Chapter 13 The Call #2
“This means the council won’t allow us to have another tenant until it’s been eradicated,” he continued.
“Obviously, we wouldn’t want you there until that happens either.
But not only do we need to see to that happening, we need to make the repairs.
In the end, it doesn’t look like we’ll be able to have you for two, maybe three months. ”
Oh no.
Two to three months?
“I can imagine this is very inconvenient for you,” he kept talking.
“I’m so sorry. So very sorry. I asked around to see if anything else is available, hoping to find a stopgap for you, but with the summer holidays coming and tourist season picking up, I wasn’t able to find anything.
Of course, we’ll do what we can, money-wise, to make this hurt a bit less.
And obviously, if you find someplace, we’ll let you out of your lease with us.
But that mold is highly toxic, and even if the Council hadn’t deemed it unfit for use until the mold is gone, I wouldn’t want you in there. ”
Okay, this had to suck for him. He was losing rental money on top of whatever it had to cost to clear out black mold and do repairs.
But…
Shit, shit, shit, what was I going to do?
My phone vibrated with another call.
I took it from my ear and looked at it.
Battle.
Calling me.
For the first time.
My stomach pitched.
This reminded me I’d see him tomorrow.
My stomach pitched harder.
I put the phone back to my ear and said, “I have another call coming in I have to take, Mr. Atkins. Um…can I call you back?”
“Of course, luv, just…anything me and my Molly can do. She’s still looking and making calls. We’re so sorry.”
“Yes, thank you. I’ll call you back.”
“Okay, luv.”
I disconnected with him and took Battle’s call.
“Hey,” I greeted.
“Vivi,” he replied.
“You might have a million-pound set of Chippendale candlesticks in your attic, and that’s for starters.”
He was silent.
“Instead of sitting on the motherlode, the motherlode might just be sitting on you,” I shared.
“Interesting.”
This guy.
Regardless of my recent disastrous news, I smiled. “An understatement worthy of the Duke of Burleigh.”
I heard his chuckle through the line and my breasts swelled.
“Why are you calling?” I asked.
“Chassie phoned, seeking an excuse to get out of coming to London tomorrow.”
Crap.
“I was worried she was being too quiet about it once we fenced her in,” I admitted.
“I didn’t give her the excuse, but just warning you, she might make some plays this evening. I’ve already warned Tempie.”
“Okay, but…I mean, do you think it’s right to force her if she really doesn’t want to go?”
“She really didn’t want to go to Glastonbury, but she had a lovely time. And then, the next day, she was nipping into town like she did it frequently. So, yes. I do think it’s right.”
“You’re the big brother,” I mumbled.
“Prue came into the house giggling and baby talking, practically from birth,” Battle stated, and my attention sharpened. “She was like a baby sunbeam.”
Oh yeah.
This guy.
“So sweet,” I whispered.
“Chassie was like a little doll. I’ve never seen a more beautiful child. Quiet and watchful, fascinated with flowers, always. Though, in the beginning, she tended to try to eat them.”
I laughed softly.
“She looked it, but she wasn’t fragile,” Battle continued.
“She knew herself. She knew what she liked. From an early age. Maybe she watched what happened to Prue and took it in more than we expected a child of her age would, and she made certain no one was going to beat her down like they did Prue. Of course, she didn’t have the same personality as Prue, but she was self-contained for as long as I knew her, and that’s her entire life.
She could entertain herself as a child. And when she grew up, she asked for one thing.
The money to open her own flower shop. She did this in Bath.
It was successful within six months of opening. ”
“Right,” I said, finding the “wasn’t fragile” comment a tragedy, and having the mystery of Courtney’s comment about wedding flowers explained, albeit only partially.
“We need to reintroduce her to herself, darling,” he concluded.
He was right.
“Okay,” I agreed.
“How are you getting on with your research?”
“Great. I’m making up for the time I’ll be losing by working into the night.”
I could actually hear the frown in his voice. “Is this London trip putting you that far off schedule?”
“Probably not, but now that I have to find a new place to live by next week, I’m glad I did it because, at this late date, I think I might be screwed, but I still have to put in the time to look for something.”
“Find a new place to live?”
“The cottage I’m renting has black mold.
It won’t be safe to move in for at least two months,” I shared.
“And it wasn’t that easy to find an appropriate space that would rent to me for only six months.
Now I need something fast, and that cottage is cute.
I’m bummed I don’t get to stay there. But I don’t know when it’s going to be ready, and I can’t ask a prospective landlord to let to me for two to three months or ask Mr. Atkins to wait for me if I’m in a place for three months and his place is ready to let earlier.
I think in the end, I’m probably going to be bouncing around Airbnbs for three months, and that sucks. ”
“Vivienne, you have a home.”
My back straightened, and one could say, him uttering those words set an electric bolt through me, much like the one I felt when I first met him.
“You’ll stay at The Downs,” he decreed.
“I can’t ask—”
“You didn’t.”
“Listen—”
“This isn’t a discussion, Vivienne. You’re staying at The Downs.”
My back got straighter.
“Battle—”
“Now, I must go.”
“Battle, no, hang on a second.”
“What?”
“I can’t stay here.”
“Why not?”
“Well, I’m using your Wi-Fi. And eating your food. And your staff handwashes my sweaters for me.”
“And?”
And?
“All of that costs money,” I stated the obvious.
“Agreed.”
“So…” I let that hang.
“Vivienne, as you pointed out so eloquently not long ago, we’re super, crazy, stupid rich.”
“You are. I’m a freeloader.”
“Hardly.” Now his purr had a sting.
“Look at it from my perspective,” I urged.
“What I’m asking you to do, something you seem incapable of doing, is looking at it from mine.”
“Okay, I know you all really dig me, and that’s sweet.
Super sweet. I love it. Because I really dig you all too.
And I know you’re really happy that Prue is blossoming after she let those schoolgirl bitches take away her shine.
But I already felt like I’m taking advantage of you, this will only make it worse. ”
“You aren’t.”
“But I feel it.”
“However, you aren’t.”
“I still feel that way, Battle,” I said heatedly.
“More of your American eloquence, I can confirm we do dig you.”
That would be funny, hearing him say those words in his posh accent, if I wasn’t nurturing a temper tantrum.
It was also very sweet to have confirmed, however, I was nurturing a temper tantrum.
“My sisters enjoy having you there,” he continued. “And it would be very hard for me to guide what’s happening between us if you’re off in a cottage by the sea.”
One could say the time was ripe.
So I took a bite.
“Okay, let’s get into that. What’s happening between us?”
“I very much want to fuck my sister’s best friend.
I also enjoy her company. So I’m balancing the high wire of seducing my sister’s best friend in a way that won’t affect her relationship with my sister at the same time I’ll eventually get to fuck her, thoroughly and abundantly, whilst enjoying her company in bed and elsewhere. ”
He was such a fucking tease.
“Okay, I’m at one with that plan.”
“I know.”
And so damned arrogant.
“Maybe we can talk to Prue?” I suggested.
“I doubt Prue has that first issue with it. She wants me happy. She wants you happy. And I’m happy when I’m with you.”
Oh God.
He put that right out there.
Right out there!
That didn’t make my stomach pitch.
It made it melt.
“However, we must tread cautiously,” he finished.
“Battle—”
“So you’re staying at The Downs.”
Oh my God!
“You can’t alternately sweet and sexy talk me into getting your way.”
“I was afraid of that,” he muttered.
“Okay, we’ve proved we can compromise. So I’ll pay you the rent I would have paid Mr. Atkins.”
“Out of the question,” he growled immediately.
“Battle—”
“I won’t give that comment the respect even to discuss it,” he stated.
“And I won’t stay at The Downs without paying my way,” I fired back.
“Oh, you will, Vivi,” he warned silkily.
“You can’t make me.”
“And you can’t leave us, and you already knew that before you learned of black mold,” he retorted.
Fuck.
Fuck!
“You don’t even want to,” he pressed his advantage.
“We’ll discuss this in London,” I said tightly.
“If you wish.”
“And between times, maybe make a passing attempt at thinking about it from my point of view.”
“I shall do so, if you make the same promise.”
“I’m sorry, Battle, but even if I was rich as fuck, I probably wouldn’t let my sister’s dear friend hang at my house and eat all my food in perpetuity.”
“That isn’t my perspective, and you know it.”
Okay, okay, okay.
I liked this guy.
He was complicated. He was smart. He was funny.
He was gallant. He was handsome as all hell.
He was a ludicrously good brother. He respected women.
He was protective. He was generous. He was an amazing flirt.
He thought I was beautiful. He was interested in what I did.
He’d read my books. He was honest. He was frank.
I could fall for this guy.
Hard.
And for forever.
Was he saying he felt the same way about me?
“Now, if you haven’t come to your senses by tomorrow, we’ll revisit this subject then,” he said into my fevered reverie.
Oh shit.
“Come to my senses?” I asked dangerously.
He sighed heavily.
“Fine. Tomorrow,” I snapped.
“Until then, darling.”
I was never, ever, ever going to tell him this.
But I was pretty sure I’d let him get away with anything as long as he called me darling.
“By the way, I might have uncovered bribes in your butler’s ledgers for 1946. I think shit went down in that house, and two footmen were dragged into it, or they witnessed it and were paid to be silent. See you tomorrow,” I bid.
And then I disconnected.
“So there,” I said to my phone.
Snowball, who was snoozing in a combined circle of white and ginger fur in front of the stove (meaning Gingerface was the orange Yang to Snowball’s Yin), lifted her head to look at me.
“Men suck,” I told her.
She blinked.
“What sucks more is, I want to fall on his dick so bad, I’m probably going to stay here another two months…at least.”
Snowball laid her head back down and returned to snoozing.
Bah!
Because I had no choice (and for other reasons I absolutely refused to consider in that moment), I called Mr. Atkins back and requested he share the status of the cleanup, but not to worry, in the interim, I was good.
The bright side of that, Mr. Atkins was blatantly relieved.
After hanging up with him, feeling the cozy warmth of the stove, the crates right there for me to access, the colorful chaos and fertile green beyond the windows, understanding I’d be on a train tomorrow, heading to Battle, I was relieved too.
Argh.
I went back to work.