Page 19 of Charming Deception

Which means that I’ve masturbated daily to try to make it not bother me that my sex life has been put on a time-out.

Unfortunately, it hasn’t made me any less angry.

It’s not that I can’t have sex. This is the part my siblings don’t seem to get.

It’s that one of them has forbidden me from having sex. Probably the one who’s sitting in front of me right now.

Harlan tips his chin up, assessing me. “I guess it really is an honor system, isn’t it?”

“Good thing I have some honor left.”

He downs the drink that he’s ignored until now. “I guess we’ll see.” And with that, the lord of darkness seems satisfied that I’m sufficiently suffering and gets up to leave.

Good riddance.

I follow him to the foyer. I know he won’t be the first of my siblings to “check in” on me in the wake of those photos hitting the web. I don’t even know if he saw them. He didn’t mention them, and Harlan tends to ignore his phone.

Just knowing I went to Vegas was enough to raise his suspicions, probably.

“So, tell me.” He pauses at the door. “Will my challenge be an honor system situation too?”

“Yeah, right. How stupid do you think we are?”

“You really want me to answer that?”

“Be honest for once in your life, okay? It was your idea to make me give up sex for ninety days, right?”

My brother’s smile is feral. “I would’ve stipulated six months. At least. But I’m sure there are some of us who think even ninety days is an unreasonable amount of time.”

“Let me guess. Damian is taking bets against me.”

Damian is probably the one person in this family who’d just let us disown him in favor of reserving the right to fuck.

“I would never want to profit from your failures, brother.”

“Uh-huh.”

Weirdly, I know he kind of means that.

One of the strangest things about Harlan is that he doesn’t care that much about money, exactly. He just cares about maintaining his privacy, and nothing can afford impenetrable walls like wealth can.

“I’ll see you on the other side of forty-seven days, Jamie. In the meantime, have fun with your hand.”

“Yeah. Have fun with your hollowed-out graveyard bones or whatever it is you fuck.”

I slam the door in his face. Fucking brothers.

Who needs them, really.

Chapter 5

Megan

I’ve barely gotten dressed after my shower when a woman knocks on the bedroom door, introduces herself to me as Clara, the “house manager,” and urges me to come down to the patio where my brother is waiting for me. She escorts me downstairs and out to the backyard, where she hands me off to Cole.

He takes me into the outdoor kitchen and introduces me to the “house chef,” whom he simply calls Chef, a friendly man in a white coat who’s prepping our dinner. I offer to help, but my brother steers me back out to the patio and puts a drink in my hand.

He then starts needlessly sales pitching me on the wonders of living in Vancouver, which I struggle to absorb. I’m so mentally exhausted, the steamy afterglow of my shower is almost putting me to sleep.

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