The Corsakis Hotel 2
Old Enough to Know Better
When Loukas Cosse, Leon Mavros, and Aaron Stephanos turned their backs on the Corsakis heiress, Alexa was heart-broken. And so, The Corsakis, a hotel for couples living in ménages, was born out of her need to live within such a relationship. If she couldn't have one herself, she could facilitate those fortunate couples who did.
But the constant reminders of what she'd lost were a torment. For years, she lived without the men who made her whole. Hating them for spurning her, yet loving them because they belonged to her, as she did to them.
On the small island of Cyprus, a place still steeped in tradition, her desires are more than just unorthodox. But when the trio return with explanations as to their heart-breaking rejection of years before, Alexa has to question everything she ever knew if she is to accept them back into her life.
Is she brave enough to hear them out, or will she do as they did to her—reject them, but this time, lose them forever...?
Genre: Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre
Length:43,702 words
OLD ENOUGH
TO KNOW BETTER
The Corsakis Hotel 2
Serena Akeroyd
MENAGE AMOUR
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage
OLD ENOUGH TO KNOW BETTER
Copyright © 2015 by Serena Akeroyd
E-book ISBN: 978-1-63259-622-2
First E-book Publication: September 2015
Cover design by Harris Channing
All art and logo copyright © 2015 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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DEDICATION
To those who dare to be different, who choose to break their molds.
The Corsakis should be perfect for you!
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Epilogue
About the Author
OLD ENOUGH
TO KNOW BETTER
The Corsakis Hotel 2
SERENA AKEROYD
Copyright © 2015
Prologue
Nine years ago
“What’s wrong?”
Alexa shrugged and started playing with the hem of her skirt as nervousness attacked her. After graduation, she’d felt sure these feelings would go away. She’d been sick of the convent, sick of the nuns. Piety was not her watchword, and being reminded that she was a pervert? It hadn’t made her feel any better.
It had been torture going there, every day more misery. More time spent away from her guys. But college was no better. And it was even worse being with Aaron, her boyfriend, and not being with Loukas and Leon.
She loved Aaron. She really did. With all her eighteen-year-old heart was capable of loving. When he’d asked her out at her graduation party, she’d thought everything in the world had finally aligned, that it was coming to the good. But Leon and Loukas were hers too. And being with Aaron, yet not with the other two, made her feel the lack all the more.
But how did you tell a Greek man that you wanted to be with his best friends too?
He’d think she was saying he wasn’t enough.
Either that or accuse her of being a whore. A greedy slut, not content with just the one man but needing three to keep her satisfied!
It wasn’t about sex, though. It was about the connection. Surely he’d understand that?
This was Aaron. Aaron always understood.
She nibbled her lip and then sighed, unable to form the words.
“Come on, baby, it’s not like you to be quiet.”
Her nose wrinkled at that. “Is that supposed to be a compliment or an insult?”
He chuckled. “Neither. It’s a statement of fact.”
“Charming.”
“I know. Aren’t you lucky?” he teased. “Come on, spill. You’ll feel better once you start talking.”
He was right. She would. She’d known Aaron as long as she’d known Leon and Loukas. They were her best friends, her confidants, the men to whom her heart belonged.
He couldn’t understand, could he? Would she have understood if he’d come to her, telling her he loved another woman? No, she wouldn’t. But again, this was Aaron. He knew her like he knew himself. They were too close for that to even be possible. And she’d never even seen the three of them with other girls. They were always together, either that or with their friends. But mostly, they were one three-pronged unit and in more ways than they’d have her believe.
She peeked up at him. His hazel eyes were calm, as they always wer
e. Even when she’d accidentally kneed him in the groin when they’d been making out last week. He was always patient with her. Always.
Alexa sucked in a huge breath, praying that her faith in him wasn’t wasted, and whispered, “Well, it’s about Leon and Loukas…”
Chapter One
Present day
Alexandra Corsakis took a seat in her hotel’s reception. The place might belong to her, was even her namesake, yet here, she was the odd one out.
The Corsakis catered to the rich and, by most of society’s mores, the perverted. The perverted were her favorite kind of folk, though, because to her, they were who she aspired to be. She longed, craved, prayed for the day when she could share the kind of relationship her clientele enjoyed.
Her own desires were the very reason the Corsakis existed. A ménage relationship was the epitome of her womanly hopes and dreams. Not for her dreamy sighs over how her wedding would be, what she’d wear or what vows she’d write. No, for Alexandra, she just wanted to live in a functioning give-and-take ménage.
Depraved?
Maybe. If so, she was right at home, in a hotel she’d created from the ground up, which was the go-to place for people who lived in this particular lifestyle. The lucky bastards.
Sighing wistfully, Alexandra looked over her domain. She had her own suite of rooms on the top floor, the apartment where she lived and worked, and she chose to alight from her ivory tower every now and then for spot checks on quality control.
These spot checks were her lifeline to the hotel, but they were more than that. They were the only times she really left her quarters. It wasn’t that Alexa had a problem. She wasn’t agoraphobic, nor was there anything psychologically wrong with her. She chose to stay in her suite. She chose to stay there, rarely leaving unless she had to. Her reclusive nature was as intrinsic to her as her black hair and her desire to live within a foursome—not that she’d turn up her nose at a threesome.
Her staff found her strange, her board members thought her weird, and the rest of the world believed she was downright peculiar. The Corsakis heiress, hermit, and hotel owner. She had a huge question mark hovering over her head.
Not that she cared. If she cared, she’d have listened to their words, forced herself to go out when all she wanted, all she needed was at home. Her two cats, her books, a huge TV with more channels than she could watch in a year…that was all she needed.
Apart from sex, of course. Not that she’d had much of that recently.
Make that, oh, six years.
Wrinkling her nose at the thought, Alexandra watched as a triad checked in. She studied the receptionist, Iain Glenister—a new employee, recently moved from Scotland—and found his manner polite yet charming. Warm, yet unintrusive.
Before a member of staff could work here, they had to go through three months of training. Rigorous grooming for this five-, bordering six-star establishment was the only way to go. As were the countless nondisclosure agreements each had to sign.
After all, she had to protect her clients’ privacy. What was the hotel without that?
Nothing at all.
Resting an elbow on the chaise lounge, she propped her chin on her hand and carried on studying the reception. All around, luxury reigned. It had cost her a small fortune, mind, to kit out this cavernous space. Not a euro had been spared. Italian marble floors, their amber striations adding an opulent touch—she’d even created a reception desk out of that marble, a huge carved surface with the name chiseled at the front, and spanning the forty-foot-long back wall.
The walls themselves were covered in wallpaper so costly even she’d blinked at the price, but she loved the unobtrusive brocade. Cream backing with the embossed motif in a color she could only describe as crème anglaise—good enough to eat. Chaise lounges in matching tones were dotted around the room in clusters of threes and fours to cater to her guests’ unique numbers. Surrounding these groupings were walls of foliage, creating small grottoes for privacy.
At the back, there were two arms of a staircase that led to a mezzanine floor. Tucked between those arms was a huge fountain that tinkled merrily in the background. The mezzanine housed more chairs, but it was darker, had more atmosphere. Candles lined the balcony at any time of the day or night, and sandalwood incense burned even in high summer.
It was a space meant to thrill the senses, to entice someone’s sensuality out to play, and if she did say so herself, it worked. For her, it was a bittersweet torment to sit here. To have her own sexuality courted by the heady surroundings and all of it wasted because no man, never mind men, was waiting for her upstairs.
She watched as the new arrivals looked around, saw the lazy cast to their eyes, which might well have been jet lag, but Alexandra preferred to think of it as their senses coming out to party.
Sighing when her cell buzzed, she looked down at her caller ID and grimaced. “Mama, I’ve told you not to call me through the day.”
Agathe Corsakis groaned. “You’re the bloody owner, darling. Why can’t I call you?”
Alexa grinned at her mother’s perfect English accent. Only the English could say “bloody” so eloquently. “Because I’m working.”
A snort sounded down the line. “Really sounds like it. You’re in reception, not your office. I can hear the fountain in the background.”
“I’m doing a spot check,” Alexa retorted primly. “And what are you? A detective?”
Agathe pooh-poohed that. “Well then, you have time to talk to me.”
“I’m trying to concentrate, Mama. I need to focus.”
“Probably because your brain is so unaccustomed to all those different stimuli. The world can be quite exciting when you don’t experience it through a television or computer screen,” she teased.
Agathe, for all her coddling, was one of the few who thought Alexa’s hermitage was amusing and just a quirk of her nature. Her father also accepted her odd ways, declaring that he preferred her to be a recluse, for it kept her “safe” from men. Her papa didn’t see boyfriends. He saw potential rapists. The way his mind worked disturbed her at times—even if it was for love of her. Only Christ knew what he’d do if she ever managed to snare two or three guys for her own.
Most likely challenge all of them to a duel—just what she needed after all these bloody years of waiting for her Prince Charmings.
Yet, for all of her mother’s twaddle, she had to cede to her on this. Her words were accurate in this case. “You’re probably not wrong. I always find it hard to focus in the reception.”
“See, a mother always knows.”
She grunted. “I wouldn’t say always. And I think this time it was a lucky guess.”
“I’m offended. To my bones.”
“I’m sure, I’m sure. Come on then, what’s wrong?”
“Why should there be anything the matter? Can’t a woman just call her beloved daughter to chat?”
“Not you, Mama. Not through the day anyway. Partly because of my rule but partly because you’re usually asleep at this time. Which means you’re feeling guilty about something. Or angry.”
“I would hate to think I’m so predictable, child.”
“Unfortunately for you, I can read you like a book. Come on, spill.”
Agathe sighed, but it wasn’t churlish or sulky. It was loaded with a concern that had Alexa frowning. “I-I’m sorry, Alexa, I really didn’t mean to offer the invitation, but it just came out. You know what Aaron’s like. He could charm the birds from the trees, and I heard myself inviting him, the words just falling out before I could call them back.”
“Mother,” Alexa bit out, sitting up. Around her, the sounds of the reception faded away as she focused intently on her mother’s words, on the disaster that was heading her way. Because where Aaron Stephanos was concerned, that was all it could be. Disastrous. “What have you done? Because it sounds horrifically like you told Aaron he could come to my birthday party.” She shuddered. “Or even worse, that he could come and stay here
.”
Agathe cleared her throat. “I didn’t mean to.”
“Oh. My. God.”
“I’m so sorry, love. I swear, it was a mistake! He’d heard about The Corsakis, because let’s face it, who hasn’t, and it just slipped out. Blame my finishing school. I’m trained to be a hostess.”
“That doesn’t help me now, Mama! For God’s sake, you’re not even the hostess here! I am. I wish you’d stop offering free rooms like this place was your guesthouse. I have to make a profit, you know. I have to answer to my board. Not only that, it’s bloody awkward when they realize what this place is and who the guests are,” she hissed. It would have been worse than awkward if Aaron figured it out. And there was no way he wouldn’t.
Damn his gorgeous, backstabbing, clever-as-all-get-out hide.
“I know, I know. I have learned my lesson now, I swear it.”
There was guilt behind the words, but Alexa knew it wouldn’t last long. Her mother was too cheerful to dwell on the calamity she’d just placed on her daughter’s shoulders.
“When are they coming?” And it would be they. Aaron Stephanos, Loukas Cosse, and Leon Mavros were very rarely apart.
Her voice indicated she’d have preferred a visit from the Reaper.
Okay, a tad dramatic, but what the hell else was this moment? Other than dreadful, that is. The first time in close to a decade that Aaron had deigned to ask after her, to indicate he wanted to speak to her, to even query if she still breathed…she wasn’t sure what he wanted, and she was even less sure that she wanted to know!
Old Enough to Know Better [The Corsakis Hotel 2] (Siren Publishing Menage Amour) Page 1
