Chapter 41

I have a couple things I need Alexi to sign off on and part of me is dying to see them side by side and compare how far the similarities go. A bit like watching a Ying and Yang of sorts, and I am crazily curious.

I wander through the lobby and straight into Carrero’s office; well mine now, seeing as he gave it to me as he’s here once a week at most. Lucie almost choked on his own tongue that day, and he has been slinking in the shadows scowling from afar ever since. He stays out of my way and I stay out of his; no idea what he even does here anymore as Alexi removed all his privileges, and he’s nothing more than a desk dweller who just adds a bad mood to the atmosphere.

I think because he’s family he allows him to stay, but he doesn’t want him anywhere else in his business and has nowhere else to put him. Like a bad smell, he just hovers in his space. Apparently, he retires very soon, and Alexi is making it worth his while to stay home as soon as he does.

Good riddance.

Opening the door, I expect to see Alexi lording at the desk but it’s empty and I presume he’s taken his twin up to the apartment instead for some family time. I still cannot believe those two shared a womb and came from one egg—Alexi seems like he should have been a solitary invention. Unless it was a case of one baby getting all the good and the other became Alexi. I always assumed he was created in the pits of hell from the unquenched fire of the devil’s cauldron. I wonder if he and Gino are a bit like an Angel/ Demon duo in some other realm, end of the world ‘nature and balance’ bullshit.

We haven’t made any headway since that night after the opera and I guess that’s why I am feeling subtly hostile towards my gorgeous master of above. I am charmingly sweet when he’s around, which is rare, and he’s his normal bastard self. Cold, bossy and always with a bimbo in tow.

I’m sick of the sight of him turning up to use his room for playtime and glad that I will be down here till four a.m. every night now and its likely he will get on with his demands before I come up to bed. Getting tired of listening to wenches climax while my own sex life is completely dead. Thanks to controlling Carrero and his idea that I should be untouched while representing his good name, and I am completely frustrated.

It’s one thing to choose to be sex starved for a prolonged period, it’s another to be ordered to be that way on command.

He spares no energy being civil to me either. Cold and direct, forever telling me what to do and keeps it all very clinical and business based. I have no qualms that he obviously does not like me. He also has no taste in women at all, so I guess it’s not an insult. They are all mousy submissive little doorsteps with big eyes and a severe ’‘Yes sir’’ complexion.

I guess being a hardened Dom sort of means that’s his type and I can now see why he doesn’t like me much. I’m too brassy, too gobby and too stubborn. I rarely do as I am told without argument, I sass him back when he’s pissing me off and I no longer have any desire to sleep with the smug prick. I can barely occupy the same room as him without wanting to throw things at his face and I absolutely love saying things to him to get a reaction. He has a fragile ego underneath that cold exterior and I have learned the art of bruising it.

My phone vibrates in the pocket of my shirt dress and I haul it out to see Master himself is calling me. I sigh, push down the urge to red button him and answer with my fake cheery ‘‘happy to hear from you’’ tone.

‘‘Yes, Carrero?’’ Sweeter than honey and oozing with disdain, this is our normal mode of conversing. He likes to call me a million times a week when he is not here, throwing out his orders and demands left, right and centre. I have him saved under the title ‘Lord Arsehole’.

‘’Get up here.’’ Raspy, commanding and prickish like always.

Fuck right off!

‘‘I’m busy,’’ I answer moodily and wander to our shared desk to pick up a new file he’s left sitting there, it has a post-it note on top which reads. London, take care of this … TODAY!’’

I swear he just made me want to poison his next gin. I hate it when he uses that as my name and it really riles me that even in written form the man can sound like an arsey control freak and make me rage.

‘‘It wasn’t an offer, it was an order.’’ He sounds like he’s trying to play cool, yet there’s an edgy vibe of slight pissed off-ness coming through.

Interesting.

The curious little cat in me wonders what his twin is doing that has him so rattled and I really want to go watch the fireworks, even if that means doing as he asks.

‘‘Shock! You’re telling me what to do … What a surprise.’’ I murmur with a half smirk and screw up his yellow note throwing it over my shoulder haphazardly. Giving no shits about it.

Somewhere along the way my self-made plan of killing him with kindness fell apart, the second I was faced with him once more. I just have no energy for being nice to that much arrogance in one big brute of a body. Sometimes he’s lucky if I can get through the day without plotting his murder in detail and leaving traps to maim him.