The Villain (Boston Belles, #2)(71)

“Petar’ll call the driver for you.” I tucked the cigar to the side of my mouth, texting my estate manager while she jammed her feet into the nasty pair of Manolo Blahniks that gave her blisters.

“Screw you, Kill.”

“Sounds like a plan. How about tomorrow? I have an opening at lunch. If that doesn’t work, you’ll have to wait until I’m back from work at around nine thirty.”

She turned around without a word, stomping to the door. She stopped at the threshold, her hand touching the wall as she peered at me from behind her slender shoulder.

“I’m the same as you, you know.”

“Highly doubt it.” I didn’t look up from my phone, already answering an email from my legal department. Not my finest show of gentlemanly character, but I knew if I looked at her, I’d ask her to stay.

“I like to see you squirm, too.”

A smirk touched my lips.

“That’s adorable. Aim high, Flower Girl.”

“That’s why, when I danced with Andrew Arrowsmith tonight, I agreed to his proposal,” she explained calmly.

My eyes flew up from the phone in an instant.

“What proposal?”

“Oh, lookie here.” She smiled sweetly. “Now I have your attention.”

“What proposal?” I repeated, my tone lower.

“To tutor his children.”

I saw what Arrowsmith was doing there.

Putting my wife close to my secret. To my shame. To the loaded gun in the room. Making her realize what I was, what it meant, how inferior I was to her blatant perfection.

I darted from my seat, about to give her a piece of my mind.

She lifted a hand.

“Save it, hubs. You have your conditions, and I have mine. One of them was I wanted to keep working.”

“As a pre-K teacher, not my archenemy’s au pair. This goes against the non-compete contract, which, by the way, you signed.”

“You can’t tell me what to do with my career.”

Her voice was peaceful, like the sailing clouds she loved so much.

Red-hot anger slithered in my veins. My pulse quickened.

Not good.

“I just did.” I flashed my teeth, smoke seeping from my mouth. “And I’m saying it again, for the brain cells in the back: you’re not working for Andrew Arrowsmith. See? Easy.”

She clasped her hands together, all sugar and honey. “In that case, you’re not drilling in the Arctic.”

And just like that, I was no longer in danger of asking her to stick around.

“Sorry, sweetheart, your job is riding my cock, not giving me business advice.”

She nodded. “Then yours is knocking me up, not telling me who I can visit during my weekends and who to work with.”

“This is a violation of our contract,” I warned.

She pretended to think about it, then hitched a shoulder up.

“Leave me then.”

“You know divorce is not an option,” I gritted out.

She winced. “It does take the sting out of the contract, doesn’t it?”

The little sh…

She had a point.

“I’m going to make your life very miserable if you defy me, Persephone.”

My wife waved her hand around as she slipped through my door.

“Been there, done that. Night, hubs!”





The next day, I loitered in the teachers’ lounge during my lunch break, clutching the leftover Trader’s Joe enchilada, shifting from foot to foot like a punished kid.

The welts on my butt were sore, but it was the scars Cillian left on my soul that scorched painfully.

Sex with Kill wasn’t good. No.

It was mind-blowing. Earth-shattering. Like nothing I’d experienced before.

But the swiftness in which he pulled out of me and regained his composure made me so lightheaded I couldn’t breathe. Not because I expected hours of spooning and pillow talk, but the switch from responsive to harsh gave me whiplash. The ferocity of my feelings toward him frightened me, and the need to protect him from harm’s way made me seasick.

Not just seasick, deranged. Immoral.

I’d never sacrificed my morals for Pax.

I got it now. Why Cillian paid for sex. It wasn’t that his tastes ran so much on the unconventional side. He lost control when he was with a woman. He came alive, he cursed, he let go. The layers of inhibition he wrapped himself in shed like a snake’s skin, leaving him exposed and raw. He writhed, and trembled, and growled, his heart racing erratically against my back when he entered me.

I’d gathered my belongings and scurried out of his house before he had the chance to kick me out. I couldn’t risk another rejection. Couldn’t let him walk all over me like I was the Unwelcome rug outside his mansion’s door.

I just hoped the plan I weaved at the charity event was going to work.

“Surprise!” two familiar voices screeched from behind me, pulling me out of my reverie.

I turned around to find Belle and Ash at the door, holding bags of takeout food. I discarded the half-eaten enchilada on one of the round tables.

“What’re you doing here?” I flung my arms over their shoulders, gathering them into a group hug.

“Well, Madame Mayhem doesn’t open until this evening, and staring at the wall at home got old about, let’s see”—my sister checked her Tory Burch watch—“two and a half hours ago.” She strutted in wearing a leather mini dress and an oversized, puffy sweater. Taking a seat at a free table, she unpacked her takeout bags.