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

“I’m not impressed with what I’ve seen tonight.” Devon, as calm as the Dalai Lama jerked the fossil from my hands and dumped it between us.

“My goodness, you’re not!” I slapped a hand over my cleavage, exhibiting my best fake British accent. “Heavens above. I must quit right this minute and become a governess or a nun. Whatever suits your taste, milord.”

“You’re infuriating.” He scrubbed at his perfect cheekbone, exasperated.

“And you were in my way,” I concluded, taking the small fossil again and messing with it. “I can fight my own battles, Devon.”

“You’re barely capable of keeping yourself alive.” His glacial expression told me he wasn’t being funny. He truly thought that.

At my building, Devon took the flight of stairs to my apartment, rather than use the elevator, still carrying me in his arms. More weirdness. How come none of his super-fans in this city ever picked on how odd he was?

“There’s an elevator right here. Put me down, Mr. Caveman.”

“I don’t do those.” His voice was clipped.

“You don’t do elevators?” I asked, relishing the feeling of his abs and pecs against my body.

“Correct. Or any sort of confined space I can’t get out of with ease.”

“What about cars? Planes?” There went my mile-high dream with a royal. It was good while it lasted. Also: very specific.

“Logic dictates I use both, but I try to stay away from them whenever possible.”

“Why?” I was baffled. It seemed like such an irrational fear for a man who was pure rationalism.

His chest quaked with a chuckle. He looked down at me, amused. “That’s none of your business, darling.”

When we arrived at my apartment, I was surprised to find Devon was in no hurry to peel my clothes off and have wild, unbridled sex with me. Instead, he produced a batch of documents from a stylish leather briefcase and set it on the coffee table, taking a seat. I sprawled on a colorful recliner, glaring at him.

“What are you doing?” I asked, even though it was pretty obvious he was removing enough paper documents to papier-mâché the Statue of Liberty, setting them on the table.

Devon didn’t bother to lift his eyes from the files. “Attending to our legally-binding contract. In the meantime, feel free to catch up on the opera you’ve missed tonight. La bohème.”

He offered me his phone, on which a recording was already playing.

“How’d you get in? You sent me two tickets.”

“I wanted to make sure you had a spare in case one got lost, so I purchased the entire row.”

Motherfucker. That was swoony as all hell, but in a jerk sort of way, because he still worked under the assumption I was not going to have my shit together.

I snatched the phone from his hands. “How do you know I won’t go through your messages?”

“How do you know it’s my personal phone rather than the one I use for work?” he clapped back.

I shot him a whatever look. Because, apparently, the current age gap between us wasn’t enough. I just had to act like a teenager.

“Watch it.” He jerked his chin to the phone, unbothered by my evil looks.

“You recorded the whole thing?”

Not very many people had the ability or talent to shock me, but this did. I was usually the one raising a scandal.

Devon picked up a red Sharpie, reading through the material in front of him, still not sparing me any attention. “Correct.”

“But why? I screwed you over.”

“And I’m about to screw you senseless. Your point?” His impalpable face did not waiver. “Now, please watch the opera while I read through the contract one more time.”

For the next forty minutes, I did just that. Watched the opera as he worked. The first ten minutes, I stole glances at him. It was nice, knowing I was about to be under this potent, sophisticated male.

But ten minutes into the opera, something weird happened. I started … well, kind of getting into it. La bohème was a story about a poor seamstress and her artist friends. The whole thing was in Italian, and even though I didn’t know one word of the language, I felt everything the heroine was feeling. There was power in it. The way the music tugged at my emotions like I was a marionette on a string.

At some point, Devon slid his phone from my hand and tucked it back into his pocket. He was sitting closer to me now.

“Hey!” I sent him a dirty glare. “I was in the middle of something. Mimi and Rodolfo decided to stay together until springtime.”

“The ending is exquisite,” he assured me, sliding an expensive-looking pen out of his briefcase. “You’d have loved it, had you joined me at the opera.”

“I want to see the ending.”

“Play your cards right, and you will. Let’s go over the contract together.”

“And then?” I raised an eyebrow, folding my arms across my chest.

“And then, my dear Emmabelle,” he smiled devilishly. “I’m going to fuck your brains out.”




One hour and twenty-three minutes.

That was how long it took Devon and I to go over all of the provisions in the contract he’d drafted for us.

He then proceeded to show me his STD test—the man was as clean as a whistle—and proceeded to let me know that he agreed to waive my own test on the grounds of trying to create a respectable and trustful working environment.