King of Pride (Kings of Sin #2) by Ana Huang

“It doesn’t, but thank you for that detail. Come back to me when you’ve translated dinosaur erotica.”

Kai blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“Never mind.” I didn’t want to push him too far, too fast. The poor man would probably have a heart attack if he discovered some of the books floating outside his literary bubble. “You know, you never told me why you came in on a Monday the other week.”

It’d been nagging at me since it happened. I had more important things to worry about, but not knowing the reason bothered the hell out of me, like trying and failing to remember the name of a song that sat on the tip of my tongue.

Kai recovered admirably fast from my dinosaur erotica quip. “Does it matter?”

“Maybe not in the grand scheme of things, but I’m a bartender, which means I’m also a good sounding board and therapist.” I poured his scotch and slid the glass across the counter. “A few days ago, I consoled a ramen noodle heiress because she couldn’t find her driver in the rain and had to use her hundred-thousand-dollar handbag as a makeshift umbrella. The worst part was…” I lowered my voice. “The bag was a super special limited edition, and the designer refused to make her another one.”

“Ah, the classic handbag dilemma,” Kai said sympathetically. “What a tragedy.”

“The gravest kind. We should alert the Red Cross.”

“You call, I’ll email. We should cover all the bases for a case of this magnitude.”

My smile blossomed into a full-fledged grin. I hated to admit it, but Kai was tolerable when he wasn’t being an uptight stick in the mud. More than tolerable, in fact.

“I’ll answer your question, but I have to warn you, my secrets aren’t as interesting as you presume.” He took a sip of his drink. “I learned my company’s CEO vote is happening earlier than I’d expected.” His words sparked a hazy memory of a Wall Street Journal article I’d read a few weeks ago. I usually skipped straight to the style section, but Kai’s photo had been front and center on the website. I couldn’t resist a peek, which I soon regretted. The article had been boring as hell.

“How much earlier?” I asked.

“Years. I hadn’t expected to take over until I was forty.”

Kai was only thirty-two.

“Well, that’s a good thing, right?” I reasoned. “It’s like an early promotion.”

Provided he won the vote, which he likely would. I had a feeling Kai Young never lost at anything.

A corner of his mouth tipped up. “That’s one way of looking at it, but if you knew my mother, you’d know she would never give up power this early. She says everything is fine, but…”

His eyes clouded, and my breath stilled when I pieced together the rest of his sentence. “You’re worried she’s sick.”

A pause, then a slight dip of his chin.

“She won’t tell me if she is,” he said. “Not until she can’t hide it anymore. She hates being pitied more than anything in the world.”

A deep, unsettling ache unfurled behind my ribs at the strain in his voice.

There was nothing more gut-wrenching than losing a parent. I wasn’t sure what was worse—the long, drawn-out wait for the inevitable, as with terminal diseases and illnesses, or the sudden rupture of a family, as with accidents and cruel strokes of fate.

Sometimes, I wished my father had been sick. At least then, we would’ve been prepared instead of having him yanked from us without warning.

One minute, he was there, his face filled with loving indulgence as I begged him to take me to Disneyland for my birthday. The next, he was gone. His hopes, his fears, his dreams and memories all reduced to a hollow shell of a body lying among twisted heaps of rubber and metal.

Maybe it was selfish of me. I wouldn’t have wanted him to suffer, but I also never got to say goodbye…

I swallowed the knot of emotion in my throat and forced a smile. I could wallow in the past later, when there wasn’t someone else who had more pressing concerns sitting in front of me.

“There could be dozens of other reasons why she’s stepping down early,” I said in an attempt to make Kai feel better. “For instance, she could be getting blackmailed. Or maybe she met a hot young stud on vacation and wants to spend the rest of her days cavorting with him in the Bahamas instead of listening to boring sales reports.” I paused, my brow furrowing. “Your parents are divorced, right?” I remembered reading something to that effect online. “If they aren’t, forget what I just said and stick with the blackmail.”

“They’re separated, but close enough.” A ray of amusement peeked through the cloud in Kai’s eyes. “It’s odd that I’m hoping for blackmail, isn’t it?”

“Nope. It’s the most easily solvable out of the options, and I’m guessing you don’t want to think about your mom’s sex life.”

Kai blanched.

“Right. Well, if it does end up being blackmail, let me know after you’ve dealt with it. I need some good ideas for my book.”

Those knowing dark eyes sharpened. “What book?”

Shit. I hadn’t meant to let that slip, but it was too late to take it back.

“I’m writing an erotic thriller.” I tucked my hair behind my ear with a self-conscious hand. I didn’t like talking about it with anyone except Sloane and Vivian. They wouldn’t judge me, but some people got so uppity about genre fiction. Either that, or they would ask me a million questions about my agent, publisher, and release date, none of which I had. “I’ve been working on it for a while, but I’m stuck.”