The Stars Trilogy (33 page)

“Sexist?” he scoffed. “Come on, women have perfected that game to an art form. Men have nothing on women on this, even if history suggests that we are the dominant species. In fact, men had a lot of catching up to do in that department. But we’ve evened out the playing field nowadays. We’ve figured out your game. Turnabout is fair play, right? And Gloria secretly loves me.”

“Oh, you know Gloria? You really do?” she mocked him. He may be her boss right now but she’d be damned if she’d let him put down her species again by his full-of-it maxims.

“Sure. I have tons of mails from her minions biting and chewing at my ass like they can’t get enough of it. They are obsessed with my crap. It really turns them on but they’re forever swimming in a river called denial.”

She clenched her fists and leaned over the table, sticking out her chin at him pugnaciously. “I certainly don’t like hearing crap from men!”

“Come on, women love to be disrespected. It’s their aphrodisiac.”

It was getting worse by the second. “God, am I actually hearing this from you?! Dare Montgomery? Idol of millions of women all over the world?”

The fiend smiled unapologetically. “It’s been proven and tested many times. No need to raise your feminist hackles.”

“You disrespect women thinking it arouses them? You think it empowers them?!” She couldn’t help it. She was getting angry for real. My God, she had met sexist men but Dare would take the cake hands down!

“Yeah. 100% effective every time. Men use visuals for foreplay, women love hearing dirty, nasty words. The more disrespectful, the better. It’s like prohibited drugs to them. Dangerous but highly addictive. They always come back for more junk, no pun.”

She didn’t want to ask but she had to. This was very relevant to her mission. “Let me get this straight. When you…when you have sex with women, you disrespect them?”

“In various ways, yes. But I make them choose how they wanna be disrespected. They’re very inventive, too.”

She had read a lot about women abuse and this was giving her the chills.
God, please, don’t let my prince be a monster to the bone. I can take his frequent assholic behavior, his chauvinistic comments, his general badass attitude but if he was physically cruel…

“You hurt them?”

“Yes, but that kind of pain makes them come. I make them—”

She raised her hand. “Okay, okay! Please, I don’t wanna hear any more about that.”

“I’m sorry. Did I scare you, Celine?” he asked her, his eyes not apologetic at all but smug.

“Yes.”

They stared at each other. She forced herself not to back down from his deliberate intimidation. Sexual intimidation. Dare was a king in this arena and he knew it, too.

“If you’re thinking that I’m physically cruel to them, I’m not. It’s just adult play. It’s always consensual. I’m sure you’re mature and experienced enough to know the difference?”

Relief almost overwhelmed her. Okay, THAT kind of pain. She’d read about that, too, but it was just too much for her to take. She hadn’t even had sex the regular sweet vanilla way for Pete’s sake! Hard-core sex was beyond her comprehension at the moment. “It’s really none of my business.”

“You can make it your business.”

If they had been talking about love, she would have said yes in a heartbeat.

“Thanks, but no thanks.”

He gave a soft chuckle. “I bet you’re getting turned on right now, hearing all this crap,” he uttered oh so softly, his eyes taunting her, all too knowing.

Can he actually tell she was indeed getting aroused?

She clamped her legs tighter under the table, fighting the tell-tale signs. Her nipples tightened at the look he was giving her, at his provocative,
disrespectful
words. She was getting a dose of Dare The Player and she was both turned off, and against her better judgment, turned on. The contrasting feelings were mightily unsettling, proof that his theory had some psychological merit, in a twisted way. She didn’t want to delve into that any further.

“I don’t think I like your crappy, disrespectful tangent, dirty old man,” she said spitefully, goaded to score a hit on that maddening arrogance and insolent self-entitlement. “Too cheap for my taste.”

His brows arched. “Old? Me?”

“You’re almost a decade older. That’s VERY old in my book.”

He looked at her with a funny face, clearly stung. “This is the first time somebody actually called me old. Interesting.”

“Oh, don’t worry. You know what they say about whiskey? The older they get, the softer they go down there.” She gave him a patronizing look she normally reserved for the schmucks of the world.

His eyes turned serious. “DON’T ever use that line on any man.”

“It wasn’t a line.”

“That’s a line guaranteed to make a guy snap your bait like a bulldog to a T-bone.”

She gasped. “Bait? It was an insult! Duh!”

“You do know what’s
going down
means around here or you have language limitation? You speak excellent English.”

She flushed even more. “I meant going down my throat…I mean the stomach! You have a dirty mind!”

He smirked. “A clean mind is boring. So…wanna taste how soft this whiskey goes down your throat or your stomach?”

Player talk. She needed to learn how to do this with Dare without blushing and squirming like a novice. “Uhm…”

“It goes down smooth, alright, and it goes in hard…full…and hot.”

Goose bumps covered her skin now. Her core throbbed with that ache she now associated with him alone. Only he could bring about such wicked feelings.
Don’t think about that now while trying to raise the flag of feminism in front of this perfect specimen of assholehood!
Damn him and his crappy theories!

“Wanna know how far my line can reach your curves?” He gave her chest a lingering look. “Nice curves. This dirty old man is kinda liking this tangent.”

Time out. She couldn’t handle this. She needed more practice. “Stop it.”

“Are you getting aroused?”

“No!”

“Liar.”

“Your sexism is getting older than you, Dare.”

He leaned back in his seat and smiled unrepentantly. “I rather think I can write a book on my sexism and it would be a runaway bestseller. That’s how women love crap.”

“What’s the title? Women According to The Devil?”

He chuckled. “Catchy.”

“God, I wonder how Kelsey has put up with you all these years? You’re a PR nightmare!”

He shrugged. “Kelsey has mastered the art of selling my shit.”

“Okay, I won’t argue with that. There are women who love your shit. They’re not normal.”
I’m number one on the list, damn you!

“You said you’re my fan. Don’t you love my shit, Celine?” His eyes challenged her to lie.

“No. I’m a fan of your storied career and altruistic causes, never your sordid social life and your disgusting anti-women views.”

“Anti-women? Let’s not get too carried away. My women leave my company happy. Most of the time, at least.”

“I heard Gabby. She was VERY happy, alright.”

“Gabby didn’t leave me. I left her.”

She raised her hand again. She discovered just now, there was no winning when he was in his Nietzsche mode. “Whatever, Dare, please, respect your female fans. You owe them.”

He stared at her, the carnal glint in his eyes slowly dissolving into a casual, neutral gaze.

He nodded. “Okay. Touché, Celine.”

“Thank you.”

Her heart clenched in sadness. The diamond in Dare was getting rougher and rougher as she got to know him better. How could she ever make it shine?
Where’s my Coney Island Dare?
That young man she met a long time ago spent only thirty minutes with her and left her a lasting impression of warmth, goodness and chivalry. She cannot see that young man in this cold, hard and apathetic man sitting in front of her today.

Give up now. This guy is not worth your time. How can you be proud to introduce him to your folks when he views women in general like textbook cases of histrionic personality disorder? Your Dad will shoot him on sight and dump him in the incinerator if your brother doesn’t beat him to it. Your mother will sic the entire Gabriella women’s movement where she is a prime benefactor on his ass if she happens to overhear such appalling conversation. Or maybe, your mother will shoot him, too.

But she inhaled deeply, silencing her common sense, ignoring all the red flags flashing frantically in her head. She was young. She was entitled to at least one major risk. If it was Dare, then so be it. But this was a risk she would fight to the bone to beat.

“You know what else the tabloids have been saying?” she digressed from that scandalous and frankly disturbing subject they were discussing. She would get back to that later, when she was more equipped with experience.

“Oh, there’s something worse?”

“They say you’re Hollywood’s puppet of the people behind the New World Order.”

He raised a brow, mildly surprised. “Huh?”

“You know, Illuminati? You’re friends with Will and Tom and Brad and Jay-Z and they say you guys have a secret society or an exclusive brotherhood and you’re together to rule Hollywood. But you must all present a conservative front.”

“Really? But I’m hardly conservative.”

“Oh, but you are.”

“Yeah? Enlighten me on this, please,” he said, amused.

“You’ve been married thrice. Very conservative.”

“Have you forgotten my divorces?”

“Most tycoons I know are married, no matter the age.”

“And?”

“You know, before, I had a different view on this. But knowing what I know now...”

“Yes...?”

“Your first marriage, I believe, was emotionally motivated. But in your second marriage, that was when your idea of marriage changed. You have a two-year plan now.”

He scratched his chin. “A two-year plan. This, I gotta hear.”

“I think, marriage to you has something to do with your businesses. Are they a bunch of old school gentlemen who believe that marriage is a test of a man’s emotional stability? You know, most Republicans think that having a family will make a man more trustworthy. I’ve read about that somewhere.”

He was silent for a while and was just staring at her. Dare was a known staunch supporter of the Republicans. “You’ve really read a lot of stuff about me, haven’t you?”

“I’ve read everything there is to read about you.”

Dare stared at her harder. It was either she was speaking the truth about being his true blue fan or she was sent by someone...someone who had a secret agenda against him. To spy on him perhaps? But...why?

His connections were solid, their business interests mutually beneficial. There was no reason to change the status quo or for them to doubt his capabilities in decision-making. And for a spy, she was rather too careless in gathering information from him. But who knew about the new ways of the devious? Cruz would have to do a background check on her soon and keep an eye on her, just in case.

And yet there was something about her that was simply irresistible. He loved talking to her. She was a great communicator. He was not a talker, but with her, something inside him would automatically relax and open up. She was like an empty page and a pen, beckoning him to write and spill his guts on the clean, unblemished space. And despite the warnings of his rational mind, he found himself speaking yet again of things he held strictly confidential.

“When I offered a partnership with a major studio five years ago, they wanted me married first before they’d sign the deal. That was my second marriage.”

“That’s what I thought. It just didn’t add up that you’d need to marry when you obviously can’t keep your vows. Plus a single actor in his prime was more saleable than a married one. But then again, married or not, you were always hot.” She winked at him.

He laughed at her audacity. She was not intimidated of him one bit. He’d met really beautiful women who exuded utmost confidence but squirmed and broke under his penetrating stare but this little babe was casually interrogating him and managing to extract valuable info from him which she could sell to the rags for a fortune. “I see, you’ve figured that out.”

“What was your third marriage about?”

“A huge investment in an international corporation. You’re right. My business partners are a bunch of puritans who believe in the sanctity of marriage. They have this archaic notion that a married man would be more committed to his endeavors than a swinging bachelor for he has more to lose when his family is at stake. It’s ridiculous but it’s a brotherhood thing they all abide by. It was their way or the highway. I wanted to get in so bad, so I looked for a suitable wife who’d keep me in the front pages even if I don’t work for two years and somebody who won’t interfere with my businesses and my lifestyle. A two-year plan. You got that right, Sherlock. I’m impressed.”

“So, you marry for money. Classic.”

“What would you marry for?”

Her eyes widened in mock affront. “What else but good ole love? Unlike you, my mind wasn’t screwed up by the system, whatever that is.”

A sad smile touched his lips. “Love.” He shook his head. “You’re young. You’re entitled to your...ideals and future mistakes.”

“Ahh. So here’s the million dollar Q. You don’t believe in love?”

Dare looked away and said nothing for a while.

Celine captured the vulnerability that crossed his eyes. It was fleeting, but she saw it. From repeatedly watching his movies, she knew he wore that expression when he was acting unsure, confused or even tormented in a scene.

He wasn’t acting now.

“I believe in contracts, iron-clad contracts. Anything else is just shop talk. We humans do what our vanity and greed dictate, but most of us veil our desires and actions in fairy tales. We are ashamed to acknowledge our true nature.”

She was sorely tempted to debate his philosophy but decided not to. She didn’t want to sound so contradictory and rouse his aggravation in this particular subject that she instinctively sensed was vital to the man inside him, the man she was yearning to touch and connect with. There would be a better time for that.