He looked up, his dark eyes wary. "Someone has to make sure Arthur isn't face-down in a gutter after he's been in his cups."
Cash snorted something that almost sounded like a laugh.
"Someone has to take care of him. You know how he is," he told Cash.
Cash said, "You could send one of your minders with him. They're still holed up at the airport, right?"
Maxence pursed his full lips. "They won't leave me here. If I want them to go, then I have to."
Rox said, "That's right charitable of you."
Maxence glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes, a sexy squint, like he was unsure whether he was being made fun of.
Arthur clapped him on the shoulder. "Yes, Maxence. That's ‘right charitable' of you, walking through Hell itself to ensure that I don't end up face-down in a puddle of my own vomit at The Devilhouse."
Now Rox suspected that she was being made fun of.
Maxence's black eyebrows pinched together, and he frowned. "I'm not a priest yet."
Arthur cracked up and pounded him on the shoulder. "That's the spirit, Maxence. And with my steadying influence and a little luck, you never will be."
Cash's voice dropped in a warning. "Arthur."
Maxence shook his head, his black hair falling over his forehead. His dark eyes creased in pain. "You're right. I shouldn't go. That den of iniquity-"
"Oh, come now. It isn't that bad!" Arthur insisted.
"-is a symbol of everything that I should leave behind. The decadence. Using people as pawns and playthings. We should be better than that."
Arthur grabbed his chest. "Maxence, you'll hurt my feelings if you keep this up."
"I'm sorry, Arthur-"
"I'm fucking with you. I drowned all my feelings in thirty-year-old scotch years ago. I think you might have been there, but you were probably engaged in something worse than I was, considering those years."
Rox leaned back in her chair, unsure whose side she should be arguing for. Cash caught her eye, and even though he was wearing his blank court face, Rox could see that he was upset.
Maxence said, "Let's not go, Arthur. Surely, we can resist this temptation."
"Oh, I succumb to temptation every chance that it is offered. I'm going."
Maxence glanced at Cash. "You could go with him."
Cash shook his head. "I'm not going to The Devilhouse."
"It's Monday night," Rox piped up. "We have to go to the office tomorrow."
Cash looked down at his plate as if she had said something gauche. Well, to heck with him. She was a hard-working Southern girl and wasn't going to crawl into the office reeking of liquor.
"We'll be back in time for work tomorrow," Arthur said. "It's only an hour flight, if that. We could be back in plenty of time to shower and get to ‘work' by ten."
She could hear his quotation marks around the word ‘work' as if that were an unfamiliar concept to him. Yeah, Rox just bet that it was. "Office opens at nine. Not ten."
"We could have the pilot flap those wings faster. However, if you do not have the tolerance to handle even a drink or two and function at your office the next day, perhaps it would be better to leave you three here. Such an adventure might be too rigorous for you."
Heat filled Rox's head. "I assure you, we Southern girls can hold our liquor as well as any effete Eurotrash."
"Did you hear that, Caz?" Arthur backhanded Cash on his arm. "We're Eurotrash."
"You are," Cash muttered. "Rox, I don't think-"
Rox continued, getting louder, "We Southerners are bottle-fed Maker's Mark until we're weaned onto Jim Beam Devil's Cut. I assure you, I am up to whatever ruckus you boys think you can get up to."
Arthur smiled a slow, devilish grin. "Then it's settled. We'll all go. I'll have the pilot ready the plane."
"We're not staying all night," Rox said, her voice firm. "We're staying for three hours and flying home at midnight. You boys are barely paper-trained. Can't have you running around a strange city all hours of the night."
Arthur's malevolent grin hadn't changed. "I'll ask Wulf to send a car to the airport to expedite our trip."
WHAT KIND OF CLUB
Rox drove them all to the airport to get on-and she still had a hard time wrapping her head around this-Arthur's private plane.
When they were walking out of the restaurant, Rox managed to get Cash alone outside the door for a moment while Arthur and Maxence bickered like only old school friends can: every comment was a barb pointed at painful childhood traumas.
She stood outside the door and checked, but the other two guys were far back. Cash wove his arm around her waist.
"So," Rox put a lilt in her voice to make her question sound nonchalant even though she totally wasn't, "Do you know what kind of club those guys were talking about?"
Cash said, "Yes."
"So, I-seriously?"
"Yes."
"I don't think I want to know how you know."
"Those kinds of clubs are common in Europe. Less so here, but more common than you would think."
"I am afraid to ask how common they are." She looked far off into the early night, where a line of street lamps dotted a trail down the dark street.
Cash said, "There are five that I know of in Los Angeles."
"No."
"Absolutely."
"That you know of?" Rox really should shut up.
"Yes. Are you sure that you want to go to this one?"
"I'm just making sure that you boys don't get into real trouble."
"Oh, they will."
"I'm not going to partake."
"Then why are you going?" He encroached on her, trailing his knuckles down her cheek and the side of her neck. His voice was lower, more baritone, when he whispered, "Do you want to know what goes on there?"
"Oh, heavens. I'm sure that I wouldn't know what to do. I'm sure that I would make a fool of myself."
"How many boyfriends have you had, Rox?"
"I don't know. Six, maybe? Seven?"
"And how many of those were real boyfriends? That's how Americans ask about sexual partners, yes?"
"Um, yes. That's how we say it without saying it." She watched her toes, and her restless feet couldn't seem to stay still on the sidewalk.
"So how many real boyfriends have you had, Rox?"
"Including you?"
"Yes."
"Oh. Well. Um. Three."
"Including me?"
"Yes. Oh, now you think badly of me."
"No, I don't. Did either of the other ones want to do anything unusual?"
"No. Heavens. I never." She desperately wished that she had never started this conversation.
"Do you want me to show you what goes on at those kinds of clubs?" he asked again. "Perhaps in a private room?"
Rox swallowed. Her whole body felt like she had the wiggles. "Yes."
THE DOM OF THE DEVILHOUSE
At the airport, six men met them inside the terminal, all wearing nearly identical black suits and sunglasses, even inside and at night. They nodded to Maxence, who greeted them with a smile and shook their hands, and then they kept to themselves the rest of the night.
Rox kept an eye on them, but they sipped soda water and played cards as if they didn't all smell subtly like gunpowder.
Southern girls pick up on those things. She edged closer to Cash.
The small jet seated twelve people in large, lounger-style seats. The creamy leather was spotless and embroidered on each seat with an ornate S.
Considering Arthur, Rox assumed that the S stood for Slytherin.
Two of Maxence's security men took the first two seats, but the rest went to the rear of the plane, flanking him. They left Maxence alone so he could talk with Arthur, Cash, and Rox in the center of the plane for the rest of the flight.
Rox wondered at it, chewing over why Maxence rated a security team while Arthur and Cash did not, and that odd conversation among the men that first day popped up in her head again.
Maxence had "dynastic problems."
Cash had escaped his.
Arthur seemed less concerned.
Rox worried at the concept of "dynastic problems" like a ferret that had found an odd smell to obsess over while the guys talked sports. College football season was in full swing, but they seemed more concerned with the rugby international World Cup. Arthur was being very modest in the discussion, and Maxence, flippant. Rox figured that England was a powerhouse, the Netherlands were in the middle, and Monaco had a weak team.
They flew for a little over an hour, a silver wasp darting through the night sky, and landed in the middle of a splash of city lights.
Inside a small, private terminal with no security station that Rox could see, a man was waiting for them, dressed in a night-black suit only a few shades darker than his skin. Unusual bulges near his armpits hindered his arms.