“No, you never can tell,” Aidan agreed, and he looked sad again for a minute. “And thank you, Teo. For driving all this way. I hope your family really is okay with it.” He hesitated, then added, “And thanks for bringing in my shit, too.” Then he grinned and got out of the car.
Amused at the flash of humor, I watched him go and smiled to myself. Carlucci, walking by the car with one of Mr. D’s many suitcases, raised a quizzical eyebrow at me. He leaned down and I hit the power window to hear what he had to say.
“You know he’s apriest, right, dipshit?”
“Fuck off,” I told him, and put the window back up.
Chapter Eleven
Teo
The inside of the house was nice as hell. Not all modern and sleek and new like the D’Amatos’ townhouse, either. No, this house was lived in. Some parts were even shabby, but in that way that genuine antiques get shabby. It was lived in, this house; well loved, well used, but it still stunk of money.
But the way Tara Donovan talked about it, you’d think it was a shack.
“I’m hoping to recarpet everywhere in the next few months,” she told us apologetically as she walked me and Aidan down the hall to a goddamn elevator. “It’s hard to find regular cleaners for a house this size who also pass security checks. And of course the stairs are tiresome. I usually stay on the first and second floors myself.”
The elevator wasn’t big. “Maybe I should take the stairs,” I said, after Aidan had crammed himself in with his own bag.
“Well, you could,” Ms. Donovan said, “but I’m afraid I’ve put you two on the fourth floor. But if you take this elevator to the third—it tops out at the third-floor kitchen, you see—you can avoid endless flights of stairs. You’ll have to go up one more flight, but then you’ll have the fourth floor to yourselves,” she added brightly. “Luca and Howie are on the fifth, because Howie’s old room is there, and I figured they’d benefit from more, well, privacy.” She flushed prettily.
I was still so stuck on the idea that this place had a kitchen three floors up, aswellas the huge one we’d walked past downstairs, that it took me a second to remember that Mr. D was actually born Howard Fincher Donovan the Third.
“It’ll be fine,” Aidan said. “Thank you so much, Ms. Donovan.”
“Tara, please,” she said, and when she smiled I could see something of Mr. D in her face after all. Other than their smiles, they didn’t look all that much alike—which, given his heritage, made sense. “There’s a flight of stairs right next to the kitchen, and from the top of that, your rooms are to the left, right down the end of the hall. Once you’ve settled in, please feel free to have a wander. We’ll reconvene down in the front room for drinks around five. That’s the room right next to the entrance, where you came in.”
I squished into the tiny elevator with Aidan, clutching my duffel bag to my chest. “Thanks,” I said, muffled, and managed to hit the third-floor button with my elbow. The doors closed on Ms. Donovan’s smiling face, gave a jerk, and started upward.
“Some house, huh?” I muttered to Aidan.
“I am starting to understand Finch’s…attitude a little better,” Aidan admitted. I knew what he meant. Finch D’Amato was decent—mostly—but he could act like a spoiled little bitch sometimes if he didn’t get his way, or if something wasn’t to his liking.
Growing up in a house like this would probably do that to a guy.
The warmth of Aidan’s breath crossed the back of my neck as he spoke. The elevator really was cramped with the two of us and our bags. I wondered what would happen if it broke down.
And then I tried very hard to think about anything else. Being stuck in a tiny compartment with Aidan O’Leary was too sexy to think about, priest or no priest.
Fucking Carlucci.
The elevator jerked again and came to a halt, the doorsclunk-clunking open and I fell out as fast as I could, half-stumbling into, as Ms. Donovan had predicted, a kitchen area.
“You alright?” Aidan asked, rolling his suitcase out.
“Yeah, I’m good.” I looked around. We were about halfway down the length of the house. It seemed even bigger on the inside. We climbed up another flight of stairs, and then— “Left, she said, huh?”
We turned left and walked down a long hallway. Room after room came off it, sitting rooms and TV rooms and offices, all of them furnished but with a feeling of disuse, until at the end of the hall we came to a closed door. I pushed it open and sucked in a breath.
“Well, damn,” I said. “This must be yours.” It was a huge, decadent room with a fourposter bed that somehow didn’t take up even half the space. One of those things I’d heard Mr. D call achaise longuewas laid out in front of a fireplace, and there was an antique dresser and matching closet on the other side. The window looked out over a treed area a few blocks away that reminded me a little of Central Park, though not so big.
“But where are you sleeping?” Aidan asked, frowning a little. “This is far too much for me, anyway.”
“I think I’m through here,” I said, stepping across to a door in the wall.
I expected something much smaller, but if anything, the room through the door was even bigger.Everything—the bed, the floorspace, the furniture—all of it was larger than the first room.
“This can’t be right,” Aidan said, bewildered. “Are we on the wrong floor? Maybe these are the rooms for Finch and Luca. Did we come up an extra floor somehow?” He turned around, eyes wide as he looked at everything. It had the same feel of old money as everywhere else in the house. The window in this room looked over the garden, which seemed well-cared-for as I looked down at it, plus a small glass conservatory coming out from the house.
