Chapter 8
DARCY
T he weekend could not come too soon. It feels like all the moons have aligned with Carlisle in town and me having a rare night off from meetings and dinners and whatever else Avery shoves into my schedule.
I need this. I really, really need this.
Working side by side with Warren this week was almost bearable. I was about to forget that blip in my self-control on the rooftop, but then today, he had to go and ask personal questions that were nearly impossible for me to answer.
What was my childhood like? Jesus H. Christ. I barely scratched the surface, and even that was enough of a connection.
It’s the way he looks at me .
And he looks a lot. Always curious, always trying to see who knows what? I’ll glance up at him randomly and find those eyes already narrowed on me, like he’s trying to figure me out, which is just perfect for me when it’s the absolute last thing he can ever do.
I let myself into my parents’ house, almost prepared for Father to call out to me from down the hall. He doesn’t, of course, and the lack of anything makes the tear in my heart tender.
“Mom?”
“In the cellar!”
I make my way to the stairs at the back of the house and follow them down to the small, cool room where she has thousands of dollars’ worth of alcohol stored. She’s standing there, tapping her shiny lips as she inspects a rack.
“Dinner plans?” I ask.
“Tobias is bringing some new girl around. Honestly, I can’t keep up with his girlfriends, and I’m at the point where I don’t want to waste another bottle of Chardonnay on a fly-by-the-night hussy.”
“That’s enough of that,” I tell her, knowing that her frustration has nothing to do with Tobias or anyone he’s dating. I’m not the only one who hasn’t processed Father’s passing. I take a bottle of Cabernet from the rack and hand it to her.
“Why can’t he be happy with one of the Satler girls? Or a Prince. Or you with émile. Junior seems to be the only one of my children interested in making me happy.”
“You know I had no problem with marrying émile.”
A scowl mars her features. “You did absolutely nothing to win him over.”
I can’t deny that part. Would I have married him?
Sure. And I’d like to think it’s not because I’m spineless and more because I have a sense of responsibility, but I’m not convinced that’s the truth.
Warren opened up thoughts today that I’ve been trying to stamp down.
I’d told him I’m where I belong, and while I desperately try to believe that, it’s not completely accurate.
Marrying émile would have secured my position in high society, but while I’ve always said I would fight for MediaCorp, I couldn’t bring myself to lock down a man I was so completely disinterested in.
émile is good-looking, of course, but he’s unpredictable, flighty, constantly impassioned by everything he sees around him, and nothing he ever said or did was enough to give me that heart-stopping, blood-burning stroke of lust I’m looking for.
I want a partner who drives me completely wild, who makes me feel like there’s no other option but to have him or quit breathing.
I know it’s not on the cards for me.
But, oh, how I wish it was.
“How are things going with the brother?” Mom asks as I follow her back up the stairs.
“They’re … going.” Warren says he’s trying, but I’m not so sure that’s the case. He likes to put on the front of being an idiot contractor, but then he’ll randomly let out something insightful, something that tells me he’s following better than he wants to be.
“You need to get a move on,” she says. “The sooner you show him what you need to, the sooner he’ll be gone. Tobias said you’ve been locked in that office together every day this week.”
My pulse rate unexpectedly spikes. “ Working .”
“Just don’t show him any more than you need to. Basic rundown, and that’s it. You’re not going anywhere.” Mom pauses on the landing, gray eyes boring into mine. “Got it?”
“I’m doing the best I can here.”
“You know that will never be enough. Try harder.”
“ Harder ?”
She has no idea what that word triggers in me.
All my life, I’ve tried harder. Be the perfect son, the perfect heir, accept all the shit life’s thrown at me, understand my parents are flawed people, but I need to be perfect.
Always. No exceptions. Because the consequences of me screwing up are far more severe than anyone else’s.
“I’m trying my absolute hardest to clean up the mess you and Dad have lumped me with so the company isn’t impacted. You’ll have to excuse me if I’m not doing it to your timeframes, but don’t you dare ever tell me I’m not trying.”
“Leave me out of this. I never wanted that man in our lives. You can thank your father for creating this mess, then dropping dead and leaving us to be the ones who have to suffer.”
“Yes, I’m sure his death was very inconvenient for you.”
And the thing is, I know my parents loved each other exactly the way anyone in their married-for-money situation can. They had respect and friendship but were ultimately tied by obligation. It’s about the best I can ever expect.
“Your father was one of the best people I’ve ever known,” Mom says. “We owe our lives to him. But that doesn’t mean that we have to be happy with him dragging that man into the spotlight and exposing a secret we’ve protected with our lives.”
With Father gone, leaving Mom a grieving widow, no one has tried to bring up Warren so far as I know.
The gossip seems to be centered around my father’s affair and how horrific it must be for the family to find out about it so close to his death.
If anything, Warren’s mother is being dragged through the mud, not only for showing up at the funeral but for taking his money.
Which, if you ask me, she had every right to take.
I talk about wanting to find the person for me. I believe Father had that, and he gave it all away. Warren’s mother isn’t the bad guy here, but I desperately need people to believe she is.
My guilt burrows deeper at the thought.
“My only regret is that Father didn’t do it sooner,” I say. “Warren should have had a seat at the table a long time ago. You know that.”
“Darcy …”
“So forgive me for doing everything I can to make sure he feels welcome.”
“Is this some kind of guilt thing?” she asks. “Why are you so intent on being this boneheaded? After everything?”
“I don’t know, Mom,” I say, walking away. “I believe it’s called being a good person.”
* * *
“Dude, what are you doing?” Carlisle yells over the music. We’re in the VIP area of some club he invited me to, sitting on a platform sectioned off from the dance floor, and I’m …
I blink my eyes back into focus. Oh, look at that. On Warren’s social media account.I groan and close my phone.
“I thought you wanted to get drunk and hook up?” he asks.
I lift my glass. “Currently working on one of those things.”
“You’re literally playing with your phone. In a club. Oooh , is it Grindr?” Carlisle snatches my phone from my grip and unlocks it. He’s my oldest friend in the world, and apparently, that means there are no boundaries between us. Or so he tells me.
“Who’s that ?” Carlisle asks, tilting his phone my way.
Warren’s still on the screen. Shirtless. At the beach. Remy and some other gorgeous individual I don’t recognize are in the background. It takes all my dwindling willpower not to stare longingly at those impressive muscles.
I clear my throat. “I suppose you’ve heard the rumors about my …” I can’t say the word brother . Not with my dick half-hard. “Father’s indiscretion?”
Carlisle’s bewildered look passes between me and the phone. “Wait. That’s your brother?”
I cringe at the word. “Technically, I suppose so.”
“What kinda answer is that?”
An answer to make me feel like less of a disgusting creep than I already do. “Yes,” I grit out. “That’s Warren’s son.”
Carlisle’s gaze pings between us again, and then his mouth falls open. “Hold up. Wait.” His lips twitch. “Maybe I’m way, way off base here, but … do you have a thing for your brother ?”
“Jesus.” I snatch my phone back and check the area around us. Thankfully, it’s too loud for anyone to have heard, but heat rushes to my face anyway. “I do not.”
“You so do,” he says, shifting closer to me. “You want your brother to slobber all over your knob.”
My stomach turns, and I think I’m going to be sick. “Shut the fuck up, right now.”
His expression sobers. “Shit. Man.” He rubs both hands over his face. “How the hell does that happen?”
“I … I don’t …”
He’s eyeing me expectantly, but talking about this is impossible. I think the only way I manage to get words out is because the tequila has loosened my tongue.
“It’s not like we grew up together. And it’s obviously not something I’m in control of.”
“Yeah, well, you kinda need to rein that in.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“Darcy, I love you. You know there’s no one else who’ll have your back like me, and I’m totally here for you. Always. But that is not something you can let happen. Imagine if it was anyone but me here right now? What if someone finds out? It’ll ruin you.”
The protective panic in his tone is really driving home how messed up this is.
All week, I’ve been telling myself it’ll pass.
That it’s fine. I’m not acting on it. It’s just my body.
No one but me will know. It’s not even that bad because it’s not like it’s Junior or Tobias I’m feeling this way about.
But seeing how my best friend is reacting, being shown the judgment that the entire world will hurl my way, is a real fucking wake-up call.
It needs to end, and it needs to end now.
“It’s nothing,” I tell him. “He’s a pretty face, and it’s been forever since I’ve had sex. After tonight, everything will be fine.”
“In that case …” He beckons a guy over who’d been hovering nearby. “Darcy, meet Kieran. You’re welcome.”
Kieran’s hot, and when he straddles my lap, I have a definite reaction to his weight there. It’s almost enough to convince myself that this whole thing with Warren really is my body’s way of telling me I need to get out already.
Just sex, and then come Monday, everything will be right in the world.
Only when I close my eyes and kiss Kieran, hand holding the back of his shaved head, I get a flash of Warren’s hair. When I cup his face, solid square jaw under my palm, I get a flash of Warren’s jaw.
His beard.
His muscle.
My blood ignites, and my cock flies past interested to desperate.
I drag the man through to the bathrooms, needing to get this blazing want out. Needing to release. To see the man I’m with in the light and focus on him and only him.
But when I push him to his knees in the cubicle, my eyes fall closed. Hand on his hair. One on his jaw. My pulse is so loud I can barely hear the way he moans and slurps around my length.
It’s Warren making the noises. Warren on his knees. His short hair scratching my palm and his tongue flicking over my slit.
And when I finally come down Warren’s throat, I can’t open my eyes then either.
Guilt crashes down hard around me, heartbeat struggling to return to its normal pace.
I’m panting, still so disgustingly turned on and unfulfilled.
It was supposed to make everything better.
But all it’s done is made it all so, so much worse.