“Oh. Okay.” He shrugged at Andrea. “To be continued.”
Fucking Ben. Maybe Ishouldhave told him what this was all about, after all. Never mind the risk. I wasn’t sure I could stomach this borderline flirtation all night.
Or maybe that would have made himworse?
No, I couldn’t tell him. Ben wouldn’t actually do anything as long as he thought Andrea and I were together. He was a bit of a party animal, but he had my back completely. It was just normal for us to joke around with each other’s girlfriends.
Except Andrea wasn’t my girlfriend. She wasn’t even my date.
So why was this irritating me so much?
Because she feels likemine.
And she isn’t.
*
“Have you spent much time with Bonnie?” Ben turned to Andrea.
I poured him a glass of the Pétrus we’d chosen from my collection.
“Not really. We’ve mostly chatted since she and Liam came to London.”
She caught my eye, and I moved closer, resting my hand on her back. Would she think that was too much? Well. It would be strange if we didn’t touch. We had to look believable.
I felt her stiffen slightly under my fingers, then relax again as if she remembered.
It’s an act, Andrea. An act you signed upfor.
The warmth of her under the silk top went straight through me. I moved my hand a fraction, just to prove I could.
“Oh, good.” Ben looked over at me, unsmiling. “Bonnie’sknown Liam a long time, since primary school. She’s always got on so well with his girlfriends. I’m sure you and she will be great friends.”
Great friends? Right.
I hoped Andrea didn’t pick up on my brother’s sarcasm.
Bonnie and I had been friends since we were five. She’d kept an eye out for me in the playground, at least until we’d gone off to secondary school—me to boarding school at Winchester, and her to Didcot Park, the local comprehensive. That had been tough for both of us. She’d been like a big sister, protective even before Afghanistan, when the vultures began to circle—women drawn by whatever they thought proximity to me might buy them. I hadn’t minded back then, keeping things with women shallow. Life had felt so gray, like nothing mattered.
But Bonnie had minded.
She’d always treated my girlfriends—if you could call them that—like temporary hazards. Things to manage until they disappeared.
My brother knew that. He just never said it out loud.
“Oh, thatisa long time. So you’re friends socially, too?” Andrea turned to me. “I thought Bonnie was just your strategic adviser?”
“She does… advise me,” I said. “She has a good eye for… risk.”
Which is what she thought Andrea was.
Ben snorted.
I usually trusted Bonnie with everything, but she was wrong this time. What did she call her—manipulative?
Andrea was the opposite of that. The more I got to know her, the clearer that was. If anything, the woman could benefit from a bitmorefilter, not less.
“And when did you move in, Andrea?” Ben asked, holding up his wineglass and looking at the liquid. “Hasn’t Liam been out of the country for the past six months?”
