Layla and me. Martyr Maddie needed to be switched off this weekend to make sure things wouldn’t get overly complicated.
Lori wasn’t wrong, though. Chase was a billionaire. His level of rich was golden toilet seats and private jets containing sex swings. It was burn-the-money-just-to-see-if-it’d-make-you-feel-anything rich. The scary, jaded type of wealth that seemed wholly untouchable from where I was standing.
It hit me then that I’d never considered Chase’s money as a factor when we were really dating. His wealth was in the backdrop of our relationship, like a massive piece of furniture I learned to overlook, even though it was a part of the view. When he asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I told him I needed a new heating pad. It was twenty-five bucks on Amazon, available on Prime, with a gift-wrap option included for an additional fee. Chase laughed and got me a pair of $10K earrings instead. He couldn’t fathom why I wasn’t enthralled by the lavish gift. The truth of the matter was I was broke post-Christmas and had really been counting on that heating pad.
I didn’t want something expensive and useless. I wanted something not so expensive and useful.
Lori’s comment made me sober up momentarily. I nodded, getting back into delighted-fiancée mode. “Oh yeah. Sure. But I’m going to be very responsible with his money. I mean, our money. Money in general.” Shut up, shut up, shut up. “I don’t spend a lot.”
“Well, we all know I have the opposite problem.” Katie looked down at her feet.
Desperately eager to change the subject, I clapped my hands, standing in the middle of the room. “Where is Amber, by the way? I really wanted to get to know her.”
And by really I meant not really, but it seemed like something I should say.
Katie and Lori exchanged looks. I was drunk but not stupid and could tell they were doing this eye-communication thing Dad and Mom used to do when she was still alive to decide something I wasn’t supposed to know.
“She was tired,” Katie said at the same time Lori mumbled, “I think she came down with something.”
Huh.
So Amber disliked me. For no apparent reason, as far as I could tell.
“That’s unfortunate,” I said.
“Very,” Lori muttered in a tone that conveyed it really wasn’t. Then I remembered Lori and Amber hadn’t really communicated very much during dinner. Then again, Amber had been either busy with her phone or glaring at Chase and me simultaneously, waiting for one of us to spontaneously combust.
I kissed Lori’s and Katie’s cheeks goodbye and turned toward the door. I promised myself not to read into Amber’s reaction to me. I’d done nothing wrong.
Other than deceiving the entire Black family, a little voice inside me said. But Amber wasn’t privy to that, was she? Then I remembered she hadn’t seemed sold on my Brooklyn story. Neither had her husband, Julian. It worried me that I may have blown it. If Ronan knew Chase and I were lying, he’d be devastated, and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.
I ascended the stairs barefoot. The velvet carpet pressed between my toes lusciously. Everything was crème and navy and powder blue. Nautically rustic, with big pieces of furniture and white-painted wood. It felt almost unreal to be a part of this place. Like I’d cheated my way in. Which, in a way, I had.
I reached the second floor, holding the banisters for dear life, still buzzing with alcohol. I zigzagged past the hallway doors. One of them was ajar. It was a double door.
A low, gravelly growl seeped through the crack. “Over my dead body.”
I froze, recognizing Chase’s diabolical voice. He sounded ready to murder whoever was with him in that room, and I didn’t want to be there when it happened.
Move along, something inside me whispered. Nothing to see here. Not your business, not your war.
I checked the time on my phone. One a.m. What the hell was he doing up, and who was he arguing with? Curiosity got the better of me. I leaned against the wall, holding my breath, careful not to get caught.
“If that’s what it takes,” Julian drawled sardonically. I recognized his voice too. He had traces of a Scottish accent, littered in his words sparsely. Ronan Black’s family was originally from Edinburgh. Julian, Ronan’s late sister’s son, had been flown from Scotland when he was only six to live with the family after his parents died in a fatal car crash on Christmas Day. The Black couple,