“It would be a shame to lose the years of friendship.”
“So, fuck buddies, then?”
“Charlie.”He never used to be this obtuse. “Just friends. If you want.”
He swigged from the bottle before offering it to me. I took a gulp, then put it by my feet. His face was flushed, his eyes bright, and he’d had more than enough for a weeknight when he had to go to work the next day. “Want to go clubbing later?” he asked. “Asfriends.”Mockery flicked through his voice.
“I’d better not. I need to impress your father before my interview, not stagger in at all hours, absolutely hammered.”
His eyes narrowed. “Dad’s giving you a job? What the hell? He hasn’t said a word to me about it.” He reached out a hand, and I passed the bottle back. “I don’t want you working there. You need to tell him you don’t want it.”
“Why don’t you want me there?”
“Because Stevie will tell everyone you’re better at your job than I am.”
That was honesty I hadn’t expected. Honestyhehadn’t expected, it seemed, from the arrested look on his face.
“You mean Steven? Everyone knows how good you are and that he’s jealous of you.” How had I fallen back into my supporting-Charlie role so easily?
“Yeah,” he said with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “So why would you want to work for us? I thought the high-and-mighty Mortimers were above the rest of us inferior beings.”
His voice was bitter, and he took another long drink. I had no idea of the cause of this sudden resentment, but I spun him the same story I’d given his father about my career progression having reached a dead end.
He didn’t say anything until I finished speaking. Then, it was as if I hadn’t said any of that. “I’m going out. Come ifyou want. I don’t care.”
I didn’t go with him. But as I was cleaning my teeth, ready for bed, I was still thinking about Charlie. He hadn’t looked like he was going out to have fun. He’d looked like he was trying to escape.
When I went to check my phone, I belatedly remembered I’d left it in the drawing room. On my way to recover it, I almost bumped into Alex, who had his head down and was mashing at his phone as he stalked along the landing.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. There was no mistaking the tension in him.
“Hide me if you see Anna Fortescue coming my way,” he begged. “She’s trying to thrust me into Ella’s arms.”
I slid my fingers through the loops of his jeans and tugged him close to me. “I’d much rather you thrust into me,” I told him, and I kissed him.
It didn’t last long because we were both aware of where we were. It was long enough to have me ruing the fact we’d be under the same roof in different beds. It wasn’t even about sex. Okay, it wasn’tjustabout sex. It was about sleeping next to him and waking tangled up with him. I wanted to have that every day.
ALEX
I’d expected yet another day of traipsing around Bath with Nate, but I was disappointed. He stopped me on the stairs after breakfast.
“I’m going back to London today,” he said, and my heart jolted. “I need to pick up my passport and a suit for the trip with Tom.”
Oh, thank God. He wasn’t leaving permanently.
“I guess we did kind of ruin your suit,” I said.
“True, but I need a suit for business, not a dinner jacket.”
There was a difference? “Couldn’t you swing past your place on your way to the airport instead?” I asked him. I didn’t want to face an entire day without him here.
“The Fortescues’ plane is hangared at Bristol.”
“I’m sorry, what? Are you telling me they have a private jet?” I’d thought that was just film stars and billionaires. Though, now I stopped to think about it, I realised I had no idea how rich the Fortescues were.
Nate shrugged as if it were perfectly normal. For him, I supposed it was. “I’ll see you later,” he said, then leaned close and spoke quietly. “Flying this evening?”
That reassured me somewhat, but I was still unsettled. In my concentration on Nate, I’d lost sight of how very different his world was from mine.
