Page 29 of Tamed
I ignored him. “You have had sex since Juliana, right?”
“Of course, I’ve had sex since then,” he snapped.
Juliana had died over twenty years ago, and I’d assumed he had, so it was more of a dig than anything else. But it was interesting that even after so many years had passed, he still couldn’t bring himself to say her name.
I raised a brow. “So, we can safely say sometime in the last ten years?”
“Caleb,” Ten growled.
“Relax, asshole,” I said mildly. “Tonight, you’re going to go to Arcadia and you’re going to attend this auction, and maybe you’ll even put in a bid on the virgin. At the very least you’re going to get very drunk on horrifically expensive scotch. Which by the way, you owe me about thirty thousand for since your daughter drank most of the rest of my 1937 Glenfiddich.”
“She has excellent taste,” Ten said stiffly. “What can I say?”
At that moment, the doors of my office opened, and Atlas strolled in, the third of our triumvirate.
He was as tall as I was and built like the proverbial brick shithouse, but unlike Ten and I, he never wore a suit. He was always in jeans, T-shirts, and a worn, black leather jacket. He had tawny gold hair, eyes almost the same color, and he absolutely did not give one single fuck about anything. Which naturally made him one of the most dangerous men I knew.
He came over to the chair in front of my desk and sprawled down onto it, then glanced first at me, then Ten. “We ready to go or what?”
Ten gave him a narrow look. “Don’t tell me you’re attending this ridiculous auction as well.”
“The virginity auction?” Atlas gave him back a slow smile. “Fuck, yes. Who doesn’t love a virginity auction?”
“The virgin, perhaps?” Ten snapped.
“Like I told you,” I said, “everyone who signs up to an auction, whether as a seller or a buyer, is vetted thoroughly. It’s all above board, Ten.”
“She’s clearly selling herself for a reason, though,” Ten said. “And if she’s doing this then it’s obvious she’s desperate.”
“Why don’t you buy her and ask her?” Atlas suggested. “I’m sure she’d love to hear a lecture from you about it.”
Ten scowled. “And you don’t have a problem with it? At all?”
Atlas who very much didn’t have a problem with anything sex related, rolled his eyes then glanced at me. “What’s this bullshit about?”
It was clear he meant Ten and ‘this bullshit’ being Ten’s increasingly thinning temper.
“Isabel,” I said. “And the Hamiltons.”
“Ah, right.”
“Do you know anything?” Ten asked him sharply.
A decent question considering Atlas’s family links. But I’d already been over this with Atlas and he hadn’t been aware of anything happening with regards to Isabel. Not that he had much to do with his family these days. The only person he still kept in touch with was his brother, North.
Atlas leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Nothing new, no. But I’ve asked North. If anyone in my family knows anything, he’ll tell me.”
Ten turned away from the desk and strode over to the windows, running an uncharacteristically restless hand through his black hair.
Atlas and I knew him well enough to know that hassling him further about tonight would only piss him off even more, especially when he was in this mood, so we didn’t say anything. He could make up his own mind.
“Fine,” he said after a moment, still staring out at New York beyond the glass. “I’ll come. But I’m not going to that damn auction.”
“Sure, you will,” I said easily. “If only to rescue some poor woman who doesn’t know any better and thinks selling herself is her only option.”
Ten’s head whipped round, that blue gaze of his scalpel sharp. “Don’t make light of—”
“You need a distraction. Also, taking your worry about Isabel out on your two oldest and best friends is getting fucking old.”