My Dark Romeo: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romance(112)

Christ. I’d forgotten his place was an STD lab designed to create new diseases.

I strode to the bar, studying his impressive selection. “Who said we’re going to divorce?”

Zach chuckled from the pool table. “You.”

“Several times, in fact,” Oliver added.

“Six.” On top of being a genius, Zach also appeared to possess the memory of an elephant herd. “I can recite them if you so wish, including dates and contexts.”

Oliver scratched his temple. “I think your exact words were, ‘Art rarely hangs on the same wall forever.’”

I opened the liquor fridge. “Dallas and I have reached a mutual understanding.”

“Nice try.” Oliver tucked a red-lace thong into his pocket, a swirl of smoke escaping his mouth. “You and your wife barely even speak the same fucking language.”

I tried another tactic. “If we get a divorce, it will be some time from now. I’m in no hurry. Neither is she. I have more pressing issues to tend to.”

Zach and Oliver knew my plans for Costa Industries.

And why.

I hid nothing from them, other than my complex feelings toward Dallas. But these were a recent development, and there wasn’t much to tell.

“Not that far off.” Oliver orbited his media room, unearthing pieces of lingerie in different sizes, styles, and colors, throwing them into his trash can. “She’ll want kids at some point.”

“I’ll give her that,” I snapped, annoyed.

Zach missed the cue ball, striking the side rail. Half a dozen bras tumbled out of Oliver’s hands. Both their brows kissed their hairlines.

Zach digested the news first. “Will you, now?”

I grabbed a beer bottle by its neck without even reading the label, unscrewing it. “I need an heir. She needs a hobby.”

“Since when do you need an heir?” Oliver tipped his head back and cackled. “Last we spoke about the subject, you developed a crust of hymen over your cock to avoid children.”

“Someone needs to inherit my fortune.”

Zach re-racked the pool table. “Pull a Gates and MacKenzie Scott. Donate most of it.”

“Do you know me?” I scowled. “If Philanthropy met me in a dark alley, it would play dead, and I would still kill it just for the blood sport.”

He clucked his tongue, chalking the tip of his pool cue.

“So, what I’m taking from this is that you’re absolutely, certainly, without a doubt fucking your wife.” Oliver finished fumigating his man cave of his hookups’ lingerie and graduated to collecting empty condom wrappers from the floor. Why on Earth did I think this brothel was worthy of my wedding? “And that she gives great head.”

“Lernaean Hydra.” Zach nodded. “One head isn’t enough to chip the ice. I’m thinking five, minimum.”

“Stop talking about my sex life,” I barked.

Oliver grinned. “Is her sister eighteen yet?”

I hurled my half-full beer in his direction.

Jackass.





I didn’t visit Dallas’s room that night.

Mainly to prove to myself that I still had control over the matter.

Our time together was not compulsory. I wasn’t obsessed.

In fact, I did not miss her warmth and cunt and kisses at all.

Not as I laid in my frigid, too-vast bed.

And not as I stared at the ceiling, wondering what fresh hell I would prepare for Madison Licht tomorrow.





From the start, Dallas scheduled Christmas with her family while I spent it with mine.

An arrangement we had made in the rare times we’d spoken before shedding our clothes. One we thought would work well.

Problem was, I’d wondered how I would tolerate five entire days without Dallas beside me.

The haunting prospect urged me to try an experiment.

I planned to avoid Shortbread for a few days to prove to myself that I could, indeed, live my life without sinking my cock and tongue inside her, just as I had the thirty-one years prior to meeting her.

On the first day, I came home late enough that she’d already fallen asleep.

On the second, I arrived with a guest. Oliver. That would surely keep her at bay.

To my surprise, Shortbread wasn’t in the kitchen when we entered, her natural habitat. She wasn’t in the living room or my study, either.

(In the latter, she enjoyed reading and leaving snack crumbs, just to remind me I’d never have a tidy house again.) Oliver helped himself to whatever Hettie had prepared earlier, while I pretended not to be puzzled by Dallas’s behavior.

“Hettie,” I barked, interrupting her struggle into a puffer jacket. “Is Shor—Dallas here?”

She turned, frowning. “Isn’t it the official first sale of the fourteenth Henry Plotkin book? She’s probably lined up in front of the Potomac Yards Barnes & Noble, trying to snatch a signed first edition.”

Of course.

She loved those silly books.

I peered outside, scowling. Snow piled in giant white boulders. “Was she bundled up when she left?”

Oliver’s head shot up from the bowl of pepper pot soup. He gaped at me, a spoon tumbling out of his lips.

“Oh, I didn’t actually see her leave. I’ve been present shopping.” Hettie triple-wrapped a scarf around her neck, shoving her hands into mittens.