King's Passion

Silence.

“Quentin?” she pressed.

He faced her again. “Let’s just say that I don’t understand love. How it magically appears, puts you in a spell and then poof! After that, you question whether it was ever there at all.” Sensing that he wasn’t making any sense, Q cleared his throat. “Maybe I should lie down.”

“If you like,” Dr. Turner said as she scribbled away on her notepad.

Q assumed the position on the doctor’s leather chaise and leaned back on the arm. “You know, my brothers have been telling me for years that I needed to see a shrink.”

“Are you here at their urging?”

“No.”

“So you wanted to come?”

Pause. “More like I needed to come.”

Scribbling. “And why is that?”

Quentin lowered his gaze from the ceiling to stare at the floor-to-ceiling glass window to see an image of Alyssa in her white wedding gown, checking out her reflection. “I’m afraid that I missed my one chance.”

“At love?” Dr. Turner asked.

Alyssa spun around and shook her head at Quentin. “You don’t love me.”

“Quentin?”

“Yes,” he said simply. “The woman I thought was for me married my brother two years ago. I went to the wedding, stood in line with the other groomsmen and watched Sterling marry the woman of my dreams—then I left and haven’t seen them since.”

“So you’re estranged from your brother?”

“With Sterling—yes.” Q shrugged. “I still talk to my other brother Jonas from time to time. But it’s not the same. He’s happily married with children and…everything has changed. Everyone has changed. Everyone is falling in love,” Q chuckled. “Who knows, maybe something is wrong with me.”

“You don’t really believe that, do you?” she asked.

Alyssa shook her head at him.

“I don’t know what I believe. Once I lost Alyssa, I swore off love and renewed my vow to be a bachelor for life. And why not? There are more than enough women out there who’d love the pleasure of my company. You know what I mean?” He turned his head and caught a glimpse of the doctor’s long legs. Nice.

Dr. Turner cleared her throat.

“Sorry.” Quentin smiled and turned back around.

Alyssa rolled her eyes.

“Anyway,” Q said, “like I was saying, bachelorhood is for me. So I figured that birds of feather flock together, right?”

Scribbling. “You tell me.”

This is like talking to myself.

“It beats talking to a woman that’s not really here,” Alyssa said, twirling around in her dress.

Quentin rolled his eyes but had to concede her point. “Well, I considered my business partners and cousins Xavier, Jeremy and Eamon a part of my flock. Well, maybe not Eamon so much—but definitely Xavier and Jeremy. They all loved women as much as I did. None of them wanted to settle down with just one, which actually made them the perfect partners in The Dollhouse.”

“What’s The Dollhouse?”

“Only the hottest gentlemen’s clubs in the country, of course I’m a little biased.” A smile eased across Quentin’s face as his chest expanded with pride. “We’re in Atlanta, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. But the big moneymaker is our side business called Bachelor Adventures—where we host the wildest bachelor parties ever. The women have their day, the men have their night. You know what I mean?”

Scribbling. “So you and your cousins provide a service for men to enjoy their last night of bachelorhood?”

“That was the plan.”

“Until?”

Q drew a deep breath. “Until love showed up. What else? Then they started to fall one by one. Take Eamon for example…”

The Reluctant King

Chapter 1

“Welcome to The Dollhouse, Las Vegas,” Eamon King shouted above the crowd, raising his glass to toast the raucous bachelor party as fifty or so guys entered the V.I.P. section of his exclusive Vegas nightclub. Most of them whooped and hollered, and fist-pumped over the loud, pulsing music—a clear sign that they were married men who’d planned to go buck wild on this rare night away from their wives. A few of their eyes were already bulging at the sexy-looking women who worked at The Dollhouse.

“Now, which one of you is Marcus Henderson?” Eamon asked, his gaze combing the crowd.

“Right here,” they shouted and then pushed a six-foot, pencil-thin nerdy-looking brother in black-rimmed glasses.

Eamon ignored his private thoughts about the guy looking like a stereotypical paper pusher and hooked one of his muscled arms around the man’s neck. “All right, Mr. Henderson,” he boasted. “As one of the owners of this establishment, I want to personally guarantee you that tonight will definitely be a night that you will never forget!”

“Whooo-hoooo!” Henderson’s party shouted.

“Last night of freedom,” Marcus joked shyly.

“Plenty of time for you to change your mind,” someone shouted from the crowd.

Although there was a smile on Marcus’s face, Eamon detected a note of uncertainty in his voice. He gave Henderson another casual glance and thought to himself that if this man had found a woman—any woman—to say yes, then maybe he’d better get on his knees, say his prayers and seal the deal as fast as he could.

“Ladies! Please come on up here,” Eamon shouted.

On cue, Shawn, Brittani and Cassie strolled into the V.I.P. room smiling from ear-to-ear in their metallic gold Daisy Dukes and matching bikini tops. In their hands each one carried a golden ice bucket with a bottle of Cristal.

All the men’s eyes grew even wider and their mouths sagged to the floor.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” the beauties greeted in sync.

“Oh sweet baby Jesus,” Marc mumbled.

Eamon reached over and nudged Marc’s chin so that he’d close his mouth before he started to drool. “Now gentlemen, these three ladies will be your hostesses for the evening. If there is anything that you need, your hostess will take care of you. But first…” Eamon walked to the back of the V.I.P. room and stepped onto the stage and grabbed the microphone lying on the lone chair next to a stripper pole. “I need the man of the evening to come on up here.”