TWELVE
Anthea
I’d never wantedto set foot in this room again. Never wanted to see it, never wanted to eventhinkabout it. But when I tried to dig my heels in outside the doorway to the common room the Rosano brothers’ shared in the section of the third floor they’d claimed as a private apartment, Darius just dragged me in, forcefully enough that I had to stumble after him or I’d have tripped. I guessed I was lucky he hadn’t slung me over his shoulder caveman-style.
He slammed the door behind us and shoved me against the wall next to it. Over his shoulder, I could see that the common room between the guys’ bedrooms looked pretty much the same as it always had. A leather sofa was flanked by matching armchairs facing a massive entertainment system. A desk and a couple of bookshelves now overflowing with volumes stood across from it.
They even had a little kitchenette setup for if they got too lazy to go downstairs, with a set of cupboards, a mini fridge, and a microwave next to a four-person dining table. A huge Persian rug covered most of the hardwood floor.
It smelled the same and yet not, the leather and hardwood mingling with a few cologne notes that’d stayed the same and others that had matured with the men who wore them. The crisply spicy scent wafting off Darius right now wasn’t the same stuff he’d slapped on his neck as a teen.
I focused on him looming over me, pinning me against the wall between his braced hands. If I was looking at the man he was now, it was easier to tune out the memories tugging at the corners of my mind.
“Where the fuck have you been?” he snarled.
I blinked at him, holding on to my cool. Too bad for him I was still too pissed off at his family and the people they employed to be intimidated or otherwise affected by his closeness. Even if a trace of his most intimate flavor seemed to briefly waver across my tongue.
Right, he had good reasons to be pissed off atmethat had nothing to do with where I’d gone.
“I went out to get dinner,” I said, glad I had actually eaten something on the way back so that my stomach wouldn’t gurgle and betray me. “I didn’t realize I needed to ask your permission to feed myself.”
“You were gone for a long time.”
I shot him a tight smile. “Keeping track of my comings and goings so closely, were you? I didn’t realize you cared so much about little ol’ me. Maybe I wanted to enjoy a very leisurely dinner somewhere other than here after the incredibly enthusiastic welcome I’ve gotten. There’s something to be said for peace and quiet.”
My sarcasm about my welcome added a bite to my voice. Darius scowled at me and pushed away, stalking toward the sofa and then back.
There was no sign of his brothers. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I was only dealing with him, but he had no one to temper his rage. No one to worry about putting on a responsible front for.
His voice from years ago rose up in the back of my head.It’s a lot of pressure, you know. Of course I’m supposed to take over when Dad’s ready—and I want to. But everything I do around the people we work with counts toward how they’ll see me as a leader. And they’re always around. It’s only in here that I can relax a little… but I’ve got to be strong for Lucan and Felix too.
We’d been sitting on the sofa; I could almost feel the smooth leather against my bare shins where I’d curled my legs up on the cushion. My heart had beat faster at his confession—at the fact that he’d confided in me.
You don’t have to impress me, I said.I don’t count. Even if I was the oldest, my dad would never eventhinkof asking me to do anything all that important for the business.
And oh, the way my pulse had fluttered when Darius had shot me a warm grin.I don’t have to put on a show for you, Lady Noble, but that doesn’t mean you don’t count. I’d say that means you do, a lot.
All those fucking lies I’d eaten up like the inexperienced teenage girl I was.
“You’d better not be fucking lying to me,” Darius said now, prowling closer again.
“Or you’ll what?” I retorted. “Let me lick your dick again? That went so well for you last time.”
I shouldn’t have mentioned that, not in here. Because suddenly I was remembering a few nights after that conversation, when the guys had all squeezed onto the sofa around me, when a hand had rested casually on my knee or my wrist for several seconds at a time, an escalation of the closeness and the tentative touches that’d been stirring up my hormones and my hopes since I’d first arrived for the summer.
It’d been Felix who’d made the first real move. Felix who’d shut off the movie with a sly glint in his eyes and then leaned in to kiss me, as confidently as if we’d made out a dozen times before. I could taste his lips as clearly as I could hear the sounds of protest and the hasty discussion that’d followed.
You can’t just— You don’t get to justdecidethat she’s with you, Darius had insisted, all wounded authority.
I thought we agreed that we weren’t going to make any moves unless she did first, Lucan had put in, his face flushed.
The thought that they’d talked about this, that they might all havewantedto make a move, had heated me from head to toe. And somehow sixteen-year-old virginal me had found the bravado to announce,Who says I have to decide to be with just one of you anyway? What if I like all of you?
Darius shattered the memory, blocking my view of the sofa with his brawny form. “You’d better believe that by the time we’re done here, I’ll be getting an apology for that and a whole lot more.”
I couldn’t hold back a snort, my anger mingling with the anguish from seven years ago into a dizzying mix. “Oh, I think if we’re adding up who’s done more wrong to who, I’m not the one who’s in the red.”
I’d made it so fucking easy for them back then. Handed myself to them on a platter thinking I’d won a prize. But I’d been the prize: Anthea Noble, only daughter of the head of the Nobles and their dad’s close friend. Letting them touch me, letting themfuckme—Darius and then Felix inside me, Lucan in my inexperienced mouth gasping like I was the second coming, pun not intended.