Empire of Hate (Empire #3) by Rina Kent

I pause at the name she saved me as and snatch her phone away. “Are you calling your boss a bloody idiot, Ms. Adler?”

A blush spreads over her cheeks and neck. “All assistants do.”

“When did this start?”

“When we were eighteen.”

“This won’t do.” I tell her to unlock the phone, then change the name to Daniel surrounded by two hearts. Then I take a selfie while I kiss her lips and put it as the designated picture.

Nicole calls me silly, but she’s smiling like the hopeless romantic she is.

We spend some more time in the park before she insists that we buy groceries.

“You know I have staff who keep the fridge stocked, right?” I push the trolley as she throws all sorts of things in it. “They’d have a mini-stroke and call you Americanized behind your back as they sip their Earl Grey tea.”

She throws a smile at me over her shoulder. “I’ll drink with them. I love tea.”

“Congratulations for being one of the many Brits who consume unhealthy amounts of it.”

“You don’t. You prefer coffee.”

“Which is why my staff call me the Americanized Sterling behind my back, too. So we’re mates, you and I. Congratulations again.”

She stares at me while squeezing a packet of something green floating in a snot-like liquid. Please tell me she’s just checking it out of curiosity and not actually going to take that.

“Have your staff stayed in the mansion all these years?”

“All eleven Christmases of them without a single present from yours truly.”

“But why?”

“They come with the mansion.”

“But they’re people.”

“Extremely annoying ones with a sense of loyalty that resembles a samurai’s second hand. You know, the one that finishes them off after they disembowel themselves. In my case, if I choose to go, they would poison my coffee.”

“Why?”

“They hate that stuff. Last I heard, it’s considered blasphemy to prefer it over tea.”

“No, I mean why did you keep them?”

“I didn’t. They were technically fired eleven years ago, but they’re more stubborn than my ‘I couldn’t care less’ attitude.”

“Who pays them, then?”

“My brother, through my owned shares. He’s been managing the whole thing and probably bribed them with premium Chinese tea to be a thorn in my side.”

“They must’ve been so lonely, serving a mansion without a master.”

“Uh, hello? Did you miss the part where they drink tea to gossip about us?”

“You disappeared for eleven years, then came back out of the blue. You should be thankful they even welcomed you in.”

“There was a keyword you missed. It’s my mansion.”

“That they lived in more than you. It’s such a beautiful property, but you abandoned it without looking back.”

“I don’t particularly get attached to places.”

“I noticed that.” Her tone softens. “I bet you don’t even consider your penthouse a home.”

“It’s just a house.”

“Then where’s your home, Daniel?”

Right in front of me.

Wait. What?

What in the actual fuck was that thought all about? I didn’t just think of Nicole as my home.

I simply didn’t.

“Nowhere,” I grumble, my grip hardening on the trolley.

“That’s just sad,” she says with a far away look in her eyes then quickly sobers up. “Anyway, I have to count your staff in for dinner.”

“You’re not cooking for Mary Poppins’s spawn, Peaches.”

“Yes, I am.” She slides the snot-like thingy into the basket.

And I’m hoping they will choke on it.





Nicole wasn’t kidding when she said she was counting them in. The doorman, the cook, the maid, the butler, and the gardener. All five snobbish tea monsters of them.

I had to reschedule my BJ more times than I could count, then I ended up helping her in the kitchen, despite how much the smell made me want to throw up all over the stainless-steel equipment.

She told me she could handle it with the cook’s help, but it was either keeping myself busy or bending her over and fucking her with a manner that will provide my staff with tea talk for decades to come.

While accidentally traumatizing them.

Nicole even serves them food in the kitchen and tells me to help her set the dinner table for four.

Me, her, Jay, and I suppose she invited Uncle Henry for dinner so she can spend as much time with him as possible before going back to New York.

Double cock-block.

But I can’t have that if I want to function normally during the fucking dinner.

So when she says she’ll go change then come back, I follow after her like a professional stalker.

I pass the staff that are fawning over her food with awe that must disgust them deep down.

That’s right, tea monsters, be impressed.

The sound of a shower reaches me as soon as I step into our room. She didn’t go to the guest room that was designated to her, she came to the one I took her to that first night.

If Astrid didn’t use her creepy/drama queen card, I would’ve stayed with Nicole in bed two days in a row, coming up with creative ways to make her come.