“How nice. Butch soldiers.” Allen giggled.
Savanah turned to Allen and smiled. “Shirtless, I imagine.”
I rolled my eyes but couldn’t exactly protest. Men had been objectifying women forever, so now it was our turn.
The head butler, Gavin, announced dinner.
I hadn’t seen Theadora and wondered if she would be serving. I certainly hoped so.
What was I planning here?
The thought of Theadora fucking someone else turned me to ice.
I wanted her, but I also wasn’t ready for marriage. To anyone. Rich, poor, or whatever. I didn’t see myself as the marrying kind.
When I entered the dining area, Theadora was the first person I saw.
I allowed my eyes to follow as she moved with that subtle sway of her hips. Graceful and sensual at the same time. Her hair was up in a bun, revealing that long swan neck. Her white shirt hugged her plump chest, and with her black, knee-length skirt clinging to her curves, my dick had joined the party.
She noticed me staring and returned a faltering smile. Her cheeks firing up again. I was embarrassing her by ogling. But her effortless sensuality, made sexier by lack of artifice, proved too irresistible.
While the guests sat at the long table, my mother, accompanied by Will, walked in with her close friend, Reynard Crisp. Lost in conversation, she was probably planning some takeover.
Reynard owned gold mines in Africa and was one of the UK’s richest men. Tall, with ginger hair and piercing blue eyes, he wore a permanent smug expression.
I kept my conversation with him to a minimum after he puffed on a cigar at one of our family events one night and insisted that climate change was invented by extremists determined to bring the industrialized world to its knees.
In his early fifties, he’d never married. I’d never seen him with anyone at these functions. My mother always hung close, though, which made me question whether they were having a fling, but with Will doting on her, that theory was soon dashed.
I even wondered if Reynard Crisp was gay, having never seen him with a woman at any of the functions, but then Thea entered with a tray, and his eyes zeroed in on her. And there they stayed glued on her, for the whole time she worked.
My attention flitted from him to her. The skin around my knuckles tightening.
When she bent over the table, his eyes landed on her arse, and my head filled with all kinds of violent thoughts.
I was so preoccupied with wiping that arrogant grin off his face that when Cleo, who, like all our other dinners, made sure she sat close, tapped my arm.
“Hey, you didn’t hear a word I said,” she whined.
“I’m sorry, what was that?” I kept watching Theadora instead of looking at Cleo.
“That you’ve got everyone’s tongues wagging about your boot camp.”
“Oh, that. Yeah.” I was tired of hearing about it.
Theadora came over and offered to fill my glass. She smiled shyly and I nodded back.
I looked over at Reynard, and his eyes were still plastered all over her, undressing her. She’d become his obsession.
Theadora is my obsession.
No one else’s.
Only mine.
She left the room, and his eyes followed her out.
“That maid has got Reynard all hot and bothered,” Cleo said.