by Mari Carr
When he’d been called to Boston the first time, he’d told his assistant he was going to investigate a new business opportunity, and that he was going low to no communication, but would periodically check email. His assistant would make sure to flag anything that needed his immediate attention, and also run interference as to his whereabouts.
His assistant had been with him for years and wouldn’t ask questions about where he was going, or what the “business opportunity” was. Corporate espionage was a real problem in his world—two years ago, a rival bought a small wind-power company he’d been courting and assessing for months after learning about his interest.
In response, Rich had bought a cybersecurity company, and had all ten members of his executive assistant staff—from his actual work assistant to his house manager—attend a specialized training by Devon Asher from the CIA. When he was in the middle of sensitive negotiations or exploring new business opportunities, his team suddenly became seasoned spooks, using spy craft techniques like handwriting notes in code so a keystroke program couldn’t be used to spy on them.
He felt a bit bad, since his assistant was probably wound up fairly tight, thinking he had to protect whatever secret Rich was working on. Instead of figuring out ways to make more money, his unplanned time away from the office had been part Italian vacation, with the other part spent sleeping on planes and then fucking his spouses.
His not-spouses.
Jumping on and answering some mundane emails would help him feel grounded, help remind him that he had to think big picture, long-term. What they were feeling now was new and very heat-of-the-moment, but he’d get over it…in time.
He had to.
Rich went to his travel bag, a Saint Laurent case that was a bit too deep to be a traditional briefcase. He preferred it for travel because he could fit his laptop, tablet, and a folio in there, if needed, and still have enough room for a small travel kit and the fiction paperback books he usually only read when traveling.
This time, since he’d packed for Boston and hadn’t planned to be gone long, he’d only brought his tablet, not computer, and instead, added the gloves and a scarf that he’d needed for Boston’s climate.
Glass in hand, Rich had to make two circuits of the room before he located his bag. He thought he’d left it on the dining table, but it was actually on the floor in the corner. Shaking his head, he lifted the bag onto the table, and then took a seat.
Reaching in for his tablet, his attention strayed back to the bedroom door. He should have pulled Mina aside and told her that Langston had been talking to Juliette. If she’d known that, would she have still had sex?
In the grim darkness of the night, he doubted it, and as fucking amazing as what they’d just done had been, guilt was starting to gnaw at him that he hadn’t talked to Mina first.
Guilt that he hadn’t taken Langston aside and coached him on what to say to Juliette.
And above all, an aching sadness that Langston and Mina weren’t his to keep.
Shaking his head, Rich turned back to his bag. Now he couldn’t find the damned tablet. He undid the zippers, unfolding the whole case open like a book.
The inside was a mess—his Montblanc rolling loose, his wool scarf wadded up in a ball rather than neatly folded and tucked in a slot.
Rich frowned, his heart starting to pound. Moving quickly now, he stuck his hand into each pocket. No tablet. Maybe the case had fallen off the table and somehow bounced into the corner, and that’s why it was such a mess.
He checked all the pockets again, this time holding them open and turning them to the light.
No tablet.
A sick feeling churned in the pit of his stomach.
Rich started jerking things out of the various pockets, tossing them onto the table. When the bag was empty, he stood up and upended it, shaking it violently. A small case of ink cartridges for his pen fell out, but nothing else.
No tablet.
He’d lost his tablet. When was the last time he’d had it? He was sure he’d put it away after using it to review a financial report while they were on this last flight to Boston.
And if he’d left it on the plane, someone would have called, wouldn’t they? They would have if it had been a private charter, but they’d flown first-class commercial. Still, they would have, assuming it had been near his seat. Now that he thought about it, one other time, he’d accidentally left his coat when he’d flown commercial and the airline concierge desk had contacted him.
Rich dropped the bag and stared at the mess on the table, his heart now pounding. His tablet was gone, but that wasn’t a huge problem. The encryption his cybersecurity company put on it would wipe it if someone…
If someone had stolen it.
First Mina’s tablet.
Now his.
Rich whipped around, looking at the suite door.
The dead bolt wasn’t flipped. The door had a Bluetooth-enabled lock, which meant the Grand Master could give members, new trinities, the digital “key,” and they never had to check in at the front desk. But that also meant the lock wasn’t totally secure, so he’d locked the dead bolt.
He had. He knew he had.
At least, he had when they’d first entered the room. But what about after the delivery came?
Rich looked at the closed doors off the main room of the suite—three bedrooms and a half bath. He knew what was behind one of those doors. Two vulnerable, sleeping people.
He dashed across the room to the wet bar and grabbed a paring knife out of the drawer. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Keeping an eye on the other doors, he locked the dead bolt—if the thief was in here with them, Rich didn’t plan to let him get away.
Quietly, he made his way over to the master bedroom door and opened it. Without putting his back to the living room, he went far enough into the bedroom to pick up a discarded shoe and throw it at the bed. He was hoping to hit Langston, not Mina, but the middle of a dangerous situation wasn’t the time to be squeamish. He needed both of them awake and aware.
“Ouch! What the fuck?” Langston yelped.
“Langston, get up,” Rich said, sinking warning and urgency into his voice.
A second later, he heard Langston’s feet hit the floor, and a moment after that, Langston’s hand was on his shoulder.
“What’s going on?”
“My tablet was stolen, the door wasn’t fully locked. I haven’t checked the other rooms. Thief might still be here.”
There was a sharp gasp from the bed. “I’m calling…” Mina trailed off.
“Call the police,” Langston urged.
“No,” Rich and Mina said.
She’d been about to say she was going to call the Grand Master, but calling the Grand Master wasn’t like calling 9-1-1—members didn’t do it every time they heard a suspicious noise.
No one called until the situation was deemed an emergency.
“Come on,” Rich said.
“I’m not wearing pants,” Langston stammered.
“And?”
“And…I don’t know. I just woke up. Okay, let’s do this. Do we have a weapon?”
“I have a knife used to cut limes.”
“We’re going to die.”
“Don’t die,” Mina hissed.
Rich slunk out into the living room, and then made his way to the closest bedroom, Langston at his side. They passed an elegant sideboard with two heavy glass objects d’art. Langston grabbed one, brandishing it like a club.
“I’d feel better if you gave me a few minutes to make a bomb,” Langston whispered.
“You have enough shit here in the suite to make a bomb?” Rich asked.
Langston shrugged, his sheepish expression answer enough.
Rich looked at Langston’s club, and then his own tiny knife. “Want to switch?”
“No.” Langston dashed across to the far side of the door, flattening himself against the wall. “Open the door.”
Rich reached for the knob an
d flung the door open so hard it cracked against the wall inside. Langston darted in, flipping on the light.
The room was empty.
They repeated their dramatic entrance when they investigated the bathroom.
“You’ve made enough noise that if he’s here, he knows we’re looking for him.” Mina was standing in the open bedroom door, watching the suite, phone in her hand.
Rich’s blood was still pumping hard, and the urge to do something made him feel twitchy.
He and Langston went through the rest of the suite, Mina shadowing them as backup, ready to call for help while also keeping her eye on the door.
By the time they’d investigated every room and closet, the first surge of adrenaline faded. Langston threw on some pajama pants and joined them in the living room as Rich flopped down onto the couch, tossing the little knife onto the table before covering his face with his hands.
“First my tablet, now yours.” Mina was examining the table where the contents of his bag were scattered.
“You think it was stolen while we were in here? Someone came in while we were…” Langston’s voice trailed off.
“I don’t know.” Rich dropped his hands. “I haven’t used it since we got to Boston, so it could have gone missing at any point. I just…panicked.” That word didn’t taste good.
“Something is going on,” Mina said quietly. “Maybe it’s the Morrison indictment, but maybe it’s something else.” She came to sit beside him. “We need to call the Grand Master.”
Rich looked at her and grimaced. “Before we call her, before we end up back in the library, we need to have a conversation. The three of us.”
Langston carefully replaced the vase, and then sat in the chair across from him. “We need to identify a list of people who might want to steal your tablet, Rich. Like we did when Mina’s was taken.”
“No,” Rich said heavily.
It was time they talked about dissolving their trinity.
“We need to talk about us.”
* * *
Langston walked over to the bar, reaching for a bottle of Gentleman Jack. It was the middle of the night and he’d have preferred some coffee, but there was none, and the burn of whiskey might wake him up. He needed it now that the adrenaline was wearing off. The two hours of sleep he’d managed to grab after the most amazing sex of his life hadn’t put a dent in his sleep deficit.
Something had to give. And soon. All three of them were on the verge of collapsing where they stood. He mentally tried to figure out how many hours they’d actually managed to sleep in the last few days, but gave up because…well, simple math was defeating him.
And now Rich wanted to have a conversation about their relationship. Personally, he could think of better times for this conversation, but he wasn’t the expert. They were.
“Want a refill?” he asked, when he noticed Rich already had a drink.
Rich nodded.
“Mina?” Langston lifted the bottle.
She shook her head.
Langston returned to the seating area and once more claimed the overstuffed armchair across the coffee table, topping up Rich’s drink. He took a sip of the smooth whiskey and waited for Rich to explain why they had to have a marriage chat before calling the Grand Master.
Oh fuck. Was there some other stupid rule they’d broken now? It was hardly their fault people kept stealing shit from Mina and Rich. There was a reason he kept his backpack close. Last thing he needed was someone stealing his bag and ending up with some C4.
“Is everything okay?” Langston finally asked.
Rich sat forward. “Langston. I saw you talking to the Grand Master earlier.”
“He what?” Mina snapped, anger tightening her features as she looked at Rich. “He already talked to her, and you let me—” She threw out an arm, gesturing at the door to the bedroom.
Langston’s face heated. Crap, after the way he’d acted the first time they’d met, they probably thought he’d done something else stupid. He hadn’t. He’d actually just taken the opportunity to apologize to Juliette for the way he’d acted in the altar room that day. And now he needed to apologize to them.
“Yeah. About that—” he started.
Mina cut his explanation short when she slashed her hand through the air. He stopped talking and watched as she took a deep breath, visibly forcing herself to calm down.
“Mina,” Rich started.
“No,” she snapped without looking at him. “I’ll come back to you later. If he already talked to Juliette…” Mina rolled her shoulders back, and then her face softened into a sad smile as she looked at him. “Langston, I just want to say I understand.”
Rich sighed. “And I understand, too.”
It was kind of them to let him off so easily, but Langston wouldn’t rest until he said the words. He’d acted like twelve kinds of a jackass, and his mama had raised him to own up to his mistakes, and if he’d hurt someone, to say, “I’m sorry.”
“Mina, Rich, I appreciate that, but—”
Rich shrugged, trying to appear casual though there was an obvious stiffness in his shoulders. “We knew going in that you were going to ask the Grand Master to dissolve the union.”
“Going in? Going in to what?” Langston wasn’t sure if it was the exhaustion or the whiskey. He felt like he’d missed a step or twenty.
And what did Rich mean dissolve the union? It couldn’t be dissolved.
Hadn’t they been preaching to him that the Grand Master’s word was law? He might have lost his shit at the beginning, but after this last week, he’d truly come to understand how these unions worked. Why one of the tenets of the society was an arranged ménage marriage. More than that, he’d been grateful to Juliette for placing him in a trinity with Rich and Mina.
Rich leaned forward, placing his drink on the coffee table, resting his elbows on his knees. For the first time since Langston had met him, the confident man looked almost lost.
“You made no secret of your feelings about our trinity at the binding ceremony, and…” Rich paused, and Langston sensed he was trying to pick his words with care. “Given your unusual relationship with the Grand Master, we—” Rich looked over at Mina, who nodded—in support?—for him to continue. “Mina and I were—are—prepared for you to ask the Grand Master to set the union aside.”
“You’re prepared for this, for us, to be dissolved?” Langston seemed incapable of speaking in anything other than questions.
“And we think if you approach…approached…it the right way, she would do it.” Mina smiled gently and looked down at her fingers. “I’m assuming she didn’t already do it, otherwise she wouldn’t have let us come here together.”
“She probably wants us to finish out the binding period for the sake of tradition.” Rich looked at him as if waiting for him to confirm.
Langston’s fingertips felt numb, as did his brain.
“If you hadn’t already asked, we were planning to help you pick the best phrases. There’s a sort of society legend that provides a way out. You might have to lie a little and tell her you can’t stand me,” Rich continued. “And if she said ‘no’ earlier, we can still coach you, still help you figure out what to say.”
The numbness and confusion retreated, and Langston felt like he’d been sucker punched as everything they said sank in. Rich and Mina had spent this entire past week—their honeymoon—sleeping with him, while also mentally planning to walk away from the trinity.
Mina nodded. “You made it very clear what you hoped for in your trinity on the flight to Italy, and we heard you.”
Langston wondered how many times they’d throw his stupidity back in his face. He was tired of feeling like odd man out in this relationship.
Tonight… God, tonight, he’d actually felt like he belonged here, belonged with them. To find out they didn’t feel the same way…
He was assaulted by too many powerful emotions—devastation and blinding fury. Langston embraced the anger. It was that or c
ry like a damn baby. He slammed his glass down on the coffee table. “And the sex we’ve been having? What was that? Just a way to kill some time?”
Rich shook his head. “Of course not. We’re consenting adults who were, are, attracted to one another. And we thought—we hoped—we could show you…”
When it was apparent Rich couldn’t find the words—or maybe he didn’t want to say them, Mina tried. “You admitted you’d never participated in a ménage, so…we decided to help you practice.”
Langston tried to control his temper—he knew it kept getting him in trouble—but dammit, as their words sank in, it erupted despite his best attempts to calm down. He stood up so fast, he knocked the heavy armchair back nearly a foot. “Practice?! This past week, the sex we’ve had…that was you teaching me how to have a fucking ménage? Wow. How goddamn generous of the two of you!”
Rich stood, his hands raised, but Langston couldn’t tell if it was in surrender or self-preservation. “No. Wait. You need to let us explain this better, Langston. It might have started that way, but…dammit…it wasn’t practice. It was—”
“You’re right,” Langston interrupted. “It was worse than that. It was fucking pity sex.”
Mina rose as well, shaking her head rapidly. “No. No, Langston. Don’t say that. Don’t even think that. You have to understand. We care about you. We’re trying to help you. To honor what you want.”
“But is that what you want, Mina?” Rich asked urgently. “Because I don’t want this to—”
Langston stormed from the room, missing the last part of his comment. For a second, he thought he’d said “end,” but that was probably wishful thinking.
Langston stomped around the bedroom, throwing on his jeans. He couldn’t find his damned shirt. Fuck it. He grabbed his shoes, backpack, phone, and wallet before returning to the living room. When he got there, he headed straight for the main door.
“Langston, you can’t leave. We need to deal with what just happened.”
Langston chuckled darkly. Rich was a fool if he thought that tone was going to work on him. “I’m sure as fuck not staying here.”