Lucas wipes away a sheen of sweat from his brow. “You know, for a billionaire, you live a surprisingly ascetic life. You’re surrounded by every luxury and yet all you do is work out and work. You might as well be a hermit.”
I pull a face, starting to breathe hard. “You don’t need me hanging around you while you meet women left and right.”
He snorts. “No, I don’t. But I’m tired of you brooding all the damn time. It’s been a month since you broke things off with Kaia. Don’t you think it’s long past time that you fucking got back out there?”
At the mere mention of Kaia, I bristle. “You talk a big game for somebody that never sees the same woman twice, Lucas.”
A grin bursts over his face. “Don’t be so jealous, brother. You too can live a blessed life. You only need to say my name at the door of every sex club in New York.”
I shake my head, chuckling. “No thanks, man. I have nothing against kink, but I’m no exhibitionist. The idea of acting out every sick fantasy in front of other people? No thanks.”
My brother laughs. “Your loss.”
Otto has been quiet, presumably counting the number of lunges. My hamstrings and my ass burn through the last few reps. Sweat starts to drip off of me.
“Okay,” Otto says. “That should be a hundred.”
I push myself just a little further, doing one extra set of lunges. When I’m done, I head over to pick up a hand towel to mop my face and grab a bottle of water.
“Fuck,” Lucas says, wiping himself off with another towel. “I need you to get laid so that I don’t have to do these high intensity training sessions anymore. I like being shredded but damn, it sucks when I’m in the moment.”
“Come on. We don’t want our heart rates to drop too much,” Otto says. “Let’s do ninety sit ups.”
Taking another long pull from my water bottle, I carry another hand towel over to the center of the room. Then I get on the floor, assuming the position.
Lucas drops beside me, muttering. Otto starts counting and we begin.
“I heard that Jack was fired,” Lucas says after a minute.
That’s news to me. I slide a look of surprise at him. “Yeah?”
He chuckles. “Apparently someone with a massive amount of buying power shorted his company’s stock. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
I don’t go for the bait, even though we both know it was me. “He was a fucking bastard. He hid behind a religious mask but he was a fucking creep. I’m not sad to see him go.”
Lucas grins. “The company is basically worthless now. I had my broker sweep up everything that’s left this morning. We now own all of the remaining company.”
“Hmm,” is my only comment.
“That’s ninety! Take five minutes and then we hit the pull up bars,” Otto says.
I do a final sit up, dragging breath into my lungs. Jumping up, I wipe my face with my towel and then offer Lucas a hand up. He takes it, shaking his head at me.
“Hey, how has that private investigator that I recommended been working out so far?”
Grabbing my water bottle, I nod slowly. “Good. O’Neil has already dug up a shit ton of stuff on Honor. Believe it or not, she has made a ton of fucking enemies in her life.” I grin, pouring water into my mouth. “I can’t wait to rub her nose in it and see how fast she runs away.”
Lucas nods, wiping away sweat. “Good. You have to fight fire with fire.”
I sneak him a look. “I might have had O’Neil do some checking up on Kaia, too.”
He is mid-swallow when I say it. He looks at me, his eyes narrowing into a glare. “What? Why?”
I shrug. “My lawyer has been calling her, trying to get her to accept a final payment. But she hasn’t picked up. I got curious.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but it kind of sounds like you want to be in control of the situation.”
I scowl. “Who doesn’t like control? Especially when you have more money than god and spending a little gets you exactly what you want.”
“It doesn’t sound like it’s working out the way you had planned. I guess sweet little Kaia isn’t going to play by the rules you’ve set out.”
I scrunch my face up. “You might be right about that. Even O’Neil has had some trouble following her trail.”
Lucas looks at me, tossing his sweaty hair back. “You should just leave her be, Calum. I know that you felt you had to break off your little arrangement—“
“It would have gone sour eventually,” I cut him off. “Trust me, when there are women and a lot of money involved, it always does.”
“Well, regardless. You broke things off. And yet you are still fucking moping around your apartment and checking up on her.”
I shoot him a glare. Taking a final pull from my water bottle, I stretch my hamstring. “O’Neil said that she just applied to dance with Emerson.”
He blinks. “Yeah? I mean, if I had left New York Ballet and was looking for a new home, that would be where I went first. They are the next biggest dance company. Really the only competition for NYB.”
I suck in a deep breath. “You think I should make a call to them?”
He looks at me like I’ve grown a third head. “To Emerson? What are you going to say? I really like fucking this ballerina? You should hire her?”
Otto jogs over, ignoring the dirty look I’m shooting at my brother. “Time for pull ups.”
I’m glad for a break from being interrogated. Stalking over to the bar, I start to execute pull ups, my arms burning with the effort. When I’m done, my arms feel like jelly. I can’t draw in a full breath to save my life.
Lucas finishes half a minute later, gasping and shaking his head. “Enough! Please, five minutes…” he begs Otto.
Otto smiles. “Only five.”
Lucas turns to me, breathing hard.
“We have to get you out of this very nice black hole you’ve created for yourselves. Seriously. Why don’t we go out tonight? We can even go to the bar downstairs if that’s what you want.”
I steel my expression, showing him nothing. But inside, I remember all too well the first girl I tried to pick up after Kaia. I worked my charms effortlessly. Got her back to the bathroom, practically panting with desire. But when the time came to actually fuck her?
I caught sight of myself in the mirror. Looked at myself for a long time.
And then I turned and left that girl in the bathroom without saying a word.
I don’t tell my brother a word of this. That’s not how conversations usually go between us. But I do clap him on the shoulder.
“Another time,” I promise.
He rolls his eyes. “When is this going to be over?”
Otto cuts in. “The sooner we start doing burpees, the sooner they are over.”
Lucas groans, grabbing a fresh towel. “Kill me.”
“I’ll do everything but that,” Otto fires back. “Are you ready?”
I grab a fresh towel and get ready to really sweat. “Lay it on me. Make it hurt, Otto.”
Otto grins and rubs his hands together. “Let’s go!”
After that, I’m wrapped up in my own world of not being able to breathe and every muscle screaming with pain. But inside me, a longing for Kaia is still lodged in my chest.