Owned: A Mafia Menage Romance (69 page)

Are they doing this on purpose? Was that some kind of secret code for let’s try that sandwich thing again, only closer?

"Give me a little time to assemble a proposal," I answered with an innocent smile. "Now, I know you brought me here for a reason, what sort of event is this?"

The ballroom was filling with partygoers who all took their seats around large linen-covered tables. Each table had an enormous centerpiece in white and lavender lilies with small sprays of violet snapdragons. I eyed the tiny plates of tapas with mounting desire. My stomach rumbled ominously.

I should probably have eaten today. I wonder how many glasses of champagne that was?

"So we know you are graceful under fire and an innovative academic thinker," Lyle said with a grin. "How do you feel about trivia?"

I blinked twice.

"Are you serious?"

"I already told you I am always serious," Owen said, dropping his chin and giving me a stare that can only be described as sultry. His nostrils flared and I stared at his thick, strong-looking lips. His hand dragged a light, discrete line down the back of my bare arm.

I definitely felt that. That definitely happened.

"It's a yearly competition between all the business heads in all our companies, Lyle explained. "Somehow we have never managed to win it, even though clearly we are the most brilliant men in the room."

"Clearly," I agreed immediately.

"And everyone's boss, too. Which I always assumed meant they should let us win."

"I would hate it if they let us win," Owen growled. "I would rather lose."

Lyle shrugged and popped a fat olive into his mouth, sending another waft of his cologne across my upper lip. If I wasn't getting drunk on the champagne I was definitely getting drunk on that aroma.

"I would always rather win."

"Winning is sort of my thing," I advised them coolly.

Owen raised his eyebrows and shot Lyle a knowing grin.

"I told you she was the right woman for the match."

"How many times are you going to brag about that?" Lyle said, rolling his eyes.

"Hopefully, a lot more times."

The lights went down in the room and a single spotlight shot toward the long main table at the front of the room. A man who looked like a boxing ring announcer held up both of his hands as the audience engaged in energetic applause.

I could feel Lyle and Owen on either side of me as precisely as if I was looking at them. The way that they each folded their arms across their chests in nearly identical gestures, the way that they tilted their heads toward the announcer as he explained the rules of the trivia match. I admit my heart was racing slightly. Being flanked by these two charismatic, athletic, confident he-men was absolutely thrilling.

The first rounds of questions were simple and easily answered by almost anyone in the room. Owen and Lyle seemed to consider it their own kind of sub-competition as to who could reach out and smack the brass bell first to answer, though. The announcer would barely finish the subject line of the question before one or the other's tuxedo sleeve would shoot out in front of me so fast it caused a little puff of air to blast across my cleavage.

“Dwight D. Eisenhower!”

“The Roman aqueducts!”

“PV=NRT!”

Each round went so fast it practically made my head spin, but I did manage to press the bell a couple of times and call out my answers when I was absolutely sure that I knew the right one. I could feel the Jack brothers’ approval bathing me like a warm glow and I started to really enjoy that. I could almost see myself through their eyes: taller, curvier, sexier, and smarter than I probably had ever been.

Maybe this really is me.

Well, maybe I can fake it long enough to convince myself anyway.

Finally, in the second to last round our outstanding lead had been whittled away to just two points when another table got a series of simple questions that they immediately knew. They shot ahead of us, and suddenly we were behind.

I squinted across the dark room and recognized the familiar back of Carl's stupid head. Then a hand waved out from behind it and Whitney leaned back laughing at some joke that I couldn't hear from where I was. It was them? That was the team that was going to beat us?

“Category: religion. One point. Question: what painter’s intricate tableaus have been said to have shaped modern thought about the geography and tortures of Hell?”

The bell rang on the other table and Whitney bolted upright, calling out, “Francis Bacon!”

“NO!"

I shot out of my chair so fast that it tipped over behind me. The announcer glanced at me, his eyes wide with surprise.

"Francis Bacon is, I'm sorry, incorrect... The question goes to the challenger to my right. Do you have a counter-answer?”

"The answer is… Hieronymus Bosch,” I called out in a cold, confident voice.

“Yes!” the announcer boomed into the microphone. “Two points for the Misters Jack and their alluring companion!”

I felt myself panting as I knuckled the tablecloth, glaring at Whitney from across the room until she crumpled back into her seat. I stood for a moment more before lowering myself back into my chair. Lyle leaned across the table toward me and turned his head conspiratorially to whisper in my ear.

“Oh ho ho, that must've been embarrassing for her. Are you two friends?”

“We know each other,” I said in a controlled growl.

“That sounds like it must be quite a story,” he continued.

“There's nothing to tell," I said with a wave of my fingertips. “She's a real estate agent. My boy — er, a friend bought a condo from her.”

Lyle pushed himself back, raising his eyebrows at the same time. His eyes sparkled in the low light.

“A real estate agent? That's an interesting way of putting it.”

I shook my head slightly. What was so interesting about being a real estate agent? Lyle plucked the crystal luminary off the table top and held it up next to his face so that the light glittered across his strong, chiseled features. The sight was enchanting, I had to admit, but I still didn't get it.

Out of habit I racked my brain for clues as though he was playing some kind of game of charades. Luminary? Lantern? Glow? Cylinder? Candle? Avery hotel and spa ostentatious light show?

Avery hotel… Avery… Whitney Fucking Avery.

Oh my God.

“I guess I don't really know anything about her at all, come to think of it," I said bitterly, unable to keep the brittle tone from my voice.

Lyle glanced away toward the announcer as though the conversation had been completed. I continued to stew over the details.

“Lyle, pay attention,” Owen snapped. “Final question and we are still down by one.”

I pushed Whitney out of my mind and focused on the announcer. If we were down by one that meant that she was ahead by one, and there was no way I was letting that bitch take anything else from me today.

The announcer cleared his throat.

“The final question is worth three points. Category: rare medical conditions. Question: what renal disease is characterized by a purple -"

My hand shot out so fast it was like a cobra strike, mashing the bell hard with my palm.

Owen gave a low whistle. I spun in my chair to face him.

“Do you know it?”

“What? Don't
you
know it?” he said with a shocked expression.

I whirled to face Lyle.

“You know it. I know you do. Answer the question,” I hissed through clenched teeth.

Lyle's mouth opened slightly and he looked at me, aghast.

“Brienne, he didn't even finish asking the question…”

"You. Know. It,” I said again in a growl.

“Three seconds, team,” the announcer called out.

Lyle splayed his fingers on the table top and rose slowly, working his jaw with his brow knitted beautifully together. I had absolutely no doubt in my mind.

“The answer is,” he called out clearly with just a hint of waver in his voice, “porphyria."

"Yes!" The announcer called. “Porphyria is the correct answer! And we have our winning team - the Misters Jack, in their inaugural win!”

"Well, he didn't have to point that part out,” Owen grumbled as he stood, raising a hand to wave to the applauding crowd.

I rose as well, breathing in the sound of the applause and the simultaneous sound of Whitney and Carl's defeat like it was a sweet summer breeze that filled my lungs with joy.

Lyle leaned toward me as the cheering continued to fill the room.

“That was a hell of a risk you took there,” he growled, but I could tell he was thrilled by the way his nostrils flared and the avid gleam in his eye.

“I just wanted to make sure we got there first,” I said regally, even though my heart was pounding in my ears. I knew it could have all gone wrong, and the impact of what I had just risked was starting to sink in. I could have dismantled my entire night's effort right there. But I didn't.

“Outstanding!" Owen crowed. “That was a really ballsy move!”

You think that was ballsy?

As the applause died away I hooked my hands inside each brother's strong arm, giving their biceps a firm, lingering squeeze. Then I slid my hands down their arms and dragged them behind me so that each brother could embrace my waist. I leaned my head back and gazed up at Owen with heavy-lidded eyes, allowing the thick buzz from the champagne to fully show on my face.

Owen smiled at me cautiously as though he was waiting to make sure that I realized just how energetically I was throwing myself at him. But I definitely knew.

And Lyle seemed to know too. I rolled my head toward him and lavished him with the same unabashedly flirty smile. He didn't wait at all, but leaned in swiftly to dip his head behind my ear and kissed me at the seam of my neck and shoulder, lighting off a series of sparks just under my skin.

“Is that all right?” Owen murmured from my other side. Their politeness was a contradiction: how could these two be so brazen and so boyscout at the same time?

“It’s more than all right,” I purred. I felt like a movie star. I could sense everyone’s eyes turning toward us as we basked in our victory.

“You’re
sure
?” Lyle asked. He pivoted slightly, dragging his hip across mine. I could feel the hard bulge in his trousers against my thigh. My mouth felt thick and dry.

Go ahead, say yes. You earned this.

Say it.

I flipped both taps on full blast in the lavish gold and white bathroom and dug frantically to my small handbag for my cell phone.

“Pick up! Pick up! Pick up!”

“No!” she said as soon as the call connected.

I flinched. “What you mean,
no
?”

I heard Melita hiss through her teeth.

“Well, I assume that you're calling me to ask me for a ride home because you are fixin' to chicken right the fuck out. Am I right?”

“Sort of? Melita —”

“Then, the answer is still no.”

“Melita," I whispered right into the cell phone microphone with my hand cupped around my mouth, “
I am in their hotel room!
"

A pause.

“They? As in, both of them?”

“Oh my God!” I moaned. I stared at my face in the enormous mirror, trying to see if I looked as crazy as I felt. But no, I had to admit I actually still looked pretty great. It's amazing how appearances can deceive.

“Well, that does change things.”

“Thank you! I can be downstairs in five minutes…”

“No, girl, I mean grab me some of those oatmeal soaps they got there in the bathroom. I love those things!”

“Melita!” I whined as loudly as I could without risking the Jacks hearing me in the next room.

“Brienne, you are bringing new meaning to the phrase ‘getting right back on the horse.’”

I shook my head, knuckling my forehead. How did I get here? Being with them was like a drug. I was not myself. The whole thing had been my idea, and I loved the way Owen’s eyes lit up when I coyly suggested we get a private room to continue talking.

As we strolled down the hallways together I felt pleasantly tipsy, but when Lyle smirked and opened the penthouse door with the key card he produced from his tuxedo breast pocket, suddenly I was as sober as I ever had been in my life. What had I just talked myself into?

Excusing myself to the bathroom to freshen up or whatever it is ladies are supposed to do in the bathroom, I honestly thought making a getaway was a possibility. But then again, I had to admit I was curious about the experiences that lay just behind that door.

“Just tell me one thing,” she said. “Are you absolutely sure this is something you
don't
want to do?”

"Well… No," I said, the truth of the word ringing in my ears.

"Well, good, because I couldn't come get you anyway.”