The Boss (Chateau Book 3)

by Penelope Sky

  My bedroom door opened.

  It was behind me on the other side of the room, but I knew exactly who it was. “Not tonight.” Her beauty wouldn’t pull me out of this mood. Her sweet voice wouldn’t make me think of the roses in the garden. My fury was unconquerable.

  But she came to me anyway.

  Wearing lingerie.

  A black bodysuit covered in diamonds.

  I stared at her, still angry, but a bit less. “I’m not in the mood.” I turned my gaze back to the TV and took a drink.

  She remained next to the armrest, in sky-high heels, smooth legs, big hair. “What happened?”

  I rested my arm over the back of the couch. “Doesn’t concern you.”

  She studied me for a while before she moved to the couch and straddled my hips. Her fingers moved between her thighs and unclasped the bottom so it would open, her sex easily accessible.

  My eyes were forced to look at her, to smell her, to feel the tension ebb away just from having her on top of me. Images of us together in front of the fireplace on the floor of her cabin came back to me, her body covered in sweat because she worked so hard to fuck me, to get the two of us off repeatedly.

  When she pulled on my boxers, my hips automatically rose so she could get them off. My hand set the glass on the table beside me, and my dick went from soft and angry to hard and eager.

  Her hand cupped my face, and she kissed me, her hair falling down around me and blanketing me in a curtain of her smell, and she directed me inside her as she slid down over my length, her pussy perfectly coated with arousal to take me without foreplay.

  Like she’d been thinking about me all day.

  I closed my eyes and moaned against her lips as she sheathed me with the best pussy of my life.

  Her arms hooked around my neck as she kept her face close to mine, and she fucked me the way I liked, good and slow, rocking her hips exactly how I’d shown her.

  All the bullshit with my brother went out the window as I enjoyed my woman. And fuck, did I enjoy her.

  “You make me forget.” She breathed against my mouth as she continued to force me inside her, grinding her hips at the end of every drop to let me feel her more intimately before rising once again. “I can make you forget…”

  Eleven

  Fidelity

  Melanie

  We spent most of our nights together, but I always woke up alone.

  He would either carry me to my bedroom, or he would leave mine after I fell asleep.

  I didn’t demand a change because I knew I would never get it.

  When he’d brought me here, I’d expected something more. I expected him to want me all the time, to have me by his side constantly. But our relationship was the same as it’d been in the cabin, where he would visit me when he felt like it, then ignore me the rest of the time.

  I should be grateful to be spared, but my solitude was far more horrific than his company. Everything had been taken from me, and even if he was the one who took my sister away, I couldn’t bring myself to hate him.

  My relationship with him somehow felt separate from my captivity, which didn’t make any sense. I shouldn’t feel affection for him, but I did. To everyone else, he was the boss, the man in charge of a vile camp that claimed the freedom of innocent women, including my sister and myself. But to me, he was the man who didn’t force me to do anything. He waited for my consent. He took care of me when other men would consider me high-maintenance. He was surprisingly soft at times, always caring about the tears I shed, when he didn’t seem to care about anything else.

  He always had something nice to say about me…when no one else ever did.

  Fender left that morning, and he hadn’t returned. He never told me where he was going, and I didn’t try to ask. I tried to keep myself busy by taking a walk through his grounds and admiring all the flowers he bothered to upkeep. He seemed like a man who didn’t care about that sort of thing. Then I walked through the house and admired all the paintings on the walls.

  There were a lot.

  His home had to be twenty-thousand square feet, and every wall had some kind of piece, something evocative and beautiful. I moved from one to the next, seeing watercolors and lily pads that reminded me of the pond in the front of his estate.

  “Melanie, lunch is ready.” Gilbert was never pleasant toward me. When he spoke to me, it was like giving an order. When he spoke to Fender, there was more than just an employee kissing the ass of his boss. There was genuine affection there, genuine respect. He immediately walked off without waiting for a response.

  I looked at the painting for a moment longer before I walked to the dining table in the garden room, my favorite place to have lunch. Gilbert set the plate in front of me, and the serving was different from usual. It was much smaller, and there were no desserts.

  He must have noticed my quizzical expression because he said, “You’re gaining weight.” Like that wasn’t rude at all, he grabbed the teapot and set it on the table along with my lunch.

  “Did…Fender say that?”

  “No. I am. How do you expect all your clothes to fit if you’re getting bigger every week? You can always take something in, but never out.” He shook his finger. “And you shouldn’t wear those beautiful designer clothes unless you’re worthy of them.”

  “Why do you hate me so much?” I blurted out the question because I was exhausted by his hostility. “Fender told you to service me the way you service him, but you’re constantly insulting me when I’ve done nothing to you.”

  He looked down at me over his nose, like nothing I said meant anything to him. “He said to service you. Said nothing about liking you.” He walked off and left me there to sit alone, to stare at my small lunch of a salad and a side of fruit. Everything I ate was wonderful, something to look forward to, but now I didn’t have an appetite.

  Gilbert brought dinner to my room.

  “Is Fender home?” There were other workers in the house, housekeepers and chefs, but they only spoke French. I had no one to talk to besides Fender, so days without interaction felt like an eternity.

  He set the tray on the dining table. “Yes. But he can’t be bothered right now.”

  I stayed on the couch and swallowed my disappointment.

  “Enjoy your dinner.” He excused himself.

  “Wait.” I rose to my feet and turned to look at him.

  He turned back around and didn’t hide his annoyance, but he obeyed my request.

  “Can I have dinner with you…sometime?”

  A slow, bewildered expression came into his face. “Staff never dine with their masters. And even if I could, I wouldn’t.” He turned around and walked off.

  I shouldn’t care what he thought about me, but since he was the only person I interacted with, it really brought me down, made me feel worse about myself than I already did. I’d been nothing but polite to him, but he continued to treat me like I was worthless. Maybe I should take a drive to the city, have dinner in a café or something…just to be around people who would have no reason to hate me.

  When I made it downstairs, I searched for Gilbert to ask for the keys to a vehicle. I’d never driven in Paris, but as long as I drove slowly and took my time, I should probably be fine…I think.

  Gilbert was nowhere to be found.

  Footsteps sounded behind me on the stairs.

  “Bring my car around.” Fender’s deep voice sounded from the very top, and his footsteps became louder as he descended toward the bottom floor.

  Gilbert was behind him. “Of course, sir. Which vehicle would you like this evening?” Cheery and kind, the excitement was in his voice, like he lived for these interactions with Fender.

  “Surprise me.” Fender made it to the bottom, dressed in all black, in a sleek black leather jacket. His hair was styled when it was normally ignored, and he wore a black watch with a gold case around it.

  When he noticed me, he walked up to me but didn’t embrace me. He had this look on his face that
clearly said, “What do you want?”

  I got better at understanding what he said when he didn’t say anything at all. “Wanted to take a car into the city…”

  Gilbert joined us and walked past, trying to disappear.

  “Not tonight.” As if the conversation was over, Fender headed to the front door.

  “Why?”

  He continued to the entryway and ignored me.

  Something about the whole thing pissed me off, so I followed him. “Where are you going?”

  He reached the front door but didn’t open it. “Out.”

  He wasn’t dressed like he was doing something for work, but some kind of social event, and that made me feel betrayed. He was going out without me, and the only reason for that would be because of women. “I’m talking to you.” I was tired of the back-and-forth, of his affection and then his coldness. He could be so good to me and then so indifferent.

  He stilled then turned around, giving me his gaze and attention. His muscular arms rested by his sides, and he took a step toward me, his eyes showing their annoyance at the interruption.

  “Why won’t you answer me?”

  “Because I don’t have to.” Like that was final, he said nothing else.

  My eyes started to water against my will, my throat beginning to burn. I felt so alone here, felt betrayed by him when he owed me nothing. I hated myself for feeling this way, feeling something I didn’t quite understand.

  As with every other time I shed tears, it softened him. His eyes dropped the hostility. “What do you want from me?”

  “Are you with other women?” I dropped my restraint and spoke my mind.

  His eyes narrowed. “None of your business.”

  “Because if we aren’t going to use anything—”

  “Is that really your concern?” He stepped closer to me, his eyes shifting back and forth as he burned his look into mine. “If you want my fidelity, all you have to do is ask for it.”

  My eyes were still wet with tears, but they were old now, and there were no new ones to replace them. “I ask you things all the time, and you ignore me or say—”

  “Yes or no.”

  “Yes or no, what…?”

  “Do you want my fidelity?”

  Out of pride, I should say no, but I couldn’t do that. The idea of him going out and being with another woman made me sick, and not because I wanted to stay clean. It was much deeper than that. “Yes.”

  He turned to the door again, like the matter was settled. He opened the door and stepped outside, where his car was waiting.

  My unease had been swayed, but there was still a gaping hole of confusion inside. “Why will you give this to me but nothing else?” I went after him, ignoring the valet who stood there and Gilbert, who appeared out of thin air.

  Fender turned back to me once more.

  “How can you give that to me so easily but dismiss me all the time? When you ignore all my questions? When you treat me like I mean nothing to you? Explain to me how that makes any sense.”

  He considered me for a long time, those hostile eyes infinite pools of darkness. He had a sinister energy and radiated constant coldness, but he was the strongest, most handsome man I’d ever looked at, and the idea of sharing him…made me irrational. “You said you would never abandon me.” But every time he left, he did. Every time he excluded me from his life, he did. “I want more than that.”

  “And you would have had it if you hadn’t run from me.” His voice deepened and turned angry. The sting of betrayal was obvious in the burn of his eyes. Even after our conversation about it, he was still furious. He said he never let anything go—and he wasn’t kidding. “You fucked my brains out, and then the next day, you threw yourself at death.”

  “For my sister,” I snapped. “And you wouldn’t have done the same?”

  All I got was a staredown.

  Gilbert slowly stepped away, nodded to the valet, and they excused themselves somewhere on the grounds so we could talk in private.

  Fender didn’t seem to care whether they were there or not. His look continued to pierce through my flesh and to my skull. “If I let you go right now, would you leave?”

  I stilled at the question.

  “Answer. Me.”

  “I don’t understand why—”

  “Answer the fucking question.”

  If Fender really let me go and I could walk out those front gates and return to a normal life…I wasn’t sure what I would even do. The only thing I’d want to do is go to the police and tell them about the girls at the camp so they could rescue my sister, but my limited time with him taught me that he was invincible, that he dared me to escape because he was untouchable. The authorities would do nothing. And if I couldn’t do that, then I didn’t know what I would do with myself. I didn’t know how I would adapt to normal life, not after what I’d been through. No one would ever understand, and the men I met wouldn’t understand either. And they wouldn’t compare to Fender anyway, the man who made other men undesirable. If I couldn’t save my sister, then an existence out there felt pointless, not when I had everything I could ever dream of right here—including him. “No.”

  His eyes remained rigid for a few seconds before they released me. It took him time to absorb my answer, but when he got it, his hard body began to soften everywhere, not just in his eyes. “I haven’t been with anyone since you, nor did I ever intend to. I’m meeting someone I work with. And I’ll see you when I return.”

  Twelve

  Bartholomew

  Fender

  The club was dark. Music blared overhead, the bass thumped, the walls were covered with red velvet that smelled like decades of smoke. The leather chairs sagged in places because they hadn’t been replaced since the place opened decades ago.

  I sat alone, the glass of scotch in front of me, my eyes surveying the idiots who danced to the music, took shots, flirted with people they would never see again after the next morning. A group of girls seemed to be celebrating a bachelorette party because one had a fake veil on top of her head.

  With police cars in the streets and cameras everywhere, people assumed the world was a safe place. Well, I was sitting just twenty feet away from them, and I could shoot each of those girls in the back of the head with no consequence.

  And they had no idea who was about to join me.

  He appeared through the darkness and the smoke, dressed in all black, wearing his signature military boots. As he passed the girls, one reached out to grab him by the arm. His head wasn’t even turned her way, and he sidestepped the touch and kept going.

  He fell into the booth across from me, and before his ass even touched the seat, the waitress was there with his drink.

  He gave a nod without actually looking at her.

  Now we were alone.

  He tilted his head back and took a big drink, like it was a shot rather than a glass of whiskey. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand just behind his thumb then got comfortable in the leather chair, leaning back, looking at me with dark eyes that reminded me of shadows. He wasn’t much of a talker.

  Neither was I.

  No wonder we got along so well.

  After a long staredown, he spoke. “On behalf of the Chasseurs, I demand a cut.” He picked up his glass and held it lazily, almost like it was a cigar between his fingertips. “You need fewer girls, you need to supplement us with something else.” Bartholomew was the leader of the Hunters, an underground criminal organization that was connected to every aspect of the underworld.

  And his headquarters were literally underground.

  The Parisian Catacombs.

  “I don’t have the room.”

  “Make room.” He turned colder when he didn’t get the answer he wanted.

  “Not possible. You can thank Magnus for that.” We hadn’t spoken since that last conversation, and I had no desire to have another. He was already on thin ice, and then he decided to stomp his foot.

  A long stare transpired, ev
erlasting. “What’d your brother do?”

  “One of our partners was unable to pay. I ordered his execution, but Magnus decided to spare him because of the circumstance.”

  “The circumstance?”

  “He’s got a blood feud with someone, and they decided to hit him hard. They took the money, half his men, and even his wife and one of his kids. Said he would produce the money in forty-eight hours.”

  “Did he?”

  “Deadline is tomorrow. But I don’t care about his sob story. Despite what many people may think, rules aren’t meant to be broken—especially mine.”

  Bartholomew gripped his glass as his elbow rested on the table, and his direct eye contact lasted a long time, both hostile and indifferent. He was one of the few men I’d met who was truly impossible to read. It wasn’t a poker face either. He was just complicated. “No, they’re not. I wouldn’t have spared him either.”

  “I’ve always liked you, Bartholomew.” I raised my glass before I took a drink.

  He didn’t crack a smile. “Magnus has been dead weight for a long time. Cut him loose.”

  I took another drink.

  “And replace him with me.” He set his empty glass on the table then relaxed in the chair, giving me the floor to respond to what he said—because he was dead serious.

  My eyes immediately flicked away and surveyed the scene of the club, seeing the girls cast interested glances our way but never making their way over. Maybe they knew we were the kind of men that would ruin their lives.

  “He’s not cut out for this. You know it.”

  My eyes moved back to him. Magnus had been pissing me off for a while now. He questioned every decision I made, tried to convince me to change our entire operation even when I explained to him dozens of times his suggestions would never work. When I wanted to scale up the operation, he was full of excuses.