Page 75 of Cinderella Is Faking It

“Huh. You read.” She cut a glance at Victor, but I couldn’t understand the quiet conversation that played out between them. Maybe that was why he didn’t like to talk. He and Cordelia were telepathically linked. “Is he seeing anyone else?” she asked after a moment, turning back to me.

I wanted to laugh at the question, but it made sense. It made too much sense. If he wasn’t sleeping with me, he’d likely have someone else tending to his needs. And if he had someone else, then I was putting Cordelia in a position of being labelled The Other Woman. “I don’t know,” I answered truthfully. We spent a lot of time together, but there were many nights for him to go out, date, meet women at Clandestine.

“Ask him, would you?” She clicked her tongue.

“Okay.” She stared pointedly at me. “Right now?”

“You have his number, don’t you?”

THIRTY

There wasnothing as excruciating as board meetings - except board meetings on a Monday morning - except board meetings on a Monday morning after I’d spent a perfectly good Sunday, staying in bed with Del.

I’d wanted to recreate the limo experience for her, and I got plenty of moans out of her, but she kept cycling through everything that happened on Saturday night in her mind. Instead of climaxing, she’d started rambling about the statistical probability of all the events that led up to her orgasm. At that point, I got her notebook and pens from the library and sat down with her to methodically write it all out. She even had me describe how, when I fingered her, whether I thrust from my wrist or my shoulder. And to demonstrate what she meant, she gave me a hand job, alternating between jerking me off with wrist- and shoulder-based pumps.

Following that kind of Sunday with a Monday morning surrounded by a bunch of old men who wanted to rule the world? Fuck no. They wanted to micro-manage every business decision, ignoring the fact that all their ideas were stuck on 20th century standards that would generate no fucking money. I was merely here, so they’d feel like they were important. Axent wasn’t going to use any of their ideas, but I had to sit here and listen and nod, because it was their assets tied up in my family’s business. At least the Montgomery merger would be big enough to get rid of some of them though.

Steven Richards was going on and on about how TikTok was doomed and would never generate leads, when our budget hotel chain, Jewel, had soared in profitsthree years agowhen we handed our social media assistants a couple of phones, sent them on a trip around the world in Jewel hotels and told them to put it all on TikTok. They had mostly shit-posted, but their series about judging the breakfast buffets based on how hangover-friendly they were, while actually hungover, had done better than any professionally produced commercial video.

A message popped up in the corner of my screen, and for once I was glad to be sitting at the head of the table. Sitting there, people could usually tell immediately when I stopped listening - but at least nobody could see my screen.

Blondie:

I need to ask you something and I need you to just tell me outright without reading too much into this, because I know you said you don’t believe in monogamy and that’s okay: are we seeing other people?

The blood roared in my ears at those last five words, much louder than I wanted to admit. Just because I planned to put a ring on that hand for business purposes, didn’t mean I wanted to think about my future wife getting dicked down by any other men. I didn’t believe in monogamy. But when she’d come apart in my lap, that wasmine. Her trembling lips and glossed over eyes and the way her cheeks flamed hot, that wasmine.

Instead of telling her all that, and scaring her off with the possessive streak that had gripped me, I typed out a response that put the ball in her court.

Beck:

Do you want to see other people?

Three dots appeared on screen then disappeared again. They came back, they disappeared. This went on for five minutes as she kept overthinking her response. Five minutes during which I heard not a single word spoken in that boardroom.

The reply that followed wasn’t quite what I’d anticipated.

Blondie:

Have you slept with anyone since the night of the watch party?

The night she broke up with her boyfriend. The night she let me touch her for the first time. The night I’d left her house with an erection hard enough to hurt and had fucked the first woman I’d laid eyes on at Clandestine.

Beck:

Once.

The next reply came much swifter than the previous one.

Blondie:

I’d prefer if you didn’t.

Beck:

What about you?

Blondie: