"Cecilia. We need to talk."
Even if Cecilia hadn't been in the middle of her highly unorthodox campaign of seducing Eastiel, she would not have gone out of her way to agree to talk to this man.
And thankfully, Eastiel was on the same wavelength.
"She busy, lil bro," Eastiel drawled, a lazy, deliberate condescension that was so perfectly calibrated to annoy it was an art form.
Cecilia was hit with such a wave of secondhand cringe she physically recoiled, smacking his ass. "East! Ugh! What the fuck?!"
SLAP!
A stinging impact landed. But Eastiel just cackled. He knew it was a cringe line of astronomical proportions, but the reference, the sheer, territorial claim of it, was worth the social mortification. He wanted Arzhen to understand that he was no longer the man.
The way Arzhen's carefully blank face twisted, a flash of disgust and fury, was proof enough the cringe had been a tactical masterpiece. "I'm serious," Arzhen ground out, his voice tight. "My father is looking for y—"
