Logan.
I accepted the call, and my brother’s face appeared on the dashboard screen. Unlike Ethan and I, who were the spitting image of my dad, Logan took after our mum. He had brown eyes and blond, shoulder-length hair that he usually wore in a top-knot or a plait to show off his undercut.
I stopped the car at a red light. “Good morning.”
“Morning,” Logan replied. He was sitting in his usual café—I recognised the counter and the slate menus in the background. He often had breakfast there before heading to the market. Sometimes, Maxton joined him, but today, he seemed to be on his own. “You’re already out and about?”
“I was bouldering.”
Logan sipped his coffee. It was probably so strong that it would have given anyone else a heart attack, but he gulped it down like water. “Perhaps you should have stayed in bed. You look like crap. Did you sleep at all?”
“Not much. There’s a lot to do right now.”
“You sound like a broken record:I’m Henry, and there’s a lot to do right now,” he mimicked. Much to my annoyance, he perfectly captured my tone.
The light turned green. The old Kia in front of me struggled to get going, and it took a moment before we were moving.
“Is there any particular reason why I have to put up with your annoying personality this early, or are you just trying to piss me off?”
Logan laughed. “Someone’s touchy today!”
“I think I’ll hang up now.”
“Don’t you dare!”
I rolled my eyes. “So make your point.”
“There is no point,” Logan said, and although I had my eyes fixed on the road, I sensed he had grown serious. “I just wanted to see how you’re doing. You said you were thinking of coming by for lunch, but you never followed up. Is everything OK?”
“Yes, it’s fine. There’s just—”
“Don’t you dare say that there’s just a lot to do, or I’ll have to come over there and set you straight,” Logan interrupted.
“OK, I won’t. But I promise I’ll come and see you when things calm down a bit.”
“And when will that be? In two years?”
“After the masked ball?” I suggested. The Pearl Gala would be looming on the horizon, requiring far more organisational effort than the ball, as it would be in the media spotlight—but I doubted Logan would be willing to wait until next year. Anyway, I wanted to see him too. I missed him. And even though he refused to help me with the hotel, he always made time to listen when I had problems or needed to vent.
“Sounds good,” Logan said. “Are you going with Olivia again this year?”
I suppressed a smile. “Not this year, no.”
“Did she bail on you?”
“No, I bailed on her,” I replied, turning a corner. The London Eye came into view on the other side of the Thames. A lone boat drifted past The Darlington Hotel, which, with its pillar arcades and small balconies, had looked unchanged from the outside for decades.
Logan snorted. “As if!”
“It’s true.”
I stopped at another red light, Big Ben ahead of me. On the dashboard display, Logan raised a sceptical eyebrow. “Are you seriously telling me that you, someone who never has time for anything, have found someone who is not Olivia Asterdam to be your date for the ball?”
“Yes.”
“Did Amanda set you up with the daughter of one of her friends again?”
Amanda.NotMum. Logan never called our parents Mum and Dad.
