Her lack of reaction is beginning to grate on my fucking nerves. Her disinterest and mighty attitude has started to scrape against my walls, and even I don’t know how I’ll act if those walls somehow end up falling and letting everything break loose.
“You’re used to girls falling at your feet.” Cole’s voice pulls me out of my head. “It’s time someone tells you no.”
“She didn’t say no — she said yes.” The fact that I don’t know why she’s so insistent about this bloody marriage is probably why I’m on edge.
Sure, she wants to help Ethan, but with her psycho personality, I’m almost certain that’s not all.
I focus on her again as she stares at her phone.
What the fuck are you hiding, ma belle?
“Yes can mean no.” Aiden takes a sip of his drink. “Ever thought about that?”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“You’ve known me for years, haven’t you, Astor?”
“I have.”
“You know when to stay away and when to get close, and you just act like you don’t know sometimes to be a dick.”
“Who? Moi?” I feign innocence.
“Like that.” Aiden points at me. “Your game is strong.”
“What he’s trying to say is” — Cole twirls his finger — “think with the other side of your brain. Let it loose.”
I grin, and my cheeks hurt with the motion. “No idea what you’re talking about.”
“You’ll have to figure it out. Otherwise, you’ll just continue to lose.” Cole speaks in a calm tone. “Either you make the first move or you have to follow someone else’s first move.”
In other words, either I go all the way or I lose.
“And think about the kinky stuff, and the…screams.” Cole’s lips curve in a suggestive smirk. “It might come in handy.”
“Real talk, Captain.” I dig my fingers into his shoulder. “What will it take for you to tell me what you know?”
“Information,” Aiden says matter-of-factly. “Give him something he doesn’t know about the subject of his obsession, though I doubt you have any valuables.”
I grin, and this time, it’s genuine. Since I found out about Cole’s hidden tendencies and figured another thing out, I planned to hold on to this piece of information until I needed a serious favour from him, but I’m at the end of a road here, and I need to carve a way out. “I might have.”
Cole’s head tilts. “What?”
“Une seconde, mon ami. If I give you what you want, will you give me what I need?”
“I might.”
“Not good enough for the shit I have. It’s all documented and with evidence.”
He narrows his eyes before quickly going back to normal. “Fine.”
Of course Cole would choose his battle instead of anyone else’s. He’s Cole, after all.
Friends? Fuck that. Those don’t exist when it comes to himself.
“You go first, Captain.”
Teal insisted she doesn’t have a secret, but as I said, everyone does.
And when I have hers, nothing will save her from me.
She’ll wish she’d never said yes.
6
Teal
Since I turned eighteen a month ago, I’ve been waiting for this moment — or rather waiting for the response.
The letter with the black envelope and red writing.
The acceptance.
The possible solution to all the fuckery that’s been happening in my life.
I adjust my mask as I walk through the hall of the club.
It’s more exclusive than the palace and needs more intervention than MI6’s agents. I first got my ticket here a month ago after I convinced one of the random men I met at a pub that we could meet here.
It was, of course, a lie. Spending one night with him had already been too unremarkable.
He was the last one. I’ve been dissatisfied for a long time now, and I realised after that night that I should stop. It was all a waste of my time.
I cut out all my random escapades a few days before the official engagement with Ronan. I wouldn’t call it that official, though. People know about it, but it’s not announced vastly, and I refused the ring until we’re at least out of school.
Not that this game will go on until then.
The reason I stopped the encounters has nothing to do with the engagement and everything to do with me.
It’s been more than a week since that dinner at the Astor mansion. Ronan still lives his life as if nothing happened, and I get to live mine the same.
After all, it’s just a contract, a convenience, a link between our families and a thread to my plan. Nothing more or less.
I meant it — he can bring it. Nothing will sway me, and there’s no way in hell he’ll have me abandoning what I started.
Holding the acceptance letter between my fingers, my insides hum with excitement as I follow the girl down the hall with red carpets and walls covered in black flowery wallpaper.
It’s the theme of the club, La Débauche. As its name suggests, it’s for debauchery, depravity and…fantasy.
I first discovered it in my trips through the dark web. Then I found one of its members on Tinder and hooked up with him that night. That meeting got me my entrance recommendation.
Since then, I’ve been coming here to be part of the Audience Society, the voyeurs who watched the titillation of the human mind through their bodies.
It was fascinating. It was the first time I thought of something as that in…forever.
Watching those girls fall to their knees in front of stronger, bigger, and older men always had me rubbing my thighs.
I’ve had sex before, but I’ve never once had an orgasm or gotten wet enough to make the experience pleasurable. I’ve always chosen older men, at least fifteen years older than me and experienced, and still…nothing.
I was starting to think I was broken beyond repair and that I’d never feel the ecstasy Elsa and Kim keep talking about. I thought the feeling was foreign, just like me.
La Débauche’s scenes brought back some of that faith and the possibility of more.
That’s why I applied to be ‘Debauched’. One night, one stranger, and that’s it. I was rejected two times, but today, I received my acceptance letter.
The greatest policy here is anonymity. The reason I found Richard on the dark web is because he posted a shot of the invitation card in his public profile.
Here, no one knows who you are or where you came from. There are no names, just numbers. No faces, just black masks like the ones from costume parties. All women wear black satin gowns, and all men wear black trousers.
That’s it.
That’s all that’s needed.
As soon as they confirm you’re over eighteen, the sky’s the limit.
I have no idea how they accept people here, but it seems to be a tight process. I don’t even know how I got in. Even with Richard’s referral, it seemed so farfetched at the time, but I still threw in my letter anyway, hoping for something different.
That’s all I’ve been doing my entire life, wishing the shadow weren’t a normal state of mind and that different didn’t actually mean crazy.