Chapter One
Can this woman move any slower?
He keeps the thought to himself and takes another puff of his cigar while trying to keep his patience intact.
Lori…or was it Maureen…is taking her precious time picking up her belongings around the bedroom. Painstakingly slow. He swears it shouldn’t have taken the five minutes she’s already used so far since she didn’t have anything with her but her skin-tight dress, a thong underneath, and a small clutch.
“Do you prefer a cab or an Uber?” he asks because no one could ever accuse him of not being a gentleman. He should probably reconsider that.
Abrasive? Yes.
Dick move? Most definitely.
But come on! Lori/Maureen would be lying to herself if she said she didn’t know any better.
She’s blonde, tall, and fit. Mid-thirties, maybe? Pretty face too. So, yeah. She should definitely know better. Especially when it comes to a King. By the looks of her batting her lashes though, she’s still hoping to at least spend the night.
Hard no. Fat chance.
This is probably Derrick’s fault. Derrick King, his twin brother.
With word spreading that Derrick went and got married, women have been flocking into his bed with hopes of staying in it long-term. It’s rumored that a King grew a heart and that the infection might have spread to the other three bachelor Kings.
“Cab or Uber?” he repeats to speed things up.
He needs to get back home to his ten-year-old daughter, Jasmine. She has some kind of music video that she’s been working on for her digital editing class and he promised he’d take first look at it once his little brother, Rory, is done with the music bits.
“Can’t your driver take me home?” she asks with a laughable air of confidence.
“No,” he answers deflating whatever idea is ballooning in her head.
He grabs his phone off the nightstand and decides for her. He doesn’t have the time to fuck around. Well, he didn’t have the time after he’s fucked around.
He quickly calls for a cab. Uber drivers can get chatty and this chick would most likely open her mouth about him in one light or another.
Once he completes that task, he checks the five text messages from both Derrick and his sister-in-law, Stella.
Oh damn. The last text was over an hour ago.
Derrick and Stella are finally officially on their honeymoon in Barbados for the next week and being the loving uncle that he is, he’s taken his nephew, Rian, under his wing. Literally.
Baby boy, Rian, has been sleeping in his wing of the mansion in the nursery which used to be Jazzy’s until she outgrew it.
After everything his brother and Stella have gone through in the past couple of years, they deserved some time away and to themselves. He didn’t mind.
Now he feels like a total irresponsible douche for being out late, getting his cock sucked and fucked, when he should be home giving Rian his bath and putting him to sleep. He’s only eight months old and Stella is probably going out of her mind not hearing from him.
“You should wait downstairs or the cab will leave without you,” he tells Lori/Maureen.
“Adam, you sure we don’t have time—”
“Sorry, darling.”
Not really. She wasn’t that good or anything new. A dime a dozen. That makes him sound like a pig. But it’s the truth.
When he FINALLY hears the door click and her stomping departure, he dials Derrick’s number without regard to the time.
“You done?” Derrick answers after two rings.
“How mad is she?” he asks his brother.
“You’re lucky she didn’t send Brooks back there,” Derrick tells him, sounding out of breath.
He didn’t have to ask why. Derrick is on his honeymoon so it’s pretty obvious.
“I’m heading back now. I’ll send her a picture,” he tells his brother.
“Five pictures,” Stella demands echoes from the background. “He’ll send me five pictures.”
He can only picture his brother’s ear to ear grin before he disconnects the call and hops out of bed to get dressed. Derrick deserves all the smiles his face can handle.
Out of habit, he leaves a benjamin on the night table for the cleaning service. Sure, it’s technically their condo and they have their cleaners come in a few times a week but it’s a small price to pay. A happy employee is a mute one. Not that they conduct business here but having a happy cleaning crew that knows how to scan for bugging devices is always a plus.
He shrugs into his suit jacket then sends a message to Sully, letting his driver know that he’s heading down to the lobby. Another quick message to his other brother, Chase, to see if he needs anything at the club, and one last message to Mason to make sure the drop went as planned tonight.
By the time he slides into the back seat of the Escalade, Chase has informed him that he’s already on his way home and Mason texted to let him know the drop has been completed.
All is as well as it should be in their Kingdom.
He exhales loudly and leans back against the seat, letting the knots of tension relax a bit for the quiet ride home.
“Shouldn’t you be in a better mood?” Sully jokes from the driver’s seat as he meticulously maneuvers through their route home.
Sullivan Landish at age forty-five is only three years older than he and Derrick. Sully has been with their family for almost two decades. Since the beginning. He’s a trusted and even considered a friend and so sometimes, he speaks his mind freely.
“It’s getting boring,” he confesses to Sully.
“Boring because things have finally calmed down or boring because you’re looking for more nowadays?” Sully asks.
He sees Sully’s eyes flicker to the rearview mirror at him and then back onto the road.
“We needed things to calm down around here. This is the roughest we’ve been through,” he answers.
He ignores the other part of the question altogether. He didn’t want to be reminded of all their losses in the past few years either. Too many good and loyal soldiers have been buried and they nearly lost both of their future Kings. The children, Jazzy and Rian.
It has been a rough two-years since Stella’s arrival into their lives. Not saying it’s her fault. He knows all too well that this life has its ups and downs. The timing could have been better and maybe one event didn’t have to snowball into another as it had.
He remains quiet until Sully pulls up to the front of the mansion.
He steps out of the SUV, not waiting for the driver to open his door for him. What did it matter at this time of night anyway?
“Good night, Sully.”
“Night, Boss.”
He makes a quick beeline up the grand staircase to his wing of the mansion to check on Rian. Jazzy would be asleep and he didn’t want to wake her. He halts at the doorway of the nursery, surprised to see both Chase and Rory passing their nephew between them.
“What’s going on?” he asks his younger brothers when he disposes of his suit jacket and steps inside.
“He’s got a fever. Probably teething,” Chase answers.
“Don’t tell Stella or Derrick,” he warns his siblings. No doubt they all already know that Stella would demand to come home right away. “We can handle this.”