Chapter 40

Monday, 5:30 am

Unable to do another pushup, I face-planted on the matted floor.

“Not bad,” Tara Gellar sing-songed in that attractive Australian accent. I thought I was going to enjoy working out while a supermodel-beautiful, Olympic-level fit, Aussie goddess coached me along. Right now, I hated it, and I hated her.

“This is humiliating,” I muttered, the words muted by the foam on the gym floor.

“Nah,” Tara said. “This is an assessment. I’ve seen worse.”

I rolled over on my back and looked around the gym—all the equipment was state-of-the-art and expensive, but it had Tara’s approval. I had a couple of ellipticals, treadmills, stair-step machines, and cardio rowing machines. There were machines for building muscle in different areas of the body. Free weights had been stacked and racked along one wall for easy access. Two of the walls had mirrors mounted on them, and the entire floor was padded with the highest quality gym foam Erin could find. I could efficiently work any muscle in my body without leaving the comfort of my home—my body transformation journey had begun.

The problem was, having never been a consistent member of a gym or a fan of working out in general, I wanted to throw up after thirty minutes of working with Tara ... and apparently this was just the assessment. I shuddered to find out what the actual fucking workout was like.

Tara offered me a tablet. “Okay. Assessment’s done. This is the schedule I’ve built out for you.”

I rolled closer to where she sat and sat up, mirroring her position on the floor by crossing my legs as I took the tablet and looked it over.

“Do we have to do this every day at five in the morning, though?” Tara asked.

“No,” I said. “I hate mornings as much as you. I just wanted to get my blood pumping before the meeting today. Didn’t expect to feel nauseous though.”

Tara grimaced. “Wish you would have told me that’s what you were going for. It’ll pass once you get some food in you. I’ve already started working with Camille on a diet.”

“Lovely,” I said, anticipating being sentenced to egg whites, salads, and protein shakes for the next few months. “This workout doesn’t seem like much,” I said, holding up the tablet.

“You won’t be saying that by the end of the week,” Tara said with an amused smile. “Don’t worry. It’ll get harder.”

“Okay,” I said, eyeing the schedule skeptically, but she was the expert, so if she said this was a good start, I believed her.

“Has anyone else talked to you yet?” I asked.

“Just Chloe. She doesn’t need personal training, but she asked for a regular sparring partner.”

“Cool,” I said. “Erin wants to set something up with you, too.”

My personal trainer sat straighter when I said that, displaying a few subtle signs of interest. I couldn’t blame her. Erin in a sports bra and some yoga pants working out? I imagined that was one of those natural wonders that made you reconsider your belief in God—like the Grand Canyon. To be fair, Tara was a work of art all her own. Catching both of them in here at the same time might take years off my life just from the sheer amount of arousal they would inflict on me.

“Bobbi will probably reach out to you today, too. I want you to build a schedule for her.”

“Yeah,” Tara said, “About Bobbi...”

“The collar?”

“Yeah,” Tara said, her piercing blue-gray eyes full of questions. “Who is she?”

“That’s a long story,” I sighed as I set the tablet down.

“I’d like to hear it.”

Tara would be working with us all pretty intimately, so I decided she might as well know the entire situation. Erin had drawn up a boilerplate NDA for her that she’d already signed, so I felt relatively comfortable filling her in on a few of the details. I left out a few of the darker elements of how we met, but told her most of our situation—Bobbi had been stealing from the company I bought, had mistreated most of the people she worked with, and was an outright bitch. I threatened to turn her in, but instead of accepting that fate, she decided to enter a deal with me that resulted in a collar and a status as a live-in plaything story had a thin coating of sugar to make the whole thing a bit more palatable, but I hadn’t lied. If Bobbi told a different narrative, and Tara decided she didn’t like it, well ... I’d burn that bridge when I came to it.

Surprisingly, Tara didn’t seem all that taken aback by the story. I guess she’d anticipated some sort of authoritarian arrangement—the collar was a bit of a giveaway. She didn’t express any kind of distress over it, though. In fact, quite the opposite; the way she drew her legs tighter against herself and leaned toward me as I told the story, I suspected the concept turned her on.

I was relieved that Tara didn’t seem to have any sort of hang-up with the relationship, but it reminded me that I was overdue to have a similar conversation with Emily and Natashya. Bobbi usually kept to herself, and this place was big, but there was no doubt that Emily and Natashya had seen her around the house. The fact that neither had asked about her yet had me wondering what they suspected was happening with her.

“Anyway,” I finally said once I finished the story and stood up, “I need to start getting ready. Big day ahead.”

“Sounds good,” Tara said, hopping to her feet with what looked like a fraction of the effort. “If you don’t win, do I still have a job?”

“What?” I asked.

“Your big business meeting or whatever ... you aren’t losing everything if you don’t win, are you?”

“Uh ... no. I should be fine.”

“Ah,” Tara said, “Well, good luck anyway. Try not to stress out too much. If it goes bad, then no worries. It’s not like you’re gonna be destitute or anything.”

She stuck out her hand, and I shook it as I contemplated her point. She was right—I would be fine even if Chandler didn’t keep his spot on the board. In fact, I would be more than fine ... I’d be just as wealthy tomorrow as I was now. That thought eased a little of the tension out of my shoulders. “Thanks, Tara.”

Thirty minutes and a shower later, I was down in the dining room eating breakfast with Chloe and Erin. Breakfast was surprisingly good, despite having been warned by Tara that it would be healthy. I guess eating food that was good for you and delicious was a privilege that only the wealthy enjoyed.

As usual, Chloe barely said two words while Erin was her usual, chatty self, going over interesting points about the upcoming meeting today and asking me to fill her in on how things went with Charity.

I’d made a day trip to Vegas on Sunday to visit the influencer at her home, bringing breakfast with me. She had been released on Saturday but was still confined to her bed. The last time we’d seen each other, she’d been blowing me at a rooftop party when we were rudely interrupted by gunfire. She had been shot, and I had been kidnapped.

I told Erin about offering her a job as my PR manager, with the caveat that she would move to New York, return to school, and have an experienced advisor for at least a year until she felt comfortable enough to take on the responsibilities herself. I also mentioned that I generously gave the poor, bedridden girl oral.

Erin had several questions, and I simply told her that the moment Charity accepted the job offer, I would hand the entire thing over for her to set up. Around that time, Emily joined us at the dining room table.

“How was the rest of your weekend?” Emily asked us while she filled her plate.

“Not much of a weekend,” Erin said. “Your brother had me working.”

“Marcus!” Emily said accusingly.

“No. It’s okay,” Erin said, giving me a wink. “I’m a workaholic.”

That wasn’t the only thing she was. By the time I got home last night, it was late, and as I’d stumbled through the dark of my room, I’d found a tiny, naked assistant in my bed. The moment my fingers had come in contact with her silky hair, I’d picked up on her floral scent. The next thing I knew, my clothes were off, and she was inhaling my cock before riding me through three orgasms until I came deep in her womb. We never got a chance to discuss her progress with locating my grandfather’s flash drive.

“Speaking of,” I said around a mouthful of eggs, “How did it go?”

Erin glanced at Emily, then back at me, and I nodded, indicating that it was okay to talk about this in front of her. I was completely confident in my sister’s loyalty and trusted her implicitly.

“Well, we didn’t find anything definitive. The keys to those lockboxes I mentioned never turned up, and there’s no sign of a flash drive.”

“Dammit,” I muttered. “So, it was a waste of time?”

“Not really,” Erin said. “Vikram and I gained insight into your grandfather and his estate. I know a lot more than I did Saturday morning. I think we should check out his vacation home.”

“Which one?” I asked. “Doesn’t he have several?”

Erin nodded, “Yeah, but the one in the Catskills seems to be a favorite. Probably because it’s so close to New York.”

“He did go out there pretty frequently,” Chloe chimed in. “I remember him holding meetings and working remotely from that location for days at a time.”

I shrugged and said, “It can’t hurt. I’d like to see it too. How far is it?”

“Not far at all,” Erin said. “Especially by chopper.”

“It has a helipad?” I asked.

“Most of your grandfather’s properties do,” Chloe said. “He hated being driven around when flying was so much faster.”

“Yeah. I get that,” I said, noting that I was also getting accustomed to using a helicopter. When I first learned about my grandfather, I thought being driven around was a luxury, but it had nothing on being aerial travel.

“When do you want to go?” Erin said.

“Do I have anything important going on this week?”

“No, sir,” Erin said.

“Hm. I’m not sure. Let me get through this meeting, and we can discuss it this evening.”

“Good deal,” Erin said. “If you want, we could go closer to the end of the week and spend the weekend there. The house has a pool with a lovely mountain view, and I can think of several ways to spend our time.” The look she gave me as she sipped her coffee was borderline predatory, and I could feel my libido responding. I had to admit ... another attempt at a vacation might not be unwarranted. The last one had been interrupted.

“Okay...” Emily said, “Sitting right here.”

“What? You want to come?” I asked.

“That’s not what I meant, but a weekend in the Catskills? Hell yeah!”

My phone vibrated once, and I picked it up to see a text from Danni—Hey, Marcus! Good luck today! Missing you!

As I read it, another text came through—an image of Danielle lying on her bed in a dark blue robe. The belt was untied, and the sides of the robe pooled around her, leaving her entire body on display. Her modest breasts lay flat against her chest, and her pink nipples stood out proudly against her pale skin. Her pubes had been trimmed into a thin landing strip, a small patch of coal-black hair that contrasted beautifully against the ivory backdrop.

Her makeup had already been applied—dark eyeshadow and eyeliner that ended in a cat’s eye style. Her lashes were long and dark.

Her hair was splayed like a dark halo, and an arm was tucked behind her head. She looked to her left, but her eyes were focused on the camera, and a closed-lipped, mysterious graced her face. It looked like an NSFW pin-up. Fuck, she was gorgeous.

“What?” Erin asked, noticing the way I was staring at my phone.

“Here you go.” I passed my phone to Erin.

“Holy shit!” She said, her mouth hanging open.

“What is it?” Chloe asked, and Erin passed the phone to her.

Sitting next to Erin and on the other side of the table opposite Chloe, Emily craned her neck to get a peek, and her eyes widened.

“Damn,” Chloe said, sliding my phone back to me. “That’s a fine-looking woman.”

For Chloe to say something that brazen among three other people would have been the equivalent of an entire group of construction workers cat-calling a woman who passed by. For her, that was one hell of a statement.

“You should bring her with us to the Catskills. The three of us could really tear it up. If we could get Helen to come, then we could recreate that first day in the apartment.” Erin said, biting her lip as she gazed at me. Her meaning couldn’t have been any clearer if she held up a sign proclaiming the desire to have an orgy at my vacation home.

“Ugh ... hi! Right here,” Emily said, raising her hand.

“Oh, don’t be such a prude,” Erin said as she started packing away her laptop and planner.

“Do you have any siblings?” Emily asked.

“Nope.” She stood up. “I was an only child and liked it that way.”

“Then you wouldn’t get it.”

“I wouldn’t,” Erin agreed, “and I’m probably the better for it.”

“You can’t tell me that if you had a brother, you wouldn’t be grossed out by the idea of him having sex?”

“Grossed out? Definitely not,” Erin said. “That doesn’t mean I would jump in bed with him, though. Now, if he was a hot stepbrother with a beautiful cock and a massive bank account?” Erin threw back the last of her coffee and plopped the cup down hard enough to punctuate the following sentence. “You’d have to peel me off him.”

“Oh god!” Emily said and busied herself with eating her breakfast.

“Here’s what I think—you’re grossed out because society’s told you that’s how you’re supposed to feel. We’re all sexual beings. Your stepbrother is hot. You’re hot.”

The look of horror on Emily’s face was priceless, and even I could feel my face heating a little. Erin was right, but it didn’t change the fact that it was weird. Especially considering the Natashya situation.

“What?” Erin said. “I’m not saying you should sleep with him. I’m just saying that it’s not surprising that he’s getting a lot of tail. You live here now. You should get used to it. Your brother fucks.”

“Are you shaming me for being a little grossed out over my brother having sex?”

“No. I’m shaming you for not admitting you think it’s hot.” Erin turned to me and said, “I need to get ready. Meet you at the chopper?”

My amusement at the exchange between my sister and assistant outweighed my embarrassment, so I chuckled at Erin and said, “Sounds good.”

Erin glanced at Emily, who was taking another bite of her food, and reached for the hem of her black skirt and hiked it up, demonstrating that she wasn’t wearing any underwear. I was blessed with an eyeful of clean-shaven pussy. At the same time, she gave me a wide, toothy smile and ran the tip of her tongue over her incisors before snapping them at me playfully. Then she dropped her skirt, slipped her bag over her shoulder, and left, “See you later, Emily!”

I glanced at Chloe, who had seen the whole thing. She arched an eyebrow and said, “Somebody’s feeling playful.”

“Who? Erin?” Emily asked cluelessly. “I know ... she came at me pretty hard for just saying ‘ugh.’

“I think she has a point,” I said, sipping my coffee. “It’s a little hypocritical to be freaked out about hearing too much about your brother’s sex life when you got it on with one of the people he’s banging. Especially when that brother walked in on it and got an eye-full.”

She paused mid-chew and looked up at me, her silver eyes filled with concern.

“Relax,” I said. “I’m just messing with you ... and maybe suggesting that hearing about one another’s sex life on occasion isn’t that big of a deal ... especially since we live in the same house now.”

“Okay ... that’s fair,” she said, slightly abashed. I suspected she was still having mixed feelings about whatever was going on between her and Natashya.

“Can...” Emily hesitated before continuing, “Can I ask you about something?”

“Sure,” I said. “I have some time.”

“What are you going to tell Mom and Dad?”

“About?”

“Who you’re dating. Mom’s pretty traditional about this sort of thing. I don’t think she would take it well if she found out that you’ve basically built a harem.”

“A harem?” I didn’t like that implication.

She held up a finger. “Erin.” Then she paused and looked at Chloe.

“It’s fine,” I said, anticipating what she was thinking. “She’s allowed to hear everything. She has to be able to do her job.”