Page 148 of Devious Lies (Cruel Crown)
I shut the light off, folded the note as carefully as I could, and peered out the window at the sky.
Not bad, Starless Night. Not bad.
I existed in a state of permanent irritation any asshole with a brain could diagnose as blue balls, because I couldn’t fuck the two people I wanted to fuck. One was a faceless username, and the other drove me so crazy, I didn’t fully understand why I wanted her.
I just knew I did.
Admitting it felt like holding my arm up to a dog and asking it to bite me. (An actual dog, like a Belgian Malinois or a Rottweiler, not a Rosco. Rosco’s teeth would probably fall off if he tried to bite me, and then he’d be hairless and toothless.)
Unlike the dumb-fucks that enjoyed teeth play, my masochistic tendencies didn’t include physical pain.
And it fucking pained me to admit I’d kiss Emery again.
Repeatedly.
For days.
Jesus, are those teeth I’m feeling?
Delilah lapped up the sight of construction workers from her desk. They left the kitchen a goddamn pigsty. Loud drills reverberated to my side of the penthouse. Randell carried in a section of the countertop with ease, whereas his son Bud knocked the cabinet door cradled in his arms into everything.
Delilah: You should have hired Chip and Joanna Gaines.
Setting my phone down, I tossed her a water bottle from the mini-fridge built into my desk. “Who and who?”
“Seriously?”
“You’re not sparing anyone by texting.” My voice never wavered. If anything, I raised it. I cracked open my bottle and chugged half of it in one gulp. “If you think Randell and Bud are fucking up, just say it.”
“Nash,” she hissed. “What is up with you today?”
Two words—blue and balls.
I leaned back in my executive chair, eyed the scratched wall, and beckoned Bud with two fingers. The lanky kid ambled over here with the grace of a newborn giraffe learning to walk.
“Bud, define nepotism,” I ordered, wondering what the design crew was doing downstairs.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d worked up here, but I had to supervise the kitchen, considering I had half a mill stashed in the safe, and the construction crew had drills, hammers, and saws.
“Um…” His calloused fingers gripped my desk, leaving wood residue. Bud’s eyes darted to Delilah. “When someone hires a person because of whom they're related to?”
“Continue.”
He snuck a glance at Randell, who watched him suffer with a chuckle. “And, um, it's a…favor?”
“Keep going.”
“And… the person hired is… um…”
“Fucking hell,” Delilah muttered. She scrawled her signature and set down her pen. “Nash, the kid’s sweating enough. This is painful to watch.” She put Bud out of his misery. “Bud, what Nash is trying to say is, you and your dad both work for us, which poses the question of whether or not nepotism was involved in the hiring process. People will think so if you continue to make mistakes without learning from them. Can you be more careful from here on?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Bud nodded at me and Delilah a second before fleeing. Even the back of his head appeared relieved.
“Mother Teresa,” I shot at Delilah. Pulling up an account, I wired a few thousand dollars to the company I hired to move the sculpture from my Eastridge home to the lobby. “You chose the wrong job for mercy.”
“I chose the wrong job in general.” She closed her laptop, rested her chin on her knuckles, and stared at me. “Is there a reason you asked for the sudden rush on the kitchen? You could’ve given me a heads up. I would have slept in.” Her pointer finger twirled in a circle. “I can't work with this noise, and Rosco hates wearing his puppy earplugs.”
“Chill. First, the rat will survive. They live in sewers, for fuck’s sake.” I peered at the foot of Delilah's desk, where Rosco curled into a ball on a Louis Vuitton four-poster miniature pet bed. Orange faux fur-lined earmuffs covered the two Dumbo flappers sprouting from his head. “Second, the crew has been at it for hours. They’re almost done. The cleaners will be here in,” I eyed my watch, “twenty minutes give or take.”
