Tarquin elbowed the fridge door closed and reunited with the stove. “Ignore her—”
Lucy pounced. “Good morning, Tarquin Balfour’s phone! How may I direct your call?”
Her over-the-top business voice melted Tarquin’s frown. He traded the eggs for tongs and checked their frying breakfast. “Don’t fall for it—take away the air kisses and luvvie facade, and Mum’s as East End as you.”
“Pardon?” Squinting, Lucy covered her other ear. “I’m having trouble hearing…”
“Lucy, just take a message. Tell her I’ll call her later.”
Eyes widening, Lucy’s brows slowly crept toward her hairline. “Your name’s Leia?”
Leia?! Mid bacon flip, Tarquin’s breath hitched.
“Bloody hell, who is this?” Lucy howled. “You’re a freaking legend!”
“Leia?” Harry’s mouth fell open. “Oh, mate, in your wet dreams!”
Pulse racing, Tarquin dropped the tongs on the counter and bounded past his best friend, his beckoning fingers urging Lucy to surrender his phone. “I’ll take it.”
She batted him away, skipping into the palatial living room. “Leia, sorry, it’s a really bad line—are you calling from a galaxy far, far away?”
Tarquin raced after her, swerving around the bag of toys for Ava. “Lucy, quit it!” he hissed through clenched teeth. “Don’t make fun of her name.”
Stalling by the windows, she squinted in the sunlight and thrust the phone into his chest. “At least Leia’s got a sense of humor—she’s laughing.”
Oh, god, I hope so. Tarquin wrenched the phone from Lucy’s hand and covered the microphone, his tight lips and darting eyes throwing her a ‘Go on, do one’ glare.
Lucy played with her ponytail of braids. “Chill, Tarq,” she whispered. “All yours, tiger!” She slapped Tarquin’s ass playfully and padded back to Harry, stood in the kitchen doorway.
“Babe, your toast is burning.” Spatula aloft, Harry let Lucy slip past, his gaze settling on Tarquin. “I’ll take care of the fry-up,” he mouthed, then he pulled the glass door separating the kitchen and the living room half-closed, gifting his friend some privacy with a conspiratorial thumbs-up.
Please still be there. The salty, comforting smell of sizzling bacon did nothing to calm the butterflies in Tarquin’s stomach. Clearing his throat, he lifted the phone to his ear. “Hello?”
“Tarquin? Hi, it’s Leia Scott”—a giggle infiltrated her words like she was in on the joke—“but I think you already knew that.”
He inhaled a deep breath, exhaling into a wince. “Ah, yeah. Sorry about that.” His free hand dug into his hair, leaving chaos in its path. “That being Lucy, my best mate’s girlfriend. She thinks she’s hilarious.”
“Well, she made me laugh.”
Thank fuck. The knot in his shoulders untied. “So, how are you?” He curved into the cool window, its chill inciting goose bumps on his arm. His finger traced Leia’s New Year’s venue towering over South London. “How was the Shard?”
“Still standing.” She chuckled. “I hope. I didn’t go.”
What? With a squeak, his finger stopped its skyscraper climb. The boyfriend fucked up? Please say yes. His breath caught in his chest. “How come?”
“Oh, we changed our minds and stayed in at my sister’s.”
We? Bugger. He swallowed hard. “That’s…a shame.”
“Yeah, but we still had fun. What’d you do?”
“A bunch of us went for dinner. Then I watched the fireworks from Tower Bridge—it’s close to where I live.” Yeah, leave it at that. Best to be safe. As much as I like her, I don’t know her.
Tarquin had found that people—so-called friends and potential girlfriends—became more interested in him when they learned of his family’s jaw-dropping wealth. The 1991 sale of the Balfour’s oil business had cemented the family’s status as one of the wealthiest in Britain, and from his teenage years onwards, Tarquin chased attention and popularity by playing the bon viveur with reckless abandon, throwing decadent parties, sleeping with different women every weekend, and diving into extreme sports around the globe. As a result, people never saw the real person underneath the drunkenness, flirty behavior, and bravado—until last year. Until Alex Sinclair. She was the first woman who didn’t care about his money or what it could do for her. Alex’s love and respect showed Tarquin that his kind heart and thoughtfulness mattered more than an abundance of zeros attached to his bank balance. It was life-changing, shifting his opinion of himself and what he wanted in life—no more fake friends, no more frivolous partying, no more one-night stands.
But losing her also triggered something Tarquin had battled silently on and off his entire life—depression. Not that anyone knew about it. Not Alex, not even Harry. To friends and family, Tarquin was the clown, a hedonistic extrovert: partying hard and climbing