Priceless

The lush goddess with the green eyes that had seduced me with her melting cries against my lips as I made her come, wasn’t here with me after all. I couldn’t remember more crushing disappointment than I felt in the moment.

I didn’t enjoy the sex, not really.

When my guest opened the coat and revealed what was underneath I might have had enough to motivate me to see this through, but my heart wasn’t in it.

Not when she dropped to her knees and wrapped her painted pink lips around my cock. And not when she sucked me off while pretending to love it. She hated sucking cock as much as Viviana had. I could tell.

She didn’t mind the fucking though. Yeah, as much as I wasn’t into her, I still managed to get her off and go through the motions. I was so getting drunk afterwards I decided.

The whole thing was messy and less than satisfying.

And it took too long to get her out of my house after I was done with her.

Donadea, Northern Ireland

5th August

“YOU’RE just not telling me words I want to hear right now, Paul. Sorry, friend, but no. I need this shit out of my goddamned house and I need it gone now!” The pause from him was to be expected, and I was more than used to it. In fact, this kind of reaction from others was pretty damn typical. I bark, and people move. Things get done the way they’re supposed to and the way I want.

Well, in theory they do.

Waiting for Paul Langley to respond on the other end of the line made me impatient and I started tapping the top of my desk. I studied the worn oak grain of the wood and realized something I’d never really thought about before. My ancestors must have sat here at this same desk. Even as far back as maybe two hundred years ago I supposed. But that didn’t change the fact that it was still just a desk. A useful piece of furniture. A tool to be utilized rather than just on display as a formal antique appreciated only for its aesthetic value.

“Hello? You still there?”

“I wouldn’t call it shit, Ivan.”

“Right. Let me rephrase it for you then. Paul, would you please get someone over to my house capable of archiving the very valuable shit I have a great abundance of? A graduate student perhaps? There must be someone who needs a job. The papers tell of gloom and doom for the pissing dreadful economy. A starving artist? Work with me here, please. I do plenty for your organization and you know it.”

Langley sighed heavily into the phone. “I’ll see what I can do. There may be a possible candidate, but I’m not sure. The student I’ve in mind is very busy and scheduling may be a problem.” He hesitated before letting me have it. “And you aren’t the easiest person to…ah…work for.”

“Are you trying to tell me I’m an arsehole?”

Langley laughed softly. “Yes. And I couldn’t pass up the chance to admit it to you either, especially since you asked.”

“Nothing new there. Right. Good. So offer your student a big pile of my money. I pay well. Get someone over here to do the job and you’ll get your usual toward the philanthropic health of the arts and all that crap, and I won’t be drawn and quartered for letting priceless paintings go to rot.”

He muttered something about expecting a bigger donation cheque this year if he managed to find someone to come out. “See that you do and you just might,” I told him as we ended the call.

I sent off an email to my assistant in London telling him to follow up with Langley per our conversation. Lowell would keep this item current and remind me again if no word came from Langley soon about assigning me a student from U of L. Gratefully I had some good people working hard for me.

Once I finished that business my eyes wandered around this stately room I’d inherited, to study the rich paneling carved by some master craftsman eons ago, over the valuable paintings hung atop it, past the antique furniture and the personal items which had belonged to my ancestors, to finally rest upon the best part of the whole room in my opinion. The view out the floor-to-ceiling window. The landscape of Donadea was stunning in all its green lushness—hills and dales dotted with trees contrasting against the blue skies above. Too bad I didn’t have the heart to enjoy it much. Not anymore.

I’d loved coming here as a kid even after Mum died. The best times of all had been the long breaks in summer. Riding, shooting, fishing, times at the lake, picnics. I’d learned to fly here. It had been magical. A place to forget the harsh bustle of London and the many responsibilities that came with this blasted life I’d inherited. But Viviana had taken even the peace of this sanctuary from me. Now Donadea reminded me of all that I didn’t have, which was symbolic for why I wanted this place cleared out.

The time had come to let the past go.

It didn’t serve me i

n any good way and I didn’t need any more bad. I’d had enough in my thirty-four years to last for a while. I didn’t like to complain about my life because it would sound incredibly ingenuous to anyone who might be inclined to quote me. Which they would do with the utmost glee. I could see the Fleet Street rags headlining me now—SUICIDE WATCHES FOR LORD IVAN.

I had money, of course, and fame to an extent. Infamous was more like it. I had some Olympic medals and even a coveted gold. I’d been born with the right name mostly. And because of the untimely deaths of others, I had so much when so many had so little. So yeah, I couldn’t complain about anything to anybody. I could only bear the hand I’d been dealt. Which sucked.

I left my study and walked across the west wing of the house to the portrait gallery. The walls were filled. There was too much here. It needed to be sorted and some maybe sold, donated, or stored for preservation even. I thought of the ironic twist of fate that had left me as caretaker of such goods. An art collection to rival the best in the world and I knew next to nothing about it.

My uncle Matthew, the twelfth Baron Rothvale, had not been much better, and my father? Fuck no, and fuck no a hundred times after that. His interests had been all over the place for the short time he’d been in line for the helm of this slowly leaking vessel. This estate had never belonged to him anyway, and that one small fact pleased me the most. Irony was cruel most of the time.

I took one last look around the room before going right back out again. No, the paintings in this house had been neglected for a great many decades and they were due some greatly needed attention. Even my ignorant arse knew that.