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He takes a large, aggressive bite from the sandwich. “It’s about time you made an effort with the other women in East End. They aren’t your friends—they’re your court. Now that you’re knocked up and locked in the role, you just became their leader.”

“But I don’t want to be their leader.” The thought is less appealing than the bowl of mush on my plate.

Wicker barks a sharp, humorless laugh, his blue eyes radiating hostility. “When are you going to realize no one cares what any of us want? Not me, not my brothers, and certainly not you.”

Snagging up his sandwich, his chair skitters back with an awful screech as he rises, slinking from the dining room. Pace watches him with troubled eyes, curling closer to his plate as he wolfs down a forkful of eggs.

This is one of those moments where it’s clear we’re all on the same side of the coin—Ashby versus his children. We’re all tied to his whims and directives. In a world where Wicker didn’t blame me for it, it might even be the kind of thing that brings us closer.

You know, if they weren’t psychopaths and I didn’t have a plan.

“There’s a cushion on the chair in the corner.” Pace’s voice draws me from the thought, his wiry, toned biceps flexing as he takes another bite. It’s the first time I can remember being totally alone with him in weeks, and my heartbeat notches up at the intensity in his dark eyes.

“Cushion?”

“For your knees.” He says this casually, the same way he might inform me my spoon is located beside my bowl. “I meant what I said, Rosilocks. I’ve been saving every drop for you.” He leans back, spreading his legs. “Get under the table.”

My answer is immediate. “No.”

He takes a deep breath, pinning me with a set jaw and narrowed eyes. “It’s been over a month. Our deal with Wick was that I wouldn’t fuck you, but since both of them are weak bitches who broke the second they climbed into your bed, I’m giving that a little moral shift.” His eyes dip down to my mouth, darkening. “I’m going to fuck your throat.”

My thoughts stutter to a screeching halt before churning into overdrive.

Their deal with Wicker?

To notfuckme?

Pieces begin clicking into place. Pace and Lex’s anger at Wicker during my exam. The tension between them. The more I calculate it all, the more I begin to understand. Lex has slept with me for the past five nights. There isn’t always sex. Last night, he skulked into my room with his bedding and instantly fell asleep. But on the nights he waltzes through my door with that frenetic gleam in his eye, he begins by aggressively flicking out each light, neither of us able to see a thing when he shoves me down to the mattress and parts my thighs.

The sex isn’t what I’d call intimate. It’s done mostly to the soundtrack of fevered, frustrated panting, neither of us talking. The kisses are bruising. His movements are punishing. It’s never anything less than clear that Lex is using me to get off.

Mostly, I just get a good grip on his hair and do the same.

Last night as I was falling asleep to the soft glow of his bedside lamp, I was unutterably disappointed.

“Wicker broke your deal,” I say carefully, “by having sex with me.”

The corners of Pace’s eyes go tight, pinched. “Not that any of us were surprised. Apparently, all it takes is him being half asleep and having you ‘right there.’” A sharp scoff. “He’s never been good at covering his tracks, though. I knew the second I saw that knot on your head.”

It’s all I can do to hold my laughter in. All this time, Wicker’s been hiding that he knocked my head into the nightstand, his brothers have been thinking he had sex with me.

And the thing is?

It’s working.

I’ve barely had to make an effort, and they’re already fracturing, so paranoid and delusional that it’s beginning to turn them on one another.

This might be easier than I thought.

Putting down my napkin, I say, “I’m not going to suck your dick.”

Pace watches me for a long moment, his eyebrow twitching. “What makes you think you have a choice?”

Leaning forward, I prop my elbows on the table. “I am, as your brother so eloquently put it moments ago, ‘an effective little Royal cum dumpster with a golden ticket.’ So the real question is,” I rest my chin on my folded fists, eyelashes batting, “what makes you think you can make me?”

His jaw tics. “You don’t want the answer to that question.”

“No,” I decide, jerking my chin, “what I want is for you to go get that cushion.”