I resumed my walk around the room. He was right. I needed to push myself harder, to pay attention and not just go with the flow. Wasn’t that what a good newsperson did? I stopped at a statue of a man sitting on a throne made of a beast standing on all fours. He was naked, sheathed by a toga over his privates, staring up to the sky. He looked like a gladiator, wounded and taut and muscled. I didn’t know this piece, but it spoke to me.

He was obviously in pain, yet his face was fierce with defiance.

He was completely unknown to me, yet his battle so familiar.

“The Warrior.” Célian spoke into my ear, and I shuddered with pleasure. I felt his body close to mine, yet he didn’t touch me. “By an anonymous artist. Special shipment from Italy. A spur of the moment purchase, but I liked the pain in his eyes. So very intimate, don’t you think?”

Of course I did. Happiness was something you were eager to share. It was pain you wanted to keep private.

“Why did I have to choose?” I asked, still staring at the statue.

“There’s a camera in the right-hand corner of this room, just behind my back. I could take you to the presidential suite and fuck you to oblivion and back, but I’d much rather do it somewhere I can send the message home to Mathias.”

“And the message is?” I turned around to face him.

“That you’re mine.”

“Yours I am not.” That was a lie I wished I could believe, about a man I wished I could forget. My body responded to him in a way I’d never experienced before.

I belonged to him, and he belonged to someone else. What did that make me?

The circumstances were pure semantics. Sins wrapped in sugar so I could swallow them more easily.

Célian cupped my cheek. “Yes,” he whispered. “You are. You’re so far gone you can’t even see me sharing a drink with my cousin without losing your shit.”

“You’re someone else’s,” I said.

He shook his head. “No one’s.”

“And Lily…?”

“Haven’t touched her in over a year.”

His words cut the rope of anxiety wrapped around my throat, and I felt like I could breathe again.

“Not going to, either. I have no plans of fucking anyone but you, but I would stay away from Lily even if she was the last proud owner of a pussy on planet Earth. I don’t do cheaters, and she is one.”

“Oh?”

“With my father.” He paused, studying my reaction, and I tried hard not to throw up in my mouth. “Shortly after…” His jaw snapped shut as if he was swallowing down nausea himself. “Never mind. Point is, this is not for you to worry about. She knows it, too,” he explained, his calm and poise returning.

I licked my lips, staring at his. A few months ago, the girl who’d been with Milton would have told him she wanted everything. That she deserved it, too, and screw the empire he was trying to build on lies and revenge. But right now, standing in front of him, trying to make it in this cruel, real world, chase debt, and look after my father, something was better than nothing—especially something that came from him.

We were both drowning, and when we were together, and it felt like I was coming up for air.

“And she knows you’re not faithful?” I stressed.

“There’s nothing to be faithful to. It’s not a relationship. We live apart. We sleep apart. We live our lives—apart.”

“I’m not an exhibitionist.” My eyes traveled to the red-dotted camera above our heads.

He advanced toward me, cupping my cheek and brushing his lips against mine erotically. My stomach twisted and dropped, like I was falling.

“Neither am I.” He pulled my lower lip between his straight teeth, tugging hard before releasing it slowly, prolonging the sweet, delicious pain. “But I’m willing to make an exception to make sure the message hits home. Wrap your arms around The Warrior’s neck.”

I blinked at him, disoriented, but did as I was told, first lowering myself to sit on The Warrior’s lap. I felt the statue’s stone chest behind me as I carefully clasped my arms around his neck. From this position, it looked like he was gazing down at my rack.

Célian lowered himself to his knees and drank my little moan of excitement hungrily with another kiss, this time tonguing my mouth, fighting his way through the walls of it, and claiming every growl and moan that sat there dormant, waiting for him to unleash it.

“I’m going to wreck you,” he hissed, shoving his palm into my sweetheart neckline and cupping one of my tits. He took the nipple out and sucked it savagely before moving away and blowing cold air on it. I arched against The Warrior, feeling his cold marble toga digging into my butt. It was hotter than sin, but Jesus, it was weird.

Jesus:…

Célian’s hand found the zipper behind my back and began to roll it down, his eyes hard on mine. I whimpered at how commanding he looked when he did that. Because my dress was strapless, the minute I arched my back it slid down and pooled at my feet like a pale winter lake, with little to no effort from him.

I was completely naked, save for my soaked white cotton panties and my Chucks. He lowered himself to my nipples and began kissing and biting them, keeping me sandwiched between him and the statue and drinking his attention thirstily. Every time I tried to touch him, he plastered my hands back to the statue. I was put on a pedestal, to be seen and admired by his father.