21. Thea
21
Thea
M y heart ached. Saying goodbye to my sister had been as painful as the day I left Italy. The only difference was she hadn’t been upset this time. Nope. She was way too excited about the prospect of going to a boarding school with Aoife and Saoirse. They’d become thick as thieves since we arrived in Dublin. The girls had taken Verity under their wings and treated her like another sister. It was heart-warming.
Yet another thing I owed Declan. The list of favors I’d accrued was growing by the day. There was no way I could pay him back for everything. One day he’d call on me to handle a problem, but for now, I’d decided not to let it worry me.
I had bigger issues on my plate. Most notably, the fact Torrance still hadn’t popped up like a floating turd.
“Where are we staying?” Landon asked, his hand resting on my knee as I stared out of the tinted window at the brightly lit streets. People scurried around. Men and women in suits, families, tourists, students, and shadier types, all in a rush to be somewhere.
I’d visited London many times, but never really felt at home here. It was too busy. Too clogged with traffic. Too everything.
“I booked the penthouse at Claridges,” Cassian replied.
“Of course you did,” Dar muttered, still coming to terms with the scale of Cassian’s privilege.
“Feel free to slum it at the Holiday Inn if you prefer,” Cassian suggested, making Landon snort.
“I think a hostel is more his speed,” he taunted. I pinched his leg hard, and he yelped.
“Ow! That hurts!”
“Good, it was meant to. Stop being a dick! We’re not all as rich as Elon Musk. Dario and I aren’t used to extreme wealth.”
“My money is your money, sweetheart,” Cassian said with a smile. I rolled my eyes. Yeah, right . It wasn’t like we were in an official relationship. Yes, we were fucking, but sooner or later, he’d move on.
“Sharing is caring,” Landon added.
I turned on him. “Since when do you need to share Cassian’s wealth? You’re fucking loaded!” I’d visited Landon’s home. His family was extremely wealthy. Not that he’d been flashing the cash around lately.
“Since my father cut me off,” he said in a low voice, all humor gone.
Well, shit . “Why would he do that?” It had been pretty obvious when I met him that his father was a dick, but still, cutting off his only son seemed a tad…dramatic. Was this all because of the sex tape? Lucian had arguably been more inconvenienced by the barrage of bad publicity, so why had Landon’s father gone postal about it?
“Because I refused to seduce some woman for him. He needed her husband to vote the right way at a board meeting.”
“And seducing her would give him leverage,” I deduced. Only Dario looked disgusted. From the way none of the others reacted, they probably knew about the shit Landon’s father had made him do.
“Yep.” He shrugged and stared out of the window. “I couldn’t do it. Not for all the money in the world.”
I reached out and squeezed his hand. Being ordered to whore himself out was no worse than anything my father had forced me to do. If Dad hadn’t needed to sell my virginity off to the highest bidder, there was no doubt he’d have pimped me out eventually.
“Want me to kill him?” I asked, keeping my voice low enough that the driver didn’t overhear me and then drive us to the nearest police station.
Kyril snorted while Dario rolled his eyes. “You’d do that for me?” Landon asked.
Any sensible guy would have probably flung himself out of the car at this point, but not Landon.
“Of course. He’s a monster and monsters deserve to be put down. I’d consider it my civic duty.”
“Thea, I love you,” Landon blurted.
“Um, I offer to kill your father, and you decide you love me?” That was not the response I expected.
Landon grinned. “How could I not love a woman who’ll risk a life sentence to avenge me?”
“I think maybe you need psychological help,” I suggested after a few long moments. “It’s not normal to love a murderer.”
“Women fall in love with death row killers all the time,” Milo pointed out.
“Insane women. Women with low self-esteem. Women who should know better.”
“Maybe I am nuts. Maybe I should know better.” He slid across the seat and cupped my face. “For better or for worse, I love you to the moon and back, wifey, and one day, I’ll marry you. I can’t afford to give you a priceless ring or shower you with expensive gifts anymore, but I promise to always treat you like the queen you are.”
The sound of Dario retching ruined the moment, but I didn’t care.
“I love you, too, fuckboy.” He showered me with kisses. “Still happy to off your father, by the way. Consider it a token of my love for you.”
The suite was impressive. Even larger than the suite I’d stayed in that fateful night before Christmas. For one thing, it was huge, with four bedrooms, a private heated swimming pool, a garden, and a 24-hour butler, no less.
If only I’d bought my swimming costume. Oh wait . I didn’t have one.
Maybe I could ring down and ask the concierge to instruct a private shopper to pick me one from Harrods? I snorted to myself as I wandered through the different rooms.
There was even a Steinway grand piano, for fuck’s sake. Could any of my guys play the piano?
“We can recreate that scene from Pretty Woman later if you like,” Landon offered when he found me running my fingers over the dust-free surface of the piano.
“Oh yes, the movie that glamorizes sex work. I’ll pass, thanks.”
“Such a spoilsport, but that’s OK. We can fuck in the pool instead.”
“I don’t have a swimsuit.”
“Why would you need one?”
“What if someone overlooks the terrace? Isn’t Buckingham Palace nearby? I don’t what the Royals catching a glimpse of my ass!”
Landon burst out laughing. “Sweetheart, the palace isn’t that close. Unless they have a telescope, your modesty is safe. But if you don’t feel comfortable taking a dip in the pool without a swimsuit, we can go shopping.”
I sighed. I was all shopped out lately. Eden had a genuine shopping addiction. She’d dragged me around all the best stores in Dublin.
“I’d rather get my hair cut,” I said, tugging on the strands around my ears. Eden had offered to cut it, but I hadn’t trusted her skills.
“Let me give Sergei a call. He does my mom’s hair when she’s down in London. I bet he’d fit you in.”
Two hours later, I sat staring at a brand-new me in the mirror of a very exclusive hair salon.
“Beautiful,” Sergei said smugly as he ran some product through my hair. The poor man had nearly had an aneurysm when Landon revealed I’d cut my hair with nail scissors. I didn’t think I’d done that bad a job, but apparently, Sergei disagreed.
He ranted away for a good fifteen minutes while a young woman with silky smooth bangs and perfect teeth washed and conditioned my hair. Then he set to repairing the damage with a look of grim determination.
“Your mother is in town, yes?”
Landon looked up in surprise. “Is she?”
“She booked in tomorrow for a cut and color. Isla, too.”
“Oh yes, I’d forgotten!” Landon laughed with a breezy smile, but it was obvious he’d had no clue. I hated he’d fallen out with his family because of me. His father could go take a running jump off Tower Bridge, but his mom was lovely.
Landon covered the cost of my haircut, and we left. He steered me down a side street and across a small square lined with trees coated in frost. Everywhere sparkled in the cold winter sun.
A dog walker passed us tugging along a small terrier with a tartan collar. I stayed vigilant, always conscious of the fact Torrance could pop out of a bush with a gun in hand. Landon, meanwhile, seemed distracted and distant.
“Everything OK?” I asked eventually, pulling him to a stop in front of a bench. “You’ve barely said a word since we left the salon.”
Difficult emotional conversations were not my strong point, but if Landon needed a shoulder to cry on about his dysfunctional family, I was willing to try.
“No, not really,” he admitted. Landon was a consummate joker who rarely took life seriously. Seeing him so low made me want to wrap him in a hug, which was unlike me, as I was not a hugger. Eden did hugs. Awkward fist bumps, followed by strangled coughs and swift exits were more my speed.
He opened his mouth to say something, but then his phone rang. From the look of surprise on his face, whoever the caller was, it wasn’t someone he expected to hear from.
“Mom?”