Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 130414 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 652(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130414 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 652(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
Evil had a face. It was breathtakingly beautiful … and belonged to the man who had just become my future husband.
“Why don’t we discuss this away from prying eyes?” Daddy peered around, worn out and pain stricken. I’d probably tarnished that tux for him, too, just as I’d tarnished my future. “Mr. Costa, report to my house immediately.”
Romeo Costa brushed his arm over my shoulder as he passed, not sparing me the faintest look. “Ruined by shortbread.” He popped a cube of gum into his mouth as his imposing figure descended the stage. “How the mighty have fallen.”
Chapter Three
Ollie vB: @RomeoCosta, how’s it feel to pop your scandal cherry? Welcome to the club, son. We’ve got snacks. And the Kennedy family.
Romeo Costa: www.dmvpost.org/Von-Bismarck-Heir-Caught-Cozying-Up-To-Georgia-Governors-Wife
Ollie vB: Call me daddy, and I might just pass along my skills.
Zach Sun: Homewrecking is not a skill.
Ollie vB: Tell that to Rom. He just broke an engagement, reputation, and future in the span of ten minutes. The student has surpassed the master.
Ollie vB: [Shia LaBeouf standing ovation GIF]
Zach Sun: Where is Rom now?
Ollie vB: Her house, probably torching her childhood memorabilia and drowning her pets.
Zach Sun: If I had a heart, it would break for her.
Ollie vB: Judging by the fight she gave him, if anything is going to break here, it’ll be your boy’s spirit by the end of the month.
Chapter Four
Romeo
A million Dallas Townsends waltzed on my brain, their pointy heels stabbing each fold. I peeled my eyes open. The room rocked back and forth as if I’d stowed away on a sinking ship.
“Shouldn’t have finished that Pappy Van Winkle by yourself, buddy.” Oliver’s spirited voice echoed from the depths of a toilet. “Sharing is caring.”
Zach tsked from a distance. “For the last time, von Bismarck, that Agent Provocateur model didn’t want a threesome.”
I hissed into a silky pillow at the Grand La Perouse Hotel, regretting every decision I had made that landed me in this hellhole. Spurred on by a last-minute discovery, the three of us had arrived in Chapel Falls half an hour before the ball.
Presently, we occupied the four-bedroomed presidential suite. Not so much because we enjoyed each other’s company, but because we knew some schmuck had booked it ahead of the ball. Taking joy in other people’s misery was one of the smallest pleasures in life. One I often indulged in.
Oliver ambled into the room, his mouth enveloping an unlit cigar. “You needed to numb the pain away. Erase the memory of fingering a prepubescent girl in front of Fortune 500’s finest.” He shouldered into a polo. “The tab was forty grand on alcohol and cigars alone, by the way. We should get into the business of throwing debutante balls. The world would never be short of privileged young women in need of billionaire husbands.”
The idea of ever wasting my time like this again revolted me. “You’d turn the place into a gambling joint and father a few bastards before the first waltz.”
He plopped onto the edge of my bed, hiking up his riding boots. “Yes, to gambling. No, to bastards. I always pack my meat. No glove, no love.” Considering he viewed women as a conveyor belt of warm holes to park himself inside for the night, I doubted Oliver was familiar with the notion of love. He paused, his lips bowing around the cigar. “Not everyone is scrupulous enough to practice your method of ensuring no illegitimate children are in line for the throne.”
Zachary Sun—tall, lithe, obnoxiously genius, and as emotionally available as a pet rock—breezed into my room with his laptop tucked under his bicep. “What’s Rom’s method?”
He’d opted to stay in the hotel yesterday. His presence at the ball would have been redundant. Just the thought of her son marrying a Southern girl would send Mrs. Sun into heart failure. No common woman could suit their old-money lineage, which traced back to the Zhou Dynasty
“There’s one hole he never fucks, and it’s the one where babies come from.” Oliver delivered the piece of information with unnecessary jollity.
Zach frowned, probably recalling my past. “Recently or ever?”
We shared the same worldview—that the oxygen provided by Earth’s dwindling forests was a privilege wasted on humans. Against my better judgment, I’d made one exception in my thirty-one years of life. Which I’d come to regret. In spectacular fashion, too.
“He’s been abstinent long enough to be considered a born-again virgin.” Oliver shrugged into an equestrian blazer. “Not to mention—a loser.”
If the words were supposed to offend me, they missed their mark by about two thousand miles. Women didn’t interest me. Neither did people in general.
Zach observed me with equal wonder and confusion. “How come I never knew that about you?”
“You must’ve missed my three-month ad on the front page of the New York Times.” I emptied a water bottle in one gulp, placing a piece of mint gum on the tip of my tongue. “What’s the time?”