The Initiation (Filthy Rich Americans 1)

The thought made me uneasy. Like an itch that wouldn’t go away no matter how much you scratched.

I hovered beside my sister for an eternity, wearing a perpetually amused expression on my face to mask that I was dying of boredom on the inside. I didn’t care Rachel Sanderson was going to do a semester abroad in Spain, or Eric Hineman had a venture capitalist interested in investing in his dumb start-up idea. I did my time beside Emily until she finally gave a slight nod. It was her signal I was about to be released.

She dug out her tube of red lipstick and held it up. She’d pestered me the whole car ride tonight to put it on, but I’d refused. I’d won the battle, but I was about to lose the war.

“Bitch,” I groaned under my smile and snatched the tube from her.

She laughed. “It’ll look amazing on you.”

Once I’d smeared on the red lipstick and returned it, I stole away through the kitchen. Up an empty back staircase I went, seeking out a quiet room where I could read until Emily would text me it was time to go. No one would miss the weird Northcott sister with oddly green tinged hair and bright red lips.

The first room I came to was dark. The door was open, just a sliver, but enough for me to see it was occupied. A girl was perched on the edge of a bed, her dress pulled down around her waist and her pale breasts undulating with her shuddering breaths. A man, his back to me, was on his knees before her, his head buried between her spread thighs. She threaded a hand in his hair and clenched it tight as she gasped in contentment.

I hurried past the open door with my cheeks burning, and a rope of desire tightened inside me. Was it envy, or curiosity, or both? I wanted to know what that felt like. The sensation of someone besides myself giving me pleasure.

I was so fucking curious about sex.

But I wasn’t going to find out tonight, here on the mostly empty second floor of the Hale estate.

My footsteps were quieted by the plush carpeting as I wandered down the corridor. The walls were covered in more intricate paneling. The whole enormous house felt masculine and cold, and I couldn’t imagine growing up here. Not that I pictured Royce, or his younger brother Vance, as the poor little rich boys. They were quite the opposite. The Hale men were cunning, ruthless predators.

But all this space wasn’t so much secluded as it was isolated. Did they ever get lonely? Macalister and their stepmother were workaholics and never around. In fact, Alice Hale was currently at a spa for “an intensive cleanse,” but there were whispers. Rumors that Macalister had put her in rehab.

I tried several doors until I found one that didn’t lead to a bedroom, but a library. Or maybe it was a home office. A warm toned writing desk was placed across from a marble fireplace.

I didn’t turn on the six-armed chandelier overhead. Instead, I flicked on the desk lamp, which cast soft amber light up onto the shelves of books. The gold embossed titles on the spines glinted back at me. The bookcases spanned every inch of the room except for the curtain-draped window at the back, where bronze velvet fabric pooled on the floor.

It smelled like books in here. Like leather, and logs that had been burned during the winter, and . . .

Power.

I fell in love with the library in one slow, wonderous blink. There was a brown arm chair with a matching ottoman backlit by the window, and I was drawn to the spot like a magnet.

I curled up there, tucking my legs beneath the scratchy crinoline of my white dress, and pulled my mythology book from my oversized purse.

Outside, the sun set and darkened the room, but time halted as I read. My obsession with mythology had begun a long time ago. I liked how twisted the stories were. Murder, and betrayal, and jealous wrath . . . all the worst traits were displayed in the Gods’ behavior, and they were unapologetic about it.

It was fascinating.

The book was so engrossing, I didn’t hear the door open, or click shut, or the footsteps that approached. It was only the unnerving sense I was being watched that caught my attention. I glanced up from my book to find a pair of hungry eyes staring at me.

TWO

MY LUNGS SEIZED with an awful, cut-off sound.

Royce Hale’s thick, wavy brown hair was swept back over his high-arched eyebrows and hypnotic eyes. He was tall and trim with broad shoulders and stood with his hands hooked in his black suit pants pockets, his thumbs peeking out. His posture was causal, yet it wasn’t a word I’d use to describe him. Perhaps oppressive, or invasive, or . . .