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“At least it’s not one of the old guys. Last time you couldn’t go to a function with me, I had the Right Honourable and Gallant Samson Roves hitched to my arse the whole night. Do you know what that did to me?”
“I dread to think.” Roves is a staunch military man. He was lieutenant general of the Royal Marines when I first served under him, before I was appointed captain general. Fun isn’t in his vocabulary, or at least not Arthur’s kind of fun. “When I was under his command, his idea of a good time was cling filming the toilets beneath the seats.”
“He was not that jestful when I was landed with him.” He groans, just as another flash of lightning fills the room and thunder rolls through with it.
“The poor guy had just found out his wife was fucking his deputy.” Checking my watch, I realise that it’s almost four thirty.
Eve will be leaving the conservatory soon, and she should be heading straight to Hush. I know she’s likely to be cursing me for moving the time, but she has no need to go home and get changed today. Not with what I have planned.
“I need to head off, but I’ll meet you here tomorrow, and we can convoy to the event.”
“Why did you actually come here?” Arthur gets up as I do, following me to the door of his apartment. “You barely touched your drink, and you had nothing to tell me besides that you aren’t doing your job.”
Clutching the folder tighter in my hand, I roll my eyes at his remark. “You can be such a little bitch. Do you want to cry about it too?”
“Maybe I do. You’ve just wasted some fucking great brandy.”
“I’m driving myself today.”
“Yes, I heard you’ve had Andrew stalk the girl for you.” The impish grin on his face has me fisting my hand, ready to shut him up at his next quip. “It sounds to me like you should fuck her and get her out of your system or…”
“Or?”
“Or accept that you like her like her.”
“That’s not how it is. I enjoy her music.”
“Her music,” he chuckles with a shake of his head.
“Yes, Eve’s really rather good.”
“Maybe I’ll make her a spot in my father’s birthday concert lineup.”
“It worries me when you offer to do something nice for a stranger,” I tell him as I walk out of the door.
When I’m a few feet away, he calls after me, “She might be my next cousin.”
Refusing to let that thought settle, I flip him the bird as I keep walking away.
It’s not like that. I might find Eve fascinating and fuckable, but aside from that…she’s still just a young girl. A beautiful, talented young girl.
One that I will not touch.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
EVE
I shouldn’t be here, I tell myself for the hundredth time since I walked through the club doors. Starting with the way I look right now—a sodden mess—to what Henry said yesterday. I don’t know how we’re meant to sit in a room all alone, just carrying on like yesterday didn’t happen. At some point, it’ll be too much, and what happens then?
The twist of my insides answers my own question. I know what will happen. More than that, I want it to. I just don’t know if I can bear waiting for it. Waiting for him to lose control again or for him to accept that there are only two ways this ends. Whatever this is.
One, we walk away for good. Two, we accept the inevitable. It’s really black and white, and better than anyone else, I think he’d be the one to understand that.
“Evening, Eve,” Percival says with a small smile as he walks down the stairs. He pauses a moment to take me with an amused chuckle. “Did you walk again?”
“No, I got the bus.”
“It just decided to pour when you got off.”
