“Who says I’m a good friend? I don’t make them miserable all the time,” he relents. “But it’s fun knowing something about them that they don’t want to be reminded of.”
“What do you think I don’t want to be reminded of?” I ask. “If we were friends.”
“I thought that we clarified that we are friends. I know it seems unlikely that I would actually be someone’s friend. I’m the grumpy billionaire. You told me that yourself.”
“That’s true, but you’re kind of non-grumpy, too.”
“You think.” He holds my gaze for a long moment, and just as it’s becoming awkward, he smirks. “Guess I’m doing something wrong then.”
“Or maybe you’re doing something right.”
There’s a flash of surprise, and his expression softens for just an instant. “Nah.”
I laugh to break the moment, and to remind myself thatwasn’ta moment. “Well, if you want to see the dungeons, you probably need an extra sweater. This is the land of snow and ice, and you can really feel it down there.”
Ashton grins, and for a moment I see how he looks like a little boy. “Be right back.”
“See if you can find a flashlight, too.”
“Ever heard of a cell phone,” he throws over his shoulder as he heads for the door.
When he returns, we take the elevator to the main floor. But it’s stairs the rest of the way down, and Ashton waits patiently as I slowly descend.
I’ve been doing my exercises every day, but there are a lot of stairs into the dungeons.
The air is cold and a little musty, and once the door closes behind us, it’s very dark.
“Are you going to be able to get us out of here?” Ashton asks as we creep forward. He turns on the light on his phone, which helps.
“No, I thought we’d wander around indefinitely.”
“Hmm. Sarcasm. That’s new.”
“Maybe you just didn’t pick up on it before.”
“Sophie, I am the king of sarcasm, giving and receiving.”
“You should be so proud.”
There’s a noise from behind that might be an Ashton chuckle. “Have we reached the banter stage?”
“How better to deal with a grumpy billionaire than to banter?”
I can feel his smilebehind me.
“Are there secret passages in this place?” Ashton asks a few moments later. “I feel like there should be.”
“There are, but I don’t know all of them. There’s one that leads to a closet near the main doors. And I remember there was one that ended up in the Queen’s sitting room. Gunnar and Spencer used it once and ended up interrupting the queen and the First Lady of France, who was here on a visit. We were kind of banned from the passages after that. And now… no one really uses that room.”
“You really grew up here.”
“Only until I was ten. And then…no. Until now, anyway.”
“Do your parents still get along?”
“I wouldn’t say ‘get along’ is in the cards for them.”
I have to believe my parents were happy once. Back when they first met, when they married, living together with Spencer. When they had Stella, and then me soon after.
