‘You sound like you know what you’re doing, with those other girls.’
‘Maggie—’
‘I’m not judging, I’m just jealous.’
He carries me into my suite and rights the candelabra I bump into before settling me onto the bed.
He sits on the couch across from the bed and watches me, his face unreadable.
I watch him through heavy lids. The sharp line of his jaw clenching, and those dark lashes analysing me.
I want to crawl into his lap and ask him to call me princess again.
But my limbs have grown far too heavy.
‘Don’t leave,’ I murmur as my eyes betray me and dip closed.
SIXTEEN
ROMAN
I glanceat Maggie across the breakfast table, wondering if she remembers her admissions from last night. From the way she keeps avoiding my eyes, I’m guessing there is at least a murky recollection. While she’d slept, I’d long sat up, considering running, but I couldn’t locate her car keys, nor her mobile phone. So I’d taken a long shower and fucked my fist until I sprayed the wall, thinking about her flushed cheeks and the idea of her touching herself to my sex noises. The filthy little thing, who could have known?
Maggie sits beside me at the long breakfast table, her shoulders hunched. She’s wrapped in a hugely oversized jumper and scowls at the sun as it glares through the window. Her curls are a wild nest of chaos, and she looks like a bear roused from hibernation.
I know the feeling, though I hadn’t been nearly asdrunk as Maggie, I’d already downed two paracetamol and enough water to drown a rat.
At least the coffee is strong.
As I’m pouring my second cup, there is a notable shift in tension within the room.
Maggie’s back goes rigid beside me like someone has pulled her strings taut.
A man with a mop of brown hair comes into the breakfast room and lounges on a chair. With only a smirk, he leans in and grabs an apple, taking a hearty bite.
‘Eddie,’ Maggie says, almost in a whisper.
Eddie gives a grin bordering on deadly. He’s dressed impeccably, dripping with old money vibes. As much as I know about old money. Which isn’t a lot. Every movement he makes seems measured, a bastion of control.
His eyes sharpen as they pass over Maggie hungrily, before flicking to me.
Ugly anger coils in my stomach.
‘Maggie,’ Eddie says, the words as thick as custard. Possessive and familiar. ‘There you are.’
Maggie is like a rabbit in front of a fox. Frozen to the spot, her pulse hammering visibly in her throat.
‘Eddie,’ she says eventually, the tremor in her voice audible.
Eddie looks at me dismissively, like I’m barely worth a thought. I’m assessed and written off in under a second.
That stings more than it should. I’ve been left oftenenough in my life, but I’m not used to being so thoroughly ignored. Treated like I’m inconsequential.
‘You didn’t tell me you had company,’ he says to Maggie, turning back to her.
‘I don’t believe I ever tell you anything.’
‘You might not, but little birdies do.’
