as faked as the orgasms they make for the benefit of their husbands. As the head of Loup Industries, my attendance is sometimes necessary. As a man, I’m so fucking bored of it all.
And I can’t believe I gave up a few hours with Rose to be here.
‘So, what’s been keeping you away? The lure of your yacht and the Caribbean, or the willing arms of a certain someone?’
‘Just the usual,’ I reply, lying through my teeth. ‘Work, work, and more work. I’m sure that’s a familiar refrain.’ Though I’m not truly sure he does; what exactly does a Portuguese football player retired at the height of his fame do when he moves to Monaco? Apart from fuck around and set up a charity, I suppose. Merde. ‘This is his function?’ I hiss to Everett as Gunnar turns to greet someone else. ‘How the hell could I have forgotten that?’
‘Probably because you’re functioning on about three hours sleep a night.’ He’s right; I can’t get enough of Rose. Even when I’m with her, I can’t get close enough. I feel like I want to be under her skin.
‘Is see Carson Hayes is here.’ He tips his head inconspicuously to the space behind me. ‘Boring holes in the back of your head.’ He raises his glass to his mouth, then asks, ‘Did you read the file I sent on him?’
‘Ex-military. Only came into the business when his father died.’
‘The older Hayes is as hard as nails. And about as crooked as one pulled from a lump of wood.’
‘He would be, as a long-term friend of Emile’s.’ I use the term friend loosley.
‘And that’s why another one bites the dust, right?’
That’s not quite what the takeover was about. Or maybe it was. Partially.
‘It was a mistake moving her into the building,’ Rhett adds in an undertone that I’m certain I’m meant to hear, but his attempt at nonchalance falls flat.
Not only does his feigned disinterest fall flat, but he’s also wrong about Rose. While she’d made it abundantly clear from the start that she didn’t want to risk being seen out with me—she doesn’t want to be judged by her colleagues and is obviously wary of our relationship’s life expectancy—our living arrangements suit me very well. They provide for complete privacy. No one would think anything of seeing either of us in the building and no one but Everett is aware of our relationship. And that’s the way we’d like it to stay. For now, at least.
I look down at the glass in my hand, absently rubbing my calloused finger against my thumb as a snapshot of last night flashes in my head. I was lying on my back with Rose half draped across my chest, her hair wild and her fingers linked with mine.
‘You must be the only billionaire I know with workers hands.’ She’d lifted our joined hands closer, rubbing a long-ingrained callous on my index finger.
‘Do you know many billionaires?’
‘Not personally, but I have passed all manner of shopping and gifts into the lily white and manicured paws of many a Wolf Tower resident.’
‘Mere millionaires.’
Pressed together as we were, her laughter vibrated through my body pleasantly. ‘I do beg your pardon,’ she’d replied, her accent modulated and drawn out for effect. ‘But even the peasant millionaire classes don’t have hands like these. Or a watch that looks like it needs retiring.’
‘Are you insinuating I have ugly hands? And an ugly watch?’
‘There’s nothing ugly about you.’ Dark hair fell across her brow, and I smoothed it back. ‘What’s with the sad smile?’
Nothing but my soul, perhaps. If she knew about the lies I’d told, she wouldn’t be looking at me as she did. ‘This watch belonged to my grandfather.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Her voice was suddenly as soft as her gaze.
‘Don’t be. I never met him.’ But by all accounts, he was a good man. ‘It’s an Omega, though not very fashionable or worth a great deal. I only began to wear it to annoy my father. A habit that seems to have ingrained itself.’
‘Wearing the watch or annoying him?’
When I didn’t answer, she turned her attention back to our hands. ‘Well, this is not an ugly hand. But it is a hand that’s seen manual labour.’
‘Subtle, ma Rose.’
‘So sue me.’
‘I’d rather screw you.’
‘What, again?’ She’d lifted the sheet lying low on my waist, peering beneath it comically. ‘Hmm. Not yet.’ She dropped the sheet. ‘In the meantime, you can tell me why the richest man in Monaco has the hands of