Page 107 of Insatiable Park Avenue Prince

I could see where this was going. It’d been crystal clear how well Atticus got along with Donovan’s friends the night of the event, but I’d just figured it was due to a bad breakup.

“He hated them. He hated them and didn’t hide it. Every time I wanted to go out with them, he’d give me a hard time. He’d go on about how much better I could do. How much more mature and classier his crowd was.”

I arched a brow. “You mean there are classier people out there than a twenty-something-year-old guy who wears an ascot to school and drinks martinis for breakfast?”

Donovan grinned but shrugged. “I guess so. All I’ll say is that while my friends might’ve been immature to him, they were a hell of lot more fun thanhisfriends. They used to sit around in a billiards room every afternoon smoking cigars and discussing the latest trends on Wall Street, and what their money was doing.”

“Sounds, ah, boring as hell.”

“Yeah, it was. So naturally, things started to run its course. He didn’t come around anymore, and I lost interest. That’s when I told him I wanted to end it.” Donovan looked away from me. “He didn’t like that.”

I hooked a finger under his chin and turned his face back to mine. “What did he do to you?”

Donovan let out a sigh. “He tried to sell photos of me to a website.”

“Photos? As in naked photos?”

Donovan nodded. “Ones he’d taken of me while we were...together.”

Suddenly Atticus’s comment the night of the event made sense. From the very beginning, Donovan had never been shy about his body. In or out of the bedroom. The idea of being filmed with me hadn’t seemed to bother him, except for one small factor—his face. Something that piece of shit Atticus had tried to cash in on before, by the sounds of it.

“I wish I’d known that when I met him the other night.”

Donovan chuckled. “Something tells me it’s probably best that you didn’t.”

No shit. If I’d known that Atticus had tried to exploit Donovan that way, I would’ve knocked his goddamn head off, to hell with the consequences.Maybe then he wouldn’t have been so quick to mess with Donovan again.

“What a piece of shit.”

“Yeah, he’s not exactly my favorite person.”

“Better fucking not be.”

Donovan rubbed a hand over my chest as though trying to soothe a wild animal, and that’s exactly how I felt—wild, fiercely protective, and ready to fight for my man.“Nope. My favorite person is standing right here.”

Donovan continued to smooth his hand back and forth over my chest, and as my irritation started to fade, I lowered my forehead to rest against his.

“I hate that he did that to you. That he took something so personal and threatened to expose it.”

“I know, and it hurt at the time, but it just showed me the kind of person he was—is.”

“How did you get them down?Didyou get them down?”

Donovan wrapped his hands around the back of my neck and gently kissed my lips. “They never went up. I found out that he’d taken the camera the photos were on, so we stole it back and I went to my mom and asked her what I should do.”

“You went to yourmom?”

“Yeah. I was just starting out in the industry, and I knew she’d know what to do, and she did. She got the lawyers involved, and after my friends got a hold of him, I never heard from Atticus again, until—”

“The other night.”

“Right.” Donovan smiled. “She was amazing about the whole thing. The only lecture I got was about being more careful next time—hence the mask.”

I wrapped my arms around his waist and drew him in. “I’m sorry this is happening to you again.”

“Don’t be. I knew I should’ve gotten that damn birthmark removed.”

“You better not.” I kissed his ear, and Donovan shivered. “I like tracing it with my tongue too much.”

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