Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Alexei
Anytime I was forced to deal with my family I wondered why I didn’t bring a flask of alcohol with me. Breakfast meant alcohol wasn’t allowed, per my mother’s rules, and my father was already on a tangent about me looking for a wife soon.
My mother ignored his ranting and patted my hand under the table. When my father was done talking about how I needed to secure my line, my mother spoke. “Would you like me to set up a date with one of my friends’ daughters? I know many women with eligible daughters in our circles.”
I would rather light my body on fire.
I pinched my lips together and shook my head, no longer hungry. The entire spread of baked goods, roasted meats, and fruit looked incredible but there was no way I could stomach it now. I considered pushing away from the table and all of my brothers staring down at their own plates, probably thankful they weren’t getting the lecture about marriage. Ace, Carina, and Audrey weren’t in attendance. They weren’t expected to be. I honestly didn’t know if I could handle seeing Audrey after last night. Not so soon at least.
She was a temptation I no longer wanted to toy with. I realized it after she threw her arms around me the night before when she stumbled up the steps to her room. I could still smell her intoxicating smokey scent on my skin. I’d tried my hardest to remove it from my body but it did nothing. It was like it was stamped inside my brain.
Fucking Audrey.
“Did you hear anything we said?” my father barked just as the bane of my existence entered the room behind him. All of the blood in my head rushed right down to my cock and I felt sick.
My mother stood up and motioned for her to take an empty seat across from me that had heaping amounts of food in it. In a way I was thankful for the interruption, Father wouldn’t dare bring up the marriage market in front of our guest. I closed my eyes, I couldn’t wait for this woman to go back home in a few days. I could have peace again, I could bury myself in work, and I could sleep in my own penthouse.
“Good morning, Audrey, sweetheart” my mother beamed. “How is your morning? How did you sleep?”
Based on the dark circles under her eyes, she’d either slept horribly or she was nursing a horrible hangover. I guessed the latter considering I’d watched her drink herself into oblivion the night before as she stared at my brother and Carina like they were something to look up to. I hated every second of this.
“My morning is going fantastic,” Audrey beamed and I frowned. She hadn’t looked this happy since she arrived in New York. What the fuck? What made her this happy? What could have possibly happened between the time I carried her drunk ass up the stairs to this morning? My eyes bounced down to the table where her phone was lighting up and I felt my mood sour.
Ah, yes , the boyfriend.
“It couldn’t be that great considering you were completely shitfaced last night.” A smile touched my lips, but just barely.
The smile my mother wore quickly turned into a frown as she swatted my hand. My father leaned back in his chair and opened his newspaper, not caring about anything else happening now.
Audrey’s lips puckered before she recovered and opened her mouth to reply. Ace breezed into the room and interrupted whatever she was about to say. I didn’t know if I was thankful or annoyed to not hear her response. My mother visibly relaxed beside me and my brothers took that opportunity to all talk at once, probably thankful there was a break in the awkward tension Father started when he awoke this morning.
Ace slid into the empty chair on the other side of me, closest to Father at the head of the table, and grinned down at his plate. “Last night was wonderful thank you for hosting it, Mother.”
She patted his shoulder affectionately as Carina took a seat across from him, beside her best friend. She bumped shoulders with Audrey and lowered her voice. I strained my ears to hear what she said. “You look in better spirits this morning.”
I didn’t miss the way Audrey’s eyes slid to me before they softened on her friend. “Things took a turn for the better this morning.”
Carina could only smile and I felt sick, once again. This morning was looking like it was headed right for the shitter. I wasn’t sure why it made me so frustrated. It wasn’t like I liked this Audrey girl.
It had to be my father and all of his talks about political marriage, that had to be it. This Audrey girl was a nobody, she didn’t matter. Nothing about this farce of a marriage mattered, I learned that a long time ago.
“This has been delightful,” I pushed away from the table and looked my father in the eye, something that was more painful than anything else. “I’ll think about what we discussed.”
Ace raised his brows. “What was discussed?”
I walked out of the room just as Father informed them all of his plan to get me shackled next.
There was nothing more that I wanted than to get the hell out of this estate but I was stuck here. Mother forbade us from leaving this weekend and so I was stuck. Stuck with my infuriating parents, the annoying brothers, and the one woman who shouldn’t have gotten under my skin but was. I raked my fingers through my hair as I marched down the front steps of the massive place my parents called home and fled right into the sprawling gardens. Maybe fresh air would help me. Maybe getting lost and dying out here would help everyone else.
Who was I kidding? I couldn’t get lost on this rolling estate even if I wanted to, which I desperately did. There were cameras posted everywhere. The moment I would decide to lay down and die somewhere, my mother would come barreling through the property on a speedy golf cart and come right to my rescue. It didn’t matter that I’d never wanted to be rescued, she would always do it. In a way, it was endearing but also annoying. Couldn’t they all just leave me alone?
I should have known better than to think that because as soon as I did, one of my brothers rode up beside me on a fancy new golf cart with a beer in his hand and another in the cup holder. It wasn’t even noon yet. The wide-rimmed sunglasses slid down his nose.
“Do you want to get day drunk?”Dimitri lifted a blond brow.
“No.” The thought of alcohol and dealing with one of my loud brothers didn’t sound appealing.
He shoved his glasses back up the bridge of his nose and lifted his chin. “That’s not like you.”
“The last thing I want to do is be scraping your drunk ass off of the concrete in a few hours.”
He leaned back in the bench seat and grinned. He didn’t say anything, just looked at me like he owned the world. I guess in a way we did.
I groaned. “If I have a beer with you, will you leave me alone?”
He shrugged and took another sip of his. “Probably not.”
I held my hand out for the beer anyway.
Three hours later, my mouth tasted like piss, and Dimitri was almost having to scrape me off of the concrete. It wasn’t exactly how I planned it, but I wasn’t mad. No, I wasn’t mad and belligerent until Carina and Audrey exited my parents’ mansion. Until I pressed myself into the hedge to listen to their conversation and my blood went cold.
“I don’t think you understand me,” Carina was looking over the garden, somehow she’d missed me. “Life is too short for terrible sex.”
Audrey sighed.
I pressed myself farther into the bush to get a better listen. “It’s not that it’s terrible.”
“You admitted to me while you were drunk that the sex was awful and that you’ve never had an orgasm with him.”
A frown pulled at my face. What was wrong with this loser? I went to press myself back into the foliage but the drunken idiot, Dimitri spotted me a few feet away. His run was more of a stumble. “Who are we hiding from?” His whisper was anything but a whisper. I fell away from the bush as I heard an “oh my God!” On the other side. I was toast. We were toast.
The beer in my hand was no longer cold. Why the hell did I care? Why did I care at all about this girl’s sex life? I didn’t.
“I will gut you like a fish, you piece of shit!” Carina came barreling around the other side of the hedge with her fists raised and ready to swing. She was furious. Audrey on the other hand was not. Her cheeks were stained pink and she wouldn’t look me in the eye. Dimitri let out a hiccup and Carina came to a halt. “Oh, it’s you two. I thought it was some perverted gardener.”
I couldn’t help myself, I grinned. “Nope, just two perverted brothers.”
Dimitri’s face screwed up in a disgusted scowl. “I am not the one that was eavesdropping.”
“Are you both drunk?” Audrey’s voice came out soft and I wondered why she had sucky sex.
I almost asked but Dimitri beat me with his own questioning. “It’s a beautiful day with nothing to do, why not?”
Carina ran her hand down her face. “I think you were both wanted for a suit fitting, actually. Your mother has been looking for the both of you for the last few hours.”
Dimitri laughed. “Mother has been looking for us? That’s rich considering she has the whole place wired tighter than the White House. Nothing happens on these grounds that she doesn’t know about.”
I knew what our mother was doing though. She was pushing me toward Audrey. It was the only reason that made sense, why they were sent out here after us. Mother saw a solution to my father’s matchmaking.
“Have fun being watched the rest of the afternoon,” I turned on my heel, though I thought it was much smoother than it actually was. Dimitri was right on my tail.
“I think I see it,” Dimitri pondered behind me. “That Audrey girl is hot.”
I whirled on him. “Don’t talk about her.” Why did it even matter? My head was swimming, I was sure my words were slurring just as much as his but I was ready to fight.
“I mean if she’s anything like that spitfire Carina, I think she would be very wild in bed. I can just imagine it now.”
Before I knew what was happening, my fist was connecting with my brother’s face. Blood dribbled down his top lip and collected in his front teeth and he only smiled like a deranged psychopath. “I knew it.”
He was baiting me and it was working. “You know nothing.”
“You want that Audrey girl.”
“I want no such thing.”
“You were always a terrible liar. What if I told Ace?”
I made another swing and this time he ducked out of the way, though it landed him in the grass, he evaded my fist. “If you tell Ace, I’ll find a nice place to bury your body.”
“You would do no such thing.” He stood up slightly wobbly and dusted the dirt off of the front of his khaki pants.
“What do you want?” I found myself asking this again. Why on earth would he even care?
“I don’t know, I would like to see you happy.”
“You are the least sappy person I know. What’s the real reason?”
“I want you to leave my strippers alone.”
I shook my head. Seriously? “They don’t belong to you.”
“I was frequenting that place way before you even thought of it. Whatever dragged your ass over there needs to heal so you can leave it alone.”
“Since when have you ever cared for strippers?” I looked at him out of the corner of my eye as he stuck the golf cart key into the ignition and started it up. We were way too intoxicated to be driving, but we also weren’t getting on the road. The worst trouble we would find was an overgrown hedge or maybe getting lost in the labyrinth. Or maybe driving straight through the labyrinth. We hadn’t done that before and it seemed right up our alley today.
“Usually, I would ask you to share your wild schemes with me when you get that look in your eye but unfortunately, I am not interested today.”
“You’re trying to change the subject. Why do you care about the strippers?”
He waved his hand before patting the seat beside him. “I don’t.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
He shrugged. “I don’t care. It’s none of your business.” He changed tactics on me and this time I let him. There were only so many circles I was willing to go through with this brother. “She gets under your skin and you hate it, don’t you?”
I shrugged as I slid onto the bench seat beside him. Miraculously, he was able to drive the golf cart straight for about five minutes before I noticed us veering to the left and the right. It was slight, I almost missed it.
He was right. I didn’t know why I cared. I didn’t know how she was possibly getting under my skin. Maybe it was the fact that she looked delicious with dark red lipstick. Maybe it was the slight twang in her voice. Maybe it was that she wasn’t like all the other women that were in constant rotation around here. She didn’t care about the money or she would have already thrown herself at me. She wasn’t impressed with me. She avoided me at all costs. Why? I was an eligible bachelor. I was rich, handsome, and had an Ivy League college degree. Why didn’t that impress her? It made no damn sense and I supposed it was driving me insane. Driving me quite literally Wilde .
“I think I have a plan,” Dimitri looked at me instead of the manicured path between the gardens and any other time I would have cared, but I was too drunk to mind. I hoped we ran straight through all of my mother’s perfectly meticulous hedges. I hoped we made a new path. No such luck. Somehow Dimitri still stayed on the path, even if it was a little wobbly. “You need to get under her skin the way she gets under yours. You need to give her a reason to not stop thinking about you.”
“Okay,” I would hear him out. I would take his ideas into consideration.
“You make her crazy about you, get under her skin, and then leave her wanting. You’ll hopefully never see her again after all this wedding shit and maybe you’ll be married off by the next time you do.”
“Get on with it.”
“You start texting her.”