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“The end of what?” He heard the irritation in his voice. It was a typical reaction. He had never been one to take punishment well. “I’m thirty years old, Dad. You can’t send me to my room.”
“I can kick you out of your room.”
Dante swallowed once, and then twice. He stared at his father, trying to gauge his mood. This was beyond bad. “You can’t be serious.”
His father poured a couple of fingers of Scotch and took a long swallow. “I am deadly serious, Dante. By your age, I had already founded a company, married your mother, and we had Susan. I have given you all the time you need to mature, and you just keep on acting like an idiot. Tomorrow morning, you’re going to be utterly reviled in the press.”
He was worried about that? Dante had weathered many a scandal. “They’ll find a new story the day after. It’s not a problem, Dad. I’ll go down to the surface and pose with poor children. I’ll donate some meal pills to the homeless shelters. It’ll blow over.”
Alex brought his fist down on the bar, making the crystal shake. “It will not blow over, Dante! All of your life you’ve had everything given to you. You went to the best schools. You’ve always had the best money could buy. You never have to go the surface for anything but a photo op. I lived on the surface, son. It’s harsh, but it makes a man out of you. If I don’t do something about it, you’ll stay a boy the rest of your life. I don’t want that for you.”
Dante didn’t like where this conversation was going. Dante had plans, big plans, that did not involve getting cut off from his inheritance.
Six months before, something amazing had fallen into his lap, and he was very close to a major breakthrough. “Dad, just give me six months. The sunscreen Meg brought back is going to sell like gangbusters. The bio-med guys almost have it reverse engineered. There are some compounds in it that don’t naturally occur on this plane, but we’ll make it work.”
His father sighed. He suddenly looked wearier than Dante could ever remember seeing him. “I have no doubt that the chemists can make it work. Don’t try to sell this as some big job, Dante. Meggie gave you the sunscreen, and you passed it off to the bio-med team. It doesn’t make you a business man. You spend far more time partying than you do in the office.”
Dante felt humiliation flush through his system. Everyone discounted him. Even his own family. “How about all the marketing research I’ve done? I can sell this. I can make this our biggest seller within a year. I’ve done the financials. Sunscreen tech can be the most profitable arm of Dellacorp within five years. Bio-med has been our weak point. I can make us a leader in the market.”
His father looked far past his sixty-five years as he shook his head. His anger seemed spent, replaced with something Dante could only term as disappointment. “No. You’re off the sunscreen project. You’ll bring too much bad publicity. It’s best if you take a break, Dante. I’ll make you a deal. Get married, and I’ll let you back in. A wedding would mollify the stock holders. They’ll think you’re finally settling down.”
“I don’t want to get married,” Dante said, horrified at the thought. Even when he’d accepted the DL gig, he’d known he wasn’t ready to be anyone’s husband. He was barely thirty. He was still a kid.
His father shrugged and scrubbed a hand across his face. “Then I would start looking for a job, son. You have a business degree. I made sure of it.”
His father walked out, leaving Dante stunned in his wake. On the screen behind him, the women were beginning to shout at each other.
Dante slumped into the first chair he found, utterly shocked at the events of the evening.
It had been a stupid idea. He should never have gone on that dumb show. He’d reacted to his cousins’ happiness. He knew his father would never believe it, but he was jealous of what Beck and Ci had found with their bondmate. Meg was a hell of a woman.
She was tough and funny, and Dante really liked her as a person. He hadn’t found anyone as interesting as Megan Finn. He doubted he ever would. How was he supposed to get married when he was half in love with his cousins’ wife?
He’d been looking for a connection. He could lie to everyone, but he knew the truth deep down. He hadn’t found it. He probably never would. And his father sure as hell couldn’t force it on him.
Something wicked and angry took up residence in Dante’s gut.
If he couldn’t have love, he decided, he could have the next best thing. Dante pulled out his tablet and dialed up his latest mistress. He was sure his father would disapprove, but he needed to let off some steam.
* * * *
Two hours later, he let his head rest against the back of the chair as Ashley Wilcox-Barrow teased the head of his dick with her very talented tongue.
“He seriously expects you to get married?” Ashley asked. She emphasized the “you” part. The question vibrated against the sensitive skin of his cock.
Dante took a long swallow of Scotch. He knew he probably looked every bit the decadent, care-for-nothing no-good his father had portrayed him as. He was sitting in his mistress’s suite, which he paid for, drinking and letting her pleasure him. The worst part was the fact that while his cock was engaged, his fangs hadn’t popped out yet. He was distracted. Or getting old.
Maybe he really should think about settling down.
Then Ashley ran her tongue from the base of his balls to the crown of his cock, and he wasn’t thinking much anymore. She was extremely good at giving head. What right did his father have to tell him he was useless because he liked to party and kept a mistress? He worked hard. Sometimes. Didn’t he deserve to play? Besides, he considered himself a mentor to his mistress, really. Ashley was a young woman trying to put herself through school without the aid of family or corporate funds. It was a given in their society that she would find a wealthy patron to help her. If she’d been born in a royal line, he would never have touched her, but Ashley was a lovely peasant girl. She knew the score. He could never marry a peasant. It would be a royal or a consort.
Even if she’d been a royal, he wouldn’t have considered her. Ashley was all right, but he didn’t love her. And she sure as hell didn’t love him. Dante suspected she didn’t really like royals.
His father had been born a royal, but one without money. His father had pulled his entire family off the surface with willpower and intelligence. Dante was never going to live up to his father.
“Have I lost you?” Ashley stared up at him, her brown eyes questioning. Her hands were on his thighs. He hadn’t even noticed that she’d stopped. What was wrong with him?
Dante shook his head and stroked her hair. She was a sweet girl, and she’d been good to him in her own way. He didn’t want her to feel insecure. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. My mind is on the problem. Don’t stop. I need this tonight.”
