The Devil's Favourite Obsession

Tamara laughed softly at the familiar charm in his tone.

”You always knew how to flatter women properly.” She turned toward Olga and extended both hands. ”Olga, my dear. You look wonderful.”

Olga rose from the couch and accepted Tamara’s hands with a composed smile. ”You are too kind, Tamara. Thank you for receiving us on such short notice.”

”Nonsense. I have been expecting you.” Tamara squeezed her hands once before releasing them. Her gaze shifted to the sofa where Tatiana sat with her ankles crossed and her back straight.

”And this must be Tatiana.”

Tatiana stood immediately. ”Good morning, Mrs Crown.”

Tamara studied her for a moment — the blonde hair, the pale skin, the bright eyes that held more intelligence and a faint smile touched her lips. ”You are lovelier than the photographs your father sent.”

”Thank you.” Tatiana dipped her chin politely.

”Please, make yourself at home.” Tamara gestured toward the couch as she settled onto the closest single-seater.

Two maids entered without being called, carrying a silver tray of tea and pastries, and set it down on the low table.

One of the maids poured the tea for everyone before leaving.

”How was the journey from Russia?” Tamara asked while handing Olga her cup.

”Long,” Lorian replied. ”We will be residing at the Crown Hotel for now. And if we are fortunate, the property deal will be finalised soon, and we can move into our house.”

”Why stay in a hotel when we have plenty of rooms in the Palace?” Tamara raised an eyebrow, her tone playful yet accusatory. ”If this is your way of making me feel guilty for calling you to the city sooner than the month you were originally supposed to come, then it’s working. I insist that you stay here. Besides,” she added, glancing at Titiana, who looked very pretty, ”Titiana can spend more time with Rafael and get to know him better before the engagement.”

”Please call me Tina,” Insisted Titiana.

”Sure, Tina. I am sure Rafeal is gonna go head over heels once he meets you.”

Tatiana’s fingers tightened slightly around the teacup in her lap. The name landed differently when spoken by someone from his family.

”How is Rafael?” Lorian asked, crossing one leg over the other. ”I trust he is doing well.”

Tamara’s expression remained warm, but something behind it shifted the way a curtain moves when a window is opened in another room. ”Rafael is... Rafael. He is learning how to be a responsible person.After all he is the future President of the Crown Hotel.” Tamara was telling half the truth. The reason behind arranging Rafael’s marriage to Titiana was that when Rafael had seen her picture, he casually mentioned that she was the kind of beauty he could envision settling down with.

Rafael had never spoken of settling down, marriage, or being with one woman for any length of time. Probably, he had been having a contest with Cassain before, who would have more women in this life. However, after hearing such a comment from her own son, Titiana was filled with hope, especially considering Michael’s stipulation that Rafael must marry to assume the presidential position. ”Rafael is going to keep Tina very happy.”

Lorian smiled faintly. ”I hope so he does. Tina is our only child, and we would want the world for her.”

”Tina is my care now,” Tamara replied, sipping her tea. ”You need not worry. Rafael is a good boy beneath it all. Loyal when it matters. Protective of his family. And he needs someone steady beside him.”

Her eyes moved to Tatiana as she said the last part. Tatiana held the gaze without flinching, but her grip on the teacup did not loosen.

*

*

*

Cixi opened her mouth to fire back at him when his phone vibrated against the counter.

Cassian raised his hand casually without looking at her with a lazy, open-palmed gesture that said stop talking more effectively than any word could.

Cixi’s mouth stayed open, and then she closed it. Then opened again in silent outrage at being silenced like a muted television.

As soon as he picked up the call, Mark’s voice came through the other end.

”The Romanovs are here.”

Cassian’s expression did not change when he questioned. ”What do you mean?”

”Instead of next month, they arrived today. In Demond City. And they are currently at the Palace.”

Cassian’s eyes, which had been resting on the far white wall, shifted slowly to Cixi.

She stood a few feet away from him, still annoyed about being hand-gestured into silence, completely unaware of the name that had just been spoken into his ear. Completely unaware that the ground beneath her feet had just shifted again without her permission.

He watched her for a second longer than necessary.

”Find out why they are here early,” Cassian said and disconnected the call.

He slipped the phone into his pocket and moved toward her.

Cixi immediately took a step back.

Then another.

”W-what are you doing?”

Cassian stopped. He tilted his head, studying her the way someone studies a puzzle that keeps solving itself incorrectly.

”If you keep moving away from me every time I come closer,” his voice held a mysterious playfulness, ”we will never look like a real couple.” He paused, and suddenly his banterful expression turned serious. ”And it only makes me want to consider other women who are actually willing to be in my arms.”

Cixi’s face fell... Not because his words hurt her, though they did land somewhere uncomfortable, she refused to examine, but because she had forgotten. Again... She was supposed to make him fall in love with her. That was her goal. That was what the Grim Reaper had demanded. And here she was, retreating every time Cassian took a single step forward, like a woman training her own failure.

How did people do this? How did anyone fall in love, or fake it, or even stand close enough to another person without wanting to bolt?

”You lied to me about being in love with me,” Cassian observed quietly. ”I am certain of it now.”

Cixi’s breath caught. Before her brain could construct an excuse, her body made a decision her mind had not approved. She crossed the distance between them in two quick steps, pressed herself against his chest, and wrapped her arms around him.

Her cheek settled against the fabric of his shirt. Beneath it, she could hear his heartbeat, a steady one.

She cursed herself silently.

Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

Love was not easy. People in novels and films made it look effortless — a glance here, a touch there, and suddenly two people could not breathe without each other. Meanwhile, she was struggling to maintain a single lie without tripping over her own feet.

”I am shy,” Cixi murmured against his chest. It was the only excuse her panicking brain could produce on short notice.

Cassian grinned.

She could not see it, but she felt it — the slight shift in his chest, the quiet exhale through his nose that carried amusement rather than air. He had said those words deliberately. He had dangled the threat of other women knowing exactly what it would do, knowing it would push her toward him instead of away.

And it had worked.

His arms wrapped around her. One hand settled against her back and patted once, twice — almost affectionate, almost mocking, the line between the two so thin it might not have existed at all.

”We need to work on your shyness,” he said.

Cixi relaxed slightly. Maybe this was not so—

”How about phone sex?”

Cixi forgot to breathe.

Her teeth sank into her lower lip. Her entire body went rigid against him, every muscle locking into place as though her skeleton had decided to leave her body and was waiting for the right moment.

Why is he like this?

She had mentioned shyness — shyness — and his solution was phone sex. As if the two things existed on the same planet. As if a woman saying I am shy was an invitation to discuss— Actually, what was phone sex?

The question surfaced in her mind before she could drown it, and once it arrived, it refused to leave. She had heard the words separately — phone, fine; sex also fine, but together they formed something her sheltered brain could not assemble into a clear image.

Did people have sex... over the phone? How? Was the phone involved physically? Did they hold it during—

She shut that thought down with the urgency of someone slamming a door on a fire.

”You are thinking too hard,” Cassian remarked above her head. ”I can hear it.”

”You cannot hear thinking.”

”Yours is louder than most.”

Cixi pulled back just enough to glare up at him, her cheeks flushed, her arms still loosely around him because letting go now would prove his earlier point and she refused to give him that satisfaction.

”You have no filter,” she accused him. Her face turning red.

”I have a filter. I simply choose not to use it around you.”

”That is not a compliment.”

”It was not meant to be one.”

Cixi pressed her lips together. Her face burned. Her mind still circled the phrase phone sex like a moth around a lamp it knew would eventually kill it.

She would look it up later. On Marion’s phone. In private. With the door locked and the screen brightness turned all the way down.

But she would never..... never... let Cassian Crown know she did not already know what it meant.

”I am not doing that with you,” she stated firmly.

Cassian’s brow lifted. ”You do not even know what it is.”

”I absolutely know what it is.”

”Then explain it.”

”No.”

”Because you do not know.”