Page 6 of A Royally Fake French Menage (Rippton U Creatives #3)

BARCLAY

“ M onique. You are so lovely.” Genie curtsied for my wicked stepmother like she was born to the position where she stood on the bottom step of my birthright.

Well, one of many. “Your home is…just…” She breathed out and rolled her shoulders back, her face a perfect mask in its place just as it had been before I picked her up earlier.

Only myself and maybe the driver, who had disappeared in any case to put the car away and probably soap up for my stepmother, knew that her legs still trembled with need as she stepped gently toward my stepmonster.

The older woman tittered as Genie continued her assault of sugared compliments and honed simpery.

“I have no words.” This last was accompanied by Genie’s softest, most genuine looking smile. Her hair shimmered in the French sun, pale, pink toned skin blooming in her own country, eclipsing everyone on the drive.

Not that Monique was likely to admit to the beauty before her, outclassed by the absence of makeup while her own was plastered across her skin with all the skill of a deplumed sparrow.

“Of course you don’t. The chateau is superb, is it not, Barclay?

” My stepmother descended from the top step of the building I once mistakenly called home.

Her steps and extended hand made out that she did, in fact, own the place and didn’t live here just because her presence suited my purposes and kept the place occupied.

I made a rude noise inside my cheek. Under her sharp eye I turned the sound into a cough at the last moment, earning myself a bemused look from the footman at the end of the row of house staff who should have known better than to react.

But then, Monique didn’t know how to manage staff, because she’d never been trained to that either.

That little secret we kept to ourselves, of course. She couldn't admit she only played house by the grace of the stepson who neither cared about her, the land or the title, nor that she had no income nor investments of her own.

Monique caressed Genie’s soft cheek with a brittle hand. Her curved, sharpened talons displayed a shade that aimed for blood but didn’t quite make it. “Americans just don’t have culture like we do here on the Continent.”

Genie’s shoulders stiffened. I doubted her tension came from the contact, or at least, not only. I caught the slight shift, so minute it was almost imperceptible, because I knew to look for the change.

Prepared for intervention as someone had once done for me, I stepped forward. My wallet was a whole lot emptier as I moved away from where the Bugatti had left us out the front of my old home, and its unpleasant, greedy driver.

“I see you two have met.” I tucked Genie’s hair behind her ear and pressed a kiss to the hollow of her throat, speaking softly into her ear.

“You have a wet spot on the back of your skirt. Small, but telling.” I licked her skin, grateful for my prior local reputation as a Lothario that cloaked my true nature to perfection.

She slid her hand beneath the one I curved over her stomach and scratched my palm with those mini talons of her own while the stepmonster watched on with the sort of green tinged vitriol in her eyes that left me semi hard at her pathetic efforts.

Too fucking cute . I laughed softly into Genie’s ear, pulling her into my body so her curves found all the right pressure points for both of us, if I measured her soft not-quite gasp well.

“Can't keep your hands to yourself can you, Barclay.” My stepmother actually clapped her hands to get our attention as though we were kindergarteners.

I gazed up at her like the lovelorn teen I’d never been. My dopey grin instantly lowered the IQ of the household staff lining the drive who deserved far better.

From the corner of my eye, someone tall shifted. The faintest snicker reached me—again, I was sure, by design. My heart pounded a little harder in my chest as I forced my gaze to stay steady on the stepmonster.

“Good to see you’ve kept the place in order in my absence, Monica.” I mispronounced her name for the pure, perverse pleasure of seeing her over Botoxed eyes attempt to widen in outrage, and fail. “Shall we?”

I kissed the corner of Genie’s mouth as she continued to blush oh so fucking beautifully and led her up the stairs with a general nod to the gathered contingent of staff.

Many seemed to have survived the purge Monique made of decimating the place the day my father passed and I left in an attempt to leave her mark on La Borde.

A week later, I hired them all back with instructions they could only be let go under extreme circumstances…

and with my signature, made in hand before my local avocat or equivalent.

A phone call or eight I enjoyed far too much.

The stepmonster loved that little tweak, and painted the entire bottom level of the house in revenge in a truly disgusting shade called poached salmon .

I changed the carpets to an equally hideous and clashworthy cyan shag pile in nylon that I ripped straight out of a seventies retro warehouse I was almost certain had been used as a porn casting studio.

As an extra, I also gave every single employee an early Christmas bonus worth double their wage for dealing with her, every year.

And I’d halved Monique's allowance.

Permanently.

In the end it was her loss—she had to stare at that carpet and walk on it every day. I didn’t. When I called, the horrendous color scheme reminded me to maintain my battles in the most petty fashion possible and to always tip my waiter extravagantly and with a kiss behind closed doors.

Or to occasionally forget to close them at all.

That way, any spit in my eggs was well paid spit.

“You are the limit,” Genie whispered under her breath, trembling in her attempt to contain her giggles.

We passed beyond the etched, folding glass windows of the entrance way that would never have held in any incursion in any decade.

That entrance was a pure indulgence, nothing more.

The chateau was less of a castle and more an extravagance of the highest tier.

Those windows that doubled as the building’s entrance were gilt in actual gold.

A matching Louis V painted fresco ceiling decorated the ceiling above us that the monster thankfully hadn’t been able to ruin.

“Maybe.” I shrugged, rolling my shoulders back to ease the familiar growing tension and collection of knots accumulated there. “But that is a pretty wet spot on your skirt.”

Her cheeks glowed brighter than ever. I grinned, catching her hand in mine to raise our laced fingers to my lips.

“Sir. Shall I have your bags brought to your usual rooms?” A deep voice echoed along the empty foyer hall. “And the armor in its cases?”

I closed my eyes and squeezed Genie’s hand tight without looking back. Too tight.

I did see him.

My voice obeyed me when I opened my mouth by some blessed miracle, holding my own facade up for the barest minutes when I needed the world to perform to my whim away, even away from the eyes of others.

Only before the ones who mattered to me most, at least in this moment.

“Yes, Jacques. That would be lovely. Thank you. Who will be looking after Genie? I sent word to the— To Monique that she would accompany me.” I only stumbled once, but fortunately this was company where I could stutter and stammer all I liked.

Because he liked it when I floundered.

Flushed. Became flustered.

When I stumbled and couldn’t hold myself together when he?—

Fuck, not here.

I couldn’t let those memories hit me here or I wouldn’t make it past the damned foyer.

“I believe she is letting her own maid look after your…friend, sir,” Jacques murmured the picture of pure etiquette and decorum as always.

Genie swallowed, looking up at me when my hand flexed on her waist. Former lover? she mouthed.

Her comment made more sense now. Perhaps this was how I behaved around a certain Rippton U dark prince when he flirted, too. Though Jacques hadn’t exactly started flirting. I’d be on my damn knees if that happened, and?—

Damnit.

I gave her an imperceptible nod, knowing my features were too strained. My throat tightened. All I wanted was to rake a hand over my face and douse myself in the fountain out the front. Actually, that wasn’t such a bad idea. Maybe I should.

Genie flashed me a flirtatious, imp like smile.

She spun on her heel, took the decision right out of my hands and placed it squarely in hers.

“I know I’m breaking all the rules but us Yanks can do that, can’t we?

” My petite little kitten threw on a thick Southern accent and sashayed her way straight at Jacques.

My six and a half foot tall ex-lover flinched. I didn't blame him.

“Genie,” I admonished her softly. Sweetly.

In reality I was delighted to see someone other than myself raise hell in a life I should be living but refused to have.

She shot me the bird behind her back and sauntered right up to Jacques, placing her hand in the middle of his chest. He never moved as she toyed with the buttons on his shirt the way she had done to mine in the car.

The man swung both ways as much as I did, though that was because in his place and with his looks, guests expected it of him.

He had trained himself to want women but I knew he preferred men. That practiced little move, however…

My eyes narrowed, and Jacques caught the expression before I could erase it from my face.

“My services are to my lord,” he murmured, using the tips of his fingers to push her pale wrists away with his much larger hands. His head lowered and he hissed sharply in her ear just loud enough for me to catch his words from a dozen paces away. “I don’t do females.”

Genie beamed up at him and didn’t back off an inch.

“Then I guess we’re sharing.” She held her pose a moment longer, then leaned further forward into the alpha male’s space and flicked invisible lint from his sleeve.

“I suppose we’ll see you up there?” She waited for a name my frozen valet seemed unlikely to ever provide.

“Jacques,” I said helpfully, sliding one hand into my pocket. I adjusted myself at the impossible show playing out before me.

Hells, seeing the two of them going at it made for the perfect sex sandwich… If I could talk either of them into sharing a space after this.

“Jacques,” she purred, trailing her fingers along his breastbone through his pristine white shirt. “You know, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were a liar.” His eyes narrowed as his gaze left me and focused on her. She giggled, dropping her hands, and shrugged. “But that’s okay. I am too.”

She swiveled on her heel like a catwalk model and sauntered back to me, looping her hand through my elbow.

Genie chattered softly at my side about nothing at all as she towed me up the stairs without missing a beat.

I steered her in the right direction, my mouth agape at how well she’d pissed off the one person in the household that it was almost impossible to get a rise out of.

“What did you just do, you little hellion?” I murmured, still in awe of her skills and more than a little aroused.

“Nothing.” She gave me wide eyes and flicked her tongue at the corner of her mouth. “He is fun. I see why you like him.”

I stopped at the corner of the hallway that led to my wing of the house. “You’re not jealous?”

She laughed, a musical sound that wound its way through the scarred holes in my soul.

“No, Barclay. Why should I? It’s fake, remember?

” Genie turned in a circle, frowning at the plethora of doors that all appeared the same and down an identical hallway branching off the first. “Is it this way?” She pointed down the hall.

“Not like it was when I offered,” I muttered. “Third on the left,” I called out as a broad, strong hand slipped around my waist from behind, pulling me into an empty study reserved for my private use.

I yanked at the too-tight collar of my shirt as Jacques shut the door and flicked the lock, a hungry expression on his face.

“I’ve missed you, my lord,” he whispered, stalking forward.

His hands framed my face and his mouth crashed down.

My ex-lovers kiss was violent and dominating as I remembered.

A large hand gripped my thickening cock through my trousers as he worked me hard.

Guilt bombarded me. For the first time ever I had to drown the urge to push out of Jacques’s arms and run after Genie.

Fake. It’s all fake.

Every second of it.

Nothing about this is real. He wants a job. He wants a raise. He wants–

Me.

Lie, lie, lie.

Ah, fuck it.

Another thing I drowned in as Jacques’s hand slid inside my slacks and pumped me roughly enough that I was ready to spill seconds later.

It doesn’t matter.

She approves.

A deep groan built in my throat. Jacques’s mouth found mine again as he grabbed a wad of tissues and stuffed them inside my pants seconds before I disgraced myself. I sagged in his arms with a groan I felt to the tingling curve of my emptied ball sack.

“I’ve missed you,” he murmured, nuzzling my throat as he cleaned me tenderly, and dropped to his knees.

The sight of him below me was too much, and my cock hardened again at his siren call.

I shouldn't ? —

She doesn’t care ? —

And with Jacques’s eyes on mine as he took the head of my cock between his lips, cleaning and sucking me at once.

I let all thought of Genie, my guilt, and everything else dissipate as I sank into the pure pleasure of the sort of worship only this man could give who knew every secret and every desire I possessed.

The man I’d left behind and shattered his heart so long ago.

The man who knelt for me now.

And as I laced my hands through the dominant valet’s hair, working myself against his throat as I moaned, I knew I had to both trust him, and not. Because I’d broken his heart and run from him once before.

And Jacques never forgot.

Or forgave.