For the record, it took everything in me to tear myself away from her to head to the office. I skipped my morning run with Adam, who’d only have had a knowing look on his face if I’d turned up with the sated look on my face—so I was only too happy to pass that up.
I watched her sleep in my bed and recorded it in my mind before I left. Because it's not going to happen again. I'm not going to slip up. Won't allow myself to get lost in her pussy, her skin, the touch of her fingertips on my scars, her nails digging into my shoulders, her heels into my back as she took all of me like the good girl she is.
Now, her shoulders rise and fall as she draws in a breath to compose herself, no doubt, before she turns and tips up her chin at me. "You needed something, Mr. Warren?"
I need everything you can give me and that you can’t give me, too, and that’s why I’m going to have to let you go.
"Do you have the list of women from which I can choose a wife?" I snap.
The color fades from her cheeks. "Y-you’re going through with that?"
"Of course, I am. In fact, I’ve decided I should marry within the next week."
Her gaze widens. "The next week?"
"Enough of this faffing around, it’s time to get on with my plan."
"But—" She swallows. "But I thought that—"
"Because I fucked you, I’m not going to marry someone else?"
She winces.
"You weren't bad, especially for someone who’s so inexperienced, but your pussy isn’t made of magic that it’s going to hold me captive."
She firms her lips. "You took my virginity, you bastard."
"Do you expect me to write a poem about it?"
"I expect you to—" She shakes her head. "I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this."
"It’s good to be surprised. It keeps you on your toes. Keeps you alert and aware. Makes you a good employee."
She draws herself up to her full height. "If I had a choice, I wouldn’t be working for you."
"If I had had a choice, I wouldn’t have employed you, but here we are."
She searches my features. "I don’t understand why you paid for my mother to stay in her home."
"Because I could?" I raise a shoulder. "Don’t go reading anything into it. It was a way of buying your loyalty."
"You mean using it to blackmail me, don’t you?"
"What-fucking-ever." I stifle a fake yawn. "We done? I have an important meeting to go to.”
She visibly reddens, then turns and begins to stomp out. "Don’t forget to email me the list of potential candidates, Ms. Easton."
"Black is my favorite color." The thin woman with the scrunched-up face and lips so big they are, clearly, botoxed looks at me with a glint in her eyes.
I finish the last piece of my steak, then lean back with a sigh. "Are you sure you don’t want to eat your"—I gesture to her plate with the pile of greens on it, without dressing, as she’d requested—"uh, whatever that is."
"Oh, no, I’m not hungry." She glances down at the remnants of the meal on my plate then back at my face. "Not at all."
"And why do you want to marry me?"
"Uh, I have the bloodline. My fifth cousin is a distant relation to the Prince of Wales. Also, I know how to throw a party for a thousand people, and how to command a retinue of servants and—"
"Get gone."
"Excuse me."
I jerk my chin in the direction of the door.
Her jaw drops. "You’re joking?"
I stare at her. She swallows, then rises to her feet and stomps off.
"Which one was that?" Adam drawls as he slips into the vacated seat.
"Does it matter?" I growl.
"I’ll tell you; that was the last candidate on your shortlist."
"You trying to run my life for me?"
He raises a shoulder. "You trying to run from the reality that’s been staring you in the face all this time?"
"What’s that?"
"That you have the perfect nominee for the role, but you refuse to acknowledge it."
"Huh?" I narrow my gaze on him. "What are you talking about?"
"The woman who could be pregnant with your child as we speak," he murmurs.
"Hold on. The only woman I’ve slept with since I returned is—" my voice trails off.
"Exactly." He tilts his head. “Did you use protection?”
Realization sinks into my bones. I sit back in my seat. "Fuck."
"You did not, and you have to pay the consequences, my friend."
"She was a virgin," I say slowly. And I didn’t ask her if she was on birth control. Of course, she might be, but I didn’t check. And who was I to assume she wanted unprotected sex? I didn’t even think of using a condom. How could I be this careless? It didn’t cross my mind until Adam bought it up, which shows how distracted I’ve been by her. All the more reason to keep my distance from her. Except—if she is pregnant with my child, then— "Looks like you got ahead of the game. After all, the deal with your father was for you to marry in the next month and produce an heir in the next year, so things are going according to plan." Adam reaches for the bottle of water on the table and takes a swig. Asshole’s sworn off alcohol. Good for him. Wish I had the same restraint. But the booze is the one thing helping me forget—other than when I’m deep inside her and the noises in my head recede. And now, I have to find out if I’m paying the price for being addicted to her.
Adam places the bottle back on the table, then wipes the back of his hand over his mouth. "So, what are you going to do about it, hmm?"
Penny
"I’m coming! Jesus, if you bang on the door anymore, it’s going to break, you—" I throw open the door to the apartment I share with Mira, and freeze. There, framed in the doorway, with his shoulders filling the breadth of the entrance, wearing a suit, with his tie half-done and hair disheveled, is a very pissed off looking Sir.
He glowers at me. I shiver, then force myself to not do the obvious and drop to my knees, even though everything in me wants to when he glares at me with that look in his eyes that’s so damn sexy and dominant and hot. Why is he so hot?
"The lock on the front door is broken," he snaps.
"The landlord hasn’t gotten around to fixing it yet," I admit.
"And you opened the door without checking who it was."
"It’s you, so—" I raise a shoulder.
"It could have been someone else, someone who you didn’t know, someone who—"
"Was out to hurt me? Well, you hurt me, so it’s best you stay out then." I try to close the door, but he plants his foot in the doorway. I blow out a breath. "What do you want, Mr. Warren?"
"We need to speak."
"I don’t want to talk to you."
"You’re my employee—"
"In the office. Here, I’m not."
"Your contract requires you to work for me around the clock.”
"Eh?" I blink.