King of Sloth (Kings of Sin, #4)

by Ana Huang

To every woman who’s ever been told to “smile more.” Fuck that. Do what you want.

If I ruined my brand-new Stella Alonso dress over this, I’d kill him, bring him back to clean up the mess, then kill him again.

“Technically, you are an intruder, but a very beautiful one. If you wanted to join me in bed, you only had to say so. No need to go to all this trouble.”

I want a vacation.”

“You’re already on vacation.”

“Not me....

“I’ll attend the gala if you promise to join me on vacation after. Three weeks in Spain. No work, just play.”

“You want me to take three weeks off work?”

“Yes.”

“You’re out of yo...

I was work. Work was me.

“That’s the deal.” Xavier shrugged. “Take it or leave it.”

“Forget it. It’s not happening.”

“F...

“In that case, I’m going back to sleep. Feel free to stay or fly home. It...

“I can do two days,” I said, relenting. One weekend wouldn’t kill me, right?

“Two weeks.”

“One ...

“D...

That was the worst part about Xavier. He was smart, but he applied it to all the wrong things.

“Don’t look at me like I killed your pet fish,” he drawled. “I’m taking you on vacation. It’ll be fun. Trust me.”

Nothing brightened my day more than riling Sloane up. She was so predictable in her responses and so spectacular in her anger, and I loved seeing her ice-queen façade melt long enough to reveal a glimpse of the real person underneath. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, I added it to the mental drawer where I collected all things Sloane.

Objectively, Sloane was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever met. Blue eyes, long legs, symmetrical face…Michelangelo himself couldn’t have sculpted a better female form.

On anyone else, her simple black gown would’ve been boring, but Sloane could wear a grocery bag and still blow everyone else out of the water.

She’d obviously dressed with the intention of blending in, but she could no more blend into a crowd than a jewel could blend into mud.

Get caught dozing off once during a major awards speech and I was suddenly the bad guy. If these types of events weren’t so damn boring, maybe I’d have an easier time staying awake.

I’m fine. This is fine.

“Just shut up and follow me,” I snapped, wishing I had a wittier reply.

“Yes, ma’am.” His cheeks dimpled. “I love a woman in charge.”

I didn’t know what would happen when I didn’t have the buffer of work to shield me, but if Xavier thought he could trick me into letting down my guard in Spain, he had another thing coming. Vacation or not, I was still me. I didn’t let people see past what I wanted them to see, and nothing would change that—not even a forced week off with my client nemesis.

My smile inched wider when she unfolded herself, stood, and came to a stop inches from me. This close, I could see flecks of gray in her blue eyes and smell a trace of her perfume. It was clean and light, like fresh linen with a hint of jasmine. They were things I shouldn’t notice about a woman who tolerated me at best and despised me at worst. But I did, and once I noticed them, I couldn’t stop thinking about them.

“I didn’t realize you paid that much attention to who flirted with me.”

“I’m your publicist. It’s my job to pay attention to everything about you.”

“Everything...

I’d meant it as a joke, but when her gaze touched mine, oxygen thinned in a way that had nothing to do with the heat. Sloane was beautiful. Fact. I’d been physically attracted to her since the moment we met. Also fact. But it’d been a low-simmering attraction, the type I could brush off by focusing on something ...

Fuck, this wasn’t what I’d had in mind when I’d dragged Sloane to Spain with me. I enjoyed flirting with her, but there was a difference between flirting and…whatever the hell happened in the past two minutes.

Little did she know, there was nothing she could do that I’d mistake for weakness. She was one of the strongest people I knew, and only a fool would think otherwise.

Come on, Luna. Give me something.

I didn’t care about screen addiction; at least it could save my life if and when the occasion arose.

There’d been a moment, just one, when I looked at Xavier and my heart skipped a beat.

Speaking of idiocy, what if Asher Donovan crashed another car? Did Jillian remember to send Ayana our terms of engagement? Was Isabella feeding The Fish properly? Isabella wasn’t an idiot, but I had specific instructions for taking care of my pet goldfish, and she tended to get lost in her own world when she was in the middle of writing a book.

“You’re very stressed,” my therapist said softly.

“I’m from New York,” I said as an explanation. Everyone was stressed. The only people who weren’t were the lazy⁠—

“That’s not an excuse.”

“I’m from New York, and I don’t walk around with head...

“First of all, you’re not from New York. You’re from Bogotá. Second of all, you know nothing about my health. Third of all⁠—”

“Turn over, please,” my therapist said.

“Third of all, you’re not stressed because you don’t do anything. You just sit there, spend your fami...

“So,” he said, “you think I’m pretty.”

“You—”