Page 58 of The Villain's Beast

“No,” I agreed, “but the oversight drops dramatically once that diploma is handed over.”

“That’s when the work begins,” Luca whispered, bottom lip pushed into a frown that I wanted to kiss right off his face.

“And what’s your work?” Fletcher asked.

“Proving to my father that I’m trustworthy.”

“Are you?”

“You said you can only trust yourself,” Bellamy said from his seat between me and Fletcher. He was so quiet and so small, I almost forgot he was there, except I could never really forget him…not with a mouth like that.

“I trust Fletcher a lot more now than I did an hour ago,” I said, which earned me an eye roll from the man in question. But it was the truth. We all had leverage over the other now, and it was leverage that made alliances. Leverage was what made people dangerous to each other.

“We’re all at an impasse,” Luca said, sipping carefully at his wine. “I’m of the impression that neither of us will move against the other now.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Gideon murmured, not quite under his breath.

“That was almost a decade ago,” Fletcher protested.

“And I’m just supposed to believe you’ve somehow gotten better and not worse?”

“You’re both insufferable,” I said, drawing sharp and scathing looks from across the table. “It’s tentative enough that we can make it out of this weekend alive, but we do need to address the elephant in the room.”

Fletcher raised a brow again, and I threw a sidelong glance at Bellamy.

Fletcher and Gideon were in their positions because of their names, much the way Luca and I had drawn short straws and landed in our deputy roles. Our families had grasped at power and money for generations, cementing our places in the upper echelons of not just society and politics, but also the Thorns and the Roses.

Bellamy was a Marchant and the Marchant family didn’t matter. Marchant was a name I didn’t even remember hearing before he’d shown up at school, before he’d landed in my bed. I’d fucked him anyway because I was far from discerning and sex to me was the same as power. But then he’d shown up as the offering and everything had changed. Unfortunately, I was a sucker for a pretty man with a nice whimper, and Bellamy, much like Luca, ticked all of my boxes.

Fucking Luca alongside Fletcher the night before was a complication because I knew Luca’s responses and noises well enough to know just how much Fletcher did it for him. How much both our cocks up his ass got him off. And then there was this morning, watching Luca with Bellamy had only given mepermission to lean into my attraction to the newcomer…and for the first time I worried I’d fucked my way into a corner I couldn’t get out of.

The five of us were playing a complicated game of chess, moving pieces around to keep the game running long enough to get the upper hand over the other, but the appearance of Bellamy Marchant on our doorsteps and in our beds gave me the terrifying feeling there were more hands in the game than any of us had realized.

Maybe we weren’t as untouchable as we’d always imagined.

Maybe our secrets weren’t ours to keep anymore.

Four sets of eyes settled on Bellamy, with his golden hair and innocent eyes, the hickeys peppered across the back of his neck and the cum of three men mixed inside of him.

“Who the fuck is he and why is he here?”

Chapter 41

Bellamy

It was one thing when Daren, Luca, Fletcher, and Gideon looked at me with hunger in their eyes; it was another when they looked at me with doubt. Daren and Luca’s words from our time upstairs were sharp in my ears. These men barely trusted each other, and they surely didn’t trustme.

I didn’t trust me either.

“My father…” I trailed off, licking my lips nervously.

“That’s hardly news,” Luca said dismissively, gesturing at our tablemates. “All of our fathers.”

I was supposed to make an ally out of Fletcher Sinclair, and while I hadn’t yet succeeded, I hadn’t quite failed either. A shifty sort of alliance hovered in the air, something the four men in front of me desperately wanted but were too scared to reach for. I didn’t know how I played into the creation—or the destruction—of that.

It wasn’t uncommon for my dad to make demands of me or my siblings, but it was unusual for my mom to react the way she had the day they sat me down and told me about my future at Rose Hill. She’d been distraught, nearly inconsolable, and by the time I left for school, her mood hadn’t gotten any better. Deep in my bones, I knew there was something more pervasive at play.I hadn’t simply been gifted a scholarship and an opportunity…that I’d never even asked for. There were stronger powers involved, my dad being one of them, even though I hadn’t thought much of him up to the day he changed all of our lives.

“Tell us again how you came to be here,” Fletcher said.