Atlas rolled his eyes, tilting his chair back onto two legs. “The stuff worth watching is.”
“Speaking of hardcore porn, what happened with Ilya Ivanov when you two left the yacht together?”
Atlas’s face turned a strange, mottled purple. “Fuck that bitch.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I’m guessing it wasn’t entirely what you expected?”
“You gonna tell me what you and that Ru Snack chick got up to below deck? Fair’s fair—you want the details of my sordid one-nighter, I get the inside scoop on yours.”
“She played with my cats and we talked.” I reached for my gum, popping a piece into my mouth. “It was the most pleasant part of the evening. By a wide margin.”
“You are so fucking boring, Chewy,” Atlas scoffed. “You had a smoking hot chick all to yourself, one who likes fucking a lot, and the only pussy that got fondled was fucking Trinket?”
“It was Abernathy, actually,” I replied, somewhat smugly. “He took quite a shining to her.”
Atlas’s brows lifted before he dropped his head into his hands. “You are a lost cause, my friend. When was the last time you got fucked?”
I swallowed, refusing to answer.
But Atlas knew me too well. “It was Cadence, wasn’t it? Mate. That was six years ago! Are you still hung up on her? Because you know she’d take you back in a heartbeat now that you’re richer than fucking Jesus.”
I fixed my gaze out the office window. “I think the saying is, ‘richer than Croesus’ … and no. I am well and truly over Cadence. I just …” I rubbed my legs under the desk, finding my knees and squeezing. “Sex is not something I want … not with someone I barely even know.”
“You are so fucking weird, dude.” Atlas shook his head. “Sex with strangers is some of the hottest sex you can ever have!”
“Said like someone who has never made love to a woman he adores,” I muttered, fingers digging into my kneecaps. “You’ve finished your lunch, and I have work to do, so how about you go back to your office now.”
Atlas blew out a frustrated breath, but he got to his feet, his chair clattering back onto all fours. “Later, mate.”
I grunted in reply, and he let himself out of my office. Closing my eyes, I leaned back in my chair. I was getting no work done, not after the tangent that conversation had taken.
I grabbed my phone and wallet, heading for the door.
“Lucian,” I snapped as I left, finding him leaning against Liv’s desk, arms folded over his chest, staring at the wall. “I’m heading out.”
“Where?” he asked, straightening. His eyes flicked to Liv, who was mumbling into her Bluetooth headset, and then back to me. “Need me to tag along?”
I shook my head. “I need to swim.”
… the princess found that her world had become so routine she thought she might die of boredom. But being bored meant being safe. She refused to sneak down to the pool with Stefan for their secret swimming lessons. She stayed in her room, doing schoolwork supervised by one of the maids, who she suspected was keeping barely one lesson ahead of her.
She took her meals in her room. She only ventured out when accompanied by her maid, on the request of her uncle, when she was required to be ‘seen’ at dinners with a parade of dull old men she didn’t know. She was told in no uncertain terms these people were ‘very important’ and that she ‘must be on her best behaviour’ and ‘uphold her father’s memory’.
Her mother was never in attendance. Her cousin Stefan was, and he always tried to draw her into some hijinks or another. She ignored him, always aware of the cold, watchful eye of her uncle on her. She tried not to look at him, her mind replaying the sounds he’d made while he rutted over her mother’s prone form.
She desperately wanted to be invisible to him. So she played the part of a dutiful little princess: well behaved, well dressed and silent unless spoken to.
She hated it. But the thought of what might happen to her if she let herself be the semi-wild girl she’d been before her father died … before they’d tried to drown her in the river …
No. Boredom meant safety. Safety was more important than fun.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Goggles to Handcuff Me
IRINA
“Do you think it’s been long enough that I could go swimming?” I asked Kat, rinsing my coffee cup in the sink.
