Page 127 of Vicious Little Princess

This was nice.

Normal.

Cozy.

We were all sprawled out on Julian’s bed in the living roomsuitethat Nico had set up, in our bathrobes watching thatMerlinshow that Caterina liked. I got the appeal with her love of the myth of King Arthur, and it was certainly entertaining, although I was more of a high fantasy fan myself.

Nico was sitting up against the headboard with his arm wrapped around Caterina, who was munching on some of Julian’s Maltesers now he’d had his fill. He was sprawled out in the middle of the bed, his head in her lap as she stroked his hair. And I was nestled against her other side, playing with her hair with one hand while snacking on some toffee popcorn with Caterina, deciding to lean into the wholeletting it all gotheme of tonight and actually breaking from what Julian called mybodybuilder diet.

“Why are so many of these things only aimed at a younger audience?” Nico mused. “There’s a lot that can be done at a more mature level. A lot more of the darker aspects that could be explored.”

“And the fun and dirty aspects,” Julian added.

Because, of course.

I studied him as he was oblivious and focused on the show.

He’d handled what had gone down in the pool really well.

Easily, it had seemed.

It shouldn’t be possible with what he’d been through.

I mean, of course I wanted him to be okay, and I’d been so fucking happy seeing him not only being able to get physical, but to be reveling in it like he had earlier, bringing his dominating edge to the table and taking the lead like he usually did. Well, usually, it was a tossup between him and Nico, often the two of them together and feeding off each other.

But I was concerned that it wasn’t real.

Worse, that he’d convinced himself that he was fine and able to handle fucking so soon after what had happened, when he actually couldn’t.

He’d basically begged us to back off and let him do things his way, claiming that the alternative had actually been hurting him.

So we’d agreed to it.

And we’d planned to see how it played out and take it from there.

But then he’d broken down outside the warehouses.

Then he’d been in a rage.

Andthenit had all slipped away like it had never been, and he’d been on solid ground again, even pushing for us to get it on in the pool.

It was… it was a clusterfuck.

I understood if that was just how he felt at the moment, that it couldn’t be helped, and he was swinging from one thing to the other, his emotions going haywire.

But it worried me that he was pushing himself too hard tonotbe impacted in other ways, that it was the root of his emotions going from one extreme to the other, rather than it being the result of him actually working through what he’d suffered through.

But bringing it up clearly wasn’t helping. He’d only reacted really fucking badly so far.

And right now, in this specific moment, he seemed to be content, so mentioning it would only fuck all over that.

The thing with Julian was that he could hide the truth better than anybody I’d ever known. A big part of that was because he had the ability to read others so well. He knew what we’d each pick up on and he could work with it too fucking well.

“I’m thinking about sellingNocturne,” he announced suddenly. “Or maybe just demolishing it altogether.”

What the—

“Why?” Nico asked. “We’ve severed Marchetti influence. You’re free of it now.”

---