‘You’re fine. Blab away. I won’t tell.’
‘Blab indeed. I’m sure you don’t need to live vicariously.’ Her eyes flare comically.
‘On account of hanging out with a male escort?’
Ella’s shoulders start to shake. ‘Don’t look now,’ she says, leaning across the table. ‘But the lady behind you just did a double take. Isn’t it fun having an interesting life?’
Or an interesting vacation, in my case.
‘And that was very bad of him. He’s lucky you forgave him at all. Typical Will,’ she adds. ‘Typical man, really. They’re basically a bunch of opportunists.’
‘Did he tell you what happened?’
She nods. ‘About him turning up and pretending your friend had booked him as an escort? The ridiculous man.’
I’m not sure by her comment if Will had told her the exact order of events, or if he’d twisted it to sound like it was all his doing—that Kallie hadn’t booked me an escort, even if he was only supposed to be an arm I’d walk into a party on. I also wonder, for the first time, what would’ve happened if the stranger—stranger than Will, that is—had shown up. Would he have been less professional, or more?
‘It is a little draughty in here?’ A cold finger draws down my spine at the prospects of what might’ve been, but Ella very kindly joins me, easing my sudden concern.
‘He certainly looked the part.’ Standing on the doorstep, radiating both an innate confidence and extreme sexuality. ‘Like the expensively suited star of a Brit flick. Lock, stock, and his smoking barrel?’ She starts to titter at her own play on the movie title, almost slipping from her stool as her foot slides from the rung.
‘I was thinking of something a little more along the James Bond line,’ I reply, making to grab her arm. Thankfully, she rights herself, though she’s still giggling.
‘Like a modern-day Mr Darcy?’
‘Will’s more like Bingley.’ There’s not a lot of brooding going on with him.
‘On the surface, maybe. Will is very agreeable and easy-going, but he’s no beta. No, he’s definitely more a Fitzwilliam. He’s misunderstood.’
‘Team Darcy and Team Will?’
‘There’s more to both of them than meets the eye,’ she answers, trying to catch the attention of the waitress.
That’s maybe true for Will in the bedroom, I decide. He might not brood, but I’ll bet he’s all kinds of kinky.
‘And while there are, no doubt, lots of women who currently pay for him to whip out his speculum, I imagine there would be many, many more who would pay dearly for him to whip out his—’ With a swirling, pointing finger, she indicates my general crotch area.
‘Whip out his dick?’
Ella begins cackling. ‘I knew we’d get along!’
‘He could sure make a good living on the side, so to speak.’ On his side. On his back. Hell, up against a wall. If he was to sign up with an escort agency, his client list would be long.And thick.
‘That might be an idea.’ My gaze connects with hers a little sharply. ‘Will’s family is what you’d call old money. And old money doesn’t always last. God, there I go again blabbing.’
‘He’s not in trouble, is he?’ My Pinot turns bitter in my stomach. ‘Financially, I mean?’ My mind springs immediately to his penthouse apartment, his flashy suits and fancy car.
‘No, no!’ She waves away my concerns. ‘But when his father eventually passes, the death duties he’ll face will be crippling. And then there’s the house—his family seat. I’ve no idea how he’ll be able to maintain it.’
‘Family seat?’
‘It’s sort of the home of the landed gentry—the aristocracy.’
‘But what does that have to do with Will?’
‘He’s the only son of a Lord. A Viscount or Baron, I think.’ One of those titles, anyway.
‘Get out! That is... trippy.’ And very odd.
