Bates watched me with powerful eyes, regarding me like an opponent rather than a brother. The folder was open across his crossed legs, the signatures collected.
My glass was empty, and my mind was dead. Throughout the entire meeting, my heart rate didn’t rise once. It was the same meeting I’d had a million times, just with different faces. It was the same conversation I’d had a million times, the same handshake. “Yes. I’m bored.”
Bates slowly raised his right eyebrow, regarding me like I was losing my mind. He shut the folder without taking his eyes off me and tossed it on the large wooden table where the men had been gathered just twenty minutes ago. Their empty glasses still remained because the maids knew better than to interrupt us. “You have everything any man could ever want. How the hell could you be bored?”
“Good question.”
Bates turned silent as he waited for me to elaborate. When I didn’t speak, he pressed forward. “The women are boring you?”
There was nothing wrong with the women in my bed. Beautiful, sexy, and adventurous, they were exactly what I fantasized about. I always fucked two women at once. Made it carnal and animalistic. A single woman seemed too intimate now. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been with just a single woman. It must have been years ago. “I suppose.”
“Jesus, I hope this isn’t going where I think it is…”
“And where do you think that is?”
“You want a wife?”
If being with different women every single night was boring, then a marriage would be even worse. My head would explode from mundane repetitiveness. “No. It’s the last thing on my mind.”
Bates released an audible sigh of relief.
Marriage wasn’t in the cards for either of us. It was too complicated. There wasn’t a single woman in the world who wouldn’t be tempted by our wealth. The second she got her hands on it, it would destroy her. It would complicate our business relationship, even if we drafted all the legal paperwork to keep her hands off the company in the event of divorce. It was something we’d agreed on a long time ago. So far, neither one of us struggled to keep our promise. After so many years of fucking around, women were all the same.
“Then what’s your problem, Cato?”
I didn’t have a single thing to complain about, and it would be childish to be ungrateful. My family struggled when I was young, and I would forever be humbled by my years of being poor. But now my life lacked purpose. “Wish I knew.”
“Does this have anything to do with what happened to Mother the other night?”
“No.” I made sure that asshole stayed away from her. This time, I put a team of security on her premises—even though she wasn’t happy about it.
“Then where is this coming from?”
Those green eyes popped into my mind, brilliant like emeralds and highlighted by the sternness of her eyebrows. She had the most elegant neck, long and slender with gorgeous skin. Her lips were soft like pillows, and her small tongue was both timid and inviting. The desire in her eyes had flickered away when she’d seen Christina beside her—and that longing never returned. She told me off before she marched out of my home, taking me to task like I wasn’t the most powerful man in this country. It was the most interesting conversation I’d had in a year. “No idea.”
6
Siena
I sat at the kitchen table in my house, information and photographs of Cato spread out everywhere. There was an open bag of candy I was munching on, along with my third cup of coffee. Fresh out of ideas, I sat there and tried to think of a plan.
I had nothing.
Cato was too much of a pig to seduce. He was too strong to take down. And he was too guarded for me to intercept him.
I had a greater chance of flying to the moon than making this work.
The last memory I had of him floated in my mind. He stood outside the elevator in his black boxers, his muscled chest heaving with rage. Everything about him was sexy, from his narrow hips to his muscular thighs. He looked at me like I was the biggest pain in the ass—but he was still sexy.
Such a damn pig.
I’d had my fair share of playboys and assholes, but Cato Marino was a whole new level.