“Yeah, but this is Polly we’re talking about,” El, the problem middle child, adds, referring to our mother by her name. “I’m not sure she knows the meaning of the word.”
El isn’t really the middle child, just the middle one out of the three of us. That’s not to say he isn’t a problem.
“We all know that the wordnomeans something else to Polly,” Brin says.
“Yeah, like try another way,” El agrees.
That’s our mother to a T. I’m sure most people don’t recognize her machinations because she operates like a steel fist in a velvet glove. But this conversation isn’t even about her. It’s about what happened in my apartment last week. About how good Mimi Valente’s nails felt pressing into the skin of my forearm. How fucking amazing it was to watch her come all over my fingertips. Not that my brothers are aware of what happened because I’m not in the habit of discussing my sex life with them.
Don’t stop.
I’ve never—
I give my head a quick shake to rouse myself from the temptation that seems to play in my mind on a loop.Never what?I wonder for the thousandth time before pushing the question away.
I hadn’t seen her since she was a kid, so of course I didn’t recognize her. And I was horrified when she pulled her bloody résumé from her purse. She was dressed for an interview, not to meet some vague fetish of mine. What happened should be enough to make my balls crawl up my arsehole and never want to come out. Unfortunately, my brain had taken another path, one that seems to insist on reminding me how perfectly she followed instructions and how beautiful she looked as she unraveled, gripping my arm and pulsing against my fingertips.
It was a busy night. I’d had cum on my fingers twice. Once in the lounge, a gorgeous woman clinging onto me, and once in the shower as I’d replayed the moment in my head.
That she’d turned up unannounced was Polly’s doing. That she didn’tquiteget the position she sought is on me. I was expecting someone else. A playmate, if you like. But that’s not to say Mimi left feeling discontented. She seemed a little dazed, to be honest. And embarrassed. But unsatisfied? Definitely not. Not the way she wobbled her way back out of my apartment.
I rub a hand down my face. This is all so fucked up. And the idea of her working here? No. Fuck no, and hell no. I’m sure she feels exactly the same. She’d probably hitchhike back to Florida rather than face me.
“Poll is tenacious. Like a terrier.”
El’s voice pulls me back to the moment. “It doesn’t matter how dogged she is because I said no,” I repeat with finality. “Amelia Valente might be in London, but she’s not working here.”
My brothers make a joint high-pitched,“Oooooh!”which I choose to ignore as I drop my head to one hand and begin to massage my temples. Of course she’s not working here. No way she wants to be anywhere near me. She probably thinks I’m a deviant.
“I don’t know what you’ve got against the idea. It’s not like you’d have to see her every day.” El flicks out his hand, indicating the size of my office or maybe the space of the floors beyond. “You could just shove her in the basement with the tech team.”
“I’m not going toshoveher anywhere,” I mutter as I imagine her expression as I shove her on—full of?—something very hard and very specific.
“You’re sure?” The thorn between two sibling roses smirks.
My attention reels back. “Are your ears just ornamental?” Something in his expression pisses me off more than usual this morning. “And please, enlighten us, what’s with the smug face?”
“He can’t help it.” Brin stretches out in his chair, folding his hands behind his head. “Not everyone can be beautiful like us.” Brin and I share the same coloring, thanks to the Italian heritage on our dad’s side. El is fair, like Polly, and the rest of our seven siblings are a mismatch of colorings in between. Yes, seven. Frankly, it’s a wonder Polly can string a sentence together after raising all of us, let alone find the energy to meddle.
“I’m pretty sure smug and superior are mentioned on your LinkedIn bio,” El retorts. “But if you don’t want her, I can think of a couple of places I’d quite like to shove her.”
“Why would either of you need to shove her anywhere?” Brin persists. “Unless she’s got a face like a can of squashed dicks?”
“Valente?” El turns in his chair, flashing our younger brother a meaningful look. One that’s lost on him as Brin gives a shrug and a shake of his head. “You are such a twat sometimes. Amelia Valente as in Connor Valente?”
I can almost see the light bulb of realization switch on above Brin’s head. “Your college roommate, right? From when you abandoned us for sunnier climes.”
“Fuck abandoning us,” El says. “I got a bedroom to myself when he left.”
Back when we’d been a typical family before I’d started this company and hit the big bucks, I’d been desperate to get out of the overcrowded madhouse that was our family home. When I was offered a scholarship to a college in the US, I couldn’t pack quickly enough. It meant I’d have to spend most of the school breaks on my own, but it was a small trade-off for that level of freedom and experience. As it was, I’d missed my family more than I could’ve anticipated. As luck would have it, I’d been roomed with Connor and he’d pretty much become my pseudo brother overnight. We partied together, studied together, and he’d insist on taking me back home when college breaks rolled around. I spent plenty of summers at their house in the years following college, too. We were just really good mates. But in a cruel twist of fate, he died while he was on holiday in Thailand. I was supposed to be there with him, rock climbing, but I begged off at the last minute. Work was crazy, and I couldn’t get away. The weird thing is, for all the danger in the sport, he hadn’t died doing it. He’d passed in his sleep. Cardiac arrest, they’d said.
I should’ve been there with him.
And I shouldn’t have crossed the line with his little sister.
“I still don’t get it,” Brin says. “Where does Amelia Valente come into this?”
“She doesn’t,” I grate out.
