Page 61 of House of Cards

Rich whistles through the gap in his front teeth. “The fuck’s wrong with you, Smith?”

“Our boy’s just stressed,” Myles directs the words to Richmond without breaking eye contact with me.

“I’m fine.”

“Are you?” Myles perches on the edge of the desk, tilting his head as he studies me. “Mm. Richmond? Think you should take over the Angels for a bit.”

“I said I’m fine,” I snap.

“Sounds like you’re spread too thin,” Richmond says. “Aren’t you working on that financial thingy?”

“Quarterly compliance review,” I mutter.

“Stop glaring at him like that.” For once, Myles isn’t smiling. “We’re doing you a fucking favor. This’ll give you all the time you need to finish up your…things. In fact?—”

He slips off the desk and heads for one of the paintings against the wall beside his desk.

I stifle a sigh, choosing to clean my glasses so I don’t have to look at Richmond’s smug fucking face. “This isn’t necessary,” I mutter. “I only need a couple more days to finish the review.”

Myles comes back with my ledgers, thumping them down on the desk so hard that his ashtray clatters and Lulu lets out a little yip of surprise.

“Here you go. Tit for tat.”

I stare at Myles. “I don’t follow.”

“Send the new girl in, and you get to take these boring things back to your room and do whatever you want to them. Hardcore subtraction. Carrying the one like a freak. Who the fuck knows?”

“Or cares,” Richmond murmurs into his glass.

“Well? Go on.” Myles rubs his hands together, grinning. “I’ve been Googling some new stuff I want to try.”

My entire body goes cold, my arms stiff as I ram my glasses back on my nose.

“No.”

Myles’s eyebrow twitches. “Beg your motherfucking pardon?”

He has a reason to sound surprised. No oneeversays no to Myles Balmont.

I force a hard swallow. “She’s…recovering.”

“From a little caning? Bless your heart.” Myles laughs as he glances at Richmond. “Hear this? Smith says we gotta take it easy on the girl.”

“Don’t worry, her backside is safe,” Rich says, leaning back to take a baggie of coke out of his jeans. “Nothing better than watching a girl tearing up when you hit the back of her throat.”

“Ooh!” Myles taps Rich’s shoulder with the back of his hand, eyes lighting up. “It’s been a while since we’ve done an Eiffel Tower. Could take turns at both ends, see which one of us makes her gag first.”

“Bet you fifty grand I can make her puke before you do,” Rich says, grinning as he taps out a small heap of white powder on the crook of his thumb.

“Make it a hundred,” Myles counters. “And we film it for the premium members. Nothing sells better than a pretty girl choking on cock with mascara running down her cheeks.”

Rich nods, head bowing over the crook of his thumb where he tapped out a small heap of white powder.

“No fucking spit roasts.” As soon as I grate out those words, I want to claw them back.

Myles was about to take a sip from his tumbler, but instead, he drops his cigar into it and pushes it away. He stands, tugging at the bottom of his yellow-and-blue checked plaid coat as he slowly makes his way around his desk. I have at least six incheson him, but I might as well have been on my knees for the way he studies me.

“Since when can’t we fuck an Angel?”