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Ryke can’t act any other way than how he is.
He’s the opposite of me. I can change. So I’m something less, something easier to swallow. Ryke gives himself to you like a bottle of sand or a bag of shrapnel. Chew and swallow, he says. I’ll take care of you if you bleed.
The point is that Ryke can’t help Rose and me. He’d make it so fucking obvious that we’re staging events for the press. He’d basically wear I’m in bed with the media on his forehead.
I need people on my team that will make this easier. Not harder.
He’s a shackle, a weight, a cost that I can do without.
So while he stands there, glaring at me like I’m lying, I worry that he’s going to ruin something he’d support. He’d do anything for his brother. But he can’t do this. It’s not in his ability. Sorry, Ryke.
I’m benching you.
“Yes?” I say, pulling my face with confusion, even when I feel none.
He hesitates, frowning. “Never mind…” He shakes his head and whispers in Daisy’s ear. She nods, and they leave the living room and disappear into the kitchen.
Rose watches them exit and says quietly, “He’s too smart.”
Between the media’s involvement with Jane and Moffy, our sex tapes, and Ryke, he’s the least of my worries. “Just remember, he’s not smarter than us.”
No one is.
[ 5 ]
ROSE COBALT
“This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done,” I realize, in slight horror. I stand firmly in the master bathroom, dressed only in one of Connor’s white button-downs and my white panties. I considered doing this stupid, stupid thing in our smaller bathroom upstairs, but I imagined the mess, the smell, and I decided against it. The master has been vacant since Connor and I changed rooms, opting for the second floor to be closer to Jane’s nursery and more integrated in the house’s happenings.
“You haven’t done anything yet,” Connor says, casually flipping through the tiny packet of directions. “And it’s a far cry from stupid.”
I pace back and forth in front of the his-and-hers marble sinks, my hands unintentionally stroking my long brown hair. Bleach, developer, and toner sit next to the faucet, chemicals that I’ve never contemplated using in my hair, not once. Not even when my mother prodded me for highlights when they were “popular among girls my age” during the early 2000s.
Connor suddenly tosses the directions on the counter.
I freeze. “You read those for two seconds. I swear to God, if you skimmed, I will dropkick you in shark-infested waters.”
“I think you’d fair better if you swore to me and not the air.” He unscrews the top off the powdered bleach, his lips beginning to rise.
I hate that smile. But I love that smile. I growl, fed-up with my brain’s indecision about a man I love to hate. I hesitate to steal the bleach from him, but he’s already mixing the powder with the developer in a plastic bowl.
Instead, I reach out for the instructions, but Connor beats me, snatching the tiny packet and pocketing them in his navy-blue gym pants, shirtless. I refuse to even acknowledge the six—no eight abs in front of me that are both desirable and detestable. It’s not fair that someone as intelligent as Connor Cobalt is also this fit. It’s all purposeful. He works hard to achieve his appearance, to be as put-together outside as he is inside.
“I read the directions,” he says, holding my gaze. “They’re straightforward. They’re simple, Rose. There’s absolutely no way I can do this incorrectly.”
I trust him.
More than anyone in this world, I trust Connor. But… “You’re not a hairdresser, Richard. Unless I missed the part where Faust taught all the boys how to perm each other.” This would be less stressful if I could march into a salon and have a professional treat my hair with delicate, experienced hands. Instead I had to condition my hair for the past three days, in fear that this home-remedy would damage hair that I’ve spent years nurturing like a fucking toddler.
Connor reads my boiling, anxious expression. “How many times have you gone to the salon without paparazzi waiting outside?”
Never. I glare. “I could’ve had a stylist come to the house.”
“And how many times has a stylist tipped off the media?”
Four times. They tipped off my wardrobe for a Charity event to Style Now…and described my sock bun. One of the four also took pictures without my knowledge. I can’t trust just anyone, and I’ve yet to find a stylist honorable enough to bring into our current situation with Celebrity Crush.
When so many people morph into paparazzi with their own cellphones, capturing an exclusive photo is incredibly hard. It’s why Andrea covets them. It’s why I have to swallow my fear and do this the old-fashioned, hazardous way—all to ensure that Walter Aimes will snap his photo and Celebrity Crush will have a beautiful headline about my ugly hair color.
Jane and Moffy are worth more than your hair, I keep repeating the mantra. I accept the situation—that this is about to happen—as soon as he puts on plastic gloves.
“Don’t get it on my hands or skin,” I remind him, gripping the edge of the counter and facing the sink. The toxic smell is already curdling my stomach, knowing it’ll be in my hair and on my scalp soon. It’s why I’ve tasked him with the laborious part of this process.
He steps behind me, much taller since I’m without heels. “I’m well aware of your preferences,” he says, plastic bowl in hand. “My name is at the top of it beside the number one.”
I watch him through the mirror, my eyes like pools of fire. “You wish.”
“I don’t wish things that are already true,” he says with a bigger grin. I suppose my retort was weak in comparison, falling into his conceited aura too easily. I blame the bleach and his closeness, his chest almost right up against my back.
One more step and I’ll feel his pelvis against me. His toned arms always seem larger and more sculpted without a shirt: perfect with a suit on, not too bulky, and perfect with a suit off, not too lean. There is too much perfect behind me—it’s infuriating.
“Take a step back,” I command.
He tilts his head, just slightly and raises a brow. “Excuse me?”
“One. Step,” I force.
“No,” he says definitively, denying me this.
“I can’t think clearly when you’re this close,” I admit. I end up stepping towards the sink counter, my legs and waist pressed up against it.
“You don’t have to think at all right now. Close your eyes.”
I stubbornly keep my eyes open, glaring in the mirror at him. Off my punctured stare, his desire swims in his deep blues, sexual longing that he often shows me. Without breaking my gaze, he bites off one of his gloves and then slaps my ass. The breath knocks out of me, a pleasured shudder vibrating my stiff limbs. He slips his hand beneath my panties, his large palm soothing the sting.
This time, I willingly close my eyes, letting him take control of me. Some of my anxieties start to dissipate, even as he applies the cold bleach mixture to sections of my hair. He keeps his other hand beneath the button-down I wear and beneath my panties. I like how he clutch
es my ass, but still, I white-knuckle the counter’s edge.
“How does it look?” I ask.
“Like it’s not finished,” he says. “Count backwards from two hundred and maybe it’ll be done by then.” I feel the smirk in his voice.
“I dream of murdering your smile,” I say.
“Your dream clearly hasn’t come true.”
I ignore that annoying comment. “I’d cut it to pieces and sell it to the highest bidder.”
“So you plan to profit off my body?” He steps forward, so close that his erection melds against me. Oh God…
“You better be concentrating on my hair and not my ass,” I say, too nervous to look at the progress he’s made.
“I’m proficient at multi-tasking,” he reminds me. “It’s relatively easy for me to concentrate on all of you at once.”
I’d say that he’s placating me, but I’m certain he’s skilled enough to accomplish both. “What part of me would you murder?” My cold tone of voice challenges him to answer.
“I wouldn’t murder any part of you,” he says, “and I definitely wouldn’t sell those parts either.” He surprises me. I almost lose my balance, but his hand ascends from my ass to my bare hip, seizing my waist that’s grown just slightly since I had Jane, more shape than I once had.
“Not even my tongue?” I have to annoy him. I annoy myself three times out of six during the day.
“You want me to sell your tongue to another man?” he asks. “So they can have this conversation before me?”
No. I don’t want that. I highly doubt another man would entertain these bizarre, would you fall on a sword and bathe in cow’s milk, types of questions that I always throw at Connor. And he always grins, analyzes them, and slings them right back at me.
I feel a glop of cold at my neck, and I stiffen—
“You’re fine,” he assures me quickly. “It’s not on your skin.”
I swallow hard and inhale sharply. More confidence seeps into me, as he holds me tighter around the waist.
“Would you rather make love on goat’s blood or cut off my tongue?” I say the words like I’m one second from wielding a knife and enacting these hypotheticals.
