It took them nine days to arrange.
Annie went home from the ball at 3 AM, slipped into bed, and Richard barely stirred. He asked her one question the next morning — good night? — and she said fine, and that was that. He never asked who she'd been drinking with. He never asked where she'd been for four hours. He'd had a year of not asking and he didn't intend to start.
Meanwhile her phone didn't stop.
Marcus was blunt: *Come over. Bring nothing.* Victor was courteous: *If you're free Thursday.* And Elias, at 1 AM on a Wednesday, sent one line that made her press her thighs together in her own kitchen: *Still thinking about the noise you made.*
She went to each of them separately, over the next week. Marcus in a hotel room, fast and filthy against the wall. Victor in his office after hou
