she so solemnly pointed out this morning, I’m not currently a resident of Wolf Tower . . .
‘Aren’t I?’
‘Nope,’ she’d said, stepping from the circle of my arms to finished getting dressed for work. ‘You’ve got to live there to benefit from the services.’
‘But I am the owner.’
‘Stop looking at my ass,’ came her reply as she caught me doing just that.
‘If I’m no longer a resident there, what is my residency status here? Am I your guest? Your housemate? Vivre en amoureux?’
‘What was that last one?’
‘Your live-in lover.’
She’d turned as I’d answered, her feet now secured. She’d walked back to the side of the bed, clad in only her panties and heels, and wrapped her arms around my neck.
‘Do you always get dressed so tangentially?’
Her lips had quivered as she tried to restrain her smile. ‘I was trying to distract you from the fact that I have to go to work.’
But we both knew she was going nowhere for quite some time as I’d rolled her between my body and the mattress.
‘Nice to see you’ve got a smile on your face.’
Rhett pulls me from my daydream, my smile slipping not as a result of his interrupting my reverie but rather because I realise I was daydreaming.
Imbécile.
‘Are you camped out at this place indefinitely now?’
‘Until she asks me to leave,’ I reply, realising she hadn’t truly answered my question about my status here.
‘Who asks you to leave? Have you given the house back to your mother?’ Dropping the paperwork Paulette requires signatures for, his hands grip the back of the sectional sofa as he frowns down at me.
‘No, I gave the house to Rose.’
‘Jesus, can I not leave you alone for five minutes?’
My ribs ache as he drops to the opposite end of the sectional sofa, jostling me, my aches exacerbated by the rigours of sex. Something I have no intention of telling Rose.
‘You might not have fractured your skull, but you must’ve broken your fucking head,’ he grumbles, frowning across at me. ‘So, you gave her a house. Not just any house, but your grandparents’ chateau. Hasn’t it been in the family for years?’
‘It was. Until Emile sold it before I was born.’
‘But you bought it back last year, right?’
Because I could.
‘It’s just real estate. Bricks and mortar.’ And a place we’ll make beautiful memories, I hope. Because since my balls had decided Rose and I would make beautiful small humans, I haven’t been able to shake away the thoughts of her swollen with our child. I’ve no idea what to do with these thoughts, except dwell on them some more.
‘I suppose you can always take the cost out of her inheritance.’ His gaze flicks around the space, the action casual. I won’t hold my breath for the punchline though I know it’s coming. ‘Because you must’ve told her about that by now. Right? And that you don’t exactly know how she comes to be in your life.’
‘I no longer care why. I’m just grateful that she is.’
‘Near-death experiences will turn a man a little philosophical, so I’ve heard. You’ll get over it.’ I imagine his words are supposed to sting like an insult. But he should have learned long before now that I really don’t care for the opinions of others. Rose being a recent exception to this fact.
‘I had an email from the investigator. He says he’s had a couple of breakthroughs. He wants to know if you want to meet face-to-face or if he should just courier the intel over.’
‘Neither. Pay him his fee but tell him I no longer have need of his services.’
‘You don’t really mean that.’
‘Bring me these breakthroughs, and I’ll burn the envelope without looking.’
‘No worries. We have this magical transportation of image and text these days. It’s called email.’
‘Even easier to delete.’
‘You just don’t want to know the truth, in case it proves to be inconvenient.’
‘Don’t take me for a fool. I don’t need proof of Rose’s innocence in any of this, so if you came here to goad me, you’re wasting both of our time.’ She even thinks the money she went travelling with came from the death of a distant relative—she offered up the information without the slightest concern, without an ounce of artifice. She’s guilty of nothing but naiveté.
‘I came to see how you’re doing, arsehole.’ He inhales and spreads his fingers wide on his thighs. ‘I also came to tell you the CCTV footage came back from the marina.’
My head twists, and is followed by another painful