The Rake (Boston Belles #4) by L.J. Shen

“They also say that your personal life is in shambles. That you spend your nights gambling at that heathen Sam Brennan’s joint, drinking, and keeping company with ditzy women half your age.”

The first accusation was spot-on. The last one, however, was a plain lie. I had a strict five-year maximum in place. I’d take lovers five years younger or older. In fact, I had only broken the rule once, with the delightfully infuriating Emmabelle Penrose. For all my faults, I was not a sleazeball. There was nothing quite as pathetic as walking around with a woman who could be mistaken for your daughter. Thankfully, no one in their right mind would have thought I’d let my daughter dress like Emmabelle Penrose.

“I understand that you’re upset, Mummy, but I am not going to be talked into marriage.”

Through the vast glass door, I could see Cillian, Hunter, and the rest of Royal Pipelines’ board trickling out of the conference room. Hunter flipped me the bird on his way out while Cillian offered me a curt, speak-later nod.

This phone call had put me an hour behind schedule. It was more time than I’d given my father in three decades. I was going to send him a hefty bill straight to hell. Meanwhile, Mum continued to drone on.

“…out of touch with your roots, with your lineage. I suspect a lot of things will resurface once you make it back home. I could send in the private jet if you like.”

The private jet belonged to the Butcharts, not the Whitehalls, and I knew better than to take favors from people I had no intention of being indebted to.

“No need. I’ll fly commercial, with the other peasants.”

“First class is so common, unless it’s Singapore Airlines.” If there was something that could distract my mother from the fact she just became a widow, it was discussing wealth.

“I fly business,” I said sardonically. “Brushing shoulders with honest-to-god average people.”

I knew that for my mother, flying business class was akin to making the journey on a paper boat while surviving exclusively on raw ocean fish and sunrays.

“Oh, Devvie, I do hate that for you.” I could practically envision her clutching her pearls. “When shall we expect you?”

“I’ll be in touch in the next few days.”

“Please hurry up. We miss you so.”

“I miss you too.”

When we hung up, it felt like my flesh had been ripped open.

I might have missed my mother and sister.

But I did not miss Whitehall Court Castle.




I took the rest of the day off. Contrary to general belief, I was not married to my work. In fact, I wasn’t even engaged to it. I had a casual relationship with the firm I’d incorporated and used every chance I could to spend time out of the office.

Losing a father, even if I’d forgotten what he looked like, was a brilliant excuse to take time off.

Clouds glided lazily overhead, curiously watching to see what my next move would be. Not one to keep nature waiting, I wandered into Temple Bar, an Irish pub down the street from my office. I was sitting at the bar when Emmabelle Penrose burst through the sticky wooden doors, tears streaming down her face, looking like a train wreck seconds after a colossal explosion.

Emmabelle was the most beautiful woman on planet Earth. It was not an exaggeration, but a plain fact. Her hair, long and luscious, looked like it drank in every sunray it had been exposed to, falling in strings of different shades of blond. Her feline eyes, the color of a blueberry slushie, were perpetually hooded. Her lips were bee-stung, puffy like she’d just been kissed savagely.

And that was without even talking about her body, which I was inclined to suspect might cause a Third World War one day.

She was young. Eleven years younger than me. The first time I’d seen her, three years ago, when I’d gone to serve her younger sister, Persy, with Cillian’s prenup papers, I caught a glimpse of her asleep and spent the next month fantasizing about conquering the fair-haired nymph’s bed.

What made Belle even more enticing was the fact that she, like me, rejected marriage as an institution and treated her romantic affairs with the same practicality she would her finances. I found her fire, intellect, and nonconformist ways refreshing. What I did not find refreshing was the way she’d kicked me out of her apartment in the middle of the night shortly after we started sleeping together.

Miss Penrose could be Aphrodite herself, rising from seafoam on the Cypress shore, but I was still a man of self-respect and social standing.

I forgave, but I did not forget.

Though now that I took a good long look at her, she looked a bit … frayed?

Like she was on the verge of bawling into her glass of chardonnay.

A man came on to her not even a second after she walked into the bar, and I sat in the corner, watching her nearly snap his arm in two, chuckling to myself.

But with the amusement came a rather exasperating sense of responsibility gnawing at my gut. No matter how unappealing I found the idea of helping out this bratty vixen, I knew Cillian’s wife and Belle’s sister, Persy, would put me through all of Dante’s nine circles of hell if she found out I’d simply ignored her.

Plus, Emmabelle was not the type to self-indulge in a full-fledged mental breakdown over a broken fingernail. As a lawyer, I’d always been anthropologically curious. What could make this tough-as-nails woman crumble?

I approached her, showered her with compliments and reassurance, and tried coaxing the information out of her. Belle refused to cooperate, like I knew she would. The girl was thornier than a rose garden—and just as beautiful.