Chapter 24 Andrea #2
I slid my case across the floor and looked around.
Every surface was patterned. The blue-and-white walls reminded me of old-fashioned china teacups, and the navy carpet was patterned with geometric flowers in turquoise, burgundy, and cream.
Even the coffee table had some kind of fancy green-and-gold design.
Not exactly understated billionaire chic. I’d never seen anywhere so colorful.
I stood there a moment longer than necessary, listening for sounds of him through the walls. He was probably showering already, hot water running over his skin, his hair dark and wet, the muscles of his back tightening under—
No. Absolutely not going down that road.
I took some photos of the room to send to my sister, then flicked through the menu for room service. Just an hour, and then we’d be on display again.
Except this time, it was only him and me—nobody policing my words, taking in my clothing, noting how I behaved.
The memory of his hands on me last week arrived without warning, and I set the menu down a little too quickly. Maybe I should have a shower too. A cold one.
If I was honest, I was looking forward to spending this time with Liam, which felt like the sort of mistake a sensible person would stop making by now.
Unfortunately, I had never been especially sensible where he was concerned.
*
The Union building was just off the busy Cornmarket Street shopping area, and the golden stone buildings towered above us on either side of the street, gift shops and pubs and banks jostling against each other on the ground floor. It had stopped raining, and the sun was making the pavement steam.
“Where is it?” I asked. I’d expected something obvious and imposing for somewhere prime ministers apparently trained, but I still couldn’t see it.
“Here.” There was a round blue plaque about ten feet up on the yellow stone wall that edged a skinny alleyway.
Liam reached out behind him like he was about to take my hand, then caught my eye and stopped.
For a second, his fingers hovered between us.
I didn’t expect it, didn’t react in time, and he pulled his hand back, the moment gone.
But of course, there was no audience, so no reason to pretend.
Still, something inside me dipped slightly, like missing a step I hadn’t seen. Ridiculous. And very inconvenient.
“This way,” he said instead.
The red brick alley couldn’t have been more than five feet wide and smelled faintly of wee. A couple of old bikes leaned against the wall. It was distinctly unimpressive.
“Are you sure this is the right place?” I whispered.
He laughed. “The students usually enter on the other side, but yes, this is it. It’s the more discreet entry for VIPs. I’m a member, Andrea. I’ve been here before.”
Right, silly me.
He pushed open a plain dark door at the end of the passage and held it for me. Inside, a narrow corridor ran ahead with framed black-and-white photographs of alumni along the walls. The brown-and-white tiled floor was worn smooth in the middle from decades of people walking the same path.
“Mr. Roth.” A young woman with a clipboard held out a hand. “We’re ready for you. The minister’s just arrived.”
Liam nodded. “Thank you. And this is my partner, Andrea Jones.”
We shook and smiled, but the word landed somewhere in my stomach.
His partner. Still not real, but an upgrade from pretend girlfriend, anyway. Did that mean something? No, of course it didn’t, that way madness lies.
The woman led us along the corridor and through another door into a small room covered in wood paneling. Old-looking portraits in dark frames filled most of the space. Hugo waited there in a gray suit, looking much more formal and reserved than he had the other night.
I smoothed the fabric of my chocolate-brown cocktail dress.
Was I overdone? It was impossible to know what to wear to something like this.
I should have checked with Bonnie, but I didn’t want her to know I was out of my depth.
Despite what Ben had said at dinner, we would most definitely not end up as friends.
Bonnie clearly despised me, which was weird.
What had I actually done wrong in her eyes?
Liam looked completely unbothered. He wore a midnight-blue suit with an open-neck white shirt, the jacket cut close through the shoulders and waist. His black shoes were polished but lived in enough that it was clear he didn’t dig them out for special occasions, like mine.
“Liam.” Hugo shook his hand. Then to me, with a brief, polite smile, he said, “Andrea. Thank you for coming.”
“Of course,” I said.
“One or two housekeeping things,” he added, turning back to Liam. “I’ll speak first. You’re ten minutes after me. Questions will be chaired, so nothing unpredictable.”
Liam nodded. “Understood.”
A knock came on the door, and the woman with the clipboard stepped in.
“They’re ready for you.”
We followed her through the building and out into a square garden at the back. There was a lawn, a few trees, benches along the walls, and another brick building opposite with tall windows and a set of double doors.
Inside, the high chamber was already mostly full.
The walls were painted a deep red, the seating set in tight, rising rows around the central floor.
Dark wood ran along the benches and railings.
It really did look like the Houses of Parliament that I’d seen on the TV—just a slightly smaller version.
There couldn’t have been more than a hundred people inside—older, mostly, the kind who looked like they sat on committees and made important decisions. A handful of younger faces were scattered between them, with notebooks open on their laps.
People turned as Hugo entered, and a few began to clap as he moved down toward the front, Liam following.
He paused to glance back and make sure I was behind him, but a steward touched my arm lightly and pointed me toward a seat a few rows up, just off the aisle.
Close enough to see Liam without leaning forward, at least. I smiled awkwardly and watched Liam peel off to the front.
Hugo reached the central table and set his folder down. The room settled almost immediately, and he began to speak. Something about pressure on the NHS and long-term planning.
Liam sat there waiting, his expression hard to read. I’d have been sick by now with the pressure of all this prestige and expectation, but he didn’t look nervous at all. He looked completely at home—easily the most handsome man in the room.
How the hell was I here with him? This was his world. Oxford. The sort of place built for people like him, whatever anyone liked to pretend.
I noticed the room begin to clap again and realized Hugo was done. He turned slightly in his chair, gesturing to Liam.
“And now,” he said, “Mr. Roth.”
Liam stood, keeping his eyes down. He had a faint smile on his face like he was looking forward to delivering whatever it was he wanted to say. He rested one hand lightly on the table and waited for the room to grow quiet.
“Thank you, Mr. Stewart,” he said. “And thank you for letting someone from the private sector into the building without a full background check.”
A small ripple of laughter moved through the room. His voice sounded different, echoing around the chamber—confident and deep, as if everything he said made sense and he was just telling people what they already knew.
God, he looked like a movie star. He sounded like one, too.
And I’d actually slept with him.
“I know there’s a simple version of this conversation,” he said. “Public good on one side. Private capital on the other. Opponents by definition.”
His voice was calm and clear, nothing like the man who’d been kneeling on the carpet with me last week, making kissing sounds at my cat.
“I don’t think that version helps patients get treated any faster,” he said.
A few people nodded, and someone near the aisle scribbled something down.
“The question isn’t who owns what,” he continued. “It’s whether the people working inside the system feel secure enough to do their jobs properly. Because every reform I’ve seen fail had the same problem in the end. Not funding. Not politics.”
He paused.
“Trust.”
The word sat in the room for a moment. No one moved.
“If we want the NHS to last another decade, we have to build something that people believe won’t vanish underneath them the next time the numbers change.”
My chest tightened a little. He sounded like he meant it, like he actually cared.
He glanced up briefly, and his eyes landed on mine.
For a second, the room fell away—it was just him, and the quiet certainty in his voice.
Something warm spread through my chest like liquid.
Was it pride? That was a problem—I wasn’t supposed to feel anything like that about Liam Roth.
He wasn’t mine, we had no claim on each other—not the sort of claim that pride implied.
But judging by the way my heart was beating, that particular plan was already failing.
“Trust is the only kind of investment that holds,” he said. “And it’s the only one worth making.”
For a second, nobody did anything, then the applause started. People leaned forward, and a few journalists stepped up to take photos.
Liam nodded and sat down again, his eyes on his papers.