Ménage Material [La Belle sans la Bete Ménages] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)

by Akeroyd, Serena

  When she lifted her leg and slipped his shaft free from her cunt, a small, nameless sound worked at the back of his throat. It quivered down into a sigh when the two of them curled up either side of him, tucking themselves against his body.

  He’d always known that he’d be the foundation of such a relationship. Be it because he was the partner who had brought the trio together, or simply because of his age. But these two were his to love, his to protect.

  He’d done a piss-poor job of it by not paying the blackmailer, even though deep down he’d never wanted to pay the ransom. As Devvy had said, that was no way to live a life. Forever waiting for the next demand.

  When he had the strength to actually move, sit up and read the headlines, he knew he was ready for whatever hit him.

  He had to be. It was his job to safeguard these two.

  He sighed at the thought, one that filled him with pleasure rather than irritation. There was nothing else he wanted to do, nowhere else he wanted to be than here. Right at this minute.

  When he considered all the euros he had in the hundreds of banks around the world, none if it held any value in comparison to this. The fruition of a long held dream, where reality was sweeter than the original aspiration.

  A stubbled jaw rasped against his arm, jerking him from his thoughts. Alexei’s silent nudge made him sigh. “Go on, cher. Hit me with it.”

  He grunted. “It’s both worse and better than we thought.”

  “Straightaway, it’s pretty damned shit. That means there’s definitely something in the papers!” Devvy complained, although she didn’t sound too perturbed. He watched her sit up, noticed the delightful sway of her tits as she moved. His mouth watered, but he pushed the spark of arousal to the sidelines. Now was not the time.

  Even if his cock didn’t agree.

  It was probably a sign of what this woman did to him. Without even meaning to, she switched his attention from a major calamity and reverted it to herself, and the delight he found in her.

  The papers rustled as she read the headlines, and with a sigh, he focused on the article. “Well, I don’t understand all of it.”

  Alexei snorted. “I need to enroll you in a French course. Either that, or coerce you with sex to learn it.”

  She blew a raspberry. “Some of us can’t walk on water, Saint Alexei!”

  “Enfants, enfants!” Bastien chided.

  Devvy chuckled. “I understood that!” She rubbed his leg. “Like I said, I don’t understand the headline, but the picture says it all. Honey, you didn’t have a hope in hell of stopping the blackmailer from releasing this. One of the pictures is from yesterday afternoon. It’s of Alexei and me coming into the house.”

  At that, Bastien frowned. He shot up, relieved that the action didn’t have his head pounding, and grabbed the paper.

  Ménage Material read the headline. He grimaced as he sloughed through the text, reading gossip and rumor, all of it libelous.

  “You’ll make a pretty penny out of the libel court,” Alex remarked.

  “Like we need more money!” Devvy retorted, leaning over to slap her hand down on Alex’s calf.

  “You can give it to your favorite charity,” he defended himself. “My foundation is always in need of more donations.”

  “One of your better ideas, Alex,” he told him and turned to page three, where more pictures could be found.

  There was a picture of “Madame Jacques” entering the building where “Monsieur Ivanov’s” mother lived. Another picture of Sebastien and Alexei at a charity function, stood beside each other as they watched over the event. They’d never hidden their relationship from the press, nor had they made anything public. The shadowy depths of their partnership enabled the papers to form an opinion of their own and create a slant that suited the headline.

  “At least they haven’t come out and called you gay, Bastien,” Alexei said. “I mean, that would be a lot worse for Devvy, wouldn’t it?”

  Devvy grimaced. “Let me see, I can be painted as the poor wife, having to endure a cheating husband’s affairs. And not just with other women, but men! Or I can be a slatternly wife, too greedy just to have the one man in her bed. I need two!” She paused a second, obviously thinking her words through.

  The minute she laughed, Bastien felt faint with relief.

  She climbed onto her knees and knelt in front of them, bold, proud, and uncaring of her nudity. She clapped her hands in delight. “Oh yes, I far prefer this angle. I can’t wait to hear what my mother has to say.” Devvy grinned. “She can hardly accuse me of being unattractive now, can she? I’ve got two men in my bed!” She rubbed her hands together. “And not just any men. Sebastien Jacques and Alexei Ivanov!”

  “I think she’s far too happy about this,” Alexei commented wryly.

  Bastien shot him a quelling look. “Don’t complain,” he muttered under his breath in French.

  Alex shook his head, a wide grin creasing his jaw. “I’m not,” he told him. “Look at her, she’s brimming with confidence.”

  “Stop talking in French, you two!” she complained, her head bowed over the papers. “Don’t you know it’s rude?”

  “In fairness, petite, we can’t always help it,” Bastien told her softly, tugging the second paper from her hands to study its contents.

  A La Belle sans la Bête Marriage Or Merger? read the next headline. The article following this one was far more cautious, not as libelous and damaging, even though they had mentioned the company.

  The pictures were the same, although they’d dug up a few from five years ago, when Bastien and Alexei hadn’t exactly separated, but had taken a time out from one another. There was nothing blatant about the image, but Bastien was surrounded by men in a nightclub filled with men and a handful of women. Where the hell they’d managed to get such a photo, he wasn’t entirely sure. That was probably more damning than the other pictures put together!

  Alexei, thanks to never going out, was relatively unscathed from the photographic attack. Aside from the pictures of his and Devvy’s visit to his mother’s apartment and their entering Les Fenêtres, that was it.

  He grimaced at the picture of him in the gay nightclub. “The one time I even go into such a place and some fucker took a photo.”

  “Should I be jealous?” Alexei asked, brow cocked as he studied the photo.

  “Hardly!” Bastien snapped. “That was the time I went to London, remember? For that conference. The one where, the night before, you decided you needed some space.” He glared at Alex, still affronted by the memory. “Space! God, we’ve never even lived together and he asked me for space,” he complained to Devvy, who merely patted him on the knee.

  Alex grunted and reached for the two final papers. He glanced through the articles, looked at the photos, and sighed. “I think we are relatively safe. Although, it’s unusual for each paper to have the same shots of yesterday, non? They’re hardly exclusives.”

  “I don’t know. That’s the only way they can infer something’s going on. They’ve made a big deal out of the fact my wife was visiting your mother. And that the two of you are holding hands.”

  Devvy snorted. “I didn’t realize because I’m married, I wasn’t allowed to go into other people’s mother’s homes! For all they know, we could be friends!”

  “The images are hardly damaging, Devvy,” Alex told her. “It’s all fabricated anyway. The only reason it’s in some of the more conservative papers and not just the gossip rags is because of Bastien’s position. Plus, the fact I’m a recluse. This will all blow over, especially when Bastien sues them for damages.”

  “As long as my mother can’t handle the shame, that’s all that matters.” She rubbed her hands together again, suddenly looking very bloodthirsty. “I was rather looking forward to being banished.”

  When he and Alex shook their heads, she just grinned. “Liberation, mes chers. Crossing the Atlantic didn’t do it. It just took you two to corrupt me.”

  With that, she bounce
d over, presenting them both with a delicious image of her jiggling tits, pressed kisses to both their mouths, and then leapt off the bed.

  Her direction, the bathroom.

  Her intention, to start her day.

  Her mood, jubilant.

  Bastien realized no matter how long he lived, he would never understand women. More importantly, Devvy would never cease to stop surprising him.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Hmm?” Devvy muttered into the phone as she looked down at her notes and highlighted a formulaic error in the recipe for her anti-acne soap.

  She’d finally settled on a reason why the tea tree oil and witch-hazel combination was drying out the skin and wanted to test out the concoction with reduced levels of tea tree oil but with an added extra—salicylic acid, which would help with acne breakouts. She was also interested in a recent study that indicated thyme, the herb, could also help treat acne, and one of her new tweaked recipes included the herb oil.

  With Alex working at her back, the mood in his salon was studious. Her mind was focused on her formulae, this morning’s headline drama well-forgotten.

  “Devvy?”

  Bastien’s voice had her smiling as she added another note to the margin of her recipe. “Hey, sweetie. You don’t usually call so early.”

  “No.”

  The one word answer finally got her full attention. She frowned, her eyes flickering over to Alex as he worked on his huge-ass whiteboard in the lounge of his penthouse. As soon as they’d breakfasted this morning at Les Fenêtres, Bastien had gone out to face the world, and shoving two fingers up at society and the potential photographers following them, Devvy and Alex had returned to the penthouse. With a lot less drama than yesterday’s excursion, too.

  It had taken Alex only five minutes to work up the courage to cross the threshold. Twice, he’d tried to turn back, but she’d persevered and walked him to the car. Shutting him in before he could jump out and rush into the house again.

  She wanted him there on a full-time basis, but not because he was stuck. She wanted him to want to be there.

  That wasn’t too much to ask, was it?

  Snorting at the thought, she murmured, “Is everything okay, honey?”

  For a second, Devvy thought her husband was crying. Considering she’d never seen or heard him being anything less than strident, strong, in control of himself and the others around him, Devvy found it hard to imagine. Not that she would have judged him for showing his emotions. Hell, she’d have inwardly celebrated, seeing it as being a step forward in their relationship.

  What with the blackmail and Sebastien finally telling them the news that he was interested in pulling out of La Belle sans la Bête, it was safe to say he wasn’t a natural sharer.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked, starting to get concerned at the prolonged silence, and the faint muffled sounds of what she thought was him crying.

  Sebastien wasn’t the sort to just call and then say nothing. Everything had a purpose. He was too busy to waste time on meaningless phone calls.

  Alex’s back was to her, his study on the whiteboard fierce as he glared at the mumble-jumbled mass of letters, words, and numbers.

  She managed to stand and make it out of the room without disturbing him or attracting his attention.

  The instant she made it into the kitchen, she grabbed the kettle, turned on the tap, and filled it. Using the sound of running water to cover her, she asked, “It’s something to do with the blackmailer, isn’t it?”

  A harsh breath was her only reply and then, her earlier suspicions were confirmed as Bastien finally retorted, his words thick with tears, “Yes.”

  “I didn’t think he’d get in touch so soon.” She shook her head at her naiveté, because when else would there be a better time? With all of them having to deal with the repercussions of today’s headlines, when better to remind them of what the fucker was capable of doing. “What is it? Another threat? Or a demand? What?”

  More silence.

  Knowing that whatever the sick fuck who was intent on playing with their lives for monetary gain wanted was bad enough to drive her stalwart husband to tears had Devvy feeling sick.

  At the same time, she knew if Sebastien was weak, she had to be strong. Just like he was strong, when she was the frail one.

  She couldn’t afford to snap at him, demand he talk to her. She had to be patient.

  This was the first time he’d come to her with a real problem. It was the first time he’d needed her. She didn’t want to let him down.

  “Talk to me, sweetheart,” she told him, her voice low. With the kettle overflowing, she turned off the faucet and switched it on. The sounds of the machine working replaced the water.

  Whatever it was, she felt sure it had to do with Alexei. For Sebastien to call her and not come to the apartment to speak with them both, the threat had to revolve around their absentminded genius. She needed Alexei’s attention to remain fixed on his work, while she dealt with the repercussions of whatever Bastien had to say.

  “I didn’t know,” he muttered eventually. “Nineteen years together, nearly twenty, and he never told me.”

  Rather than ask what Alexei had never shared, she murmured, “Whatever’s been sent through might be lies. You can’t automatically trust in the words of a blackmailer.”

  Bastien released a shuddering breath. “I hope to God it’s not true. But they were right about Alex and me.”

  She scoffed, “A friend of my parents over in the US was spreading gossip about the two of you. You might have managed to keep your relationship on the down-low for a long time, but word still spread. You know what they say, there’s no smoke without fire.”

  “Exactly. That’s what frightens me the most,” he rasped. “Threatening to out the pair of us…it was something I might pay blackmail money for, just so I could protect my marriage, my good name.

  “This is different. This is…it has to be the truth. Asking Alexei would immediately provide me with the answer.”

  “Not if the blackmailer worded it in such a way as to tug at your heartstrings, make you want to protect him,” she pointed out. “And what have you done? You called me, not him. If it was as easy as asking him, you’d have done it already.”

  “I don’t dispute that, but think about what you just said. Our relationship, Alex and I, that was slander. The threat had no real base. Outside of my wanting to protect my name and my marriage.

  “This is…you’re right, it’s worded to make me want to protect him. Why, if I weren’t in a relationship with him, would I want to protect him? Why would I care enough to pay off this fucker?”

  Devvy’s stomach started to churn at his reasoning. “You’re saying that he wasn’t guessing, when he made the original threat. He knew you were together.”

  “Exactly. If he knew that, then why shouldn’t this be true?”

  She nibbled her lip. “Can you tell me what this is?”

  “Dieu, Devvy. The threat…it says Alex was abused as a child. Raped by his mother’s partner. For years,” he breathed, sounding on the verge of sobbing. “Years!”

  For a second, the words didn’t penetrate. She stood, in Alexei’s kitchen, another expanse of space filled only with the basic requirements to make the room a cooking space.

  More minimalism.

  As the words sank in, Devvy thought back to that first time they’d slept together. When, out of nowhere, Alex had had a panic attack. When he’d curled on the floor, as naive and as frightened as a child. The next morning, vowing to share his secret with her someday. She looked back to her own reaction to his mother’s odd behavior…

  She thought of the open, empty spaces of his penthouse. His need for freedom. Yet, his inability to leave the penthouse. His safe zone. Where no one could touch him. Where he was perpetually safe.

  Devvy was no psychologist, but she was pretty damned certain child abuse could explain a lot of this away.

  “Devvy?” Bastien asked, smashing t
hrough her thoughts like a hammer slammed through the icy covering of a lake in winter. “Mignonne?”

  “What do they want?” was all she said, not sure if she could even talk about this until she’d processed what it meant.

  What the ramifications were.

  Alexei’s obsession with finding a third, someone he considered untarnished and capable of loving Bastien the right way.

  This morning wasn’t the first time she’d heard mentions of Alexei breaking the two of them up in the past. Bastien had said he’d been heading out on business, when Alexei had called wanting a break…

  The way he distanced himself from them. Hiding in his lab, when he ought to have been with them.

  His relationship with his mother…her obsessive ways and his veiled scorn of who and what she was as a person.

  A ragged sob tore through the kitchen. It was timed perfectly with the climactic whistle of the kettle. It covered the sound and enabled her to sag against the kitchen counter, before slowly sliding down to the floor.

  In her gut, deep down, she knew this was true.

  She prayed to God she was wrong. She’d pay off the blackmailer, pay him millions to keep something like this hidden, and wouldn’t care if it was all lies. She hoped it was. But she knew it wasn’t.

  Alex thought the two of them were similar, because they shared similar backgrounds educationally. They’d both been raised in classes where their so-called peers were a good two, three, or four years older than they. They’d both had to survive in an adult world at too young an age. They’d both mastered their sciences, and were at the top of their game.

  And while Devvy had her little quirks, like hating the mornings and never wanting to get out of bed, they were nothing in comparison to the systematic routines Alex had.

  “You believe the threat, don’t you?” Sebastien whispered down the line, his voice strangled.

  “You do, too,” she retorted, knowing Sebastien had followed the same reasoning as she herself had. Reasoning that made it very easy to believe Alexei had been sexually abused as a child.