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“Uh…orgy?”
“Well, it was supposed to be a party. You know, large, filled with alcohol and party favors. Plenty of good-looking people, good music, and everyone having a good time. I’m not sure who started it, but somehow it rapidly devolved into a great deal of sex happening all over that penthouse.”
“And where were you in the middle of all this?” I asked, desperately trying not to imagine how he’d look in a sea of naked bodies. Orgies weren’t my thing, but that didn’t mean the mental image couldn’t be enjoyable.
“Oh, orgies are not really my cup of tea,” he said with a louder crunch. He paused, thoughtfully chewing. “More than one partner is all well and good. But once you get past three, maybe four people involved, it’s just a whole mess of limbs. You’d hardly know what was happening at that point, and really, what’s the point if you can’t fully enjoy yourself?”
“I see,” I said, unable to figure out if I should be disturbed or amused. “Though I do feel it’s necessary to point out that you didn’t answer the original question.”
“Hmm?” He looked at me thoughtfully and then blinked. “Oh, right. I don’t really do anything. I occasionally make my mother happy by doing things for her. I go to parties and galas and try to behave myself. I entertain people when she needs it, especially if said entertainment requires a bit of…spice.”
I rested my face on my hand with a smirk. “Your mother pimps you out?”
That made him chuckle. “She would refer to it as using the proper tool for the job. My mother has never been one to have fun, and I daresay she hardly knows the meaning of the word save for ripping it straight from the dictionary. That said, she’s a practical woman and knows that most normal people like to enjoy themselves and if that requires a little bit of debauchery, well…”
“She calls upon her Bon Vivant son,” I supplied. “Rather than calling upon her political son, her lawyer daughter, or the daughter that’s taken over the family's business affairs on the eastern half of the country.”
“Oh ho,” his eyes gleamed with interest. “You have been doing your research, haven’t you?”
His siblings were easy to find, so I didn’t think it was all that impressive. Each had made names for themselves and was intimately tied to the family. The business-forward daughter was the most obvious, considering the businesses were all heavily linked to the family. The lawyer had represented her family and their various companies at different times, and the eldest son had never made any attempts to pretend he was not still involved with the family despite being governor.
Still, her tolerance of Shane and his apparently loose interpretation of following the rules wasn’t something I could see Sophia tolerating for long, let alone occasionally utilizing. I could see why she might like him personally, it wasn’t hard to see the similarities between the two of them, and I suspected that of his three older siblings, he was probably most like her.
Perhaps despite her cold and sharp exterior, there was a woman who was simply…a mother. Someone who, no matter how unforgiving and demanding she could be, still loved her child despite his perceived flaws.
“Here’s a fun question,” I said, pulling my head away from my hand. “Why are you telling me all this?”
“Maybe I find you interesting enough to talk to,” he offered.
“According to your mother, I’m not the sort of interesting that normally draws you in,” I said dryly.
“True,” he said, and for a moment, I hated the disappointment I felt at the agreement. “Though I’m honestly surprised she even mentioned it to you. It’s not like her to spread my business around…especially with the staff.”
“Staff,” I repeated with a snort.
He nibbled the remaining bit of the apple. “You’re in her employ, working in the house. What else should I call you? Would you prefer caregiver? Nurse? It all amounts to the same thing.”
“I see you and your mother have the same attitude about tact,” I noted. “Which is to say both of you find it completely useless.”
“I’d like to think I’m at least a little better than she is in that regard,” he said, though he looked amused rather than insulted. “Though now I’m beginning to understand why she might have…well, disclosed more than I expected.”
“And why is that?” I asked in confusion. As far as I could tell, the woman barely tolerated my presence because I hadn’t completely failed every one of her expectations.
He pondered for a moment, hopping off the counter to dump the apple core into the trash. “I think…it might actually be more fun to figure out if I’m right. Better yet, it might be just as much fun to see if you figure out why before I get confirmation. Now wouldn’t that be fun?”
“You expect me to play games with your mother?” I asked incredulously.
He snorted, shaking his head. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my time in this family, you have to find your enjoyment where you can. And honestly? I think you’ll be pretty good at playing.”
“And if I don’t want to play?” I demanded before he managed to leave the kitchen.
He spun around to look me over, and for a moment, I would swear the man was undressing me with his eyes. There was no rhyme or reason to believe such a thing other than knowing I was probably just being thirsty. His expression certainly only looked appraising, and I didn’t catch the slightest hint of attraction from him.
“Then you don’t play,” he said simply, winking at me before leaving.
I was hard pressed to determine if he was an obnoxious, spoiled brat used to having things his own way or an oddly charming man who lived the way he wanted while surrounded by people who were routinely horrified. It wasn’t like I could necessarily judge. I could only imagine how I’d have turned out if I had a mother like Sophia and…whatever his father had been.
Which, I had to note to myself as I turned back to my laptop, was a problem. I certainly had a weakness for a certain physical type of man, and he was right there in the approved box. I was also a fan of charming, eloquent, and bold men, and so far he’d managed to check all three of those boxes as well. The worst one, though, was the fact that he was a mystery to me. I couldn’t quite figure out what his game was or what he truly intended to do, which made him incredibly dangerous without adding everything else into the mix.
