Dark Deception (Vampire Royals of New York #1) - Sarah Piper Page 0,37

Dorian’s leather executive chair. Back then, it’d meant accompanying the Redthorne boys on every trip into London for supplies for their father’s medical experiments, or helping Dorian care for his horse, or partaking in the family’s meals. He was the son of a local blacksmith, but his mother had died giving birth to him, and his father pretended Aiden didn’t exist. He spent so much time at the Redthorne residence that eventually Dorian’s mother gave him a room and instructed the staff to set a regular place for him at the table, where he dined with them for hundreds of meals throughout childhood and into adulthood, until the very last.

“Yet you never make good on those threats to fire me,” Aiden said now.

Dorian scrubbed a hand over his face. “Bit of a long night, is all.”

Long was an understatement. Trouble or not, Charlotte had gotten to him. Badly. No matter how many cold showers and stiff drinks later, he couldn’t get her out of his system. Even a morning run around lower Manhattan before work couldn’t clear his head. The feel of her velvety skin, the sounds she’d made as she writhed in his arms, the taste of her flesh still lingering on his lips, the dangerously addicting scent of her blood, rich and warm beneath her skin…

Every last memory conspired to undo him.

Drink her or fuck her, that’s what he’d said. And though he’d come close to doing both, in the end, he’d walked away.

“What’s her name?” Aiden asked. When Dorian didn’t respond, Aiden laughed. “I’ve known you since your first wank, Redthorne. As a human. You think I don’t recognize your morning-after look? Must’ve been one hell of a row. Vampire?”

“Stop talking,” Dorian said, settling into the chair across from him. “Unless you’re looking for a severance package. As in, the kind where I sever your head from your body.”

Aiden laughed again. “You know I’m right.”

Of course he was right. Aiden knew almost everything about him. After the massacre at West Sussex, when the dust had finally settled and Dorian’s father decided they’d move to New York, Aiden’s accompaniment wasn’t even up for debate. As far as Aiden and Dorian were concerned, they were brothers, blood or not.

First as humans, then as vampires.

Aiden traveled with them to New York. Made a good life for himself here, learning the ropes of a new country and new customs right alongside Dorian. And later, when Dorian’s actual brothers had turned their backs on him, Aiden’s loyalty had never wavered.

Fifteen years ago, ready for new challenges, the pair started a new business venture together. From humble beginnings in a Chelsea storefront shoehorned between a highly questionable Indian restaurant and an even more questionable no-name drug store, they’d built FierceConnect, now a multi-billion-dollar company that had given Dorian more focus, purpose, and joy than he’d ever thought possible.

He owed the man his life. And he’d never be able to repay him—not if they had a hundred immortal lifetimes together.

“And how was your reunion with the little princelings?” Aiden asked now. “I trust they’re all settled in at Ravenswood?”

Aiden had never been close with Dorian’s brothers. They’d always treated him as a lowly outsider, even after he’d been turned right alongside them. It was a slight Aiden had never quite forgiven, and neither had Dorian.

He’d texted Aiden last night with a bare sketch of the situation with his brothers, including the news about Duchanes and the Chernikov demons, but now he filled him in on the rest.

“All in all, it was a right celebration,” he finished up, “just as you’d expect from a family who spent the last half-century pretending one another were dead. Wait, did I say pretending? I meant wishing.”

“It’s good you told them about the acquisition. Perhaps they’ll ease up about the alliance.”

Dorian nodded, though he didn’t share Aiden’s optimism.

“And your father’s death?” Aiden asked carefully.

“They didn’t inquire.”

“Dorian…”

He held up a hand, silencing Aiden’s warnings. The truth would reveal itself eventually—either by Dorian’s confession, or an enemy’s ill-timed discovery. Dorian would do his best to ensure it was the former, but until then, he didn’t wish to discuss it.

Taking his cue, Aiden switched tacks. “Sounds like quite an adventurous evening for a brooding recluse who hates socializing. Does this mean we’re still not talking about the woman?”

Dorian shot him a warning glare.

“Keep your secrets, then. But here’s something else that’ll put your cock on ice.” Aiden tossed a folder across the desk. “Armitage’s sons are involved now, and they want more