The Best Friend Scandal (Bad News Billionaires Book 2) Read online

  “You sure?” I asked again just to check.

  “Positive,” she said.

  After leaving the dress inside and counting on her guarantee that it would be safe, I started to walk to the subway station to head home. Just as I was about to go through the turnstile, my phone beeped. I picked it up to look at, expecting it to be Arlo, but instead, it was Cai.

  “Hey,” he texted. “What are you doing tonight?”

  I smiled at my screen. “How did you get my number?” I asked.

  “I put it in your phone at the club last night when you weren’t looking, and then I texted myself with it.”

  “Clever,” I teased, adding a little wink emoji for extra effect. I started to feel a little like I was back in high school again. “I don’t really have plans for tonight,” I said as I stopped just before going through the turnstile. I backed up and moved out of the way as people started to make impatient noises behind me.

  Please ask me to come out with you again, I thought.

  “Yes, you do,” his text said. “You’re coming out with me.”

  Yes.

  I turned right around and ran back up the steps to the street level. Cai met me halfway to the club, and we walked the other half of the way there together. He looked like a supermodel tonight. I mean, I knew that he actually was one, but tonight he looked like one, too. He had on torn, black skinny jeans and a tightly fitted black T-shirt that showcased the lines and definition of his muscular torso underneath, even though he was very svelte. He reached down to hold my hand as we walked, and suddenly, I felt strange.

  I liked hanging out with him, and I had a lot of fun at the club. I also thought that he was really good looking. But I didn’t want to be with him in that way. I actually didn’t want to be with any of the guys at the club in that way. The only person I even thought about like that was Arlo, and how screwed up was that since he was my friend? I wasn’t quite sure what to do about my hand being in Cai’s hand. I didn’t want to seem rude and pull it away; after all, it was just hand-holding. I knew that I had to work on my boundaries with men. Arlo always said that to me, too, but I always thought he was just overly protective, kind of like a big brother, except he really didn’t feel like a big brother to me anymore; he felt like something else.

  “Tonight, I’m taking you to a different club,” Cai said while we walked. He was rubbing his thumb on the inside of my palm, and it was kind of starting to weird me out.

  “How come?” I asked. I had really liked the other one.

  “Because this one is even more fun than the one that I took you to last night.”

  “Really?” I said. Okay, I was excited now.

  When we got there, this night club was even more packed than the other one had been. It was shoulder-to-shoulder bodies and getting through the entrance was like squeezing through a tiny crack in the wall. It made sense now that Cai would want to hold my hand. Otherwise, we would have gotten pulled apart for sure. When we got in and got closer to the seating areas and the bar and dance floor, it thinned out a little but not much. Cai lifted his hand in the air to wave at a group of people sitting around one of the low tables, and we walked over to them. I recognized several of them from the model fitting and was less than pleased when I saw Kerynne there. Seeing her made me want to turn around and leave. I think Cai picked up on my hesitation because he squeezed my hand and leaned closer to whisper in my ear.

  “I promise, she won’t bite,” he laughed. “And if she does, I’ll bite her back for you.”

  I knew that he was kidding about the whole “biting” thing, but I still didn’t much like the sound of it all.

  “Oh, look,” Kerynne said. “You brought a new toy to play with.”

  “Simmer down, Kerynne, and put another drink in your mouth,” Cai said. “Or at least put something in your mouth. I’d be happy to oblige if you can’t find anything.”

  “Ewe,” she said as she made a fake gagging sound. “I’d rather die than put any part of you inside my mouth.”

  “Suit yourself,” Cai said. “There are plenty of takers.”

  At that exact moment, he put his hand on my thigh, and I got a rush of nervousness. I was really hoping that sitting around at a bar with this group of people was the right choice for me to have made.

  “Let’s dance,” I said. I couldn’t believe those words actually came out of my mouth. But I did have fun dancing at the other club, and at least it would get me away from Kerynne and get Cai’s hand off my leg.

  “Sure thing,” he said. “But first, let’s take these.” He pulled a tiny bag out of his jeans pocket, and inside the clear bag, it looked like there were a bunch of tiny silver balls that were no larger than a pencil tip.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  Everyone at the table started to laugh.

  “She doesn’t get any because she’s stupid,” Kerynne said. “I’ll take her share.”

  “Oh no, you won’t,” Cai said as he swatted her reaching hand away. “She gets just as much as the rest of you because she is my guest.”

  Cai smiled at me with his brilliantly handsome smile and then opened the bag.

  “No thanks,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Try it,” Cai said. “You’ll love them.”

  “What is it?” I asked again.

  “It’s a pretty little pill that will make you feel amazing.”

  “Does it have any bad side effects?”

  “Nope,” Cai said as he popped two into his mouth. “Only good ones.”

  “Is it addictive?”

  “Nope again. It’s just fun. Come on, Hensley, you need some more fun.”

  I hesitated, but everyone at the table was popping them like candy.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll just take one.”

  I pulled one of the little silver balls out of the bag and put it in my mouth. It was so small that I had swallowed it before I even realized I had. For a few minutes, I didn’t feel anything. We had a round of drinks brought to the table, and everyone talked about the runway show and then about what gigs and shows they were moving to next. Then we all got up to go dance. Cai popped another pill into his mouth and shoved the rest of the bag into his tight jeans pocket. They must be pretty mild if he can take that many of them.

  When we started to dance, I began to feel the effects of the pill. Everything in the nightclub seemed saturated, and all of my senses began to feel overstimulated in a good way. Cai grabbed my waist and pushed his pelvis against mine as we danced, and the feel of other bodies swirling around us was intoxicating. I danced and felt my hair brush across my face and felt Cai’s hands hold me as we swayed against each other. I was dreamy and hazy, and almost as if I weren’t all the way inside my body. I looked up to see Cai, and when I did, he pushed his mouth against mine to kiss me.

  For a moment, I was startled and didn’t move, but then when I felt his tongue swirl around mine, I pushed him away and stepped back. When I swallowed, I felt like I had swallowed a handful of tiny stones.

  “There you go,” he said with a wide grin. “Now, you’ll start to feel something.”

  “What did you do?” I asked him as I started to feel a little terrified.

  He reached forward and grabbed me in his arms again and held me upright against his body for support as I started to feel the room spin around me. I let him hold me because his arms were the only things keeping me from falling to the floor.

  “I shared a bit more with you,” he whispered in my ear as he kissed the side of my neck. “You’re welcome.”

  I was going to say something to him in return, but all of my thoughts suddenly seemed to blur together, and my voice disappeared as if I had never had one. I felt like a marionette whose strings were the only thing holding her up, and I wasn’t in control of pulling them. All of the faces and bodies churned around me, and I watched them with eyes that felt like they weren’t blinking anymore. It looked like the crowd had merged into one collective body with one communal face.
The face looked back at me with dozens of eyes that seemed to stare at me in all different directions. I tried to ask Cai what was happening, but all that I heard come out of my mouth was a garbled noise that sounded like I was trying to talk through a mouthful of Jell-O.

  Cai laughed and twirled me around and then pulled me close against him so that my head flopped against his chest and my teeth knocked together.

  “You’re hallucinating now, aren’t you?” he asked. “That’s the best part.”

  I felt his breath on the side of my neck, and then I felt my own warm breath in front of my face. I could see it as if it were a puff of smoke swirling out of my mouth and into the air around me. I looked down my nose at it, and then I saw that the angle of my nose changing. It felt different, too. It looked like the snout of a dragon, and my whole jaw looked like the muzzle of the leathery skin of a dark-green dragon. I was turning into a dragon, and I was blowing smoke from my nostrils. I was too enthralled in the experience of what I was seeing, and feeling, and becoming, to notice what happened next.

  All of a sudden, I was being wrenched away from Cai. His arms came off from being around me, and something else was holding me instead. I watched my dragon smoke coming from my nostrils dissipate in the space between us, and my nose started to look like it had before. I looked at Cai, who was laughing while also looking a little bit freaked out by whatever was holding onto me now. The rest of the crew of models was looking a bit rattled at what was behind me, too, as I felt myself being carried away.

  I hoped it wasn’t a monster.

  10

  Chapter Ten (Arlo)

  I wouldn’t have even gone back to the office if I hadn’t realized that I had left my phone sitting on the top of my desk. When I got there and saw the dress hanging on my office door, I knew that Hensley had repaired it and dropped it off. I wasn’t expecting the note that was attached to fall down when I reached for it. Maybe it was a thank you note for the roses that I had my secretary send to her. I unlocked my office and went inside. After I hung the dress on the garment rack with the others, I grabbed my phone, slid it into my pocket, and then read the note.

  * * *

  “Here’s the dress. Hope you have a fun night; I know I will.”

  * * *

  Dammit, Hensley. I knew exactly what that note meant. It meant that she was mad at me and going out with Cai again tonight. I started to drive back home, knowing that Hensley was an adult who was capable of making her own choices, and it was none of my business who she went out with or what she did at night, not as her friend, or boss, or anything else. But before I even got close to my apartment, I turned the car around and drove toward one of Cai’s favorite clubs. I couldn’t help myself. I just needed to make sure she was okay, and then I would leave her alone. I had watched out for Hensley ever since we had first met, and I didn’t see any reason to stop now just because we had had a couple of arguments.

  They weren’t at the first club I checked, but I knew all the clubs that group of models liked to frequent. Some of them were more “above the table” than others, and some of them were downright drug dens. I shuddered to think of Hensley in one of those. I also started gripping the steering wheel too hard when I thought about how much I would snap Cai into two pieces if that were where he had taken her. Sure enough, it wasn’t until I got to the very last club, the worst one, that I found them. As soon as I spotted his platinum head on the dancefloor, it wasn’t hard to see Hensley being whirled around like a rag doll in his arms.

  “Get the hell away from her,” I growled as I pulled Cai’s hands off her and caught Hensley in my arms.

  “Man, chill,” he said as he started to laugh. “You’re not my boss here. This is our club, and we can do whatever we want. It’s after work hours, so your contract rules don’t apply to what we do with our personal time.”

  “I don’t give a fuck what you do on your own time,” I snarled. “But if you so much as touch Hensley again, I will fire your ass before you can blink. And trust me when I say that I’ll find something in that contract to sue you over. I’m sure there are plenty of options. Stay the hell away from her.”

  “If you fire Cai, you lose all of us,” Kerynne said as she danced around him.

  “Can’t lose you if I’ve already fired all of you,” I said. “So that goes for you, too, Kerynne. It goes for all of your whole little crew. Stay away from Hensley. What did you give her?”

  Cai pulled out a small bag from his pocket and waved it in front of my face to show me.

  Hallucinogenic.

  Hensley made a strange snorting noise in my arms and then started to giggle uncontrollably. I picked her up and threw her over my shoulder to carry her out. When we got to my car, I slid her into the passenger seat and buckled her in.

  Once I started to drive, she was still laughing. She laughed so hard that she couldn’t stop almost the entire way to my apartment. I couldn’t take her back to her apartment, not in this kind of shape. She was hallucinating, and that could get her into some real danger. She had to be watched through the night. By the time we pulled up at my apartment, she had gone from laughing to crying.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked as I turned off the car and faced her. I figured that maybe she was hallucinating and something scary that was making her cry, but that wouldn’t make any sense since she was still laughing.

  “I can’t stop,” she said as she continued to laugh.

  When I looked at her, I noticed that she was holding onto her chest as if it hurt, and even though she was giggling uncontrollably, her wide-opened eyes had a look of panic in them as the tears streamed down her face.

  “I can’t stop laughing,” she said. “I don’t know why I can’t stop.”

  I got out of the car and ran around to her side of the door. “It’s okay,” I said as I picked her up and carried her in my arms toward the door.

  She rested her head against my chest, but she still couldn’t stop laughing. The noise of it was starting to sound like a deranged clown. I balanced her on my thigh as I unlocked the door and then carried her inside. I walked her straight back to my bedroom and laid her down on the bed. She was completely tripped-out and couldn’t control herself.

  “Hensley,” I said. “Look at me; you’re okay. You just need to take a deep breath. Just breathe.”

  I saw that she was trying to, but she couldn’t get a full breath in.

  “It hurts,” she cried. “I can’t stop.”

  I had to do something to make her realize that she could stop. Her mind and body were in a disconnect, thanks to the drugs. What would make her stop so that she could catch her breath? I tried to think of anything that I could do, but between my anger at Cai, how stressed out I was, and the sound of her incessant laughter, I couldn’t think straight. So I just acted and did the one thing that came to mind to get her to stop. I leaned forward and put my mouth on hers.

  It wasn’t anything too sensual, although it still taunted me to kiss her and made me want to kiss her deeper. I just pressed my lips together and held them there until I could hear the laughter stopped, but the breathing stopped as well, so after a moment, I lifted my mouth and put my hand on her chest.

  “Breathe now,” I said.

  I took a big inhale with her to show her a slow breath to match my pace, which she did. After a few deep breaths, she had settled down and was no longer trapped in fits of laughter. Now she just looked exhausted. She laid her head back down on the pillow. I didn’t even think she’d remember that kiss in the morning. She curled up onto her side, and I pulled the blanket up over her. Then I walked over to my side of the bed. I looked at her, sleeping there. It looked like the effects of the drug were wearing off already and giving way to sleep.

  She was breathing deeply and quietly, and her eyes fluttered as they were probably engaged in some pretty wild drug-induced dreams. Her knees were curled up, and she had one hand up under her chin and the other down between her knees. She was such a complicated person, ev
en when she slept. I stood there for a minute, wondering if I should go sleep on the couch, but then I realized that it was probably a good idea for me to stay here with her in case there were any unusual side effects that she experienced.

  I started to take off my pants and then wondered if that would be weird, too, and if waking up in the morning while lying next to me in my boxers would completely freak her out. I didn’t care. I was going to be comfortable in my own bed after having gone to save her from Cai’s clutches. I took off my pants and shirt and climbed into the bed beside her. I kept my physical distance and stayed on my side of the mattress. I tried to close my eyes and sleep, but I couldn’t. All I could do was stare at her and think about how I kept finding myself more and more attracted to her in every way.

  I let my mind wander and entertained the question that I knew I had wanted to know the answer to. Was it possible for Hensley and me to be more than just good friends? I didn’t know yet. It definitely seemed like she preferred hanging out with Cai now more than she did with me. Although I knew that was just a bout of self-pity on my part because I knew that I was the one who had caused that. I turned on my side to face her and reached out to brush away a strand of her hair that was sticking to her lip gloss. I had tasted that lip gloss when I kissed her, with the most benign and innocuous kiss ever. I wanted to actually kiss her. I wanted to kiss her and mean it and have her kiss me back. I wanted to kiss her in a way that she would remember in the morning and to stay up all night together, kissing each other. But for tonight, I would just try to sleep on my side of the bed without touching her at all.

  I looked at her while she slept and thought about Cai and that group of models who I knew she shouldn’t have gotten wrapped up with. Cai and Kerynne were notorious for partying hard. One day, I was sure it would catch up to them. But for now, they enjoyed being reckless and wild. It was probably a good stress release for Hensley to go out with people she thought were fun and maybe even friends. But that group was only friends with themselves, and Hensley didn’t fit in with them. I had been pissed-off with Cai before, but now I was infuriated. I would have to sort out how to handle him tomorrow. I couldn’t afford to lose the rest of my models, but I also wasn’t going to ever let him lay a hand on Hensley again. I tried to close my eyes, and even though I thought I wouldn’t be able to sleep, I drifted off as soon as my eyelids shut.