The Infatuation (Josh and Kat #1 , The Club #5) (2 page)

“Not photoshop. The real fake deal. Brand new,
actually. She’ll be geeked you noticed. Did you notice her nose,
too? (The polite answer is no. Haha!)”

“She looks great, top to bottom. Tell her I said so.
But she was always beautiful.”

“Aw, come on, Josh. You’re making me remember what a
sweetheart you are. I wanna see you soooooo bad! Are you sure you
can’t swing it? Pwetty pwease? I’ll make sure you have a REALLY
good time.” She adds a winking emoji.

I smirk. This is patently ridiculous. Jennifer
LeMonde can’t possibly give a rat’s ass about me, any more than I
give one about her. We dated for, what, five months when we were in
our early twenties. Not exactly a soul connection. Obviously, this
is more about Isabel pining for Reed like she always has than about
Jen and me. My guess is Isabel asked Jen to lure Reed to France by
any means necessary, including using me as bait.

When I don’t immediately reply to Jen’s last text,
she sends another one right on its heels. “What if I promise not to
wear my bikini top the entire time we’re there? ‘When in France,’
right? I remember how much you loooooved my pretty titties.” She
adds a bikini emoji and a pair of lips. “And they’re still
all-natural, baby!” Winking emoji.

“Sorry. Can’t. Family emergency, like I say,” I
write. But what I’m thinking is,
I’m thirty fucking years old,
Jen. You really think I’m gonna travel halfway around the world
just to see a pair of tits (even if they are, admittedly, the most
perfect pair of tits I’ve ever seen)?

“Bummer.” Sad-face emoji. “Saw you and your brother
on the cover of some magazine the other day, creamed my panties
just looking at you. Talk about the Wonder Twins. Day-am. You boys
should be in movies.”

“Thanks.”

“Well, okay. Text me if something changes. I’ll be
crossing my fingers you change your mind.”

“Family emergency, like I say,” I type. “Sorry.”

“Well, if France isn’t gonna work out, we’ll have to
get together another time really soon. I’ve been thinking about you
a lot lately. About how much fun we used to have.” She adds a lips
emoji. “I’d make it worth your effort if you come see me, Josh.”
Another winking emoji.

I roll my eyes. Was she always this annoying? I just
told the girl I’ve got a family emergency and that my brother needs
me—and she invites me to fuck her rather than ask me if
everything’s okay? Not to mention I told her I’ve been working hard
to build my family’s business and she didn’t ask me for any
details? Par for the course, though. Our “relationship,” such as it
was, certainly wasn’t based on anything deep.

The limo stops and I glance up from my phone. I’m in
Jonas’ driveway. Damn. For a second there, I’d actually forgotten
where I was headed.

I exhale audibly. Whatever’s waiting for me on the
other side of Jonas’ front door isn’t gonna be good—I can feel it
in my bones.

Josh

The minute I walk through Jonas’ front door, my
brother bounds toward me like a Labrador retriever, dragging his
new chew toy (Sarah) with him as he goes.

“Hey,” I say, putting down my duffel bag and giving
Jonas a big hug. “Well, hello, Sarah Cruz.” I give her a hug, too.
“Fancy meeting you here.”

“Get used to it,” Jonas says, obviously thrilled to
be saying those words.

“So what the hell’s going on?” I ask, steeling
myself for whatever fucked up shit’s about to come my way.

Jonas moans. “It’s so fucked up, man.”

My stomach twists. I sit down on the couch, readying
myself. “Tell me.”

Jonas sits down next to me and runs his hand through
his hair, obviously getting ready to launch into some sort of
monologue, but before he gets a word out, the bathroom door on the
far side of the spacious room opens abruptly and a blur of golden
blondeness moves into my peripheral vision. My eyes dart toward the
movement—I wasn’t aware there was anyone else here besides Jonas,
Sarah, and me—and then I absentmindedly look back toward Jonas.

But all of a sudden, my brain processes the
startling golden perfection my eyes just beheld and my eyes dart
back to the astonishing figure striding toward me. Oh my fucking
God.
Who the fuck is this creature?

The girl walking toward me is literally the most
spectacularly beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on in my entire
life, without exception (and this is coming from a guy who briefly
dated Miss Universe and currently fucks a Victoria’s Secret model
whenever we both happen to be in L.A.). This girl’s... oh my God.
She’s the precise sum of parts I’d order at the Build-a-Girl store
if there were such a thing. Holy fuck. And she’s headed right
toward me, smiling at me like she can read my exact thoughts.

She’s got to be a model. Or an actress. Of course,
she is. What else could she be, looking the way she does? Shit.
Damn. Fuck. Oh my God. Holy fucking Christ.

Miss Perfect sashays right up to me, without
hesitation. “I’m Kat,” she says, putting out her hand. “Sarah’s
best friend.”

She’s got sky-blue eyes. Her long hair is a
heart-stopping shade of golden blonde—and it’s obviously totally
natural. And, oh my God, this can’t be happening—
she’s got a
subtle little indentation in her chin, too—the slightest cleft.
That’s always been my Achilles’ heel—ever since I made out with
Jessica Simpson at Reed’s twenty-first birthday party so many years
ago.

“Josh,” I say, taking her hand. “Jonas’
brother.”

“I know,” she says, smirking. “I read the article.”
She motions in the direction of the coffee table.

I glance down to see which article she’s referring
to, and I’m bummed to discover it’s the one that made Jonas out to
be some kind of deep-thinking poet with a Midas touch with
investments and me out to be nothing but a giant, throbbing dick
with cotton between my ears.

“I sure hope you’re more complicated than that
article makes you out to be,” Kat says, her blue eyes
sparkling.

I look at Jonas, hoping maybe he’ll step in and say
something to help a brother out, like, oh, I dunno, how ’bout, “Oh,
that reporter was just trying to sell magazines.” Or, maybe, “We
thought we were doing a serious interview about Faraday & Sons
and it turned into a fluff piece for
Tiger Beat.
” But Jonas
doesn’t say a damned thing on my behalf. Of course, he doesn’t, the
motherfucker. I guess now that he’s got his dream girl all locked
up he’s content to let me twist in the wind in front of a woman who
looks like mine?

“If the article is to be believed,” Kat goes on,
smirking at me, “Jonas is the ‘enigmatic
loner-investment-wunderkind’ twin—and you’re just the simple
playboy
.”

I laugh. So this girl’s not only gorgeous, she’s
sassy, too? Oh, how I like me a sassy woman.

“That’s what the article said?” I ask, even though I
know that’s exactly what the article said.

“In so many words,” she says, arching one of her
bold eyebrows.

“Hmm,” I say, returning her raised-eyebrow gesture.
“Interesting. And if someone were writing a magazine article about
you, what gross over-simplification would they use?”

She bites her lip. “I’d be ‘a party girl with a
heart of gold.’” She glances at Sarah and they share a smile.

Oh man. This girl’s too much. My skin is buzzing
like I’ve just downed a double shot of Patron. “How come I only get
a one-word description—
playboy
—and you get a whole phrase?”
I ask.

She shrugs. “Okay, party girl, then.”

“That’s two words,” I say.

Kat raises her eyebrow, yet again. “In this
hypothetical magazine article about me,” she purrs, “they’d spell
it with a hyphen.”

Oh, well, fuck. My dick just stretched and yawned
and said, “Do I smell coffee and doughnuts?”

She smirks. She knows she’s caught a fly in her web.
But then again, I’m guessing flies in her web are just par for the
course for her.

“So what’s going on here, Party Girl with a Hyphen?”
I ask. “I take it we didn’t all congregate here to party?”

“No, unfortunately,” Kat says breezily. “Though,
hey, we did have some of your tequila earlier, so thanks for that.”
Her mouth tilts up, and I have the palpable urge to kiss it. “No,
I’m just here to support Sarah,” she says, “and, well, I think I
might be some kind of refugee in all this, too.” She looks at Jonas
and frowns. “Although I think maybe Jonas is being slightly
overprotective having me stay here. I’m not sure yet.”

“You’re a
refugee
in all this?” I ask,
suddenly on full alert. “What the fuck’s going on, Jonas?”

Jonas grunts. “Sit down,” he says.

I sit down, my stomach churning. I can’t for the
life of me guess what he’s about to tell me. How are Sarah
and
Kat involved in whatever the fuck’s going on? I can’t
even fathom the connection.

Jonas takes a deep breath and launches into a story
that immediately makes my brain hurt.
Sarah worked for The Club?
And she was Jonas’ intake agent—the one who reviewed his
application
? Holy shit! Well, well, well, Little Miss Sarah
Cruz isn’t quite the naive little law student I thought she was,
after all. But, hang on, Jonas is still yammering. There’s more?
Sarah emailed Jonas after reading his application? And that’s
when he got a boner to find her?
Oh my God. This is too much.
What the fuck did little Miss Cruz say to Jonas in that email of
hers? And what the hell did he say in his application that caught
Sarah’s attention in the first place?

Oh my God. There’s even more to the story. Jonas is
still talking. I can’t fucking believe it. Some woman in a purple
bracelet showed up to meet Jonas at a check-in before he’d ever met
Sarah and—hang on, I thought Jonas said he never actually became a
member of The Club—and then that same woman turned up at another
guy’s check-in wearing a yellow bracelet?
—
and Jonas knows
all this because Sarah and Kat went to spy at both check-ins! Whoa,
whoa, whoa.
Sarah went to spy on Jonas at a check-in with a
woman in The Club?
Holy shit. And, even after that, she’s
nonetheless sitting here right now, looking at Jonas like he walks
on water? Now that’s an open-minded woman. I wonder if Kat’s as
open-minded as her kinky little law-student friend.

I glance at Sarah and she flashes me an endearing
look that could only be described as “adorkable.” I laugh out loud.
Well, shit. If this girl’s kinky, then I must be shy and
intellectual. Oh man, Sarah’s a total dork, through and through,
God love her—no wonder my dork of a brother digs her.

“. . . so I was thinking we could try to trace The
Club through emails,” Jonas is saying. “Do you still have any of
the emails from when you were a member?” he asks.

Gee, thanks, Jonas.
Is my brother
trying
to keep me from getting laid by the most beautiful
woman I’ve ever seen?

I glance at Kat, my cheeks instantly turning red,
and I’m surprised to find her eyes blazing at me.
Oh
. Nice.
Kat’s not grossed out by the revelation that I’m a past member of
The Club, she’s
intrigued
.
Lovely
.

I clear my throat. “I don’t know if I kept any of
their emails,” I say. “It’s been about seven months since my
membership and I don’t typically keep emails past three
months.”

“Shit,” Jonas says. “Would have been nice to have
something to trace.”

Jonas goes on to explain that he and Sarah came home
from Belize to find Sarah’s and Kat’s apartments trashed and their
computers stolen—which proves, according to Jonas, that The Club
will stop at nothing, including physical violence, to keep both
women from divulging the supposedly indisputable fact that The Club
is actually nothing more than a global prostitution ring.

I don’t reply, partly because I’m simply trying to
process Jonas’ reasoning, but also because Kat is so fucking hot,
it’s hard for me to think straight in her presence.

I wonder if Kat’s got a boyfriend. Please, God,
don’t let her have a boyfriend. Oh shit, what if she’s married? I
glance at her finger. No wedding ring. Thank God. Does she live
here in Seattle? Yeah, she must—Jonas said she and Sarah spied on
Jonas and that other guy at their check-ins in town. Huh. If Kat
lives here, the odds are slim she’s a model. I wonder what she does
for a living, then. Does she—

Oh.

Jonas is staring at me like he expects me to say
something. Shit. I have no idea what he’s been saying for the past
few minutes.

“Huh,” I finally say, trying to look deep in
thought. “Interesting.”

Jonas exhales a shaky breath, clearly containing
some sort of rage at my response. But what the fuck does he expect?
I can’t track each and every one of his ramblings under the best of
circumstances, let alone when a woman like Kat is sitting fifteen
feet away from me, looking at me like she’s thinking about sucking
my dick.

And, anyway, it’s obvious to me Jonas is probably
grossly misinterpreting the situation or, at the very least,
overreacting to it (shocker!). Even if Sarah and Kat saw some chick
wearing a yellow bracelet after she’d fucked Jonas a few nights
earlier wearing a purple one, that doesn’t necessarily mean the sky
is falling, does it? It could simply mean some women in The Club
are assigned more than one color. Why is that such a fucking
revelation? Some people have extremely varied tastes, after
all.

Or maybe one of Jonas’ exes found out he’s been
dating Sarah and went ballistic, trashing Sarah’s apartment in a
fit of jealous rage (and then doing the same thing to Sarah’s best
friend’s place, too)? Even if that seems like a far-fetched
scenario, it’s probably no crazier an idea than some hitman coming
after Sarah and Kat simply because they happened to observe some
woman wearing two different colored bracelets.