“I think this pre-dates you by many years.” Casimir frowned. “He was recruited when he was seventeen and still at school.”
“But he’s a grown man now, and he had better not be involved with anyone else.” Gen looked between the two of them, dread settling on her heart. “He isn’t. Is he?”
Maxence looked at Casimir, who returned his gaze. An understanding passed between them.
Casimir said, “I’m absolutely sure he’s not seeing anyone else in a romantic sense. Arthur is loyal to a fault. Indeed, his loyalty may cause him trouble.”
“Then what are you two talking about?” Gen asked. She couldn’t fathom how else to put all that together. “He’s a drunken degenerate nobleman who is spending his earldom’s wealth as fast as he can, and his only redeeming value is that at least he’s dumping quite a bit of it on charities, but he’s not a cheater, right?”
Casimir and Maxence both leaned back in their chairs.
“Is he?” Gen asked them.
Maxence looked away.
Casimir said, “It is true that he would never cheat on you if you have a real relationship and not just, say, a distraction for the paparazzi cameras to rectify his sordid image. You’ll have to ask him about anything else.”
Unease infiltrated Gen, an acrid smoke of worry. Arthur had always been committed to making their relationship look real for the cameras. She wasn’t sure how far he would go to make it look real.
The Earl of Givesnofucks was his nickname, a real nickname, he had assured her, one that he had earned.
He wouldn’t tell her that he wanted her if he were just acting for the cameras.
He wouldn’t say that he wanted her to be his sub if it were all still just a sham.
If everything were a lie.
If it were just to manipulate her to keep his earldom and a whole Hell of a lot of money.
He wouldn’t.
Would he?
The Earldom of Severn was worth billions of dollars in real estate and funds.
How far would anyone go to keep that much money?
At that moment, Arthur returned with a beautiful, dark-haired woman on his arm. She shook Arthur off immediately and threw herself at Maxence, who had pushed himself to stand when she arrived.
The woman laughed, “Maxence!” as she tumbled into his arms.
Maxence laughed as he hugged her, thumping her on the back until he pried her arms off of himself and set her away. “Christine, darling, you remember Casimir.”
Christine shook Casimir’s hand across the table. She said, “Casimir, how are you? You’ve been holed up in California far too long. Your wedding was lovely, too, if I hadn’t told you that. How’s Rox?”
“She’s doing fine, thank you. She had to stay back home to take care of the law office, plus she’s exhausted from ‘growing a lung,’ as she puts it.”
“Home?” Christine asked, grinning at him. “California is home?”
Casimir shrugged. “It is now.”
Maxence opened his hand toward Gen. “Gen, this is Christine Grimaldi, my cousin and dear friend, and this is Genevieve Ward, who goes by ‘Gen.’ She’s Arthur’s—”
“Very dear friend,” Arthur supplied.
Gen said, “How do you do?” and held her hand out to shake.
“Oh,” Christine said, her eyes widening as she grinned harder and shook Gen’s hand. “A very dear friend. First Casimir, now Arthur. Will wonders never cease?”
“I suppose not,” Maxence said.
“Does that mean you have met someone, Maxence?” Christine asked him.
“Oh, no,” Maxence said, staring over the crowd. “Of course not.”
Other Masters
GEN was exhausted and trembling from meeting person after person after person when Arthur finally escorted her back to their hotel room.
Masters, Casimir had said.
The wrong sort of people, Maxence had said.
They wouldn’t allow Arthur to get out, Maxence had said.
Sometime during the evening, jealousy had ignited into rage, though Gen had smiled at everyone around her very Britishly.
As they left the restaurant, the four black-suited men surrounded them, the same four who had met them at the airport and shuttled them downstairs before dinner. The security team flanked them as they rode the elevator and walked the corridor to their hotel suite.
Arthur seemed to barely notice them except for a friendly head-tilt, but their presence unnerved Gen. The head guy, Magnus Jensen, had introduced himself to her earlier, but she still felt surrounded. He had brown hair and ice-blue eyes, startling in their brightness. The security guys looked ripped and bulky under their jackets.
Their suite’s balcony and wide, glass doors overlooked downtown Paris. Buildings crowded together shoulder to shoulder along the narrow streets, a forest of cubic trees in autumnal colors.
Creamy furniture filled the living room, a long couch and a generous chaise lounge, stark against the gold and brown patterned carpet. Ivory throw pillows studded every piece, lighter but still a warm tone.
Holding an electronic wand, Magnus swept the suite for devices again, just like he had when they had first arrived, while the other three checked the closets, bathroom, and in little nooks for anything else.
Gen didn’t want to speculate on what they were looking for.
She stood by the door with Arthur, who watched them as they moved around the living room and through the door to the bedroom.
They drew the thick curtains over the windows.
Pulling the drapes was probably a sensible security precaution, but Gen had never felt threatened by people looking into her windows before.
They nodded to Arthur as they left. Magnus gave Arthur a card and told him to alert them fifteen minutes before they planned to leave the suite, anytime day or night.
The door closed behind them, and Arthur flipped the locks.
Alone.
Fothergill and Pippa had their own rooms, of course.
Gen wandered through the suite, stroking her fingers over the silky couch and nudging the flat-screen television embedded in the wall that swiveled between the bedroom and the living room. It was somehow more upscale than having two televisions.
The bedroom had a white four-poster bed.
Gen paused in the doorway, tapping her fingers on the wooden trim around the door.
Everything Casimir and Maxence had been talking about spun in her head. “Arthur—”
“Yes,” he murmured in her ear.
“Oh, wow.” She hadn’t heard him sneaking up on her. The thick carpeting under her feet must have muffled his footsteps. “Um—”
He told her, “Casimir and Maxence like you.”
“They didn’t say that.”
“They didn’t have to. I can tell.”
“With your psychic ability to detect deception?” she asked.
“Because I’ve known them since we were young children. I could cite that they were leaning toward you and nodding, entirely at ease, but I know. What did you talk about while I was getting Christine?”
“They tried to get me to break attorney-client privilege about your lawsuit.”
“You could have told them anything.”
“Great. Now, you tell me.”
Arthur’s lips touched her neck. “If anything ever happens to me, tell them everything you know.”
He ran his fingers down her arms.
Gen leaned back against his chest, and his arms encircled her.
She knew that she was standing too stiffly, but she couldn’t seem to relax.
Masters.
The wrong sort of people.
They wouldn’t allow him to get out.
Other women and men.
“Arthur—”
He drew her closer to his body. His warmth passed through her thin dress and heated her back.
“What did they say to you?” he asked.
“I—nothing.”
His voice lowered. “Answer me,
pet.”
That was kind of playing dirty.
She bit her lip, but she said, “They said that you had ‘other masters.’”
Arthur sighed.
That wasn’t a denial.
Gen’s heart crushed inward. She blurted, “Do you have someone else? Do you give a fuck about me at all, or was this all just a game for you, still, for the cameras? Am I just a piece of ass to you?”
“Gen, no!” Arthur flinched backward and sounded like he’d been punched.
“Who is it?”
Arthur stepped in front of her and grabbed her chin, forcing her head up. His silvery eyes were wide. “There’s no one else. I would never, ever do that to you.”
“Then what did they mean?”
He stroked under her jawline and gripped her shoulder, but he didn’t say anything.
“Arthur?” she begged.
His five seconds had ticked by. He was thinking too much about his answer, indicating deception. He had taught her to notice it too well.
She said, “Arthur, tell me.”
He sighed, but it wasn’t a little breath of frustration. His sigh was a deep, conflicted outpouring of wretchedness. “Gen, I can’t.”
She went after him. “What kind of ‘masters’ are they? Some kinky BDSM thing that you can’t talk about like Fight Club, except that it’s Fuck Club or something? Something with masks and back rooms?”
He stared at her, his silver-blue eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”
“These masters. Maxence and Casimir were talking about your ‘other masters.’ It’s a BDSM term, right? You call the dominant person ‘master’ or ‘sir?’”
Light dawned in his silvery eyes. “No. It’s a British term. You had a pupil master for your first six months of your barrister pupillage. Now you have a pupil mistress. Our school teachers and professors are called masters.”
Gen should have been able to figure that one out. She clasped her hands in front of her. “Oh, like the potions master.”
Arthur looked up, as if to heaven for fortitude. “Yes, like the potions master.”
“So you have other bosses who are telling you things that you can’t tell me.”
“Yes,” he said, leaning toward her with his arms reaching for her.
She crossed her arms over her chest, emotionally barricading herself. “You don’t have any masters. You don’t have a boss. You don’t have a job. You run your earldom from its accumulated wealth because you’re the Earl.”
“That’s not precisely true,” Arthur said.
“You’re the Earl of Severn,” she started, watching him closely.
He nodded. “Yes.”
That looked like a true statement. “And all the money that you stand to lose is from the estate.”
Arthur bobbled his head side to side and frowned.
“Whoa! Dude! You’re supposed to disclose all your sources of income in the lawsuit!” Gen told him. The inheritance dispute was much like a divorce in a lot of ways.
“Some of the money is from my mother. She had money of her own, and she split it evenly between Christopher and me. I invested my portion with a friend. Some of it plays along with his money. As for the rest of it, friends of mine have wanted investments to start businesses, and I use that pot for such follies. I wouldn’t be able to use the earldom’s estate for such larks. The risk would be too great, but the pittance from my mother is just the thing.”
“We need to get all that in the documentation,” she said. “Whether Christopher has any claim to it is immaterial. It all needs to be listed. Are there any other sources of income that you didn’t disclose?” she demanded.
“I can’t tell you,” he repeated. “Quite honestly, even telling you that I can’t tell you is telling you too much.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t get that at all.”
“Gen, you’re going to have to trust me on this one. I promise you that there is no one else in my life but you. I haven’t touched another woman in months, not since you moved in.”
“Since I moved in! But we were pretending to be involved before that!”
“In my defense, we agree that we were only pretending at that point, and you saw the pictures of the strippers in Paris. I didn’t sleep with any of them, though.”
Gen ground her teeth. “I feel so much better about that.”
“Look, the moment you moved in, even though we were merely pretending to be in a relationship, I stopped looking at other women. I can’t even fathom being with anyone else.”
She was still a little peevish. “You sure jumped up to go talk to Christine Grimaldi.”
Arthur’s shoulders relaxed, and he stepped closer to touch her shoulders. “I retrieved her for Max. She’s his cousin. He wanted to talk to her.”
“That was totally a ploy to get you away from the table so they could pimp me, you know.”
“I’ll talk to them about it. I won’t let it happen again.” Arthur wrapped his arms around her, and Gen let her arms drift up around his waist. “I don’t want anyone but you sitting naked at my feet, pet.”
Gen sucked in a breath and was horrified at how close to a sob it sounded. “I thought that’s what it meant when you asked me to be—to be your sub. I thought that it meant that we’re—that we—”
“It does mean that. It means you’re mine.”
She sucked in another deep breath. “And then they said that you had someone else.”
He stroked her hair. “There’s no one but you. I promise. I promise.”
“But you—” she said, still upset.
“It also means that I’m yours,” he said. “I think that should be rather obvious by now. You’ve had me for months. I am utterly yours.”
He picked her up and carried her to the long couch, where he held her in his arms until they both slept, exhausted.
Shaving
THE next afternoon, Gen knocked on the door to the hotel suite’s main bathroom.
She’d never had to do that before. Back in London, she and Arthur each had their own bedroom and bathroom, plus the four other bathrooms in Arthur’s penthouse.
“Come in,” he said, his voice muffled by the door.
“You sure?”
“Of course.”
Gen nudged the door and caught sight of Arthur in the wide mirror that spanned the wall. Two sinks dotted the long counter. The glass shower stall and huge, stone-encased tub behind him reflected in the mirror beside Arthur’s image. White shaving foam covered the lower half of his face, and he was wearing a towel.
Just a towel.
His back was toward her, which meant that she had an excellent view of the way the towel clung to his sculpted butt. His lower back had those sexy dimples on both sides below his waist.
Across his broad back, tattoos of blue and red ribbons wrapped him. She hadn’t realized that one of them was almost vertical, a red stripe running from the crook of his neck and strong shoulder until it faded out in a ragged end right over his tailbone, just above the low-slung towel.
Swoon.
Arthur looked at her through the mirror and grinned. “You look lovely.”
Gen had been at the spa for hours, getting plucked, waxed, coiffed, and made up. “Thanks. Just saying hi.”
She’d totally forgotten why she’d come in there.
Shaving cream dripped off his chin and slithered down the deep channel between his abs, cresting over the washboard lumps on his torso.
“So, hi,” she said, backing out, her mouth wet with wanting him.
A half-hour later, she was dressed in the blue silk designer gown that Graham had labored to have made. It had taken her ten minutes to figure out how to put on all the sapphire and diamond jewelry.
She still needed to pee.
Arthur met her in the living room.
His silver eyes lit up. “My God, you’re beautiful.”
She said, “You say that like you’re surprised or something.”
He laughe
d and shook his head.
For the first time since she had known him, Arthur looked like a real, actual earl.
He was wearing a white-tie tuxedo, a real one. A red ribbon was tied around his neck under the white bow tie, and a four-pointed cross dangled below it. The four fleur-de-lis were enameled the same silver-blue color as Arthur’s eyes, and the circle in the center read, For God and the Empire. Medals and ribbons were stacked in a block over his left pectoral, and a big man-brooch was pinned below the ribbons. It had the same inscription about God and the Empire as the cross hanging at his throat.
She asked, “Is that some earl thing?”
“Of course,” he said, smiling, and he offered her his elbow. “Shall we go down?”
Presentation
THEY stood in a small room at the top of a staircase in the glass pyramid entrance to the Louvre. From below, Gen could hear a string quartet playing and the crowd rumbling through the walls. Above them, stars sparkled in the darkness, visible past the white spotlight shining out of the top of the pyramid that pointed toward the sky.
A few months ago, Gen could not have fathomed what kind of person would rent out the Louvre Museum for their wedding reception.
Now? Yeah, sure. She could see that. It was big enough for a crowd of very wealthy people.
Arthur asked her, “Do you want to be presented, or do you want to slip in quietly?”
“I don’t even know what all that means,” Gen said.
Arthur motioned across the room, where a short line of couples stood. “There is a staircase with a person who will announce our presence. If you want to, we should get in line soon. It’s by order of precedence, so I’m quite early in the evening,” he smirked.
“I don’t know what I should answer,” she said. “It seems kind of pompous.”
He shrugged. “Most people go through with it. It’s expected, unless you don’t want to be seen with me. You may not. I don’t know.”
“Be seen with you? Oh, you’re kidding me.”
“Casimir and Maxence will slip in because they have no dates, for obvious reasons.”
Because Casimir’s pregnant wife was still in California, and because Maxence was a priest, sort of, or he would be, probably. “Oh. I see.”
Hard Liquor: Runaway Billionaires: Arthur Duet #2 Page 10
