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“You’re pulling some creative Miranda Rights now? Think this is a joke?”

“No, I don’t think this is a joke. I want to kick your ass and knock some sense into you, but one of us has to be the adult here. Three billion dollars and hundreds of jobs are at stake. You’re out, Rex. That’s it. End of discussion.Unless…”

I whirl around, dread lining my gut.

I know that tone. The soft, raspy whisper laden with pretense. This was Maxwell’s game all along. Everything before this was a fucking setup.

“What the hell are you planning?”

Maxwell’s eyes shine with triumph. “If the cruise is that important to you, you can be on it under the condition you’ll see the on-board psychiatrist.”

“Come on, man. There’s no big downward spiral here. Just a little scenic detour with bottle service. Let’s not be dramatic. Save the drama for me, yeah?” I wiggle my eyebrows and force out a grin.

His face remains stony.

I sweep my gaze around the room, finding the same concerned expressions on everyone’s faces.

They aren’t laughing. They aren’t falling for my jokes.

Nausea churns inside me as I narrow my eyes at Maxwell and murmur, “That’s it? Go to a few sessions and you’ll be okay?”

He shrugs. “Yep. Four sessions. Easy as that.”

“Sur—” I can probably fool some balding old man who was arm-wrestled into babysitting a bunch of billionaires. I can feign contrition. People love me. I have everyone eating out of the palm of my hand.

But something in Maxwell’s arrogant smirk gets my hackles up.

“Hold on, who’s the doctor?”

Maxwell grins and clasps his hands over his lap. “Olivia. She’s good and won’t let you bullshit her.”

I freeze, my voice suddenly leaving me. The image of her standing in the crowd at Mystique barrels into my mind. The way she stared at me, how she peeled back my layers and tossed them aside—all without moving a muscle.

And when her gaze roved over my body—a more potent caress than the two women rubbing themselves all over me—my cock stirred for the very first time in months.

Her eyes flared and those soft lips parted, like she could sense my body chemistry changing. Like she could read my secrets.

It was unnerving. It scrambled my mind. I feltnaked to my soul.

And so I did what I do best—hide.

When the girls kissed me, I kissed them back, but I might as well have been kissing a wall, because I didn’t feel a damn thing. The crowd roared because they expected the playboy act from me.

But the entire time, I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the temptation in white.

There were desire and disdain in her whiskey-colored eyes, a darkness in them calling to my own.

I couldn’t help but think… What if I was kissing her? How would those supple, unvarnished lips taste? Would her perfect face with her perfect mind making the perfect decisions—would that somehow rub off on me?

Would the psychiatrist heal the fuck up?

And this is why you stayed away all this time.

This is also why she couldn’t be my doctor. She laid me bare with a simple gaze.

The door abruptly opens and in toddles Levi in his denim overalls, with Belle hot on his heels.

“Dada!” The two-year-old doles out a toothy smile and waddles toward Maxwell. “Pway… Pway pwetend.”