The Infatuation (Josh and Kat #1 , The Club #5) (27 page)

“I just...” I begin, my head reeling. “I thought we
were in a... battle to the death... I was... just trying to force
your hand.”

Why does she look like she’s about to cry?

Kat wipes her eyes again. “I’m tired of battling to
the death, Josh,” she says softly, exhaling. “Or maybe I’m just
plain tired.” She motions to her room. “You wanna fuck me, but you
don’t wanna take off your mask. Sorry, but I’m not interested.”

I’m speechless.

She exhales a long breath. “I’m just gonna get some
sleep tonight. I’m totally sleep deprived.”

“What? No. Let me come in with you.”

“Why? What’s the point?” Her blue eyes have steeled
over. “Thanks for walking me to my room.” She turns to swipe her
key-card in the lock.

“Kat, wait.” I grab her arm.

She freezes.

My pulse is pounding in my ears. How did we go from
attacking each other in the elevator to this? What just
happened?

“I’m sorry, Kat,” I say. “I... thought you’d back
down. I was just... I didn’t understand. I didn’t know it would
hurt your feelings.”

She stares at me, apparently waiting for me to
continue.

But I don’t. I don’t know what else to say.

“I think I just need a short break from the game—or
maybe I just need a little sleep. Either way, I just wanna
crash.”

“Kat, wait,” I say, squeezing her arm gently. “Let
me come in. Talk to me.”

She shakes her head. “Why won’t you just tell me
what’s in your application? How bad can it really be? I’m clearly
not Snow White—I’m sure I’ll understand. What’s the big deal at
this point?”

I don’t reply.

“Is it S&M, Josh? Is that what you’re into?
Because I wouldn’t care.”

“Just, please. Enough. Stop pushing for this. It’s
gonna backfire. Trust me. It’s gonna backfire and we won’t be able
to stuff that genie back into the bottle.”

“But if I give in now where would we go from there?”
She wipes her eyes again. “I admit I’ve fucked this up. Okay? I’ve
taken it too far, created a no-win situation—I admit that.” Her
eyes water. “But it is what it is. And now I can’t figure out an
endgame besides seeing it through to the bitter end. If I don’t
insist on it now, then it’ll always be this big ‘thing’ between us.
I’ll always wonder what the hell you’re hiding from me.”

I swallow hard. “It’s not that big a deal, okay?
It’s really not. It’s just that I don’t talk about certain things,”
I say softly. “I’m not always Happy Josh, okay? I’m not always what
I seem. And you reading that application would force me to spill my
guts to you in a way... I’m not willing to do.”

She twists her mouth. “I never spill my guts,
either, Josh. I hate spilling my guts, believe me. But if I had an
application, I’d give it to you,” she says softly. “I really would,
Josh. I’d spill my guts to you, if the situation were
reversed.”

“Easy for you to say. The situation’s not
reversed.”

“But if it were, I’d tell you my secrets.” Her lip
is trembling.

I can’t formulate a reply. She’s breaking my heart.
I don’t understand what’s happening. I haven’t even kissed this
goddamned girl and I feel like she’s got a stranglehold on my
fucking heart.

I shake my head, at a loss. I’m stuck between a rock
and a hard place. She says if she gives in and quits the battle,
she’d never trust me? But it works the same way on my end, doesn’t
it? If I tuck my dick and balls between my legs and give her what
she wants, if I act like a pussy-whipped little puss who can be
manipulated into doing puppy tricks for her, where the fuck could
we possibly go from there? We’d be doomed.

“I’m not gonna give it to you,” I say evenly. “If
you wanna get with me, then get with me. If you don’t, then don’t.
That application shouldn’t have anything to do with it, either
way.”

Her eyes are unreadable to me. She sighs. “I think
maybe we should just concentrate on saving the world for a bit,
okay? Things have gotten out of control. That’s my fault, not
yours. I’m sorry about that.” Her eyes suddenly flood with tears.
“I think we should just take a break on battling to the death for a
while—concentrate on saving the world.”

“Kat. Wait. Let me come in. Not to fuck you. Just to
be with you. Just to sleep next to you.”

“Josh, we’re obviously two suicide bombers on
opposing missions—both of us stubborn as hell. We’re not a good
combination.” She opens her door. “Thanks for walking me to my
room. I appreciate it.” She slips inside her room, and her voice
travels through the gap in the door, just before it closes. “I’m
sorry, Josh. Good night.”

Kat

“Well, to summarize,” Henn begins, “we’re dealing
with some big shit here, fellas. Like, oh my fucking God.” He
cracks a huge smile. “Totally awesome.”

We’re all gathered around the table in the early
afternoon light of Jonas and Sarah’s suite to hear the latest on
what Henn’s uncovered about The Club—much of it, apparently, after
Josh and I left the suite last night around 3:00 a.m.

Josh slipped into our meeting after me, looking
groggy and bleary-eyed, and took a seat at the table next to me,
nodding curtly as he sat down, his face tight and his eyes
unreadable.

“Just tell me—were you able to get into The Club’s
system?” Jonas asks Henn.

“No, not yet. Wherever it is, it’s buried deep,
deep, deep in the web, way deep. But I’m getting close. I’ve got
lots of breadcrumbs to follow. I’m hot on their trail, fellas. And
very pretty ladies.” He smiles at me and winks at Sarah.

“You should have seen how Henn figures things out,”
I say, pointedly not looking at Josh to my left. “He’s a
techno-Sherlock Holmes.”

“The man’s a fucking genius,” Josh adds. He puts his
right arm across the back of my chair as he speaks, but I lean
forward in my chair to avoid letting his arm cradle my back. Just
one touch and I’ll melt. And I don’t feel like melting right
now.

Josh exhales with frustration, but I don’t look at
him.

“What do we know so far?” Jonas asks.

Henn launches into telling Jonas and Sarah what he
(and Josh and I) discovered last night: namely, that The Club’s
operations are way bigger than any of us expected.

“What about a member list? Any luck on that?” Sarah
asks.

My phone buzzes with an incoming text and I take a
quick peek. Shoot. It’s from my boss. This isn’t gonna be good.
I’ve been putting her off for days.

I open the message:

“Kat!” my boss writes. “Wow, wow, wow! Just got the
signed contract and full retainer from this new client of yours!
Holy crap! Biggest up-front retainer we’ve ever landed, by far. I
know you’re in meetings all day on your new account (!), but call
me ASAP. I want to hear all the details. If you need me to fly to
Las Vegas to help you with
anything
just say the word.
Fantastic work! Of course, take as long as you need out there. Just
check in occasionally to give me an update so we can manage our
workload internally. Keep up the great work! We’ll drink champagne
when you get back!”

I keep reading and re-reading the email, not
comprehending what my eyes are seeing and feeling like I’ve slipped
into some sort of gap in the space-time continuum. Did I take acid
and not remember? Have I been roofied? What the
hell
is she
talking about?

I look at Josh, but he’s listening intently to
whatever Henn’s saying.

“The identity of that über VIP guy seems like
something we’d better nail down,” Henn is saying. “His emails are
double encrypted, but I cracked an email from Oksana to Max
forwarding one of the über VIP guy’s emails—and the guy said shit
like ‘my security personnel will post outside the door.’ He’s got
security personnel? And they ‘post’ outside doors? Like, who the
fuck says that?”

“A rock star?” Sarah suggests. “Guys like that
always have bodyguards.”

“No,” Henn says. “Not based on what I’ve seen.”

“Yeah, I know plenty of rock stars with
bodyguards—and they don’t talk like that,” Josh says.

“I’ll keep working on it,” Henn says. “Okay, so are
you guys ready for your minds to be officially blown?”

“You mean there’s
more
?” Sarah asks.

“Oh yeah. The next part is what makes this so much
fun.” Henn looks at me. “I figured this next part out right after
you left last night.”

I look at the group apologetically. “I finally had
to get some sleep.”

“That’s what happens when you don’t subsist on a
diet of caffeine and nicotine,” Henn says.

“Did you leave to get some sleep, too?” Jonas asks
Josh, flashing him a knowing look.

“Yeah, I couldn’t keep up with Henn, either,” Josh
says. “I think I left around the time Kat left.” He glances at me,
his eyes full of apology. “Maybe just a little bit later.”

It suddenly hits me like a thunderbolt:
Josh
.
Whatever my boss was just babbling about in her email, it was
Josh’s doing.

I ask Henn a question absentmindedly, requesting
clarification on something, but my mind is shifting into frenetic
overdrive. There’s no doubt in my mind: Josh contacted my boss and
requested my personal “PR services” out here in Las Vegas.

“Oh my God,” Josh mumbles in response to something
Henn just said, his entire body stiffening next to me. He pulls his
hand away from the back of my chair and rubs his eyes like he’s
blown away by something. Uh oh. I wasn’t paying attention. What did
I just miss?

“What?” I ask, my stomach twisting with dread.

“They’re funding the Ukrainian separatists,” Josh
answers, his face draining of color.

I don’t have the faintest idea what the hell that
means.

“Which means Oksana’s funding Putin through the back
door,” Jonas adds, as if that would make things clearer for me.

But it doesn’t. Ukrainian separatists? Putin? Who’s
Putin? That sounds familiar, but I forget. Wait, isn’t he that
Russian guy? Obviously, I just missed something major when my brain
was fixated on my boss’ email.

“You guys, break it down for me,” I say.
“Sorry.”

“Okay, back in the day, there was the U.S.S.R.,
right?” Jonas says. “Then it got broken up into all these
pieces—Russia and Ukraine and the Baltic states. Well, now Putin
wants to put all the pieces of mother Russia back together again,
to resurrect the former empire—and he wants the diamond of his new
Soviet Union to be Ukraine.”

“And is Ukraine down with that plan?” I ask, wishing
I’d paid more attention in my political science class in college. I
honestly don’t even know exactly where Ukraine is, to be
honest.

“No, not the official government,” Jonas says. “But
there’s a faction within Ukraine—the
separatists
—and they
want to
separate
from their government and go along with
Putin’s reunification plan. So the separatists have waged armed
conflicts with their own government, funded by the Russians.”

Jonas and Josh exchange a look of extreme
anxiety.

“Holy shitballs,” I say softly, even though,
honestly, I’m still not one hundred percent sure I get it.
Whatever’s happening, though, it’s obviously
holy-shitballs-worthy.

“Yeah, most definitely,” Henn says. “Well said.”

“We’ve got to find out who Mr. Bigwig VIP is,” Jonas
blurts. “We need to know who all the heavy hitters are. You said
congressmen are involved in this shit, right?”

“Yup,” Henn says.

“That could be really, really bad,” Josh says, his
body stiff and tight next to mine. His face looks ashen.

“Seriously. ‘Oh, hi, constituents. Please re-elect
me,’” Henn says, putting on his best congressman-voice. “‘I added
more police to our streets, got a library built, and voted to
increase the minimum wage. Oh,
and
I paid a whole bunch of
money to a Ukrainian prostitution and weapons ring to fund the
reunification of the Soviet Union. Can I count on your vote during
the next election?’”

Oooooh, I totally get it now. Leave it to Henn to
explain things in terms I can easily understand. Ooph. Holy
shitballs, indeed. This is a big deal.

“This is too big for us to handle on our own,” Sarah
declares emphatically. “We’ve got to hand this over to the FBI.”
Her eyes widen. “Or the CIA? I don’t even know which one. I mean,
jeez, I’m a first-year law student at U Dub.” She shakes her head.
“This is like, a matter of international significance—and that’s
not even an exaggeration.”

Henn talks for a while, explaining how he plans to
obtain the bad guys’ passwords and banking information, all with
the goal of uncovering data we can use to convince the good guys to
take immediate action—and, suddenly, I feel like a round hole in a
square peg. What the heckity-heck am I doing here? How can I
possibly help with all this? I know what value everyone else in
this room brings to our
Ocean’s Eleven
crew, but what on
earth is my role?

When Henn finishes talking, Sarah leaps out of her
chair like a woman possessed.

“Henn, I’m your new best friend,” she says.

She explains she’s gonna write a kick-ass report
with supporting documentation which we’ll submit to the authorities
and we all agree enthusiastically with her plan.

“Kat,” Sarah says sharply at the end of her
passionate speech, her eyes like lasers.

“Yes, ma’am.” My heart’s beating out of my chest. My
brain is in overload. I keep thinking “Holy shitballs” on an
endless loop.

“For each and every criminal count, I’m gonna need a
piece of supporting evidence—something to show them we’re not
making this stuff up,” Sarah says, looking at me. She’s in full
ass-kicking mode now. “I’ll tell you exactly what kind of thing I’m
looking for, and then you’ll go digging through whatever Henn’s
been able to find so far to get it for me. You’ll be my research
assistant.”