Hawk & the Lady - Elizabeth Stevens Page 0,55

doesn’t happen to be Edward Barnes, does it?”

“What?”

“Edward Barnes.”

“No. I mean, I know who Edward is. No.” She huffed a laugh. “Why would you think it was Edward?”

“Oh, no reason. Your mother saying it was might have had something to do with it, I suppose.” I sounded like a petulant and passive-aggressive twelve-year-old. Those annoying too old for their age ones that are scary as hell.

“She…” Leah sounded like she’d choked on something. “Sorry? My mother said I was… She…” She huffed. “I don’t know why she would have said that.”

“No. Me either. I mean, if you were having dinner with him, there’d certainly be no reason for you not to tell me, would there?”

I told myself to take a deep breath because losing my cool wasn’t going to help this.

“I…” She stumbled and I felt my cool disappearing rapidly. She cleared her throat. “I should have told you.”

Breathe. “It’s fine. You don’t owe me anything.” Had that sounded aggressive or the laid-back I was aiming for?

“No. I do. I just had to be sure–”

“You what?” I sat forward in my seat and felt the desire to hit something again.

“I just had to prove that Edward and I–”

My teeth clenched and there was a heavy hotness behind my eyes. “It’s fine, Leah. I get it.”

“You do?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I mean, we were both playing parts, weren’t we? Job well done, I’d say.”

“Job?”

“Well. I mean, usually I’m paid in cash not favours, but I think it was some of my best work yet.”

“Best… Wow. Okay.” She breathed out heavily. “Well, I’m glad the arrangement suited you so well, Patrick.”

“Likewise, Leah.”

“Have a nice life.”

“Same to you.”

I didn’t even bother hanging up the phone, I just threw it into the wall of my office and hung my head in my hands.

“She going to dinner with the rich wanker then?” Chaos asked.

I nodded into my hands. “Yep.”

I heard him tap his hand on my office doorframe. “Right,” he called, loud enough for the whole floor to hear him, “Drinks on me tonight, boys.”

“Aye, aye, boss!” Nico and Tank called.

“Fuck her,” was Rollie’s attempt at a helpful contribution.

“Thanks, man,” I said to my best mate.

Another tap on the door. “Always, man.”

“Chaos?”

“Yeah?”

“Am I gonna need a new phone?”

“Yeah. I think so, mate.”

“I miss those old Nokia bricks.”

He gave a humourless chuckle. “Me too, man. Me too.”

17

Leah

I was beyond angry with my mother.

Through the whole thing she’d done no more than be passive-aggressively rude to Patrick. She’d made her disdain obvious for him in her looks and attitude towards him, but not once had she actively tried to come between us. I’d been marginally proud of her when it seemed her biggest attempt was to not throw us an engagement party.

Now I saw the conniving woman had been keeping her ace up her sleeve. She’d lulled me into a false sense of complacency, playing the long game, and manoeuvred us exactly where she wanted us.

Well, joke was on her because it would have blown up in my face at some point anyway.

A job?

I was so pleased that Patrick had been able to flex his acting muscles at my expense.

What had that wank been about not ending it if it was just a job? Huh? Was I just the world’s stupidest human being or had something else happened? Had my megalomaniac of a mother said something else to him while she was snitching on my dinner with Edward?

Ugh.

She knew! She knew it was a dinner to appease her and nothing more. I was willing to bet my not insignificant inheritance that she’d only set it up so she could go to Patrick behind my back.

Did she honestly want me to marry Edward that badly that she’d orchestrate a dramatic break up between me and Patrick?

She certainly wasn’t getting her wish.

Oh, I’d met Edward for dinner. I wasn’t risking her having anything to dangle over my head, so I went to dinner and the first thing I did was blurt out what she’d done and what Patrick had said and how utterly awful I felt about it. I’d also told him I felt it was better to be with someone else to drink the amount I was planning to.

Edward had been more than happy to get drunk with me and wallow about the stupidity of love and relationships. I think it brought us closer as people. Gone was the nuanced innuendo. We’d thrown off the shackles of societal expectation. I could now say that we were two close friends