What the fuck? I hadn’t even come and she didn’t give a rat’s arse. Again, part of me admired her selfishness and sense of worth. The other half disliked her greatly for it. What can I say? I’m complicated.
“I don’t cuddle.” I pushed up off the bed.
“Fair enough.” She shrugged and snuggled back down under the bedcovers, eyes drowsy.
I smirked in disbelief, shaking my head. I wondered how many men had treated Angeline the same way and if she’d finally just decided to hell with all of them. If they were going to treat her as disposable, she’d do the same. If that was true, good for her.
After I returned from the bathroom where I disposed of the somewhat used condom, I pulled on my underwear and trousers. Angeline’s eyes popped open. “Oh. My friend, Kitty—Kitty Lawson.”
I nodded. I knew of Kitty. She was a respected British actor, and I’d put Kitty on a list of actors I wanted to work with. You know, whenever my writer’s block ended and I had a bloody script ready for development.
“She fancies you and has been going on and on about finding a way to meet you … but I’d rather you didn’t dip your wick in my friend pool now that we’ve fucked. And Kitty’s one of my best friends, you know.”
Pulling on my shirt, I tried to mask my irritation. I was an imperfect man. I knew my faults. But I liked to think disloyalty wasn’t one of them. Friendship was the one state of human pairing that meant something to me. “You fucked me even though your best friend has a crush on me. How very catty schoolgirl of you, darling.”
Angeline shrugged lazily, brushing her sex-mussed hair off her face. “I like taking what others covet.”
Feeling the sudden need to shower, I shoved on my shoes, my expression a mask of cold boredom. “You didn’t take a fucking thing, darling. But I’ll be sure to tell Kitty how much her friendship means to you when we cross paths.” Turning, I strode to her door, hearing her outraged gasp.
“You wouldn’t dare!”
I glanced over my shoulder. “Oh, if the mood strikes me, I can be a bit of a shit-stirrer. I absolutely would dare.” Flashing her a dark grin, I marched out of her room, ignoring the curse words she threw at me. They were muffled as the door closed behind me, and I made my way toward the stairwell.
I should have gone to the gym instead. I liked using the rowing machine in light of the fact that I was so far away from the Thames River, where I rowed regularly. I’d been part of a rowing team at Oxford, and we’d tried to keep it up after graduation. Sometimes we still got together, but mostly I rowed in a single scull these days. With no scull or river, I worked off that energy in the gym. It should have been my first choice instead of Angeline.
While the great hall and reception rooms of Ardnoch Castle reminded you that you were somewhere stately, the upper hallways felt like they could belong in any luxury hotel. Except for the turret. The turret on the guest wing had been converted into a reading nook, and it had all the atmosphere of a medieval castle, even though the castle itself was built in the nineteenth century.
I’d grown up in a home only somewhat smaller than Ardnoch. Haleshall Manor in Suffolk. My father’s viscountcy was one of the oldest in England, dating back to the sixteenth century. Haleshall sat on the Suffolk Coast, and for all its grandeur, it had been fucking freezing to live in during the winter. Not that I’d spent more than a few weeks at Christmasevery year at our ancestral home. I was sent to Eton College at thirteen years old and lived there for most of the year.
During summers, I’d join my family at our townhouse in Belgravia, London. A place filled with my best and worst memories. As a child, I’d lived there during the school year to attend a preparatory school in Notting Hill before my father demanded I leave everything behind for Eton. Not a single Cavendish male had failed to attend Eton, and I wouldn’t be the one to break tradition.
My footsteps made no sound on the plush tartan carpeting as I walked to my room. Lachlan Adair had renovated this castle to within an inch of its life. I couldn’t even imagine the fortune he’d spent. As wealthy as my father was, he’d balk at the cost of renovating Haleshall Manor to this level. It would remain as grand and aristocratically cold as the old bastard himself.
I followed the tartan up wide, elegant stairs to the lavish Gothic windows along the landing. It was a clear night as the rain had given way a few days ago to sunshine.
Following the familiar hallway to my suite, it bemused me how much Ardnoch had come to feel like home this past year. Never would I have believed I’d join a members-only club. As the second son of an English viscount, I’d grown up in a world of members-only clubs. My father and brother were members of White’s, an exclusive, centuries-old gentlemen’s club in St. James, London. King Charles and Prince William were members. I’d refused my invitation to join.
I’d taken my inheritance from my mother and left that world, as much as it was possible to leave it behind. I didn’t want it if it meant being close to my father or giving him anything that might make him happy.
Ardnoch was different. It was salt in the wound to my father. A reminder of what I’d become. Not a respected barrister andmember of Parliament like my brother Sebastian or a viscount turned wealthy investment banker like my father.
I was a creative. A writer. I made movies and TV shows.
It didn’t matter if my work was important to me, that it made me happy. Or that it was a respected career in the twenty-first century.
It wasn’t worthy of the son of a viscount. And that son buying membership to a club for film and television professionals while snubbing a membership to White’s … oh, that pissed the old man off.
I felt a petty resurgence of pleasure that I’d angered the old fucker by buying into Ardnoch. Maybe my reason for doing so was childish, but I’d grown to love the Highlands. The people here weren’t too bad either.
Immediately, my mind returned to Sarah. I hadn’t seen the little mouse around the estate these last few days. My gaze zeroed in on my bedstand where her book lay unopened.
She’d taken me by surprise with her bold request to write with me. Even more so that she was a successful crime fiction writer. In fact, I’d been so shocked that someone still could knock me off-balance that I might have lashed out a little. It was just … how could someone so guileless and innocent astonish me?
And in return, I’d treated her with sly superiority, thinking her too ignorant to sense it.
How wrong I’d been.
Moreover, she didn’t let it lie. She called me out. She got me wrong, but she also got me right, and I hadn’t known whether to rage at her well-targeted skewering or clap.
