Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 135536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
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?”
“Glad you asked.” Oliver lit his cigar and sucked hard. A plume of smoke crawled up from the amber tip. “It’s high time I remind you what happened last night. The incident that preceded you polishing off an entire bottle of brandy in hopes you’d die of alcohol poisoning after you returned from the Townsends’ premises.”
I slam-dunked the bottle into the trash. “Have your moment in the sun. Tell me how bad it looked from the outside.”
“It didn’t look bad.” Zach parked his laptop on the table in front of my bed. “Bizarre? Yes. Scandalous? As intended. But you came off as a good guy trying to win over a girl. At least in the videos plastered all over TikTok and YouTube, many of them viral. They call it the proposal of the century.”
Oliver whistled. “You have your own hashtag.”
I’d never created a scandal in my entire life, and I certainly did not relish being a part of one now. However, the ends justified the means.
I’d done it.
Stolen Madison Licht’s fiancée and made her mine.
The little cretin always ended events with an underaged gold digger, who thought she could keep him for more than one night.
Imagine my surprise when, two days ago, Oliver overheard him waxing poetic about his fiancée’s delectable body, perfect face, and luscious hair.
For once in his miserable life, it appeared he hadn’t lied.
I rubbed my chin. “Was she at least as beautiful as I remember?”
“Exquisite. Chef’s kiss.” Oliver brought his fingers to his lips. “Also: hardly pubescent. Is she even legal, Rom?”
“Legal.” A teeth-shaped valley at the tip of my chin rippled across my fingertips. The manic little vixen had bitten me and left a mark. “Been in college for at least two years.”
Three or more, if she hadn’t exaggerated about failing her semesters. How one could fail in English Lit evaded me, but leave it to this hell-dragged phantom to manage it.
“Zach, when I tell you that woman was livid…” Oliver shook his head. Smoke poured from his nostrils like a demonic dragon. “She nearly stabbed him to death. I think the only thing that stopped her was the likelihood of embarrassing her family further.”