The Insiders (The Insiders Trilogy 1)

Marie piped in, “Mistress Quinn is still here?”

He nodded at her. “She pulled in when I got here. Called from the car to invite me for lunch.”

Marie hurried out of the room, the door slamming in her wake.

Matt smirked at me. He raised an eyebrow. “Want to tell me why you lied just now? I can see how uncomfortable you are, and this room is hot-like-a-sauna hot.”

More shifting around. I didn’t like this, not a bit.

“Spill it.” He was scowling.

I turned back to the computer monitor. “I just don’t want to be a nuisance. To anyone.”

I was turning the computer off.

Matt had fallen silent.

If he had come in to rescue me, I knew he wasn’t going to make me stay for that lunch. Not that Quinn would invite me. She’d been avoiding me as much as I had her, and it wasn’t the first time since I was here that the tutor and Victoria were at the estate.

They came once a week.

Marie would pointedly suggest I fix something on her computer, or Theresa’s monitor, or would say they would bring me something to eat in Kash’s villa.

No one had mentioned their visits, and while I caught the tail end of Victoria leaving once, I hadn’t brought them up, either.

I turned back, standing up. Then, catching Matt’s face, I froze.

He was pissed. Seriously pissed.

“What?”

“Why do you think you’re a nuisance?”

Oh God. Where would I start? “Matt…”

“Bailey,” he ground out.

He was waiting. His other eyebrow went up.

“Look, it’s nothing. For real. I don’t want to bug Marie. That’s all.”

He waited, still studying me.

I was waiting too. I didn’t want him to push this. It felt wrong to complain to him about his own family, because it wasn’t just Marie or Theresa that I didn’t want to bother. It was everyone. Well, not Kash. I liked bugging him. A lot. Every night. Multiple times a night. An itching was forming under my skin, and I knew that wouldn’t go away until Kash came again. It’d been three full nights since his last visit. I was addicted to him, needing the feel of him against me to keep going.

I mean, we barely talked.

I mean, that wasn’t going to fly all the time.

But, I mean, it was Kash. He was my fix.

“You sure that’s all it is?”

My knees almost buckled from the relief. “Yes. That’s all.”

He still wasn’t happy, but he was relenting. The look faded, and his smirk showed again. “Want to get out of here with me?”

I hesitated. “Where? I know what parties you go to, and Matt…” I didn’t want to swim in his depths. “I can’t handle your crowd. I’m not like that.”

“Like what?” But he was grinning. He knew what I meant.

“The orgies. The drugs. No, thank you.”

“I know.” His eyes flashed in an apology. “Look, I’ve been embarrassed. Really embarrassed. What you saw that night, or the other nights. I’m sorry, Bailey. I am. Seeing how you were looking at me, at everyone.” His foot moved back and forth on the carpet. “Kash reamed me out the next day.”

He did?

“I woke up and the night came back to me in patches. Jesus, Bailey. You saw me fucking some random from behind. That’s—yeah.” A strangled laugh slipped out. “That’s pretty high up on my list of embarrassments.” His eyes caught mine. “But I wasn’t high that night. I was the other night, but not that night. It feels weird. I just usually start out with people being disappointed in me, you know.”

He was trying to be funny.

“Hey.” My throat was closing up. “I’m not judging you. Don’t think that.”

“Still.” He shoved his hands deep in his pockets. “I want to make it up to you, and trust me, me getting you out of here before Cyclone and Seraphina insist you join the Trio of Terrors is one small way of making things right again. I got a friend who’s in a polo tournament today. You want to go?”

I wasn’t sure.

“It’ll be all classy and shit. Wine. Hats. Dresses. Guys who dress up like they’ve got sticks up their asses. The whole shebang. And if you don’t want to hang out in the club area, I know the place the tournament’s at. We own a barn there, and there’s a loft we can sit in. I won’t let anyone up there, if you don’t want them.”

I was weighing my options.

Stay. Work on the computer. Do something I loved? Or go to this polo place, where I was pretty sure I didn’t like any of Matt’s friends? If I stayed, Cyclone and Seraphina could make it awkward, if they insisted I join them for lunch. That meant enduring Quinn and Victoria—who, even though she had said only one sentence to me, I already knew hated me.

There was no dilemma here.

I groaned. “What do I wear to this getup?”