“Just agoodtime?” Harry asked, trailing after her.
“Did they sleep together again?” Maddie asked quietly.
“Again?”
She chuckled. “They’ve been shagging on and off for the last few months. I think they like each other but are in denial.”
“Harry never told me.”
“She’s Lily’s friend. He probably didn’t want you getting overprotective.”
“I wouldn’t. Sierra’s a big girl. So, they likelikeeach other?”
“You really want to talk about Sierra and Harry’s friends-with-benefits situation?”
Dismay and indignation churned in my gut. “If it distracts me from the fact that my friend and grandmother tried to manipulate Lily out of my life, then yes.”
Maddie squeezed my arm in sympathy. “You got it. It started the night of our Thanksgiving dinner …”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
SEBASTIAN
Calling a princess isn’t that easy. Even when she’s your grandmother. I’d left a message with her staff but so far, the message had gone unreturned. The house was back to normal, the guests all booted out, and Zac had departed.
I’d chatted with Lily again, filling her in on everything.
Now it was after one o’clock and we were getting ready to leave to catch our flight. As Harry helped the girls load their luggage, I called my mother.
I couldn’t spend the entirety of the flight worrying if she’d known about this.
“Sebastian, darling, how are you? I checked and the weather is glorious. I must say, I’m a little envious we gave you the villa this time around. We don’t usually get such lovely weather in spring, but I know you work hard?—”
“Mum, may I speak?”
“Of course. What’s wrong? You sound strange.”
Without delay, I relayed to her without going into too much graphic detail what had occurred with Zac and Gisele and Zac’s confession that my grandmother had put him up to it.
“Mummy?” my mother gasped. “Oh, surely not.”
“So, you didn’t know about this?”
“Of course not, darling. I’d never do anything so underhanded.”
“What’s going on?” I heard my father ask in the background and had to wait with growing impatience as Mum told him.
“Dear God, she didn’t?” Pa gritted out unhappily. Then his voice was clearer down the line as he asked, “Are you all right, son?”
“Thankfully. But it could have broken me and Lily up.”
“Did she say why?” Mum asked, and I realized I was now on speakerphone.
“Oh, Granny hasn’t returned my call,” I huffed out bitterly. “But Zac said she said it was because of Lily’s dating podcast.”
“Ah.” Mum sighed. “Yes. Mummy did mention she wasn’t at all happy about that. It is a little inappropriate.”
Instantly irate, I snapped, “Lily could plaster herself naked all over social media and I still wouldn’t break up with her for you, for Granny, or for anybody in that bloody stifling institution. All right?”
