Page 56 of Never Broken

I was considerably less enthusiastic about Langer. Corey had said he didn’t deal in slaves, but Corey couldn’t exactly be trusted to be objective about the boss who was offering him a six-figure salary fresh out of school. But maybe that didn’t matter. If they were working on a deal that was supposed to save my family’s fortune, Ihadto be happy about it. Right?

Because it wasn’t only my own fate in the balance. It was my boy’s, too.

But then what? What kind of future did we have even then? Call me naive, but I knew damn well how the world worked, and that even if Langer somehow transformed my over-the-hill father into a tech billionaire, my boy was still legally as much Daddy’s property as the coffee table or the TV. Daddy could still sell him anytime, andI’dhave to shut up and watch him go. And even in the unlikely event we could come up with a plan to foil the gardener—being able to talk to each other might help—it was probably only a matter of time before Corey, or the maid, or some other foe we didn’t even know about yet, picked up on the flux of pure sex hormones I was certain we were both giving off pretty much around the clock and decide to ruin both of our lives out of jealousy, vengeance, spite, or all three.

Well,thatsure killed the party mood.

I stood in an unblinking daze as the last few guests filed in and Corey, in a cloud of menthol—when the hell had he taken up smoking?—returned to glom onto me, directing me imperiously toward the back of the house.

Helplessly, I followed him. As much as it killed me, I hated even more what it would do to my boy, despite his earlier unconvincing denials of jealousy.

But, oh.The maid had returned to the kitchen, and everyone else had dispersed from the foyer. The jackass walking next to me was caught up in his usual self-absorbed bullshit. There was only one person left by the door, but he’d be gone soon, too. And Iwasn’tpowerless, at least not in every way.

My long, thick curls still hung down over the back of my dress, and as I walked away, I flipped the curtain of hair up over my shoulder to give him an exclusive glimpse of my nude back, framed in two delicate panels of black lace.

I couldn’t turn back to see his expression, of course. But I could feel it. And that was almost as good.

And then, while I was sure I had his attention—though still without turning back—I held up my phone and tapped the screen.

Which meant I’d better send a goddamn message.

HIM

Yeah, grabbing the flute had been a stupid thing to do, and no, it hadn’t been planned. But then again, wasanyof this planned? She’d just looked so hot and so brave and so scared all at once, standing there on the stairs, trembling in the dress she’d chosen just for me. And since I couldn’t envelop her in my arms, couldn’t caress that luscious, peachy back, or tell her what I really thought—that I could live a million years and never getover the fact that a girl like her would give a damn about my fantasies, let alone fulfill them—a glass of champagne and the brush of a finger would have to be enough.

Enough to airbrush out the slimeball walking next to her when she flipped her hair. Enough to armor us for whatever the night held.

And enough to cushion the shock when I finally put the coats in the closet and arrived at the terrace, only to find that Max Langer—billionaire, tech wizard, homicidal maniac?—apparently was too important to bother with front doors.

He had, the entire time, been standing there, amid the complicated terra cotta stonework, prickly pears, and lava rocks. And there was no other way into the property except through the large circular driveway, which meant he must have driven in, gotten out of his car, and gone around the side of the house. That was unsettling enough on its own. And all of this was evenbeforeI got a good look at the guy I’d only glimpsed while furtively scrolling through search results in a German science lab 5,000 miles away.

The icy blue lights of the swimming pool behind him, combined with his blue eyes and sharp cerulean blue suit, made him look like a glacier. He was good-looking in the way of a slab of granite not yet quite sculpted, with a lean, muscular frame, pale skin, full lips, and thick waves of dark hair that seemed to almost defy gravity. And when he spoke, he had the trace of an accent that sounded more than a bit familiar.

“If you look at anyone successful these days,” he was telling Wainwright-Phillips and some of his colleagues, who were gathered around him like worshippers at an altar, “odds are they didn’t get there on brains or talent; they got there by shouting louder than the other guy. By selling, and the product is themselves. It’s why I prefer scientists and engineers. Of course working withthemis like going out with a girl looking for truelove. No matter how hot they are, you’ll inevitably let them down, and then not only do they walk out on you, they take your entire computer system down with them when they go.”

Louisa wasn’t in that group, much to my relief. She was a few feet farther away in her tiny little black dress and killer heels, near another arrangement of wicker lounge chairs, chatting easily with a man and woman closer to her age.

I was familiar enough with her adorkable side by now that I’d almost forgotten she was a girl of society, schooled in the social graces, just asI’dbeen schooled, fairly unsuccessfully, in subservience and submission. That was my girl.

Mine.And how was that for irony?

But I also knew, by the way her eyes darted warily around the room as she giggled and cooed and spoke of everything light and pleasant and tried to ignore me, that something was wrong.

Really wrong.

Like an idiot, I patted my pocket. Slaves didn’t carry phones or wallets or car keys or money, so it would look weird. I’d put the phone on silent, of course, but I shouldn’t have brought it at all. And despite her gesture, I hadn’t felt a vibration. Still, I had to?—

“Well, don’t just stand there.”

I turned around with a start, but it was just the housekeeper, passing by on her way to the kitchen with her customary thump on my arm and no indication that she’d noticed anything except that I was slacking off. I noticed the maid was already trotting around with trays of stuffed poblano peppers and chili-lime shrimp cups.

“Make yourself useful.”

With a frustrated sigh and without risking another glance back at Louisa, I turned back to the only thing I wassupposedto be worrying about, right now or at all: serving. If only food, and its assembly and distribution, had ever made even a fractionas much sense to me as chemistry or calculus. The housekeeper was well aware of that, but she’d also made it clear earlier that I’d be expected to do something more useful during the party than clear the table, so I’d made the mistake of telling her I knew something about drinks. I thought that would mean I’d be put in charge of the wine cellar—which I could probably handle, thanks to my years with the professor—but the ancient valet was doing that, and the housekeeper had neglected to mention that the guests, and Langer in particular, liked tequila. So to my dismay, I soon found myself at the outdoor bar with bottles of silvers and golds and reposados and exquisite little arrays of herbs, twists, and bitters, desperately trying to make any of it make sense to my European soul.

A minute later,somesort of drink was in Langer’s hand, complete with a carefully placed sprig of rosemary at the top that I thought might fool someone into thinking I knew what I was doing. I turned to go back to the bar area, hoping to catch a breaksomehowand either talk to Louisa or get my phone, even if it meant pulling some kind of con that would let me, and then her, leave for a minute or two. And through it all, I kept watching the tech mogul out of the corner of my eye.

Langer took a sip of the drink, made a face, and put it down on the edge of the firepit behind him. “Hey. Kid.”

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