Page 15 of Filthy Little Regrets (Princes of NYC #2)

These people don’t even know me and they hate me. Do I care? I’d like to say no, but when the hate is so unanimous, it’s hard to swallow. I swipe at my damp cheek. Dammit. I didn’t want to cry.

Mace plucks my phone out of my hand .

“Hey!”

“What are you reading?” he asks.

I reach for the phone, shame heating my cheeks. The last thing I want is to see his reaction to the comments. What if he agrees?

Mace tsks and holds the phone up high, well out of my reach, and tips his head back to scan my phone. The ripple of rage crossing his face is instant. “What the fuck is this?”

“Nothing important,” I lie, reaching for my phone again, but with my short legs, he may as well be a giant.

His gaze moves from the phone to me, catching the redness in my eyes with a narrowed look. “It’s not nothing.”

“Yeah, well, what can you do?” This is how the world works. Social media gets to decide when it’s your time to be crucified, and even if you did nothing wrong, no one cares. One person can fabricate the truth, and that little lie catches like wildfire and the worst of humanity comes out.

Much to my dismay, Mace scrolls through the comments, his eyes flashing with shadows. When he scrolls up to the top of the article, seeing the picture of us and reading the article, his features harden.

The air in the room thickens as he stares at the photo, a current crackling, raising the hairs on my forearms and the back of my neck.

Every muscle in Mace’s body goes rigid. He holds himself so still, I don’t even know if he’s breathing.

The dark blue of his eyes is lost to the widening of his pupils, a raging pit of endless black that threatens to devour everything within its reach. I take a step back.

Mace catches the movement, scowls, then, with a frustrated exhale, launches my phone across the room.

“Mace!” I shout, moving for it, but the device arcs perfectly toward the water, landing with a solid plunk and sinking to the depths of the deep end. Bubbles form and pop where the phone had cut through the water.

“What the fuck!” I whirl toward Mace, but he’s storming away, his phone pressed to his ear.

“I need to speak with Crue.”

Wait, wait. His best friend from Bluestar Entertainment?

Crue Rollins, whose family practically owns the entirety of the media and entertainment in the United States, Crue Rollins?

Sparing one last glance at my phone, I decide to leave it.

Mace can afford to buy me a new one. I scurry after him, clutching the towel to my chest. He’s halfway to the front door when I push through the pool room.

“Mace.”

He pauses at my voice, turning slightly to watch my approach. His jaw muscles ripple and he’s holding his phone tight enough, it’s a miracle it hasn’t cracked in half. “Crue,” he growls as I stop before him. “That fucking website.”

The murmur of Crue’s voice carries from the phone, but I can’t make out what he’s saying.

“I don’t give a fuck what agreements Bluestar signed. You either take it down, or I’ll do it and send a little present to the executives.”

Bluestar Entertainment is a large entertainment conglomerate, but I didn’t realize they owned NYC Socialite. I thought it was some type of independent publisher, some scorned socialite with a chip on their shoulder.

Crue says something else. I tip my head, trying to make out the words. Mace’s gaze roves over my face, and he pulls the device away from his ear, putting the call on speaker.

“—have no control over what they publish. ”

Mace’s scowl deepens. “They’ll want control when I wipe out their 401(k)s.”

“That sounds like a bad decision,” Crue says with a sigh. He’s usually so upbeat, the life of the party, that this dread-filled tone has my eyebrows rising.

“Fix it, or I will,” Mace demands, lifting his hand to cup my chin and tipping my face toward his. I’ll destroy them, he mouths .

My eyebrows pinch in confusion. Why is he so mad? They still love him.

“Jesus Christ, Mace. You’re asking me to break NDAs and contracts.”

“Fine. I’ll handle it.” He hangs up and tosses his phone, not caring where it lands. The phone slams into the marble, the glass screen shattering on impact, and slides across the foyer floor.

“We need to have a serious conversation about your tendency for destroying phones,” I murmur, gaze zipping from it back to his face.

A call, probably from Crue, has the broken electronic rattling across the floor.

Ignoring it, Mace tightens his fingers on my chin. “Tell me you’re okay.”

“I’m okay,” I repeat like a parrot, even though the lie makes my stomach churn.

Huffing, he leans until his lips are mere inches from mine. When he searches my face, I try to bury the hurt, but I must do a shit job, because he curses, releases me, and storms up the stairs.

“Where are you going now?”

He doesn’t respond.

I scowl. “You can’t just ignore me. ”

He keeps walking. Growling, I stomp after him, following him to the office on the second floor.

“You know, I should be mad, not you.”

Shooting me a look that borders on murderous, he drops into his chair and wakes up the computer. He has one of those giant curved screens that I’ve always wanted but could never afford. Curiosity gets the better of me, and I walk around the desk, eyeing the screen.

“What are you doing?”

His fingers fly across the keyboard, moving with the fluid grace of someone who knows their way around a computer, and multiple screens open. He clicks into the first and starts coding. The first lines have me sucking in a breath.

“Mace . . .”

“Cassia,” he says, voice dangerously low. “If you say one more word, I’m going to spank that ass.”

My mouth snaps closed as my pulse’s dull pitter-patter turns into a rapid thud.

I watch him create malware faster than I ever could.

Eyes flicking from left to right, I follow along with rapt attention, noting pieces of code I recognize and others I never considered using.

This isn’t a simple virus. This is a virus that’ll shut a company down for a few days.

“Holy shit.” The words slip out, and the crack of his palm is muffled by the fluffy towel I’m wearing like a tube dress.

I glare down at him.

He spares a second to give me a heated smirk, then gets back to work. The sting of the spank quickly fades, and I cross my arms, keeping my mouth pressed into a firm line as he works. The clack of the keys slows a while later. Mace leans back, reading the code line by line .

My knees are a little annoyed at standing for so long on a hard floor. I shift, and he glances at me, then grabs my hips and pulls me into his lap. My heart jumps into my throat, and I immediately try to stand, but Mace clamps his arms around my waist.

“You know, this could all be considered kidnapping.”

“Shh,” he whispers, breath brushing over my ear and sending a shiver skipping down my spine.

I try again, writhing to try and find a way to break his hold.

“Fuck, Cassia.” The words come out as a deep groan, and his hands lock on my hips to stop the movement. I realize what I’ve done a little too late and gulp as his length rapidly hardens beneath me. Thick and girthy, pulsing.

Jesus Christ, Mace is packing. “Sorry,” I whisper.

One of his hands moves from my hip to my throat, stroking my neck in a shockingly gentle way.

“I’m trying to focus,” he murmurs, his hand creating a necklace around my throat and squeezing before drifting down to cup my left breast. “But if you keep rocking that ass against me, I’m going to bend you over and fuck you. ”

He pinches my nipple and heat erupts within my core, my body responding like a hussy to being touched. A gasp tumbles from my lips, despite everything in me resisting his words.

“No sex,” I manage to get out, voice tight and high.

His responding chuckle is a seductive caress against my skin.

Keeping my body as still as possible, too scared to find out if he’ll follow through on that threat, I focus on breathing.

My pants fill the space between us as he continues to massage my breast, tweaking my pebbled peak every once in a while.

Each touch and stroke sends flames of desire through my body, heat licking every inch, pooling in my core, the damp swimsuit wet for an entirely different, embarrassing reason.

“This is wrong,” he mutters, removing the hand on my tit to fix a line of code.

How is he focusing?

The hand comes back to my body, but this time, his palm lands on my bare thigh, fingers moving over my skin in slow, sensual strokes, inching higher with each pass.

My exhale comes out shaky, and I fight the full body tremble that threatens to take over as his fingers dip below the towel.

The warmth of his body is a brand against my skin as he drags his palm down to the inside of my thigh, sliding his fingers between my legs.

He pushes his hand between them, wrenching my legs apart just an inch, enough to glide up the length of my thigh, his fingers dangerously close to my cunt.

“I’m not sleeping with you,” I remind him.

He hums. “I heard you.” Clearly, he’s not a good listener, because he grips my pussy with his hand, pressing the heel of his palm against my clit.

The touch sends a zap of electricity through me, and I arch into his hand with a hiss.

“Mace—”

“This isn’t sex,” he says quickly. “Do you want me to stop?”

“What do you want in return?”

He scoffs. “Nothing.”

I chew on my cheek, not sure I believe him, but if he’s offering an orgasm free of charge... It’s been a long time since I’ve had someone touch me, and I’m not too proud to admit that the rocket beneath me is intriguing. “Okay,” I murmur .

His chuckle, deep and victorious, rolls down my spine. “Stop distracting me.”