Page 15 of A Man of Wealth

“Because it tastes like wealth. And as you know, I don’t ‘always’ order them,” I reply coolly.

She narrows her eyes.

“What? You don’t agree?” I ask as I hold my tumbler.

She shrugs and drinks her wine. I watch her lips on the glass and am treated to the red print they leave. Shit, that red print would look so much fucking better on my dick.

She sets her drink down and turns a little in my direction. “I think that you drink bourbon because you like the taste of misogynistic power,” she says, her eyes still narrowed.

I bite the inside of my cheek to keep myself from laughing at her absurd statement. She has no idea who I really am, and her statement just made that completely clear.

“Wow. That’s a big word for such a little lady,” I reply with a sugary grin. This smile is the one thing I inherited from my asshole of a father. His British sarcasm is so dry most Americans don’t even realize when he’s made a joke.

“Well, I hope my big word wasn’t too much for your giant brain to handle. I wouldn’t want to be the straw that broke it,” she quips with an equally sugary smile.

Maybe she is smarter than I give her credit for.

We finish our drinks in silence. My phone buzzes, and I look down to see a text from Sebastian. “Jared just arrived.”

“That’s our cue,” I state as I rise and hold out my arm for her.

She looks at it for a long moment before accepting it, her fingers barely touching my sleeve. The ice queen is back. I straighten my shoulders, rising to my full height. I’ve long learned that standing six feet and five inches tall has its advantages. Being a mountain among hills has its perks.

I spot Jared immediately upon walking into the ballroom. The shady little fuck is already saddling up to the bar for his free drink, a shitty lukewarm beer from what I can tell.

I feel Vivienne’s grip tighten on my arm. I glance down and watch as she swallows and then pushes her chest forward. Jesus, she shouldn’t do that, now all the men are going to be looking directly at her amazing rack. Some beastly part of me wants to cover her with both hands, blocking those tits from everyone’s view except my own.

“I got this,” she states as she releases my arm and struts across the room. I can’t help noticing a dozen men gawk at her as she passes them on her way to the bar. She doesn’t even realize what she does, or does she? Fuck, this woman is complicated. It makes me want to bend her over my knee and spank the living hell out of her, and it also makes me want to drive my hard cock deep into her pussy. I close my eyes for a brief second to stop myself from thinking thoughts that I have no business thinking. I wouldn’t want to fuck Vivienne if she was the last woman on the planet. Not even if she apologized for what she said about my mother.

I channel that rage and slowly walk to a bar on the opposite side of the room where Sebastian is holding court with several of our brothers. Alexis is at his side, and from the way his arm is wrapped around her waist, she’s not going anywhere without him.

He nods as I approach. Declan and Paul are chatting about their latest vehicle purchases. Aaron is on the fringe of our group chatting with a senator. Declan introduces me to a colleague that walks up to us. It’s the usual small talk banter that occurs at such events before everyone has a few drinks in them and gets down to actual conversation, which is almost always trading tit for tat and making promises that they’ll never keep.

Declan notices that I’m distracted and as his colleague turns to Sebastian, he leans in toward me. “Everything, alright?”

I nod. “Yeah, just making sure my date doesn’t get accosted by a pharmaceutical sleezeball.”

Declan chuckles and follows my gaze. “I thought we hated Vivienne?”

I shrug. “We do. But she’s helping me with something.”

“Oh?”

I turn to him. “Don’t worry. I’m pretty sure, I still hate her.”

He nods and sips his drink as Sebastian asks him about his recent yacht purchase. With everyone distracted again, I use my height advantage to watch Vivienne over top of a senator’s head. She’s leaning against the bar, talking animatedly to Jared who is having an entire conversation with her breasts. I find my hand clenching around my drink as I envision Jared’s neck there. I take a deep breath as I bring the glass to my mouth, trying to distract myself from feeling like a protective beast toward a woman who should be burned at the stake.

I’m momentarily distracted when Heidi Garrison steps in front of me.

“Conner! How good to see you,” she says with a fake smile plastered on her face. I want to push her out of my line of vision, but then I see Vivienne turn toward me and look at Heidi. She doesn’t like that her date is talking with another woman. Jealousy. I can work with this. She wears it better than I do. I smirk and raise my glass a little in her direction as I lean in and kiss Heidi’s cheek.

“How are you?” I ask. The last time I saw Heidi, her naked ass was up in the air as I fucked it. Then I got a call and had to leave. That was two months ago. She texted me something about a shoot in Milan.

“Fine. I just got back. I loved it so much over there, I just couldn’t leave,” she gushes as she launches into a series of stories about her travels. Heidi isn’t a horrible human, she’s just a privileged model who likes the powerful men in this city. It’s her kink, and she’s not ashamed of it. She lives for being arm candy at state dinners. She may fake her smiles, but she doesn’t lie about her goals in life, and that I can appreciate.

I add the occasional “uh-huh” and “that sounds nice” to the conversation, but my peripheral vision stays with Vivienne who keeps her body language telling Jared he might get lucky. I’m impressed and loathing of it all at the same time. Why am I letting her get under my skin?

At some point, Jared leads her over to a table and they sit down. Vivienne leans in and puts her elbow on the table and her chin on her hand as she nods enthusiastically at him. There’s some boring awards ceremony that is supposed to happen after this lengthy cocktail hour and then some dancing. I’m not looking forward to any of it.

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