Page 36 of The Betrothal

“You like everyone.” He made it sound like it was some sort of shortcoming.

“Be that as it may. The point remains. You. Are. Being. A. Dick.” I propped my elbows on my knees, searching his face. “You don’t have to be Suzy-sunshine. Not that you ever could be. But seriously, Alex, stop being so surly with her. She’s harmless. Her being here doesn’t hurt you. And you don’t know where she has come from, or where she is going. But I assure you, she’s running from something. And we are all here, for now.”

His lips thinned as he thought. I’d known him so long that I knew he would never openly acknowledge what I was saying to be true, but that he had heard me.

His head dipped imperceptibly. A tiny fraction.

That would be all I got from him.

Grinning, I clapped him on the shoulder and he grumbled something, but I didn’t hang back to hear it, rising and striding towards the exit.

“Just leave the chair there, then!” he called after me.

“Thanks, I will!” I grabbed the door and slammed it to behind me, leaving him to mutter away in his own company.

“You’re not getting your hands on my smalls,” she called out from the inside of her bedroom.

“But whyyyyy?” I whined.

I could hear a chuckle. I knew I could.

“Speak now or be seen in a compromising state of undress.”

Silence greeted the comment so I slipped inside her room. The space smelled like mandarin and something else. Her clothes still lay over the window seat; she was cross-legged on the bed once again. Pieces of paper laid out in front of her, the ink having bled and smeared.

“Planning your next big hike?”

She slid them carefully back together, raising a single shoulder then letting it drop.

“Aren’t you bored up here?”

“Yes actually.” She folded the papers and tucked them under the lamp, the scrawl of writing on the back catching my eye. A small card with a phone number was also pinned to the surface by the heavy copper light. “I don’t suppose there are any books around here?”

I scrunched my nose.

“Reading?” I tutted despite being a voracious reader myself normally – when there wasn’t something more interesting to entertain me. “Yes, Alex’s office is full of books. There has to be something of interest in there.”

She scoffed. “Hard pass.”

Laughing I took up the space at the bottom of the bed again. It was darkening outside and she’d changed back into her Stitch pyjama bottoms, my smile widened at the rest of her outfit. She scowled; it was adorable.

“I am overjoyed to see there is a matching pyjama top.” I wiggled my eyebrows and she tinkled a laugh.

I liked it.

“Come have a drink with me, I was going to put on a movie.”

She visibly stiffened and I felt myself frowning.

“Alex will be tucked away in the study most of the night.”

Her shoulders dropped a smidge and my smile returned. Fucking told him.

“And Ben?”

A prickle of unease skittered over me. Benji.

When I didn’t respond immediately, she leaned in a little and looked to the open door. “I make him uncomfortable.”