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2
BRYN
The music hits me first,then the overpowering and all too familiar perfume.
Fan-fucking-tastic. Eighteen hours on a plane, first class or not, and I'm shattered. Too tired to deal with Mia Jordan—heiress, airhead, and girl I still feel obliged to watch over.
I head to the source of the noise and grab the remote to kill the music playing in the lounge of my London apartment. Almost instantly, Mia appears dressed in a tiny black crop top and pink shorts that barely cover her ass. Mia's brown hair is piled on her head and, for once, face clean of make-up.
“Bryn!” She covers her naked face with her hands
“Why are you here?”
“You said I could stay if I needed.” She peeks through her fingers. “Tammy is such a bitch and I couldn't stay with her. She said some really mean things and I don't know where to go because I don't want to go home to the States and I didn't think you'd mind and...” My eyes glaze over at Mia's ramble, seriously not caring why she's here, just wishing she wasn't.
“You can't stay here.”
“Please? I'll look after you, like, do stuff in the apartment.”
Did she seriously just flutter her eyelashes at me?
“Do stuff? You can't even cook, Mia!”
“I can order food.”
Mia's rat of a dog appears, walks straight past me, and lifts its leg to pee on the leg of the low coffee table.
“What thefuckis that doing here?”
“Oh! Phoenix! You naughty boy!”
Phoenix?
Mia scoops up rat dog and proceeds to scold it like a child, using a stupid voice. The long-suffering animal stares blankly back. “He's my baby—he has to be with me!”
I slump onto the sofa and stare at the ceiling. “Book into a hotel, Mia. I'm too tired for this shit.”
“Bryn, please.” Her voice enters whine mode. “I promise I'll keep out of your way. And it's getting late—I can't go now.”
“How long have you been here?”
“A couple of days.”
I eye the magazines and clothes strewn around the lounge room. “A couple of days?”
Mia puts Phoenix on the carpet and begins to gather the offending items. “I wasn't expecting you back. I thought you'd gone to Austria.”
“Australia.” My stomach lurches as Hannah climbs into my tired head.
“Oh. That's a long way, isn't it?”
“Exactly, so I'm tired and want to be on my own.”
At my gruff tone, Mia pauses and carefully places her pile of clothes on a nearby chair. “Are you okay, Bryn?” A moment later, she's on the sofa next to me, holding my large hand in her taloned one. “Did something happen? You look sad.”
This surprises me. Mia never asks how people are, lost in her ditzy world of money and the famous. “I'm tired,” I repeat.
“You're upset. You shouldn't be on your own. Did the girl you go to see hurt you?” She strokes my hand as if soothing a child.
