But despite the cocktails that did indeed show up, we did not fuck. We did not even get out of our seats until we had landed safely on the private runway in Wyoming.
And that was the least of my surprises.
When we got to the car, the valet driver got out, said, “Here you are, sir,” and stepped to the side. Cassius then got in the driver’s seat. Cassius. The billionaire. The man who could pay to have a driver in all fifty states and never sweat a dime of it.
What the actual hell?
“What is this?” I said.
“A vehicle,” Cassius deadpanned.
“You know what I mean.”
“Privacy,” Cassius said.
Now my thoughts went in a very different direction. Was he going to bang me in the car?
But then I laughed. How would that work? One, it would make for terribly unsafe driving. Two, if that was his fantasy, I didn’t think the presence of a valet driver who could easily put up his window would deter him. And three, even if it did, he could just tell the valet driver to walk away while he took me in the much more spacious back.
“I see,” I said, hoping to wave off my laughter as a byproduct of the unusual moment.
I got in the front, buckled up, and took in the scenery of Jackson Hole as we drove toward some sort of distant private resort. It was chilly outside, and snow capped the mountains, dressing them as if in white gowns for the gala of nature. Quite the contrast to Vegas, where even the coldest days brought nothing more than above-freezing temperatures and the need for a windbreaker. It was almost as if Cassius needed the complete opposite type of scenery.
For what end, though? As much as I told myself it was for sex, what if it wasn’t? What if it were for something else?
A loud rumble of thunder disrupted my thoughts.
“Hmm,” Cassius muttered. “I suppose skiing is off the table if the weather is going to be like this. We’ll have to stay inside for the day.”
“Did you plan it like this?”
He looked at me as if I had said I was an alien. He snorted and turned his gaze back to the road.
“I’m powerful and rich, but I don’t control the weather,” he said. “Although perhaps I appreciate that you think I can.”
“Perhaps?”
“I can’t decide if it makes you delusional or just delighted.”
I laughed. And making me laugh even harder—he smirked. He fuckingsmirked.And it wasn’t the kind of cocky, “I control you” smirk that he’d worn before. It almost seemed genuine, like he knew he was making a joke, he knew I would laugh at it, andthat brought him delight. Maybe being out here really was for the best.
A short while later, with thunder still rumbling and lightning now visible in the far distance, though not close enough to be a safety concern, Cassius pulled up to a beautiful mansion, replete with floor-to-ceiling glass windows and mountain and ranch artwork on the inside. I didn’t even want to fathom how much such a house cost; I could only guess that it was an eight-figure home, and any thought beyond that made my head spin.Never mind how much value is in the artwork and such inside.
“You might want to grab your bags and hurry inside,” he said. “The storm doesn’t look that far off.”
“It doesn’t?”
“Out here, things happen way more quickly than you’d ever guess,” he said, the corners of his lips curling up ever so slightly—not a smirk, but a flash of one.
I took his advice to heart, grabbed my bags, and headed inside. Indeed, by the time we’d sat down on the couch in his living room—which was probably triple the size of my hotel room—rain had started to pound on the rooftop of the mansion.
“This is the first family home that we bought when we became rich,” Cassius said. “My parents always said Wyoming, Jackson Hole specifically, was their dream house. We didn’t get it until a few years ago, but we had vacationed here when we didn’t have the money that we do now.”
He put his hand on his chin, nodded silently, and sighed.
“I’ve had a lot of good times in this house. Great times with family.”
“With Virgil, too?”
