“You?” she scoffs. “Civilized and gentlemanly? I call bullshit.”
I chuckle deeply as I kiss her again. “Careful. Or I’ll show you how uncivilized I can be.”
“Is that a promise?”
“You’ll find out after dinner tonight at home.”
She grins hungrily, her hips rocking as she slowly grinds herself into my lap.
“Deal.”
“Careful,” I murmur.
“Of?”
“Keeping that up, because I’ll make even Madame Kuzmina wait until I’m done fucking you.”
Her face blooms with heat, but she still gasps dramatically. “You wouldn’t dare defy—”
“Understudies!” Madame K’s cold, cigarette-tinged voice booms through the theater. “To the stage, NOW!”
“That woman is fucking terrifying,” I mutter.
“She’s really nice once you get to know her,” Bianca ventures.
“Understudies!! RIGHT FUCKING NOW, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!”
My brow arches skeptically. “Really.”
Bianca giggles. “Actually? No.” She sighs as she slides off my lap, pouting. “So, until dinner tonight.”
“Tonight it is.”
She beams as she leans down to kiss me again. “See you then. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
Well, shit. If my beast isn’t curled up quietly in a corner of his cage.
Content.
“Thanks for coming, Kratos.”
I nod as Arian ushers me into his study—I guess it’s his late father’s study—in the sprawling Upper West Side Gilded Age mansion which he now owns. I’m vaguely aware that Arian has a younger sister, but I’m unclear if she has much or anything to do with the family business. Regardless, she’s at college right now at Knightsblood University.
“Good to see you again, Arian.”
Honestly, I was wrong about him. Everything I’d heard about Davit’s son was that he was an aggressive prick. When I first met him, when I stopped over here to chat with his dad before Bianca’s and my engagement party, he seemed to live up to that hype.
But at the Black Swan the other night, he was calm, collected, and seemed to have his shit together—well, aside from hanging out with shits like Grisha Lenkov. And now again today, the man who greets me isn’t the scowling, snarling prick who all but told me to go fuck myself when I came to see his father.
“I hope the aftermath of my…disagreement with your guest the other night didn’t cause too much trouble for you.”
He smirks. “Not really. Truth be told, I think Grisha was so drunk he might not have felt a punch even from you.” He clears his throat. “Oh, and I passed on your message to Mr. Chernoff. The man who owed him seems to have skipped town. But Mr. Chernoff appreciated the debt being settled, however unorthodoxly. He considers the matter closed.”
I nod. “I owe you.”
His brow furrows a little before he shakes it off. “Don’t worry about it. Can I offer you a drink?”
“Whatever you’re having is perfect, thank you,” I nod.
Arian pours us a couple of scotches, handing me a crystal tumbler before we both take seats on the couches by the windows. He takes a sip of his drink and then exhales slowly.
“I owe you an apology, Kratos.”
My brow furrows. “For…?”
“My behavior, the first day we met, here in this office. I was…not myself.”
I shake my head. “It’s nothing, Arian. You had a lot to deal with. Your father was sick—”
“That’s not entirely it. Though I appreciate the out.” He takes another sip of his drink before his brow deepens slightly. “It was my idea to lend your family the crucifix, you know. And the reason I was so pissed off when it got blown to hell isn’t because I give a shit about a bunch of old bones that my father’s mysticism-junky advisors get hard for. It’s because when it got fucked, I thought that was it for a potential alliance between your family and mine.”
I nod. “Again, you have my sincere apologies—”
“It isn’t about the damn bones, Kratos,” he growls quietly. “This is about something bigger.”
