The members’ only floor sitting atop the posh restaurant in the heart of London was fairly tame for a Thursday afternoon. It was still a bit early, true, but the usual crowd should have turned from a trickle into a torrent by now.

All influential men between their forties and sixties.

All sorry sods, in William’s opinion, eager to bask in a little glory as they showed off to their peers. It was almost sad, when he thought about it that way.

Then again, he was here as well, wasn’t he?

William had always had a love-hate relationship with the Silver Fox Club. The whole male-species-only bullshit had rubbed him the wrong way from the very start, but he also couldn’t deny that back when he was just a no-name bloke with a camera, it had still felt as if an entire new universe had opened up for him when Aiden Faye had brought him in on his father’s ticket. His brief acquaintance with the members that evening, followed by his first publication in a prominent national magazine, had made him a true member of the club. One of the youngest, too, alongside Aiden—and Bram, who joined them just six months later.

The unholy trinity that had the world eating out of the palm of their hands and baffled the elders.

Oddly enough, their status remained nearly unchanged. While they weren’t the only ones any longer, they were still grouped with what was considered the younger crowd.

Undoubtedly due to the rush of more modern ways that openly—and rightfully—frowned on male exclusivity, the club had lost its appeal over the years. So memberships started to wane right about when the three of them hit their early thirties, leaving mostly the weathered regulars still paying their exuberant yearly fees and basking in the air of self-importance.

Not that William was in any way gutted by the slow decline of the club.

His peers tended to stick to their own groups, and snobbish older men he could handle. They were easy to write off and usually didn’t nag any further once they realized they were preaching to the wrong choir. He’d learned that it was the younger ones he’d become acquainted with on some job or another that seemed to suck his bone marrow dry. Too fucking loud and filled with bullshit they believed they had the right to spread. Aggressive even, when coming face-to-face with an opinion that wasn’t exactly like their own.

William didn’t mind well constructed arguments, but having something shoved down his throat just for the fun of it was vile. So yeah, telling old geezers to sod off was a far more pleasing prospect.

And that, in turn, had led to him renewing his membership time and time again.

Once his career had really taken off, he became more distanced from the scene. With all that was going on, he simply didn’t have time to sit around and act as if there were a royal bloody title attached to his name. But the club had nonetheless provided him with a semi-private place to escape to whenever he was in town and wanted some company—which made it indispensable.

Of course, as fate had it, after the disastrous relationship with Trisha followed him across the pond, he found himself seeking the normalcy that was the Silver Fox Club far more often than he cared to admit.

“Well, then,” Bram drawled, swirling the scotch in his glass, “I presume you’re the reason Ms. Summers has been uncharacteristically perky for the past couple of weeks?”

William couldn’t help it. He grinned. He grinned like the old, smug bastard he was. “We’ve been…good.”

“Good? Christ, mate, you were so busy drooling all over her you hardly heard a word I said.” Aiden huffed, but failed to conceal the smile underlining his tone.

Again, all William could do was grin widely before giving his friend a pointed look. “As if you weren’t charmed off your arse.”

“I admit I was intrigued for a moment there, but then I saw the whole Neanderthal come-closer-and-I’ll-pummel-you-into-the-ground thing you had going on.” He shrugged. “I decided I’d rather not risk getting my Dior ruined for five minutes of intellectually titillating conversation.”

Bram cleared his throat. “As much as I’d like to keep on listening to you two make highly inappropriate comments about my student, let me just say”—he placed a heavy hand on William’s shoulder—“welcome to the club.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Aiden muttered and ran a hand through his mane of hair, gaze fixed on Bram.

With no small amount of amusement, William retreated into the background to watch the exchange.

The look on Bram’s face was all innocence. If innocence cracked whips. “What?”

“This isn’t some passing fancy you fuck in your cabinet for a while then send on her merry way with grades as high as her heels. The man’s in love, Bram,” Aiden said pointedly, then turned to William. “You are, right? I’m not making a complete arse of myself right now?”

“No, you’re not.” He smiled. “And yes. Yes, I am.”

“What about her parents?” Aiden ventured carefully. “Sorry to ask, mate, but I wouldn’t want to see you fall off your grand horse when they realized their baby is seeing someone closer to their age than hers.”

William leveled his gaze on him, knowing well that while Bram had always had easy arrangements with younger women, Aiden was far more reserved. His brother had gotten into some serious trouble when he, while in his thirties, knocked up a nineteen-year-old. They eloped, moved to the States where they lived even now with another child on the way, but it had been hell for a while.

The fact that Matthew Faye had been a fairly renowned stage actor here in London had only added fuel to the already explosive fire.

Christ, thinking about it now, that whole ordeal was as close to a public lynching as it got. And it swore Aiden off younger women. At least those still in their twenties.

William shook his head. “Lily assured me they won’t mind. They aren’t exactly a conservative lot with her mother divorcing her father for another woman and him moving back to Ireland where he happily remarried. With a woman only about six years Lily’s senior. So we’re good on that front.”

Aiden looked sincerely relieved as he lifted his glass in salutation.

They remained submerged in comfortable silence as he signaled for another round of appetizers to go with their yet unfinished drinks, then all but jumped on the food when the thin wisp of a waiter placed the tray before them.

“I’m happy for you.” Bram twirled a prosciutto dipper between his fingers. “I never believed I’d see you dating again, mate. Not after Trisha.”

William winced inwardly at the name. She was still trying to bust his balls, playing one of her dirty games or another. Just last night, he’d seen her sitting in a restaurant down the street from his place as he walked home from Lily’s. He’d thanked his fucking lucky stars a hundred times that he was alone.

Because that viper had spied him from behind the bloody glass. And smiled.

But as he met Bram’s gaze, the answer lying on the tip of his tongue wasn’t bitter at all. “I think I love her.”

“Bloody hell,” Bram shouted, then broke into a grin.

“I’m well aware we’ve only been seeing each other for a fortnight,” he explained before either of the stooges could question his grand proclamation. “But that’s a fortnight we’ve barely spent apart. Her place or my place. After Coriolanus, there hasn’t been a single morning I’ve woken up without her by my side.”

Aiden studied him with slightly narrowed eyes. “How does that work, exactly? With someone who’s still at university? Do you fiddle with your equipment while she studies?”

Bram threw him a disgusted look. “By god I hope you mean the man’s camera and not his tallywacker.”

“It’s usually a combination of both,” William pitched in.

And a bloody brilliant combination it was.