Page 186 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4

Boss’s Heir Demand

Jackie Ashenden

CHAPTER ONE

DOMINICLANCASTERLEANEDBACK, placing one elbow negligently onto silk cushions of the Roman-style couch he was lolling on, and debated pouring himself more wine from the jug that sat on the low table near the couch.

Not that he needed any more wine since he’d already had a few goblets and was feeling perfectly pleasant. Then again, it was averygood French red and thiswasa bacchanal and he was the host. What kind of bacchanal would it be if the host himself didn’t bacchanate?

Not that bacchanating was a word...but still, the point applied.

He held a bacchanal every year during midsummer, in the forest of his stately home, and it involved the usual—togas, masks, white silk pavilions in the forest, couches, grapes, wine—and then devolved into lots of sex.

People in his circle, the social elite of Europe, loved it and around the time the invites went out, the gossip columns were full of speculation as to who would be invited and who wouldn’t, and why. It was a very select group.

There was no rhyme or reason to the invitations. Dominic chose guests purely on a whim, because there was nothing better than messing with people’s heads, and he enjoyed the speculation and jockeying for position when invite season came around.

Tonight, though, was different, because he’d decided this would be the last bacchanal. Twenty years was long enough to retain ownership of his childhood home, and now was the time to get rid of it. Sell Darkfell Manor and the forest that surrounded it to anyone who would give him a good price, and then, with any luck, whoever bought it would raze the whole thing to the ground, thus saving him the bother of doing it himself.

Dominic surveyed forest from his couch, the white silk pavilion around him moving slightly in the night air. He’d had the pavilion put up to the side of the clearing and in the centre flamed a torch that leapt and flickered, casting strange shadows against the trunks of the ancient oaks.

More torches marked the paths that led to other small clearings, and other pavilions, all with couches and pillows, and wine and food. He could hear some of his guests laughing and shrieking, most of them already drunk.

A pity, really, to get rid of the forest—he’d had a lot of fun here after all—and maybe he could put a caveat on it or something. Or maybe not. Maybe it should go, along with the manor and everything else his father had touched.

Thoughts of his father never helped Dominic’s mood and he was determined to enjoy himself tonight, so he leaned forward and poured more wine into the thick pottery goblet he only ever used for his bacchanals. Then he leaned back on the couch again, sipping at the wine.

Beyond the darkness of the trees came a squeal, which could only be Marissa. She was a lovely French socialite and Cannes regular, who’d begged him for an invite in various inventive ways, and she’d made it clear already that if he wanted to make it a night to remember she would be happy to oblige him. From the sounds of it, she was already occupied. Then again, it wouldn’t be a bacchanal if he couldn’t join in.

He sighed, wondering if, in fact, he could be bothered. He liked a good orgy as much as the next man, but sometimes it could be such a faff. Not to mention boring. It was nothing he hadn’t done before, many times, and there were occasions where he couldn’t see the point. Sexual pleasure was nice while it lasted but it was always so fleeting, and it had been years and years since he’d lost himself entirely in sex. That had been a young man’s game, and he wasn’t that young any more.

Besides, sex was also beginning to bore him. Parties were beginning to bore him. Even Lancaster Investments, the investment business he’d started around fifteen years ago, after he’d sold the last of his father’s assets, was beginning to bore him. He had more money than he knew what to do with and when he sold Darkfell Manor, the last piece of his father’s poisoned legacy would be gone and, after that, what challenges were left?

Dominic lay back on the couch and stared at the white silk above his head. He could go into space, or maybe buy a submarine. Or perhaps build a bunker in Iceland and retire there in solitary splendour. He could get himself a camel and ride off into the desert like Lawrence of Arabia, or maybe go exploring in the Amazon...

Really, the possibilities were endless.

At that moment Marissa squealed again and then came bursting through the trees on the far side of the clearing opposite him, laughing breathlessly as she came to a stop in front of Dominic’s pavilion.

She wore nothing but a short white tunic and an owl mask, her long glossy black hair wild down her back, every bit of her long, golden body visible through the tunic.

A lovely woman.

Yet he wasn’t moved. He’d seen her body before, knew everything it could do in bed and the sounds she made and the things she preferred. There was nothing about her sexually that he didn’t know and nothing about the rest of her that interested him.

No one interested him, not these days.

So as she moved slowly and gracefully over to his couch, despite the flaring torchlight making her tunic seem half transparent, he remained...bored. He’d been bored for a long time, he suspected.

His lack of interest in her should have bothered him, but it didn’t. In many ways, it was even a relief.

‘Dominic,’ Marissa purred in her sexy accent. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere.’

‘No, you haven’t,’ he said, surveying her as she walked over to his couch, hips swaying. ‘I’m still here, where you last saw me.’

She laughed, stopping before his couch, her blue eyes shining through the eyeholes of her mask. ‘Have you been waiting for me?’

‘Actually, I’ve been contemplating the mysteries of the universe.’ He smiled, trying to muster up some enthusiasm, since this was last bacchanal and he’d told himself he should be having fun. ‘Including the mysteries of the female gender.’

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