Working Stiff: Casimir (Runaway Billionaires #1) (31 page)

Heat filled Rox’s head. “I assure you, we Southern girls can hold our liquor as well as any effete Eurotrash.”

“Did you hear that, Caz?” Arthur backhanded Cash on his arm. “We’re Eurotrash.”

“You
are,” Cash muttered. “Rox, I don’t think—”

Rox continued, getting louder, “We Southerners are bottle-fed Maker’s Mark until we’re weaned onto Jim Beam Devil’s Cut. I assure you, I am up to whatever ruckus you boys
think
you can get up to.”

Arthur smiled a slow, devilish grin. “Then it’s settled. We’ll all go. I’ll have the pilot ready the plane.”

“We’re not staying all night,” Rox said, her voice firm. “We’re staying for three hours and flying home at midnight. You boys are barely paper-trained. Can’t have you running around a strange city all hours of the night.”

Arthur’s malevolent grin hadn’t changed. “I’ll ask Wulf to send a car to the airport to expedite our trip.”

WHAT KIND OF CLUB

Rox drove them all to the airport to get on—and she still had a hard time wrapping her head around
this
—Arthur’s private plane.

When they were walking out of the restaurant, Rox managed to get Cash alone outside the door for a moment while Arthur and Maxence bickered like only old school friends can: every comment was a barb pointed at painful childhood traumas.

She stood outside the door and checked, but the other two guys were far back. Cash wove his arm around her waist.

“So,” Rox put a lilt in her voice to make her question sound nonchalant even though she totally wasn’t, “Do you know what kind of club those guys were talking about?”

Cash said, “Yes.”

“So, I—
seriously?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think I want to know how you know.”

“Those kinds of clubs are common in Europe. Less so here, but more common than you would think.”

“I am afraid to ask how common they are.” She looked far off into the early night, where a line of street lamps dotted a trail down the dark street.

Cash said, “There are five that I know of in Los Angeles.”

“No.”

“Absolutely.”

“That
you
know of?” Rox really should shut up.

“Yes. Are you sure that you want to go to this one?”

“I’m just making sure that you boys don’t get into real trouble.”

“Oh, they will.”

“I’m not going to partake.”

“Then why are you going?” He encroached on her, trailing his knuckles down her cheek and the side of her neck. His voice was lower, more baritone, when he whispered, “Do you want to know what goes on there?”

“Oh, heavens. I’m sure that I wouldn’t know what to do. I’m sure that I would make a fool of myself.”

“How many boyfriends have you had, Rox?”

“I don’t know. Six, maybe? Seven?”

“And how many of those were
real
boyfriends? That’s how Americans ask about sexual partners, yes?”

“Um, yes. That’s how we say it without saying it.” She watched her toes, and her restless feet couldn’t seem to stay still on the sidewalk.

“So how many
real
boyfriends have you had, Rox?”

“Including you?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Well.
Um.
Three.”

“Including
me?”

“Yes. Oh, now you think badly of me.”

“No, I don’t. Did either of the other ones want to do anything unusual?”

“No.
Heavens. I
never.”
She desperately wished that she had never started this conversation.

“Do you want me to show you what goes on at those kinds of clubs?” he asked again. “Perhaps in a private room?”

Rox swallowed. Her whole body felt like she had the wiggles. “Yes.”

THE DOM OF THE DEVILHOUSE

At the airport, six men met them inside the terminal, all wearing nearly identical black suits and sunglasses, even inside and at night. They nodded to Maxence, who greeted them with a smile and shook their hands, and then they kept to themselves the rest of the night.

Rox kept an eye on them, but they sipped soda water and played cards as if they didn’t all smell subtly like gunpowder.

Southern girls pick up on those things. She edged closer to Cash.

The small jet seated twelve people in large, lounger-style seats. The creamy leather was spotless and embroidered on each seat with an ornate
S.

Considering Arthur, Rox assumed that the
S
stood for Slytherin.

Two of Maxence’s security men took the first two seats, but the rest went to the rear of the plane, flanking him. They left Maxence alone so he could talk with Arthur, Cash, and Rox in the center of the plane for the rest of the flight.

Rox wondered at it, chewing over why Maxence rated a security team while Arthur and Cash did not, and that odd conversation among the men that first day popped up in her head again.

Maxence had “dynastic problems.”

Cash had escaped his.

Arthur seemed less concerned.

Rox worried at the concept of “dynastic problems” like a ferret that had found an odd smell to obsess over while the guys talked sports. College football season was in full swing, but they seemed more concerned with the rugby international World Cup. Arthur was being very modest in the discussion, and Maxence, flippant. Rox figured that England was a powerhouse, the Netherlands were in the middle, and Monaco had a weak team.

They flew for a little over an hour, a silver wasp darting through the night sky, and landed in the middle of a splash of city lights.

Inside a small, private terminal with no security station that Rox could see, a man was waiting for them, dressed in a night-black suit only a few shades darker than his skin. Unusual bulges near his armpits hindered his arms.

He watched them and noted each of them, especially the six men who had surrounded Maxence as they had entered the terminal. Maxence’s security men focused on the man and tightened into a defensive position.

The man in the black suit approached them, his back ramrod straight as if he were ex-military. “Gentlemen, I am Jeffrey Jackson. I was sent to escort you this evening.”

One of Maxence’s men moved forward. He was the smallest of the six of them and more wiry than stacked. “Hugo Faure. We spoke on the phone.” His accent sounded like a Frenchy kind of Italian.

“Ah,” Mr. Jackson said, shaking Faure’s hand and looking straight at him. “Very pleased to meet you, sir.”

Hugo Faure nodded. “And you as well, sir.”

It was kind of weird that they were sir-sirring each other, and Rox got the impression that something military was passing between them.

Cash stepped forward with his hand out. “I’m Casimir van Amsberg. This is Rox, Arthur, and Maxence.” He nodded to each as he introduced them.

Mr. Jackson shook Cash’s hand and nodded at each. “This way.”

Jackson led them to three SUVs that were idling in the parking lot. Maxence waved as his black-suited men cut him out of the herd and bustled him to one of the waiting cars.

The drive through the city was quick, and Cash rested his arm on the back of the seat behind her the whole way. She leaned into him, still wondering what she had gotten herself into.

They arrived at a big, white building that looked like a Southern plantation mansion straight out of
Gone with the Wind.

Rox whispered to Cash, “I thought this was a—”

He squeezed her hand, and Rox shut up, even though she was pretty sure that Mr. Jackson knew what the place was, too.

The SUVs let them off at the front door, where upward-facing floodlights lit the columns, windows, and ornate trim.

Mr. Jackson emerged from the driver’s seat and tossed the keys to another black-suited man as he walked around the front of the vehicle, who then drove off in the SUV and left them at the door.

Rox rubbed her arms in the chilly night air and turned back to the front door.

Another man was standing in the open doorway, lit from the interior lights behind him and the floodlights outside. He was very tall, probably six-four again, just like Cash and his school buddies. The new guy wore a dark blue suit, just like they all had a penchant for dark suits, but he was pale blond. His hair looked pale gold in the sharp downward-shining lights, and when he looked up at her, his eyes were startling, so dark blue that their blueness verged on violet when he glanced away from her to look at Arthur on the other side of Cash.

There was no kindness in the blond man’s eyes when he had looked at her, just calculation. Rox edged closer to Cash, half-hiding behind him.

Cash walked more quickly down the white hallway, his footsteps muffled by the thick blue carpet under Rox’s feet, and he held out his hand as he approached. “Hello!”

No name, Rox noted. Usually, Cash led with people’s names because he remembered them all.

The blond man took a few steps toward them, hand extended. Even his smile was so cold that Rox’s skin prickled in goosebumps. Not a whit of warmth reached his eyes.

“Casimir,” he said and shook Cash’s hand. He touched his own cheek, the mirror of the side of his face where Cash still had a white bandage taped over his cheek. “Everything all right?”

“Oh, yeah,” Cash said. “No problem.”

He nodded and turned to the other two guys. “Arthur, Maxence. Pleasure to see you after so long.”

“Yes, it’s been far too long,” Arthur said, a grin widening his mouth. “Weeks, at least.”

“Indeed. I haven’t seen you for years, Maxence. Not anywhere.”

That seemed loaded.

Rox looked up from her short-girl stature, watching the men who towered over her. They must feed them growth hormones at that school they all went to. From the heady amount of testosterone swirling among them that Rox swore she could smell, it was probably Brahma bull growth hormone.

Cash turned to her and bent, his hand extended toward the blond man. “Rox, this is The Dom of The Devilhouse. You can call him Sir or Dom.”

Was Cash serious? She had heard about books that dealt with stuff like that but hadn’t read them.

Okay, she hadn’t read very many of them.

Cash stood and spoke to The Dom. “This is Roxanne Neil. She’s with me.”

That last part sounded a little sharp, kind of like the time that Cash had told opposing counsel that he and Rox would not be attending the stripper party.

The Dom bent slightly to shake her hand. For the minute that he looked into her eyes, his dark blue eyes seemed to take in all of her.

She croaked, “Pleased to meet you.”

“And a pleasure to meet you,” The Dom said, still looking straight into her eyes. When she looked into his dark blue eyes, the color brightened to a cobalt shade of blue, almost glowing.

Rox withdrew her hand from his and stepped closer to Cash again, even though she couldn’t seem to look away from The Dom’s stare.

The Dom straightened and turned back to Arthur, breaking their eye contact. “Come with me, gentlemen,” he shot a small, cold smile at her, “and lady. I thought a drink in my office first?”

“Yes, Sir,” Arthur said.

Rox swore that she could hear the capital letter.

She followed the guys through the white-painted hallways and steeled herself for whatever kind of kinky and weird accoutrement that a sex club owner would fill his office with. She sucked in a fortifying breath as she walked through the door, but his office had a conversation grouping of blue couches around a coffee table at the back and a glass-topped desk at the other end. A long, wide window looked out into the night at, Rox assumed, the park area that the driveway had meandered through before cars had dropped them off at the front doors.

Anti-climactic.

She followed Cash to one of the couches and sat beside him, his unbandaged cheek toward her.

He tucked her against his side, curling his strong arm around her.

Any other time, she might have bristled at the possessive move, but The Dom turned back to them and pinned her to the couch with one stare.

She huddled closer to Cash, nearly winding herself around his leg and trim waist.

The Dom sat on the couch opposite them. “Drinks will be here shortly. Casimir, I assume that you’ll want a private room.”

Cash nodded and tightened his arm around Rox.

The Dom continued, “Arthur and Maxence, you have a few minutes before your appointments.”

Arthur grinned.

Maxence twitched in his chair. “I don’t need an appointment tonight.”

The Dom raised one blond eyebrow at him. “She’ll be disappointed that you cancelled.”

Arthur laughed out loud and leaned back in his chair.

The office door opened, and a short woman came in. Her natural hair fuzzed around her head, and she wore the tightest, shortest business skirt suit that Rox had ever seen on a human rather than a fashion doll. She carried a wide tray crowded with glasses and decanters filled with amber or clear liquid.

The Dom glanced up at her. “Thank you, Glenda.”

When she smiled, her dark plum lips opened to reveal white teeth. She set the tray on the coffee table and adjusted her skirt before she turned to leave.

As soon as the door closed behind her, Maxence said, “I can’t.”

“That’s understandable,” The Dom said. His deep voice was as light as Rox had heard it so far, a non-judgmental tone. He leaned forward and poured different liquors into each of the tumblers and one glass of white wine.

Cash took a tumbler for himself and handed her the wine glass. Rox sipped, tasting the sweet note and then caramel finish of a very good wine.
Delicious.
She gulped half the glass.

“I
shouldn’t,”
Maxence said to The Dom again.

“That’s up to you,” The Dom said.

“It’s using a person as a plaything, a pawn. I
can’t.”

“I don’t think of Mairearad as a pawn or a plaything, and I assure you, you shouldn’t call her that.”

Maxence was sitting on the edge of his chair, holding both his hands open. “But it is. This is all superficial. It’s manipulative. It’s
evil.”

“Why don’t you ask Mairearad about what she thinks? I wouldn’t want to speak for her.”

Maxence flinched backward.