‘Wow! You must be really rich!’ Carmen exclaimed.
Will merely smiled.
Suddenly Tom thumped the table, causing everyone to jump. ‘Did Tessa dance topless on the table?’ he thundered.
‘What?’
‘It’s suddenly coming back to me – last night, or the night before, or whenever it was. Did Tessa strip off and dance topless on the table?’
Lorcan laughed. ‘In your dreams!’
‘You mean she didn’t? I could swear I remember?—’
‘I’m telling you it was a dream.’
Will knew Tom and Lorcan were deliberately changing the conversation because they knew he found it embarrassing when people made a fuss about his money. But he hadn’t been offended by Carmen’s completely artless curiosity and, touched though he was by his friends’ solicitude, it was mortifying to witness them dancing around his sensibilities like this.
‘You could have humoured me,’ Tom moaned, ‘left me my illusions.’
‘Come to think of it, someone did dance topless on the table. It wasn’t Tessa, though.’
‘Will, you were sober,’ Tom appealed to him. ‘Did someone dance topless on the table at my stag party?’
Will smiled. ‘Yes – but Lorcan’s right. It wasn’t Tessa.’
‘Who was it, then?’
‘Owen.’
‘Ugh!’
Everyone laughed.
‘We should hit the showers,’ Will said, getting up to clear the plates. ‘The good thing about a house this size is that we can have a bathroom each.’
* * *
Later, Will and Lorcan stood in front of the mirror knotting each other’s bowties.
‘God, we do look weird, don’t we?’ Will said, when they’d finished. ‘Shaved heads and DJs – like bouncers.’
‘Youlook weird,’ Lorcan assumed a cocky expression. ‘I look cool.’
In fact, the bald look suited Lorcan better than it did Will, accentuating the baby-faced features that made women swoon – the big spaniel eyes framed by ridiculously long sooty lashes, thesensuous mouth. The O’Neills were a good-looking family, all olive-skinned and dark-haired. Rachel was acknowledged as the beauty, but everyone knew Lorcan was the real knockout.
‘Be extra nice to Kate today,’ Lorcan said. ‘She’s on her own.’
Easier said than done, Will thought. He had the impression that Lorcan’s little sister didn’t like him very much any more – probably with good reason, he reflected guiltily. Although he was practically a member of the family, he and Kate hadn’t seen much of each other in the past few years, mainly, Will suspected, because Kate was avoiding him. On the few occasions they had met, she had spoken in monosyllables if he tried to talk to her. It was a pity because they’d been good friends. Still, he had only himself to blame. ‘Has she split up with that boyfriend of hers, then?’ he asked Lorcan.
‘Sadly, no. But he’s not coming. Apparently he finds us “overwhelming”. He’s afraid we’ll swallow him up or something.’
Will laughed. ‘He should be so lucky.’ He had been ‘swallowed up’ by the O’Neills years ago and considered it the best thing that had ever happened to him.
‘Indeed,’ Lorcan said drily, ‘if we swallowedhimup we’d spit him out again pretty sharpish.’
‘Still, you must admit, your family can be a bit… Greek.’
‘Greek?’ Lorcan was bewildered.
