“Like?”
“Don’t ask me to think right now.”
Kit chuckled, squeezing my hand. “Make me a list and I’ll say whatever you like,” he promised.
“I’ll hold you to that,” I said.
Silence fell as we both caught our breath, fingers still curled together as the sweat—and other fluids—cooled on our skin.
“Worth half a million pounds?” Kit asked, voice gravelly.
“Twice that,” I said, turning to look at him. “Besides, I never would’ve seen it. She would’ve run to you with a recording of me agreeing or something.”
“Oh no, she would have paid you and considered it a bargain, I think,” Kit said, sighing heavily. “My marriage prospects are worth quite a bit more to her, remember? I’d be very manageable heartbroken, ready to fall into any sympathetic pair of arms.”
“Will’s?”
“Will’s,” Kit agreed. “Might even have been his idea, he’d consider it an investment.”
“Why?”
“Well, ifyouthink I’m worth that kind of money, surely you can imagine that other people might?”
“I think you’re worth that kind of money because... because you’re my best friend,” I said, defensiveness welling up in my chest.
I didn’t like the idea of Kit being manipulated like this. I wanted to protect him.
“Can’t see what Will gets out of it, is all.”
“Double the family land holdings, for a start. This place is easily worth more than half a million, a hundred times that. He’d get the docile, umm,arm candy,as you might say, that would be so useful to him—someone who can behave in public and who’ll be quiet in private. He’d get to conquer a frontier he’s always wanted to.”
“Are we talking about sex now?”
“Mm.” Kit wrinkled his nose.
“He’d payhalf a million poundsfor that?”
“Should I be insulted that you wouldn’t?”
“I just did,” I said. “C’mon, what’s he really got to gain?”
“Am I not enough?” Kit raised an eyebrow. He wastryingto seem like this didn’t bother him, but I knew it did and I wanted him to be sure I wouldn’t sell him out.
Not for anything. His mom could’ve offered to make me Galactic Emperor, and I still wouldn’t have traded Kit’s trust and friendship for it.
“You’re enough for me,” I said. “But you can’t pretend to me that he cares about you the way I do. Or that you’ll ever feel the same. So it’s gotta be something else.”
“You’re right, of course,” Kit sighed again. “I’ve suspected there’s something else going on since mother called me to invite me home for Christmas. But I still don’t know what it is.” He paused, looking at me with those pretty blue eyes I could never get enough of. “I’m sorry, Andy. I shouldn’t have dragged you into all this.”
“You warned me your family was nuts.” I shrugged. “I could’ve said no. I wanted to be here.”
“You had no idea what you were volunteering for.”
“It’s been an adventure so far,” I said.
The last thing I wanted was for Kit to feel bad about any of this. Even if I was learning that rich people were a whole lotmorenuts than I could’ve imagined.
“Come away with me,” Kit said, looking over and squeezing my hand. “Let’s go to London tomorrow. Stay the night. Get out of here.”
