GEORGE
The maid leadsme to a beautiful suite of rooms. It’s at the top of a winding staircase, behind a door with intricate carvings around its edges, inset with mother-of-pearl and highlighted in gold paint.
“Lachlan said to wait inside,” the maid instructs, and I nod, happy to agree. Happy to scurry through his open doorway, close it, and cower inside.
I’m less happy thinking about what mood Lachlan will be in by the time he leaves his father’s company. The two men spark off each other so badly I’m surprised they don’t have extinguishers mounted on every wall.
Instead of dwelling on what’s coming, I turn to the room, trying to find something to distract me.
The large space has a full-size ensuite leading off one door, an entire room-size walk-in wardrobe off another. Even without those additions, it would be a luxurious size for just one person.
A king size bed is at one end of the room, set up with drawers either side, then a floor to ceiling shelf full of books, a reading chair, and one of those weird lamps that start at the floor and bulge out in a circle before curling over your seat, like a curious thin stranger reading over your shoulder.
At the opposite end is an entertainment centre, complete with large screens, larger speakers, and a stack of consoles gathering dust. Metaphorically that is. There isn’t a speck out of place in the room.
It’s luxurious. Welcoming.
I’ve never wanted to be anywhere less in my life.
The plastic packet stuck inside my bra catches my skin again and I fish it out. My poking and prodding at it earlier has driven it out of the cup and under the side seam, a lucky eventuality since it stopped Lachlan finding it when his thick fingers went roaming.
I hold it up, staring at the small white tablets inside. They look innocent enough but I’m sure every accidental overdose in hospital thought that at the start.
Despite the danger, part of me wants to swallow them. Anything to help with my rising anxiety, my increasing desperation to get out of here, to get home, before…
Before what, I don’t know. Based on my brief interaction with the maid, I’m not keen to find out.
I shove them back in my bra before temptation leads me down the wrong path and drift back to the door, pressing my ear against it to work out what’s going on in the study along the hallway. The sounds are too muffled to bring any enlightenment. I crack it open a sliver, just enough to see a metre along the landing.
Voices boom from farther along but the dampening effectof the thick walls and expensive carpeting mean that the individual words are entirely lost by the time they reach me.
Angry voices. Loud voices. Voices that make me hope no one has a gun within easy reach or someone’s head might soon be splattered across someone else’s wall.
There’s a muffled shout, a cry, a thump, then the sound of a slamming door and footsteps head my way.
I duck inside, heart pumping with so much force that I can feel my eyeballs pulsing. With no time to compose myself, I’m only a step away, surely highlighting my guilt, when Lachlan bursts inside.
“Get on the bed,” he snaps, slamming the door so firmly it must be audible from the other side of the house.
His beautiful mouth is twisted, brow thunderous as he stares at me from eyes that burn with ill-contained fury.
My nerves, already strained, thin to a hair’s breadth while I try to work out how to get the hell out of here.
Earlier in the evening, flying along in a fancy car with a handsome boy at my side, I might have entertained visions of staying the night. Right now, nothing terrifies me more. I edge away from Lachlan, trying to sidle towards the door but I can’t—he stands right in front of it.
“You’re upset,” I say, then watch as the words further enrage rather than calm him.
I try to add something, create a viable sentence, but my mouth dries to the point I can’t fashion anything meaningful. Just a little squeak, like the pathetic girl I am.
It’s him. I can’t think of words while I’m staring at him. My eyes snap shut and I try again. “Perhaps you could give me my phone back? I’ll call a car and get out of your hair.”
“Get on the bed.”
“Ooooooorrrr…” I draw the sound out as long as I can, not sure what to put next. “Maybe lend me the car? I’m happy to drive myself home and I can drop it at your school tomorrow, easy-peasy.”
The laugh that comes out of his mouth doesn’t bear any trace of humour. “Funny girl.”
He takes out his phone, ready to put it on the bedside table, and I babble. “Lend me your phone real quick. Honestly, I’ll just call a taxi and you’ll never have to hear from me again.”
