“I don't think that's in the cards for us.”
“I don't know, don't be closed off to the idea. Sometimes the timing isn't convenient, but you can’t let go if you find the right one,” Brenna said.
“How do you know who the right one is?” I asked. Both of them had gotten so lucky with their husbands. On the outside, it was obvious. Charlie and Niall were both rich, attractive men but behind the scenes, both of them were incredibly generous, devoted, and caring towards their wives. In my experience, I had never met a man who could do it all like that. I had met many men, that was for sure, some of them who I thought would go the distance, but here I was, still single.
“For me, I think it was the moment when Charlie gave his mother an ultimatum when she didn't want to accept me as his partner.”
“Did that happen?” Maggie asked.
“Yeah. She was hell-bent on setting him up with a woman who in her opinion matched him better. I was honestly ready to give up because I didn't think I could stand against her, but Charlie told her that if she wanted to be part of his life and her grandchild’s life, she had to respect his decision.”
“That's so romantic,” Maggie said.
“It's like something out of a fairy tale,” Eddy remarked.
“What about you? How did you know?” Maggie asked her.
“I don't know. It was rocky in the beginning. I think at first it was the fact that we couldn't seem to stay away from each other. Circumstances kept throwing us back into each other's lives, even when I ran away. But then, I did something awful to Niall, just horrible and he still found it inside himself to understand why I did it and forgive me when he could have just as easily held it against me or even punished me for it.” She paused to explain quickly to Maggie how Riley was Niall’s biological child but because he had been conceived after a one-night stand, she had ended up hiding his paternity as she entered her first marriage.
“That's intense.” It had been. Niall was this rich man from an aristocratic family and Eddy was a widow who was in debt, even though her husband had had a minor title as well. She had thought the worst would happen if he found out the paternity of his son. With all the power and money his family had, she believed he’d use it against her to gain custody of the boy, just because he could.
I never felt bad that I was the single one in the group, the girls never held it over my head that I hadn’t found my partner and I was glad for it. I did sometimes envy their stories though. I wanted that. I didn’t think it was bad or wrong to want that, even though it made me feel a bit silly from time to time.
“I know. I'm so glad that part of our lives is over. I couldn't be happier with him.”
“I thought I would be in the same boat as you guys by now,” Maggie said. “I was positive that I had met my Mr. Right, but things went down the shitter. I had been ready to change everything, even move to be with him but things didn't work out. Honestly, I haven't fully recovered from that.”
I put an arm around her. “I totally understand.” Maggie was becoming a fast friend but I hated that this was what I had in common with her. We were both the single ones in the group, and we were both apparently miserable too. I flashed back to the darkest moments in the past when things had fallen apart.
“So, I’m not a prude? I’m not frigid?” she asked. She tried to laugh a little, but I could feel the pain behind her words.
“No, not at all,” Eddy said. “There are no rules. You can take as long as you need.”
“Absolutely,” Brenna said. She glanced at me, meaning to tell me that what she had said was for me too. It was supposed to be comforting but it was a little uncomfortable. It hit very close to home. How many times had the rug been pulled out from under me when I thought that I had something good with somebody? Maybe I was sensitive or perhaps you weren't supposed to take those things so hard, but it damaged you after a while. It made you believe that you were the issue and it made you reluctant. That's why I was reluctant.
Whether Easton was the right man or not, wasn't the question. It was me.
23
Easton
“Are you done in there?”
I thought I heard something over the sound of the shower.
“What?” I called.
“I said, are you done yet?” Missy asked. She had opened the door, but I couldn’t see her through the fogged-up shower stall. She was getting impatient.
“Yup. That’s why I’m still in here, Missy. Because I’m done.”
“It’s a simple yes or no question, Easton. Please.”
“If you’re getting impatient, why don’t you come in here and lather me up yourself?” I asked. She didn’t say anything, just shutting the door. Too bad. I was actually looking forward to her coming in here and doing it. She was a little bit unpredictable so sometimes she surprised me. I guess today wasn’t going to be one of those days.
I stood under the water, letting it run over my head and face. I didn’t want to get out. I didn’t typically take long showers, but once the shower was over, I was going to be heading out to a charity auction. It was my big night. My debut, as Missy and Toby were calling it; the first time I’d be out in public since changing my look. I felt like the prize bull at a fair. They were going to take me out and show me off.
Unenthusiastic was an understatement. There were a million and one things that I would have rather been doing tonight. I felt almost like this was a punishment. After the incident with Alex at the club, apparently, things didn’t get better once I was gone. We ended up losing the contract. It’d been over a week since that incident and Toby was still mad at me. I knew that because he never minced words when he was upset, he told me exactly what the deal was.
I would’ve rather been figuring away how to make up for that rather than doing this, but in a way that was sort of what this was. There were going to be tons of people at this event, most of them with a lot of money and a lot of them willing to give some of that money to us if we could convince them to part with it. The best-case scenario for tonight would be going to this stupid thing and leaving with a contact. Even better, more than one contact.
No pressure, then. I sighed, scrubbing my hands over my face. There was no way around it. When I was choosing this job, I never anticipated that this was going to be part of it. If I knew that, I wondered whether I would still choose the same thing. Why wasn’t I rich enough to outsource this part of the job to someone else yet?
There was no point complaining. This night had been in the making for weeks now. It was too late to back down. In reality, it was just going to be a few hours of socializing, probably getting to talk about my work, and then I could come back home. Not that bad. I tried to imagine it, running through the night in my head.
No, it was no use. I was still nervous. Probably even more nervous than I had been earlier today. I turned the shower off and wrapped myself in a towel. When I walked out of the room, Missy was waiting there for me. Her face dropped.
“I thought I told you not to get your hair wet,” she said. I honestly wasn’t thinking about that. I forgot. My mind was on other stuff. I actually hadn’t done it on purpose, surprisingly.
“It’s going to take like twenty minutes to dry, calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down.” She went to the bathroom and came back with the hairdryer. “Sit down,”
Wonderful, I had a fucking red-carpet event to try and not fuck up and Missy was pissed. She had actually done this stuff before. I needed her for tips and now she was mad. I sat and waited for her to dry my hair. It was short now, I wasn’t kidding when I said it wasn’t going to take long but now she was upset and I was nervous. The night was just getting worse and worse.
“Thank you,” I said when she turned it off, finished.
“Get dressed,” she said, not in the mood to chat or anything else. My clothes were hanging on a rack right next to the bed. The nerves started to kick in hardcore. I felt my hands shake as I pulled my clothes on. I had bee
n in active combat and I hadn’t ever been this nervous before. I knew that nerves were normal in this case but I was shitting bricks. I put on underwear and pulled on the pants. Missy came back out of the bathroom when I was putting my shirt on.
“Make sure you tuck it in,” she said.
“I know that. I’m not a toddler,” I snapped. If she wasn’t going to make tonight easier then she didn’t have to be here today. This was her idea. She and Toby were responsible for this and I didn’t know why I had to play along with this shit. I was looking in the mirror. The hair and beard weren’t weird anymore, it was everything else. It was the life I was being expected to lead now. I didn’t want this part and it didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel honest.
When I was a child, the only thing I wanted to do was catch frogs in the swimming hole all summer. I wanted to have fun. I wanted to do the things that made me happy. It was all so simple. Hunting and fishing with my dad. Having my grandfather teach me how to whittle. Even staying up all night when I was older, figuring out how to build robots. That was the person that I was, not this guy. I didn’t wear suits and go to charity balls. I wasn’t built for this. I never asked for it.
“Sit down,” Missy said to me. I looked at her trying to find a reason not to do it. I couldn’t find one. I sat. “Chin up.” I raised my chin. She started fixing my tie for me. I knew how to do it myself, but I was too distracted to pick a fight with her about it.
“Why are you upset?” she asked.
“I’m not upset.”
“You’re sulking, Easy.”
“I don’t sulk. I’m not a kid.”
“You’re getting free therapy, you might as well tell me,” she said.
“Free? Last I checked, I was paying you an arm and a leg to dress me.”
“Keep complaining and I’m going to double my rate. What’s the matter with you?” she asked. Free therapy. At this point, she was the reason why I needed therapy. The last few weeks with her had been hectic. As much as she was trying to be a calming influence right now, my feelings around her were still incredibly unsettled. I wasn’t sure how or why she expected me to return to a normal client/employer relationship after everything that happened between us. As far as I was concerned, we still had unfinished business and here she was trying to be my shrink. What did I have to lose by telling her?
“Why do I have to go to this thing?”
“Because it’s your job.”
“No, my job is design and development.”
“Yes, behind the scenes. Otherwise, you’re the face of a company. You need to network. Make friends.”
“Those people are not my friends.”
“You’re right, they’re not your friends, but they are incredibly useful contacts for you and your company, and you need to get them on your side.”
“I have enough money. The company is valued in the billions. I don’t need to make more.”
“Huge companies go bankrupt all the time. Despite what you might think, you are not yet too big to fail. If you don’t rub elbows with the right people, your contacts will dry up and all your hard work thus far will have been for nothing. Many people have business ideas, sometimes they’re quite good but they lack longevity. Don’t you want your company to have a future?”
Continuing to complain would be useless. I couldn’t get out of the event now no matter what I wanted. What I did want was to take off the suit and to spend the night here at my place with Missy. She would finally stop lying to me about not wanting to be together and we could keep each other up all night.
She handed me a belt and I slipped it through the loops in the pants. Showtime was getting closer and closer. I didn’t want to do this. I would have rather done anything but this. I hated it. I hated it.
“What are you doing?”
“Something’s wrong with the belt.”
“What is it?”
“It’s the whole thing, the pants too. They don’t feel good right here,” I told her, motioning at the crotch.
“Let me see,” she said. I ground my jaw unconsciously. I couldn’t believe this was happening. I didn’t want to go through with this. Why had I agreed to this in the first place? How fucking hard was it to get into a suit? I felt Missy’s hands on me and heard the zip of my pants coming down. I looked down. Missy had dropped to a squat on the floor and was undressing me.
“What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” she asked. I could see what she was doing, I just didn’t believe it. All she did was run hot and cold. Let me kiss and touch her, let me fuck her and then tell me that she wasn’t actually interested in anything with me. She sucked the head of my cock into her mouth and I stopped caring as much. She was good at that. Very good. I reached down for her head but she swatted my hand away.
“Unlike you, I had to pay someone to do this for me,” she said, protecting her hair.
“I do pay you, you know,” I said.
“Not for this part. I don’t want people thinking I’m a slag.”
“No, never,” I said, closing my eyes. She licked and sucked my balls into her mouth one by one. So good. So fucking good. The gala was the furthest thing from my mind. I didn’t care anymore.
“Better?” she asked.
“Huh? What?” I opened my eyes and looked down at her. I wasn’t thinking about anything other than every other part of her body where I could put my cock.
“You should just go down the carpet naked. That would make a splash.” It would. She took me deep into her throat, gagging a little. Any more of that and I’d be making a splash all over her nice dress.
“Did you…”
“Hm?” she asked. I had a feeling that if we carried on with this, I was going to be late. Toby was going to freak out and… and…
“Fuck it,” I said. I pulled her up to the bed and yanked her towards me. If I had to go to this stupid thing, I had to at least get to do this too. I pulled my pants down and took off the shirt.
“Don’t you dare throw that on the floor,” she said. The fucking clothes would be fine. I got on top of her and plunged into her depths.
“Easy,” she said.
“Hm?” I asked. I pulled all the way out of her and looked down at her. Her lips were parted and her lipstick was messed up. My fault and I had barely just begun.
24
Artemis
“Does that feel good?” he asked me. It did, but was right now the best time to have that conversation? More action please, no more talking. Come to think of it, I felt really angry at him. Not angry in the legitimate sense, just really annoyed that he was doing amazing things to me and that he knew that he was. I was the one who had initiated, I was supposed to be on top.
“Hurry up and finish already, we’re going to be late.” Instead of getting back to work, he pulled out of me completely. I was about to object when he tugged me towards him and got down on the ground between my legs. I short-circuited when he touched his mouth to my pussy. I didn’t know what I was expecting when I put his cock in my mouth but strangely, it was not this. He played dirty. He knew what he wanted, he knew he was good at it and he didn’t let me get away with a thing.
I almost didn’t want to come, just to spite him but there was no point in doing that. He infuriated me so often, what else was he even good for? He showed me what he was good for when I came, not bothering to hold back my cries. He rose from between my legs and stood, pulling me onto my feet so he was behind me.
“Hurry it up, we don’t have all night.” I was still trying to be snarky, but he was a man on a mission. He was going fast and hard. I didn’t think a quickie could feel so good. It was hot, naughty, illicit, I loved it. I wished that we had a little bit longer, but at the same time, I knew it would feel like this if we had all the time in the world. He finished quickly, shooting off into me. We didn’t have time to lay around and bask in the sexual energy teeming around us.
“Make yourself presentable, we’re leaving.” I hustled i
nto the bathroom to clean myself up and undo the damage that he had done to my makeup. This had not been in the cards for tonight, but I wasn’t going to say that I regretted it. I didn’t regret it. Now, when I thought about what we were doing, the guilt got smaller and smaller. Neither of us were doing anything wrong, and nobody was being lied to. Why couldn’t I have my fun? I didn’t hear any complaints coming from Easton. I walked out of the bathroom to find him dressed and ready to go, perfectly tidy like nothing had happened between us.
My dress for the night was in the living room. I quickly got into it, Easton helping me get zipped up. I wasn’t walking the carpet but I had to look presentable. I had a reputation to uphold, after all. When people saw him, they’d find out that I had dressed him, and I was expecting to be making contacts too. We were both unofficially doing publicity for our respective businesses. We went downstairs and got into the car. I made some last-minute makeup checks because I didn’t want to look like I had just had a quickie with my client.
Admit You Want Me: An Enemies to Lovers Romance (Irresistible Billionaires Book 3) Page 15
