“You laugh, but I didn’t want to interrupt something important for what gossip I have to share with you.” When Kathryn didn’t immediately respond, Caroline launched into what she kept pent up inside. “Cassandra Welsh is coming back to town for Christmas!”
Kathryn pushed herself off the counter and approached the tub. One raise of her eyebrows had Ian spread his legs open so she could join him in the hot bath. Kathryn gingerly submerged one leg between his, face cringing in that all-too familiar recognition of hot, hot, very hot, probably going to melt my skin off, but whatever before suddenly accepting her fate. Then the other leg followed, and all she could wish was that she didn’t drop her phone. (She was not going to drop her phone, but nobody needed to tell her that.)
“Who?”
Soft, big hands eased up her back as she lowered her ass into the hot water. Ian wrapped his arms around her and planted a lazy kiss on her shoulder. His lips then diverted to her ear, where he casually whispered, “Who are you talking to? It can’t be that important.”
“Come on!” Caroline continued. “You can’t seriously tell me that you don’t know Cassandra Welsh.”
“You mistake how much of a socialite I have been in my life.” What Kathryn didn’t like people to know was that she was quite the socialite when she was younger. For a few years, there wasn’t a party or function the richest heiress in the region didn’t attend. She saw it her mission to eat every delicacy and blow every handsome heir (and pool boy) she fancied. These days she called only one man her handsome heir (and occasional pool boy, when that mood struck them) but her feminine philandering of ten years ago meant she crossed paths with Cassandra Welsh many, many times.
Because Cassandra Welsh was quite possibly the second biggest slut in the region. After Kathryn, of course.
When Kathryn thought about it, she realized that they had shared about three dicks. (In actuality, as she was about to find out, it was four.) Cassandra’s legacy was largely wrapped up in the upper echelon of rich-ass cock, whereas Kathryn preferred her men down and dirty, of every class. It was simply a happy mistake she ended up with a billionaire heir like Ian Mathers. Happy accident, yes.
Just so happened that man was going to wrap every limb he had around her and take his time distracting her with kisses and muttered promises of raunchy sex as soon as they got clean. The more he muttered, the more something poked into Kathryn’s back. Typical. Always Captain Hard-On. Well, she knew how to take care of that.
“I’m on the phone with your mother,” she muttered to him.
Ah, yes, deflated boner.
“You know what?” Caroline said with a huff, “I know for a fact that you know who Cassandra is. Don’t play like that with me, child. I have it on wonderful authority that she’s back in town and about to break some more hearts.”
“Good. I’m sure there are some men around here who need to have their hearts broken.”
“Don’t be so cavalier about this! Don’t you know about her and Ian?”
Now that was bound to get Kathryn’s attention. “Uh, no,” she admitted. One curious eye glanced back at her boyfriend, still lazy against the back of his tub. Even if he had the power to eavesdrop on both sides of the conversation, he wasn’t going to bother. To his benefit. “Do tell. Or don’t. Perhaps I don’t want to know.”
“Oh, they dated for a while a few years ago! You didn’t know? He never mentioned her?”
“Nope. He sure didn’t.”
“You’re talking about me, aren’t you?” Ian sighed.
Kathryn leaned back against his bare, wet chest. “Maybe.”
“You better make him tell you the details, because I don’t know if I can bear to.” Caroline would keep sniffing until it went against her best interests to continue. “All you need to know is that when Cassandra’s around, bad blood is going to boil.”
Typical Caroline. If she wasn’t using hyperbole to stir drama between ladies at the country club, then she was dropping hints in Kathryn’s direction that things were not all that they seemed with Ian. Honestly, Caroline would shoot herself in the dominant hand if she became the reason her son broke up with the best woman to possibly become his wife. But the thing about wielding a firearm is that the stupid don’t often realize which one is the trigger finger.
“So, anyway,” Kathryn said with a diplomatic change of subject, “are both you and Dominic coming to Christmas dinner at my father’s? Or should we schedule you for brunch and him for dinner?”
“Are you kidding? Like I get anything but dinner…”
Kathryn was glad for the topic change, although bringing up Caroline’s ex-husband (and Ian’s father) could either send the woman on a tirade or make her wistfully remember the days in which she was married to the only man she truly loved (but divorced on their twentieth anniversary so she could walk away with more money than she would ever make on her own.)
Kathryn managed to hang up without Cassandra being brought up again. “So,” she said once her phone was off and tossed onto the bathroom floor, “your mother called me specifically to talk about Cassandra Welsh.”
The masculine body behind her stiffened. “Why in the world would she call you about her?”
“Apparently, she’s coming back into town, and your mother thought it pertinent to warn me that you and her used to have a thing. Also, did I know that Cassandra is a loose cannon?”
“We may have dated for a few weeks. Nothing serious.” Ian scoffed. “Does it matter? I don’t recall you ever being upset with me having dated someone.”
“I don’t care.” Kathryn meant it, too. Why would she be jealous that her hot, sexual stud of a boyfriend had bedded many other women in his youth? Not like she had any room to talk. If Kathryn and Ian added up their previous sexual partners together, well, then… that was quite the nervous STD test, now wasn’t it? This was the couple that often joked about being the reason there was only one or two degrees of sexual separation between everyone they knew. “What you did with her was your business back then. I’m just wondering why she, out of all the women in the world, is the reason Caroline called me to talk gossip about your old dating life. She doesn’t really do that.”
“Ah, because…” Was Ian chuckling? Or was her nervously breathing down Kathryn’s neck? Sheesh. So much for their supposedly relaxing bath together. The whole point of this bath was to spend some intimate time together (outside of sex, anyway) after a few days of stressful business dealings. Kathryn didn’t often help her boyfriend with his work these days, but when she did, it was nothing but deals falling through and hustling to banks and racing to call this lawyer or that advisor. Kathryn hated that life. There was a reason she had rejected that part of her inheritance and instead put her money to work passively building (by the millions) in investments. Yet the day she and Ian married would be the day the banks had to shut down for a holiday in order to deal with the newly combined assets. “She and I didn’t end on the best of notes. I may or may not have been a bit messed up for a few weeks afterward.”
“What?” Kathryn turned her head so quickly that the messy bun on the back of her head almost came undone. “No woman’s ever fucked you up. Except me.”
“I’m not talking about that,” Ian was quick to say. “I wasn’t in love with her. Not like that. We had some fun.”
“You two had sex.”
“Of course we had sex. This is me we’re talking about. And Cassandra, apparently.”
What Ian failed to mention was that dating Cassandra was like dating a sexual black hole. From the moment he was pulled into her gravity at a party her father threw, he was in deep shit. The closer he got to her event horizon, the more he realized he was going to regret getting too involved with her. Too late. By then, they were having sex every which way to the Sunday after next. Sometimes Cassandra would stop by his place at midnight for a quickie. Other times she would call him and make him come to her for sex. Ian never dealt with those kinds of demands outside of Kathryn, who actually made them sexy. Cassandra, though… something about her tugged at his heart and made him obey without a second thought. Perhaps it was the wisp in her voice. Vulnerable. Sweet. Hopeful that maybe, just maybe, this time the man she was with was the one. “Do you know what I want more than anything?” she once asked Ian. “A prince charming I can call my own.”
He had often sensed her desperation whenever they had sex. Unfortunately, this was during a time in Ian’s life when he had little regard for his girlfriends’ emotions and what they wanted outside of the bedroom. If Cassandra asked for anal with a side of dirty-slut role-play, then hey, the Ian of his early 20s was happy to oblige. Thinking about Cassandra provided one of many opportunities for him to contemplate how much he had changed in the past few years.
“You know what she told me when she broke up with me?” And for Ian to admit that it was her who broke off the relationship was a big deal. Even after dating Kathryn for as long as they had been together, he still didn’t like to reveal a lack of masculinity in his past self. What if it gave her ideas? “She said that I wasn’t the prince she was looking for.”