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

One week in Spain with one of my least favorite people on the planet. What could possibly go wrong?

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.

“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.”

“Fine. I like fixing things. Solving problems no one else can solve.”

“So you like to be needed.”

I’m good at doing nothing, so I stick to it. It’s better than fucking things up.

Who didn’t like to be needed? Being needed meant we were good at and good for something. People didn’t leave those they needed. It wasn’t the same as being loved, but it was better than nothing.

“You don’t know how I taste.” His smile took on a decidedly more wicked slant. “Not yet.”

We can’t always control our thoughts, but we can control what we do about them.”

Xavier wasn’t my rudest or most entitled client, but he had the greatest wasted potential.

I hadn’t realized how accustomed I was to his annoying but familiar sunshine optimism until its warmth was gone.

I could always count on Sloane to be Sloane. Whenever I was drowning, she was my anchor in the storm.

Perfect hair. Perfect clothes. Perfect skin. She was the picture of flawlessness, but I was starting to see the cracks beneath her polished façade. Instead of detracting from her beauty, they added to it.

life ebbs and flows, and there’s always room for change. Humans have the capacity for growth until they leave this earth, so never feel like it’s too late for you to take another road if you’re unhappy with the one you’re traveling.

No matter which road you take, I’m proud of you. I hope you are too.

The greatest gift we have is time. Use it wisely.

And I no longer suspected but knew, especially after that kiss, that Sloane Kensington was it. Just like that.

“Working relationships come and go, Luna. Personal ones don’t.” A small pause. “At least, they shouldn’t.”

“I don’t want a kiss or a one-night stand,” he said. “I want you. I want to know you outside work. I want to take you on real dates. And I don’t know if it’ll work out in the end, but I want us to at least try.”

I’m afraid of letting someone in again. I’m afraid of getting my heart broken. I’m afraid that, if you get to know the real me, you’ll find me unlovable like everyone else, and it’ll hurt so much more because it’s you.

My exes had taken me to expensive dinners and exclusive shows, which were nice, but they only cost money. Time and care required far more effort, and no one had ever deemed me worthy of those things.

I would rather be single and content than in a relationship and miserable.

She looked like a goddess come to earth, but the most beautiful thing about her wasn’t her face or naked body. It was the trust behind it.

“I like it better wrapped around my fist.”

No one had thought he was capable of falling in love—until he did.

The big story of the day was the birth of Princess Camilla, Eldorra’s newest royal baby.

Pen’s frown remained for another beat before it melted into something more vulnerable. “Good,” she said, her voice small. “Because she’s been hurt enough already.”

“Maybe that was why I stayed so long,” Xavier said. “It made me feel closer to her.”

“I wish she could’ve met you,” he said, so quiet that I felt more than I heard his words. “She would’ve loved you.”

Anger was easier to swallow than guilt,

I could handle anything she said about us, Bentley, or the estrangement, but in true Georgia fashion, she’d zeroed in on the one weakness I had left—the idea that there was something wrong with me, that I was broken somehow because I didn’t feel the way “normal” people should feel. The fear that I was a monster in human clothing, devoid of compassion and unable to form genuine connections.

But I’d lived with him for five years, and for five years, in this sterile apartment, we were all each other had.

I simply curled up on the couch, squeezed my eyes shut against the pain, and pretended I was someone, somewhere else because that was the only thing I’d ever been able to do.

Bad luck comes in threes.

“You kept asking me why I called you Luna. I didn’t tell you because I was afraid it would send you running for the hills. Even before we kissed, before we were anything other than a publicist and her client, you were a light in my life. A persistent, sometimes scary one, but a light all the same.” Xavier’s throat bobbed with a hard swallow. “Luna is short for mi luna. My moon. Because no matter how dark the nights got, you were always there, shining so brightly that I always found my way through.”

she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. It had nothing to do with her looks and everything to do with who she was. Smart, fierce, and so damn mine.

“I know you think happily ever afters are unrealistic, Luna, but they don’t have to be. You just have to believe in them enough for yourself.”

“I love you,” I murmured. “Más que cualquier otra cosa en el mundo.”