Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 169305 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 847(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169305 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 847(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
The little octopus pried away my butter knife.
“They’re short on staff.” She rearranged my utensils on the wrong side, her elbow nearly touching my chest. I could hardly breathe. “The manager of the catering company said you scared someone off. You caught her on a break in the garden and kicked her out?”
“She was smoking.”
“So is this chick.” Junior threw a thumb Farrow’s way, laughing. “Smoking hot.”
Farrow tossed a smile back. “Burn in hell.”
She had no idea how close he was to this fate.
“Might take you up on that offer.” Junior rubbed his hands together. “You coming with me?”
Latching onto the steak knife, I leaned forward, leveling my eyes with Brett’s as I slammed the blade an inch from his pinky finger.
He jumped back in his seat, gasping.
“I will say this once, and I will say it nicely—never, ever, under any circumstances, look, touch, talk, or breathe in this woman’s direction. Am I understood?”
But I obviously wasn’t.
Because Brainless Brett responded by tossing his empty head back and laughing wildly, nearly coughing out a lung. “Damn, bro, chill. She’s just the help. I have a dozen like her waiting in my house if you wanna do a little switch-a-roo.”
“Junior,” Brett Senior barked from my left.
My chair scraped the floor as it shot back. I started to stand, ready to put a knife between Junior’s eyes, when two things happened at once.
One, Dallas Costa’s annoying, high-pitched voice ripped through the air as she singsonged from the foyer, “Oh, Zacharyyy.”
And two, Farrow Ballantine brushed her fingertips on my wrist to stop me.
Putting Dallas aside—all the way on another continent, if possible—I focused on Farrow’s touch.
It scorched a path through my flesh and bones.
I suppressed a hiss, jerking my hand away and fixing her with a glare. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t know.” She toyed with a small smile. “Pushing you out of your comfort zone, maybe?”
“Well, don’t. I fucking like it there.”
But the bite in my voice wasn’t there.
Nor was my knee-jerk reaction to rush into the bathroom and scrub my skin clean until I peeled off the infected layer.
A flash of Dad, dead and stiff above me, still zapped through my head, except it didn’t linger. And I didn’t have the same horrible reaction I normally had to people touching me.
All I felt was… buzzed.
And a little seasick.
Farrow backed away, blowing a loose strand of hair out of her eye as she made her exit.
Dallas leaned in to give me air kisses. “Look at all this food.”
Her big, pregnant belly poked into my personal space. A dire reminder of the thing my mother expected of me. An heir. Someone to continue the Sun bloodline.
Romeo endured Brett Junior’s bro-hug, steering him away with a finger to his forehead.
“Check that your wallet is still in your back pocket,” I hissed to Rom, shooing away a busser when he tried to collect the knife speared in front of Junior’s plate.
Let it serve as a warning for the—hopefully brief—remainder of the night.
“Everything looks so good.” Dallas clapped, bouncing on her feet as much as she could with that thing cooking in her stomach. “Other than the company, I hear.”
She was a lovely creature, Dallas Costa. With lush chestnut curls tumbling past her shoulders. Emerald doe eyes, wide smile, and a figure most men would go to World War III for.
And yet, she stirred nothing in me.
Too loud, happy, and simple for my taste.
“White truffles.” She plucked a cavatappi noodle from a shared plate with her bare hand, catapulting it past her lips. “You got this for me, didn’t you?”
“All yours, now.” I gestured for a server to fetch me another steak knife, though my appetite had already shriveled into nothing.
Dallas slapped her Birkin to Romeo’s chest and hauled the entire oblong plate off the table, rushing to dump it on her placemat.
Within the chaos, Senior and Jasper remained silent. Too starstruck by the man in front of them to worry about our meeting being interrupted.
I supposed my guests required an explanation.
With Farrow gone, I relaxed, snapping my napkin open over my lap. “Rom and Oliver consult me off the books.”
A lie, of course.
I wouldn’t take Oliver to a brothel without worrying about his conduct, let alone a business meeting. But Ollie and Rom kept me in check.
For the most part.
“Oliver von Bismarck, I assume?” Senior—who did not come from money and never ceased to be enthralled by anyone born into it—leaned forward on his elbows and ogled me. “The duke?”
“Prussian nobility.” Oliver swept into the room, clad in a pale gray three-piece suit, swiping a hand over his golden curls. Considering he did not have a job, I had no idea where he’d come from looking like this. “Quite a useless title, once you’ve gone through most willing women in the world, if I’m honest.” He stole Jasper’s untouched wine glass on his journey to his seat, placing a kiss on the crown of Dallas’ head along the way. “Looking fabulous, Mrs. Costa. How’s my goddaughter doing in there?”