The Rake (Boston Belles #4)(77)

There was a point to be made. The Whitehall family had existed for so many years, had so many traditions. Who was he to dictate the end of that line? I would not allow the man to rob me out of my rightful inheritance.

“No.” I exited the car and galloped toward the front door of my office. “I was thinking we could dine in your hotel room. I have a few matters to discuss with you.”

“Is everything okay?” she asked, worried.

“Yes.” I took the stairs up to my office. “Everything’s perfect. I just had an epiphany of sorts.”

“I like epiphanies.”

You’re going to love this one.

“Devon …” she hesitated.

I pushed the glass door to my office open. Joanne was already waiting with printouts of my daily agenda and a fresh cup of coffee. I plucked them from her hand.

“Yes, Lou?”

“You haven’t called me Lou in a long time. Not for decades.”

Another pause.

“Should I … should I wear my finest silks?”

I could practically hear Louisa biting down on her lower lip.

I took a sip of my coffee, smiling grimly.

“Better yet, darling, don’t wear anything under your dress at all.”




My mother called me several times that day, skirting around the subject of Louisa without actually talking about her.

She asked about Emmabelle, if we still lived together. When I said we were, she sounded considerably less cheery.

“If Louisa and I are to have a future, the baby and Emmabelle would be a big part of my life,” I said curtly.

“But you wouldn’t move back to England,” Mum responded. “She’d chain you to Boston forever.”

“I love Boston.” I truly did. “It’s my home now.”

Whitehall Court Castle had never been more than walls full of bad memories.

During my lunch break, I went and picked a 1.50 carat cushion-cut engagement ring from Tiffany & Co.

When I got back to the office, I instructed Joanne to purchase a large bouquet of flowers and spare no expense on the task.

“You finally gonna woo that Penrose girl, my lord, sir?” Joanne couldn’t help but blurt out from behind her computer screen, munching on a celery stick that signified her fifth attempt at Weight Watchers that month. “It’s high time. A child should have a stable home, you know. A mother and a father. That’s how it was done when I was growing up, Your Highness.”

Joanne insisted on referring to me royally, even though she had no idea what to call me. She also thought the flowers were for Emmabelle. Why shouldn’t she? She had booked Sweven’s weekly OB-GYN appointments and sent cabs with me in them to pick up Belle.

“It’s not the Penrose girl,” I said shortly, blazing into my office.

Joanne darted up and followed me, her short legs moving with force I hadn’t seen from her since she had to take half a day off when her daughter went into labor.

“What do you mean it’s not the Penrose girl?” she demanded.

I settled behind my desk, powering up my laptop. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m courting another woman.”

“Courting another … Devon, is that how you folks do it in England? Because here, bigamy is illegal.”

Devon? Whatever happened to His Royal Highness lord sir?

“Belle and I aren’t married.” I waved her away.

“Only because you haven’t asked!” she boomed.

“She is uninterested.”

It was easier to admit this to a sixty-year-old woman with five kids and seven grandchildren who thought Ferrero Rocher was the height of sophistication than to do so in the ears of my mates and their wives.

“Make her interested.”

I chuckled darkly. “I tried, trust me.” In my own way, at least.

“If she wasn’t interested, she wouldn’t have let you put a baby in her, honey. Of course she’s interested. You just need to give her a little push. If you go out with someone else, you’re going to kill any chance you have with the girl, even if the relationship falls apart. And it will fall apart.”

“Louisa is an absolute gem. Lovely, well-kept and extremely stylish.”

“Those are good traits for a couch, my lord. Not a woman.”

“In a wife, too.”

I was being purposefully difficult. For some reason, I deeply wanted to catch shite for what I was about to do and knew Joanne would give it to me straight.

Heaven knows I deserved being yelled at.

Two splotches of red colored her cheeks, and she reared her head back as if I’d physically struck her.

“Wait a minute.” Jo held up a hand. “Did you just say … wife?”

“Yes.”

“But … you love Emmabelle.”

“Gawd, you Americans do love to throw this word around a lot.” I took out a rollie from a tin and tucked it into my mouth. “I, at the very most, want her companionship. But she is unavailable to me. I need to move on.”

“If you marry someone else, Your Highness, I’m afraid I’ll have to quit.”

“On what grounds?”

“Well … that you’re a turd and a half.”

Hearing Joanne use blasphemy to describe me—or anyone else in the universe, for that matter—cemented the fact that I was, indeed, a flaming piece of shite.