something comes alive in me at the thrill of a chase.

I only falter for a fraction of a second when I considerwhySerena is fleeing. Does shewantme to follow her?

But the way she’s been looking at me tonight. The fact that she’s wearing the dress. She went to the hotel room. Was she looking for me? Did she think that I’d be there, waiting for her?

I can’t stop thinking about seeing her across the event. That heavy-lidded, desperate look she’s wielded toward me sincebursting into my fucking office. Driving me absolutely batshit with the desire right there, evident on her face.

Ryan is gone by the time I get to the place where they were standing. Why didn’t he follow her? It’s not like him to let a woman get away when he’s interested.

Did Serena duck away from him in the hopes that I would come after her?

Even as my mind whirls, my legs continue moving. I ignore questions and greetings, raise a single hand and pray nobody dares to follow me out. My assistant tries to follow, but she’s a shorter woman and not in the best shape, and eventually she gives up.

I cross through the ballroom and out into the hallway, my mind flooded with thoughts of what I’ll do when I catch Serena. Interrogate her. Ask why the hell she was talking to Ryan. What he said to her.

Ask if she wanted me to follow her. If she’s thought about the way my hands might feel on her hips. The way I might brush my thumbs over her freckles, tip her face up to mine. How I’ll fit my mouth just under her ear, heft her gorgeous body into my lap.

Fuck.

Each time I reach a hallway, she’s just disappearing down the next one. I make out the flash of her camera in one hand, her shoes held in the other. I don’t like the idea of her running barefoot, but I have to admit that there’s something aboutthat,too. Something exhilarating.