23. Cassian
23
Cassian
G lasses chinked and the soft murmur of conversation filtered out onto the terrace where I hid with a bottle of whiskey and a pack of cigarettes I’d lifted from my father’s office while he wasn’t looking. I wasn’t normally a smoker, but tonight, I needed the distraction.
The party was an exercise in lavish excess. Dad had gone the extra mile to make it more than clear to John Bale-Lyon exactly why marrying his daughter off to me, his only son, was a smart decision.
A decision I didn’t agree with.
It might have been possible to circumvent the whole ridiculous proposal, but Camilla was determined to lock me down forever. The Troll had coveted me for a very long time, and now her happy ending was in sight, she had her claws well and truly into me.
What Camilla wanted, Camilla got.
She was a spoiled little daddy’s girl.
The weather was a lot warmer here compared to Scotland, with the gardens a riot of color, even though we were well into October. The first hard frost would kill off the remaining flowers, but for now, it was lovely.
The scent of roses drifted upward, adding a touch of perfume to the smoke from my cigarette. I wondered what the guys were doing. When I left, Kyril had gone out for a run, and Milo had locked himself in his room. Landon was probably balls deep in some chick, ticking off another name on his ‘to-do’ list.
I smirked at the thought, then my smile faded when I remembered Dad telling me the engagement photos would appear in the society sections of the Sunday papers tomorrow. From that moment onwards, my sex life was officially dead in the water.
No respectable girl would touch me once the engagement became common knowledge. Not unless they were happy with a discreet one-night-stand, which most of them weren’t. Like Camilla, they wanted the house, the title, and the bottomless bank account.
With Camilla hovering by my side at every social engagement from this day forth, I had no chance of getting laid unless I hit up Raya or paid for sex.
Neither of those things was an option for me. I was too well-known. It would be all too easy for a random girl to sell her story to the press.
Government Advisor’s Engaged Son Beds Blond Lap Dancer!
The tabloids would bite their hands off for such a titillating story. Yep, I was officially fucked. And not in a good way.
“Cassian! Where are you?” Camilla’s nasal screech sent a wave of revulsion along my spine. How was I supposed to stick my dick in that cunt? I’d have to medicate myself to get the deed done. Even then, I wasn’t sure I could do it.
“Oh, there you are, darling! Our daddies are talking and your mama has gone for a rest, so I thought we could…” Her eyes drifted down my chest, taking in my unbuttoned shirt. She licked her lips and fluttered her eyes at me. “It’s been ages, Cassian,” she whined, stepping closer.
I took a step back and mentally calculated the odds of dying if I fell backward over the wall and hit the patio below. Not great . Chances were high I’d end up a paraplegic and stuck in a wheelchair for life.
Option two was to break Camilla’s neck and throw her off the balcony.
Lucian Forsyth’s Son’s Fiancée Dies in Tragic Accident During Engagement Party!
Yes, I liked that headline a lot more.
“Ages? Try never,” I scoffed. Camilla’s eyes burned with rage for a microsecond before she schooled her overworked face into a serene expression. She was only 22, but already she’d ruined whatever looks she’d been born with, thanks to an obsession with filler and Botox.
Why did girls do that? Lips inflated enough to function as a life raft were hardly a turn-on.
“You can’t avoid me forever,” she warned, continuing to eye fuck me like I was a slab of beef. I felt utterly objectified, although the irony wasn’t lost on me - I’d done much the same to Thea when she sat next to me in the lecture theater.
The only difference was, she didn’t find me repellent. Far from it, actually.
I wasn’t blind. She’d appreciated my looks as much as I’d appreciated hers.
If only Thea Ricci was my fiancée. Bedding her would be no hardship at all.
Camilla twizzled the monstrously large pink diamond my father had given her around the third finger on her left hand. It twinkled in the glow from the terrace lights.
Needless to say, I hadn’t bothered getting down on one knee. Before the ink had even dried on the wedding contract, Dad had removed the ring from the safe and given it to Camilla.
There was nothing romantic about the occasion, although Camilla almost had an orgasm when she saw the size of the diamond. She made damned sure the ring played a central role in the engagement shots taken this afternoon.
“Fuck off, Camilla.” I wasn’t in the mood to pander to her insatiable need for validation. She might be my fiancée now, but it didn’t mean we had to stay joined at the hip. As long as I accompanied her to a select few social engagements, my life was still my own. I’d made damned sure the contract specified that.
I refused to become her lapdog, and if she expected things to be different, she was deluded. Naturally, because Camilla was a stupid bitch, she decided to push it anyway.
“Cassian,” she purred, stepping closer and dragging her claws down my chest. The heavy scent of her musky perfume triggered my gag reflex, but I couldn’t step back without tumbling off the terrace.
Still tempting.
“We need to get to know each other before the wedding.”
I barked out a laugh. “I know you already, Camilla.”
She huffed with annoyance. “I meant more intimately, Cassian! Why wait until the wedding when we can start having fun now?”
Fun ? On what planet was this bitch living on?
Her hand drifted lower and rested on my belt. I recoiled in horror, thinking back to what Kyril had told us about his stepmother. No doubt he felt the same way every time she overstepped and touched him inappropriately.
“I just want a little taste of what to expect.” She pressed her fake tits into my bicep and rubbed herself against me like a cat. The urge to shove her away from me was strong, but I couldn’t hurt the silly bitch.
“Camilla,” I said in a low voice.
“Yes, Cassian?” she panted eagerly, practically salivating as I leaned in.
“Get your fucking hands off me before I rip your arms off. I’m not yours, nor will I ever be, no matter what you think. Are we clear?”
The flip switched from sweet to psycho in an instant. “You are mine!” she hissed. “Daddy says so!”
“Your daddy’s opinion doesn’t matter to me. Until we’re legally married, you don’t have permission to touch me. Are we clear?”
Rage flared in her eyes. “Daddy won’t be happy if you upset me, Cassian!” she threatened.
The chains locking my temper down creaked under the strain. I’d never hit a woman before, but my god, I was this close to knocking Camilla’s expensive porcelain veneers down her throat.
“Don’t threaten me, Camilla,” I warned her. “You won’t like what happens if you do.”
She reared back and sneered at me. “You can’t deny me forever, fiancée . Daddy says we can get married next July.”
My lips curled up in a wintry smile. “Assuming you live that long, fiancée. ”
Some of the fight left her, and she took another large step back.
“Don’t threaten me, Cassian. If anything happens to me, the contract is void, and we both know your father wouldn’t like that.”
“Cassian!” My father’s frigid voice cut through me like a chef’s boning knife. I looked up to see him standing in the open doorway, a warm glow spilling out from the room behind him. “Our guests are leaving. Please come back inside and fulfil your duties as host.” And as my son, was the unspoken subtext.
“Of course, Father.” I forced a smile and shoved past Camilla, ignoring her huff of annoyance. He glared when I walked past him, which meant I could expect a lecture once the Bale-Lyons retired to bed.
Sure enough, when the last guests had left or disappeared to their rooms, he descended on me.
“My office, now!”
“Of course.”
Dad tapped his foot impatiently as I finished pouring a fresh glass of whiskey, not bothering to dilute it with ice.
Once my glass was full to the brim, I picked up the bottle too and followed him down the hallway toward his office. Even though it was long past midnight and most of them had to rise at dawn to prepare breakfast, the house staff scurried around, clearing away the last remnants of the dinner party.
My father gave no shits about legal working hours and mandatory rest breaks. While he didn’t stoop so low as to employ illegal immigrants, he made his staff sign NDAs and if they so much as whispered a complaint in his earshot, they were gone.
“Have I not made it abundantly clear how this arrangement with Camilla is to work, Cassian?” my father snarled once the study door closed, ensuring nobody heard our conversation.
“Yes, I’m to marry Camilla, so you increase your business holdings, influence, and wealth.” I swallowed a mouthful of whiskey. “Does that cover it?”
He gritted his teeth but managed to restrain his impulse to backhand me. It wouldn’t look good if I appeared at breakfast with a black eye. Again.
“I’m doing this for you!”
“Really? Marrying me off like a virgin bride doesn’t feel like it’s for my benefit.”
“Oh come now, Cassian, we both know you’re far from being a virgin,” he sneered. “And once Camilla produces an heir, you’re free to take on a mistress or two, as long as you’re discreet.”
“Like you, you mean?” I wasn’t blind. My father had at least one woman stashed away in a Mayfair apartment.
He chuckled. “Yes, like me. It’s how things work in our world. Keep your wife happy, be discreet, and the rest falls into place.”
Only my mother wasn’t happy. She wasn’t anything these days. Father made damn sure of it. He paid private doctors a fortune to keep her medicated up to the eyeballs.
In his eyes, it was the perfect marriage.
When he needed her for social engagements, he adjusted her medication and wheeled her out like a doll. And in between times, he indulged his perverted tastes with whatever whore was flavor of the month.
How the press hadn’t caught wind of his questionable proclivities was a mystery. I could only assume he had people in the Met and MI5 on his payroll. It was the only explanation for why the faintest whiff of impropriety never saw the light of day, and also why at least two investigative journalists who’d come sniffing around had disappeared in recent years.
Father sighed, tapping his fingers on his desk. “I appreciate Camilla isn’t the easiest of women, but I need you to keep her happy. Are we clear?”
“And if I can’t keep her happy?”
“There’s no such word as can’t, Cassian. Fuck the bitch and let her spend whatever she wants.”
I pretended to consider his words while internally screaming. “What about what I want, Father? What if I want to marry for love? Live my life away from the circus of public life and your other activities? Choose a career that satisfies me?”
He stepped away from his desk and stalked across the room toward me. “I don’t give a fuck what you want. You are my son, therefore, you do as I say. Once I’m dead and buried, then you get a choice, but until then, you belong to me.” I forced myself not to lean back as his sour breath washed over me. “And don’t forget, your mother’s fate rests on you behaving.”
His threat was unambiguous. If I stepped out of line, my mother was in danger. Like always, he held her safety over my head, knowing full well that I adored her, even though she’d checked out long ago.
“I understand,” I ground out before downing the rest of my drink.
“The Bale-Lyons are leaving tomorrow, but Camilla will be back next weekend for the masked ball. Make sure you act appropriately. I don’t expect to see or hear any whispers of inappropriate behavior at the ball.”
“I thought there was a press blackout in place?” That was how he usually played it. The ball was when he let loose with his friends. It was a bacchanalian orgy of excess, coated in a veneer of respectability.
“There is, but people talk, and we don’t want any whiffs of discontent between you and Camilla before the wedding.”
“I think most people know I hate the bitch,” I pointed out.
“I don’t care what your friends think they know, but I do care what my colleagues and business associates believe, so treat Camilla with the respect she deserves at the ball.”
As much as I hated the idea of being stuck to my bitch of a fiancée at the ball, all was not lost. I had a plan in place to ensure Camilla was out of my hair for the evening.