CHAPTER ONE - Barclay
“Do you want to come on a date to a castle? Not a real one, just a fake one.”
Those were the words that fell out of my mouth as I stared down at the prettiest little thing Rippton U had to offer.
Genie Lockwood.
Cute, sweet, and nothing like my fucked up mess of an ex.
And I screwed my chances with her the moment I ballsed up enough to ask her out.
But as always, Genie surprised me.
“The castle, or the date?” She tilted her heart shaped face up and pierced me with those burnt honey eyes that read the lies etched on my soul.
“I beg your pardon?” Twenty-one years of immaculate chevalier training kicked in and preserved my pasty ass.
“Barclay Augustus Chesterfield. Pay attention. Which one is the fake part? I mean, a crappy cardboard castle sounds terrible but a fake date I can do.” She smiled brightly, though her eyes remained curious.
Now she thinks I’m a fucking loon.
Not that she’d be wrong.
I coughed into my fist, my cheeks heating as a pretty girl watched me with equally pretty eyes. “Uh, no. The castle is real.”
“Awesome.” She bounced a little on the balls of her feet and beamed at me. “Where are we going?”
“France?” I winced as her eyebrows rose. “I mean, that’s where the family dinner is, and I need a date. It’s about two hours west of Paris. And… I might have told my mother I had a plus one,” I muttered, breaking eye contact and tried not to wince.
Fail .
Not my finest moment.
“Okay.” She beamed at me, all cute and stunning and droolworthy.
I closed my mouth with a wet-sounding snap. “You're coming?" I couldn't keep the surprise out of my tone.
“I mean, I’ll be your fake date, Barclay.” She shimmied her shoulders, that same cheeky glint in her eye. Wait. Was my crush flirting with me? “When is it?" She still had that curiosity over conflict expression, but rather than being shy like I expected, she looked more… excited.
I nodded like a fucking bobble head dog. "You know, I've had a crush on you for the last two years."
Two years I’d been at Rippton U where I enrolled my English-French noble ass to get the fuck out of Dodge…or at least the hell away from my responsibilities.
The elite private college seemed a good place to make new friends and discover fresh enemies and screw everything that walked past without regard to gender. Being away from France gave me the ultimate freedom, which I paid a hefty price tag for, though the multimillion dollar personal tithe all students paid barely scratched the surface of my bank account.
Genie laughed, a tinkling sound that turned every head in the courtyard. "Of course, I know you’ve been crushing on me, Barclay.” She patted my arm. “The trip will be fun. When do we leave?"
"Tonight?" I raised both eyebrows. Asking about mundane things like clothes, packing, or passports never crossed my mind. Genie Lockwood was heiress to one of Europe’s largest luxury brands. She probably travelled more than I did.
And just like me she was off boarded to Ripton U to learn a little American, uh, culture, and to make the connections with the other offspring of the ridiculously wealthy that would take her future empire higher.
She smiled and tossed her hair over her shoulder. “I think I can do that. France is quite lovely. See you when you pick me up."
When I expected her to turn away, she caught me in her piercing gaze again, raised up onto her toes, and brushed those plush, dusky pink lips across my cheek. A series of tingles sparkled across my shoulders and right to the base of my spine.
"Will do, " I managed to force out past dry lips, staring more like an American than the hybrid French–British marquess that I was.
Genie sashayed away, and my eyes fell to those luxurious hips with curves just large enough to fill my palms. I wanted to hold onto her and bang all night long like my life depended on it.
A few steps along her genteel retreat, she gave a little wiggle.
I stared.
Was that a happy dance?
I shook my head and headed back to the Kingsman's house, wondering why it was suddenly me who wasn’t sure what the hell I got myself into, and not her.
"Not the armor again. Jesus wept, Barclay." Beau Bennett folded his arms and blocked my progress along the upstairs hallway of the Kingsman frat house.
The house where I lived for the past two years and left when an offer to get the hell out of the sights of this asshole came up. Beau Bennett was scarier than my grandmother on my English side, and that was saying something.
I straightened, tugging at the bowtie at my throat with one finger, and strangled the thick rope connected to the ancient chest scraping its way along the plush carpeting in my wake with the other.
Time to fess up.
"Okay, so my lazy ass didn't move all the armor last time when I left, and I have to reclaim this. Plus, I'll get castrated by someone so much worse than you if I don't take it back.” The concept of not returning to France without the entire contingent of family armor didn’t bear thinking about.
Beau’s eyes narrowed, and I became the sole focus of his attention. "Why?”
One word, and the man gave me whiplash.
I froze like a Rippton U goalie against an oncoming Blackstone U opposing team hellbent on our mutual destruction. The last time I flirted with him, Beau ended up with both the girls I wanted, fucking them publicly on party night. The whole debacle left me whimpering after my conniving ex and becoming involved with her again turned out to be a poor choice in a long line of equally shitty decisions.
I moved out of the Kingsman house to get the fuck away from Bennett and his ilk the following week, preferring the mixed odd company of the rockstar, the geek, the goth girl, and the tennis champion who made up my current household.
Along with the rest of the family armor.
Not taking the whole lot with me at the time seemed remiss at this point, but I hated sweating.
Just another fucking poor decision on the Bennett-Barclay train.
Which brought me back to the asshat blocking my path with broad shoulders and suck-me-off worthy lips.
"Move," I said tightly, flapping a hand at him.
"If I don't?" Beau’s dark eyes glinted as he stared me down.
I'll find the Claymore and cut off your goddam balls.
My mouth kept mum on that one, thank fucking God. Otherwise, it would've been somebody else who got castrated. My mother wouldn't be pleased to miss out on doing it for me.
"Move." I shoved aside my exhaustion.
The Kingsman attic was dry, dusty and made up of fifteen feet and twelve steps of utter hell that no one but me ventured into for the past fifty years. Sweat trickled into the crevices in my elbows and along my back, itchy fingers trailing in a slow procession to the small of my back.
I straightened to my full height and planted my feet squarely, managing to stare him down, gaining half an inch on his height thanks to the stout heels on my Italian loafers.
Beau blinked. The corner of his mouth lifted in a fleeting smile. "That was… Cute."
My dick started to harden.
"Don’t fucking flirt with me,” I snapped. “Go play with some other goddamn lord, like Nelson. Besides, don't you have your own Toy?” I trotted on out his pet term for the girl he loved to fuck not so quietly around the house with the sort of showmanship that made him forget why he clung to her so tightly int he first place.
Beau Bennet wasn’t half as untouchable as he thought.
One instant, a snarky remark, and all the humor left his face. "That wasn't smart.”
I smirked, just to shit him further. "Probably not.”
“ Barclay ," cried a soft voice I recognized from the way the asshole made her scream loud enough to ruin a good night’s sleep for the entire household. Those cries on nights while I lay beside my ex-cum-girlfriend-turned-psycho left her voice utterly recognizable and me very damn lonely with my cock in my hand.
A dark head whipped out from behind Beau and darted toward me. Slender arms engulfed me at waist chest level, and the tiny woman hugged me with all the considerable strength she hid in a fun-sized package.
I rested one hand on her head, twirling the dark strands between my fingers. "How are you doing, chipmunk?"
Sylvie batted her lashes as she looked up at me, giggling. “I'm good." She snuggled for a moment longer then detached herself, glancing over her shoulder at Beau who glowered at both of us.
"If you're done." A muscle along his jaw flexed, his eyes blazing as he stared at her and then lifted his gaze to me.
Now that's some possessive alpha level shit.
I knew a man like that once. He'd been good fun to play with, for a single season back in France. The year I found I had a heart, despite my mother’s efforts to the contrary.
I bent down to Sylvie's level, and just to shit Beau up the wall, I kept her chin in my hand and tipped her head back, so she was looking straight at me as I lowered my face to hers, like I might kiss her. "Be a good little Toy, and ask your boy to move for me, honey?"
A secondary use of all his little keywords that he didn't keep mum about around the house seemed warranted.
I might be poppish, petty even. Hell, I was born that way. But if Beau Bennett thought he had the market cornered on keeping house secrets, he had a long way to go. I was bred on intrigue in French courts, and learned the names of the current prince’s seven secret mistresses while the eighth, and most recently discarded one, taught me how to make a woman orgasm in just as many ways the hour after she left the palace.
"Say bye-bye, Toy,” Beau murmured, his voice lowering the easy words to a threat.
Sylvie rolled her eyes at him and winked at me. "Move, Beau." She stepped into him, resting her hands on his abdomen and sliding them down to drift across the top of his leather belt. "Don't we have other things to do?"
He swallowed, his hands cupping the back of her head, drawing her up onto her toes, so that he didn't have to bend down. "Don't test me, Toy. "
He only had eyes for her, and a pit of absolute nothingness opened up inside me for all sorts of the wrong reasons.
Taking the opportunity Sylvie granted me with her brand of distraction, I dragged my chest of armor around the soon to be snogging couple, and down the hall. The strain killed my shoulders, but I didn’t stop, not until I made it to the top of the stairs. Only then did I glance back, just in time to see Beau back Sylvie into his room and had the pleasure of experiencing a secondhand moan not meant for me before he kicked the door shut.
My exodus out of the frat house was accompanied by the sort of music I wanted to play myself, rather than witness. My mind drifted to Genie and what might be—if we were lucky—awaited us in France.
Or what might not.
Who knew what a castle fake date weekend would bring?