Sweet Sinful Nights(5)

“It’s expected,” he grumbled, as she straightened the knot in his neckwear. “I swear sometimes you treat me like I’m still the baby of the family.”

“You always will be,” she said, as she finished her task and held up five fingers to remind him. Five minutes younger.

“Anyway, James wants to meet you, since you’re the face of the company. You’re the star.”

She scoffed, as she stretched her neck from side to side. “I’m absolutely not a star. Does this investor guy know it’s me, though?”

Colin arched an eyebrow. “As in, does he think he’s contracting entertainment services from Shay Sloan or from the woman who’s the object of Brent’s desire in ‘King Schmuck,’ one of the most popular viral videos in the last year?”

She rolled her eyes as she walked to the other side of the room to grab her water bottle. “I presume he knows the first,” she said, taking a sip. “How about the second?”

Colin laughed. “I’m guessing no. That’s what’s so funny about it. Brent has no f*cking clue that you’ve been under his nose all these years.”

“Well, I had no clue he was here, either, until you started talking to his business guy. I didn’t go looking him up,” she said, though that wasn’t entirely true. For the first few months after they’d split, she’d Googled Brent nearly every day. Hungry for breadcrumbs, she’d gobbled up each and every bit of information she could find, reading posts here and there in the entertainment trades about his show. But then she’d stopped searching for him regularly, because what was the point? They were through, they were over—they were done. She’d sent a friend to pick up her things from his place, and though he had called a few times in the days after he took off for L.A., she hadn’t answered. After she’d left for London, she’d tried him once or twice from overseas, but had never reached him.

Then earlier that year, the King Schmuck video had surfaced, making the rounds online and catching Colin’s eye. One evening when he was meeting her for dinner to discuss Shay’s expansion in Europe, he’d instead marched into her restaurant, slid into the booth, and thrust a phone in her face.

She’d eyed him inquisitively. “Why are you showing this to me?”

“Just watch,” he’d said insistently, and she’d zeroed in on the small screen.

Someone in the audience at a comedy club had recorded Brent. He strolled across the stage during a bit, looking far too handsome to be believed. Broader, sturdier, and older. A decade older, and she liked the way he’d aged. He shoved his hand through his hair—all that dark, soft hair.

He brought the mic to his lips. “Ever been that schmuck in a business meeting? You know which one I’m talking about. The one who has all sorts of shit up on his computer screen? You’ve seen this guy, right? He goes into a business meeting, he talks a good game, he flips open the laptop—he’s about ready to share some really key business point. Like, some big important thing. But he forgets he was watching ‘Hot, Horny Girls Who Get Off to Comedians’—wait, not that, that’s a good site.” He smiled briefly as the audience laughed. “So this guy, he forgets he was watching ‘The Postman Always Comes Twice’ or ‘Hot Girls Who Like Ugly Guys,’ and then his laptop gets plugged into the overhead. The guy is about to present at a meeting, and bam. There’s his presentation right there. On screen. Splattered for everyone to see.”

Laughter rippled through the crowd.

Shannon had craned her neck to stare at her brother. “I’m here to have dinner with you. Why do you think I want to see him talking about porn on his laptop?”

“Just trust me. I swear that’s not what the bit’s about,” he’d said, as if he’d had a naughty little secret up his sleeve, using that same kind of voice he’d relied on as a kid, when he’d tried to trick her into touching a frog or a worm. She didn’t trust that voice one bit.

But Brent had stage presence. He had that intangible quality known as charisma. Maybe it was the looks, maybe it was the charm, or maybe it was the sexy gravel of his voice. Who knew? Or maybe it was just that he was hot as hell, and he was funny. Rarely did those two traits exist in one man, but they resided in Brent, and she’d had a hard time looking away from the screen.

Brent had continued, pacing the other direction across the small stage. “So that was me. Yeah, me,” he’d said, pointing at himself, stabbing his finger against his chest. “So, I’m meeting with the head of this hotel chain, and I’m suited up, right? Got the tie, the jacket, the tailored pants,” he’d said, then glanced down at his jeans and loose T-shirt, as if to say I’m still casual when I moonlight on stage from time to time. “And we’re talking about moving my nightclubs into his hotel, and I said ‘let me show you the plans.’ And what do you think was on my screen?”

He’d stopped, shaking his head, utterly bemused with himself. That was the self-deprecating tone and expression that he alone had mastered. The one that had worked its way into her heart in seconds when they were younger and made her fall in love with him. He was so damn charming, so utterly irresistible like this. When he owned every second of who he was.

“No, it was not ‘Hot, Horny Girls Who Like Comedians,’ though that would be a f*cking awesome site. Someone needs to make that if it doesn’t exist. And I will gladly sponsor it, bankroll it, whatever. Anyway, it was my ex’s Facebook profile. Yeah. I’m that guy. That idiot. King Schmuck. That * who Facebook stalks his ex,” he’d said, then he’d stopped pacing and tapped his chest, the look on his face one of utter disdain for his own antics.