The Vessel - Jenika Snow Page 0,10

to one of the jackets, shouldn’t have ran my fingers over the smooth lapel, the suit no doubt custom tailored to fit his perfectly masculine frame. I looked behind me, expecting to be caught being creepy as hell, but no one stood in the closet doorway.

I faced the jacket again and leaned in, inhaling deeply, smelling nothing but the spicy, purely male scent that made up the man who had consumed my thoughts for the last three months.

7

Lucius

I stepped out of the shower and grabbed one of the towels off the rack, drying myself off before wrapping it around my waist. I walked up to the sink and lifted my hand, running my palm over the fogged-over glass, staring at the blurry reflection of myself.

The shower helped, but I’d only been able to stand the frigid water for a short time before I blasted it on hot, the water warm enough it could’ve singed my skin off. Although I wasn’t going in to the office today, I was going to busy myself with work in my study. I also needed to make an appointment with my lawyer, Michael, and have him go over my father’s trust and the ridiculous fucking demands on having a child just to keep the business.

Although I knew Theodore wouldn’t bullshit me about this, I wanted my guy to look over it as well. I should’ve had him do that when I was meeting with Theodore.

And then after I met with Michael, I needed to figure out what the fuck I was going to do about this whole situation. Losing my business was absolutely not an option. I worked too damn hard to help build it to what it was. And giving it over to someone who hadn’t built it from the ground up, who had no fucking idea how things ran, and would only see the employees as just that… employees and not integral parts of the company who helped make it prosper, was not going to happen on my watch.

Selling the Blacksmith empire so I wasn’t cornered by my fucking father was also not a damn option. Greed was too strong in the world I lived in.

But what were my options? Find a woman and hopefully start feeling things for her that she felt for me, and in turn hope things worked out and she got pregnant, or talked her into it? Could I be with someone I didn’t care about, who didn’t make me feel alive with just a look, by just being in her presence?

I wasn’t going to let that thought settle in too deeply, but the first person who came to mind, the person who made me feel this pleasurable warmth and rush, was Elise.

I shook my head and closed my eyes.

There was always the option of a surrogate. But shit, that was highly impersonal, and although I wouldn’t have to have any sort of relationship with her, as it would be all legal, a transaction, that seemed so fucking wrong for what I wanted in life. And if I went the surrogate route, what happened when I finally found a woman I wanted to spend my life with, a woman I fell in love with? Would that go over well when she found out I had the baby with a woman I didn’t have any kind of feelings for, simply because I didn’t want to lose my business?

Seemed pretty fucking shallow in my book, and I assumed she’d think that as well, unless she was some gold digger who ran in the socialite circles.

Fuck.

For right now, I didn’t want to think about it, not until I spoke with Michael and had him look into this more thoroughly. Maybe he could find a loophole, a way to get out of this and stay whole. It’s why I paid him a small damn fortune, why I kept him on retainer.

I finished up in the bathroom, had shaved in the shower, brushed my teeth, put on some deodorant and cologne, and then I headed out to my room. My focus was on the bed, and I walked up to the edge and took my towel off, dropping the damp terry cloth on the floor by my feet. A soft sound coming from the closet had me glancing toward the double doors. They were partially open, and I knew they’d been closed when I came in here, because I hadn’t been in here since yesterday morning.

My focus then went to the windows, and I