‘Long story short. She got drunk, got flirtatious then got dragged to bed kicking and screaming.’
‘By you?’
‘Gregory. He looks out for her and bollocks me when I screw up looking after her.’
I want to ask why he wasn’t looking out for his little sister himself but I move on to my next intriguing topic. ‘Did you ask Amanda to come?’
‘I was about to when she told me she didn’t want to see me any more. Something about her and space and learning lessons.’
I roll my eyes. ‘She’ll see sense.’
‘Right!’ He pushes himself up as if someone just shot him with adrenalin. ‘Back to fending off the wolves.’
I internally laugh at the thought that he has to fend dirty old men off his twenty-one-year-old sister whilst I’m struggling to fend a load of floozies off my thirty-year-old man.
‘Can I escort you back, my lady?’
‘Actually, I’m going to enjoy this fine weather a little longer.’ I lean forward, replacing Williams in his spot on the veranda and watch a shooting star glide through the crisp, black sky until it disappears.
‘Are you going to tell me what I’ve done wrong or am I going to have to guess?’ His velvet words reach me just before his dinner jacket is draped across my shoulders, still warm from his body. I inhale his scent and pull the jacket tighter around me. ‘I’ve been ignoring you,’ he says when I don’t answer.
‘Acting like I don’t exist and entertaining Adriana, you mean.’
‘It’s just business, Scarlett.’
‘Please tell me whatbusinessAdriana is in,’ I snap, turning to leave the veranda.
‘Hold the fort,’ he says, grabbing my arm back.
Despite my irritation, I tell him, ‘You mean hold the phone.’
‘Whichever,’ he says resting back on the veranda. I resume my position next to him. ‘She’s in the business ofif I don’t keep her happy,I don’t keep her husband happyand her husband is a very wealthy man.’
‘Her husband’s a sleazy dick.’
He laughs, a warm sound that causes me to let out a short laugh too. ‘He is a dick.’ He nudges into my shoulder and drops a kiss on my cheek. ‘Dance with me?’
‘You don’t deserve my moves,’ I say stubbornly whilst tuning into the sound of the band covering Sammy Davis Junior’s ‘Mr Bojangles.’
Taking my hands, he pulls me to him. ‘I’ll see your moves later. Right now, I really want you to dance with me.’
He raises my right hand in the air with his and I shuffle my left palm to his shoulder as he turns us tobo-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-jangles.
‘I’m not sure you have much in common with a man in shabby clothes with a dog.’
‘I have dogs at the farm.’ He smiles, the kind of smile he reserves for me. Liquefying.
I feel his body tense before he leaves me so abruptly, I almost stumble to the floor. It takes me seconds to regain my balance and process Gregory surging from the veranda into the reception room where the man Charlotte was flirting with is leading her by the hand up the grand staircase to the bedrooms.
It happens quickly. Gregory reaches them at the top of the stairs. Charlotte staggers back as Gregory pins the man by his throat to the wall, just out of view of the rest of the room but not those at the bottom of the stairs and not me, making my way towards the commotion.
‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’ Gregory is seething, his muscles bulging beneath his suit, his words a strong, South African bark.
‘Take your fucking hands off me!’
Gregory reaffirms his grip on the man’s throat and slams his head into the stone wall again. Seeing the ruthlessness in his black eyes, I’m reminded of what Gregory is capable of. His rage will kill this man.
‘Gregory! Stop!’ I yell, then move towards them, trying to shift into Gregory’s field of vision.
