Page 166 of Sinful Desires
23 years old
Fourteen years ago
“Happy birthday, Théo!”
The crowd roared as fireworks ripped through the sky in bursts of red, gold, and silver, flashing across the waves and slamming light against the stone walls of the château like the place was about to catch fire.
Music pounded so hard the floor shook. My heartbeat was in the bass.
I blew out twenty-three candles with someone’s lipstick smeared on my cheek.
The boys from my team popped bottles and sprayed everyone, champagne raining down while shirts soaked through and girls squealed with laughter.
Everything was drenched. Everyone was drunk.
And I felt fucking untouchable.
The terrace stank of smoke, sweat, and spilled liquor.
People were dancing, fighting, fucking. Some were pressed against the stone walls, others collapsed on the steps with their dresses hiked up and their eyes rolled back. There were joints in every fucking hand. Pills passed from tongue to tongue. Coke lines across the bar, wiped clean by a wrist or cleavage.
I was laughing, soaking wet, fingers sticky with sugar and salt. I was high on the chaos, drunk on the noise, and I wanted it to never fucking stop.
This was my night. I owned it.
An arm slung around my shoulders. Antoine LeMant, grinning like a devil.
“Fuck, this might be the party of the century, LeRoy.”
I took the lit cigar from his hand, dragged in deeply, and passed it back. Smoke burned through my lungs like gasoline.
Someone rolled in barrels of invisible neon paint and suddenly everyone had their hands in, smearing glowing shapes on bare chests, thighs, faces, tongues. The Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling” exploded through the speakers.
“If my parents find out we’re here, I’m dead,” I muttered, grabbing a champagne bottle off a tray and drinking straight from the neck. “They think we’re quietly docked on the yacht.”
Antoine laughed so hard he nearly fell over.
Someone behind us screamed. Someone else cannonballed into the sea, fully clothed.
“What’s the point of owning a fucking castle island if you don’t use it to get blackout and commit minor crimes?”
I shrugged. “That’s what I’ve been saying.”
He groaned, grabbing a bottle from a passing tray. “Mine are pissing me off. They want me to start training for the LeMant board takeover, but I told them I needed a fucking gap year. You know what they said?”
“Let me guess.Duty calls?”
“Duty fucking calls,” he muttered, swigging.
The LeMants owned half the goddamn silver in France and the United Kingdom. Cutlery, chandeliers, champagne trays, you name it. They’d built an empire on spoons and family politics. Now they expected their son to step in and keep the porcelain train running.
Royalty, but shinier.
I exhaled through my nose, watching the neon glow slide across the waves.
“Mine too,” I muttered. “Supposed to start my internship next week. Learn how totake the reins. Carry the torch. Uphold the legacy. All that bullshit.”
We didn’t want any of it. But that was what we had been born for, right?
