Lahat ng Kabanata ng The Playboy’s Dangerous Bet: Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 10

LIVMy boyfriend, Ben, is going to propose to me any day now.We’ve been together for two years. Before him, my dating history was a blank page, no flings, no messy exes, nothing. He’s my first real boyfriend, my safe harbor, and the man I’m supposed to marry.Lately, he’s been dropping not-so-subtle hints about our future, acting secretive with his phone, and whispering behind my back with my best friend, Gia, whenever I leave the room.So, I’m waiting.Every time he suggests dinner or texts me out of the blue, my heart does a little flip, wondering if tonight is the night he drops to one knee.Honestly, that is the only reason I’m in a good enough mood to cover my sister’s bakery and coffee shop, Sweet Crumb, by myself today after her lead barista caught the flu. I do not do customer service, and I definitely do not do people before noon.Which is why I’m seconds away from kicking Gia out of the shop after she showed up an hour ago strictly to eat free pastries and judge my life ch

LIVYou want to know what actual psychological torture feels like?It isn’t being locked in a dark room.It’s sitting in the heated passenger seat of a luxury car, listening to soft jazz, while the name of your boyfriend’s secret woman beats against the inside of your skull.I stare out the window at the passing streetlights, my hands buried deep in the pockets of my coat.Roxy.Roxy.Roxy.The name repeats in my head like a skipping record. It is loud enough that I’m genuinely terrified Ben can hear it echoing over the low hum of the radio.I open my mouth, the question sitting right on the tip of my tongue. All I have to do is say it.Ben, who is Roxy?But my throat tightens, and the words choke before they reach the air.Because if I ask him, I’m admitting that some terrifying stranger in a coffee shop got under my skin. I’m making the note real.And worse, I’m risking blowing up my two-year relationship over a single name on a screen.I swallow the question down and keep my eyes g

LIVHe doesn't give me time to process the panic, or the sound of my real name on his lips.He just reaches past me, his forearm brushing my shoulder, and shoves the steel door open himself.The twin human refrigerators immediately step aside without looking at him. They don't even dare meet his eye.A wall of vibrating bass and sweet, artificial air slams into my face.I step over the threshold, bracing myself for a dark, smoky, Godfather-style den.Instead, I freeze. My boots literally glue themselves to the floor.Did a cartel boss hire Barbie as his interior designer?Gia seriously needs to fire her informants.She completely left out the part where Velvet Tears looks like a billionaire's fetishistic dollhouse.Everything is pink.The walls are draped in plush blush velvet. The VIP booths are upholstered in hot-pink leather. The bartenders are pouring pink liquor into crystal coupes, and the dozens of women dancing inside elevated glass cages are wearing nothing but bubblegum lac

KLAUSThree weeks.That’s how long I’ve been watching Olivia.That’s how long I’ve been stuck in Chicago playing babysitter to Ben’s pathetic little double life.Three weeks of trailing her through dusty bookstores and pretentious pastel coffee shops, watching her play house with a golden-boy fiancé-to-be I know for a fact is up to his neck in filth.The guy is a textbook sociopath with a gold-plated commute.Honestly, it’s a masterclass in compartmentalization.Whenever Ben flies out here from New York to check on his indie publishing office, he spends all day playing the patient, cardigan-wearing gentleman for Olivia, right before keeping his standing ten o'clock Friday reservation in a private booth at my Chicago branch of Velvet Tears.All I had to do tonight was park my courier outside her building at nine with a dress and a pre-written note, and wait for Ben to walk out her front door with a lie.Olivia, on the other hand, is a walking contradiction.She writes the kind of unhin

LIVI should have gone straight home.I should have walked into my quiet apartment, thrown the brass deadbolt, and crawled under my weighted blanket until my brain stopped functioning.Instead, I am standing on a liquor-soaked sidewalk downtown, wrapped in my wool coat and looking like a depressed librarian who just survived a mugging.For the entire fifteen-minute taxi ride across the city, I was numb.My chest felt hollowed out. Scraped clean.And now that the shock is wearing off, the panic and the doubt is crashing in hard.Did I really see what I think I saw?I didn’t even get to see the guy’s face clearly?Was it really Ben?I look up at the signpost of the bar. The Static.I’ve been to The Static exactly once in my life.It was for Gia’s twenty-sixth birthday three years ago, and I left after an hour because a drunk guy spilled a vodka cranberry all over my leather booth.I didn't even need to call Gia to know she’d be here tonight. It's Friday night, and this place is practica