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Sleeping in four hours clearly did me some good.
I took care of business then wandered out, past the bed, to where Ian was on the couch.
A TV had been exposed behind a panel, and it was on but muted, set to some station that was nothing but a tape of stock indexes running at the bottom and rapidly shifting graphs and numbers on the screen.
A laptop was open on the coffee table, what looked like a half-drafted email, on it.
And the long swath of the rest of the coffee table had been cleared so the tray could be set there. It had a coffee service resting on it that was ivory with a wide green band, along with some croissants, butter, jam and a bowl of berries and yogurt sprinkled with granola.
Ian, still seated in the far corner, stretched an arm to his side in invitation.
I didn’t know why, maybe I was still a bit fuzzy, maybe it was too tempting of an invitation to turn down, but I accepted it, sat close to him, and he curled his arm around me and tucked me closer.
I rested my head on his shoulder.
He was strong and warm, I liked his slippers, and I really liked his room. It was beautiful and dark and male, but still relaxed and homey.
Unlike pretty much every room I’d encountered in this house, this room felt lived in, even though I knew Ian lived his real life in London. It smelled like him. Like moss and outdoors, and wealth and man.
After a few long moments, he asked, “All right?”
I nodded yet again, my head moving on his shoulder.
“Are you angry?” he asked.
“Livid,” I answered. “She’s a grown woman acting like a teenager. Playing pranks, who does that? And I don’t like to be scared. I don’t like horror movies. I don’t read horror thrillers. She knows that. It was just…mean.”
“Can she be mean to you?”
And this was the question.
“In all honesty, throughout our lives, most of it seemed like acting out. I think she feels her mother abandoning her. I think Dad was about making money and spending it, and he didn’t have a lot of time for us, and without her mom, she needed him. I think he knew that, and instead of giving her what she needed, his time, he chose to compensate by giving her things, spoiling her, coddling her, and when it was time for her to mature and take responsibility, the damage was done.”
I took a deep breath, let it out, and finished.
“And I think the relationship she and I have, never having been very strong, has gotten worse since Dad died. She wants her money and to live her life, and she doesn’t want anyone telling her how to do it. Yet I have no choice. If I tried to go against the parameters of her trust, the other trustees would step in and stop it. If I tried to hide something, like the fact she’s no longer working, I’ll be removed as the primary director. Dad died understanding the flaws of his parenting when it came to Portia and putting into place a plan to fix them. It’s too late, really, but in truth, what he’s asking of her is not that much. Portia knows all of this. Like she knows, if she’s not working, any funds beyond her two thousand stipend will be suspended. But she still chooses to target me when it’s his rules she’s breaking, not mine.”
“Mm,” he hummed.
It sounded nice when I was that close and could feel it come from his chest, but I knew what that noise wasn’t saying.
“And okay, I’ll stop making excuses for her and answer…yes. She can be mean to me. But pulling a prank like that, knowing I’m sensitive to those kinds of things is another level.”
Ian leaned forward, taking me with him, but he had to remove his arm from around me in order to pour me some coffee.
“Cream? Sugar?” he murmured.
“A little cream.”
He splashed, stirred, handed it to me in its saucer, then rounded me again with his arm and relaxed us back into the couch, but now I had caffeine.
Seriously. He might be the perfect man.
I sipped.
Bonnie knew her food, she also knew her coffee.
Excellent.
