Chapter 28 Andrea
Andrea
The lock clunked, and Liam pushed the heavy door open and stepped aside for me to enter. Our luggage was already waiting in the entryway.
“Wow, this is about four times the size of my entire flat,” I said.
“Maybe five,” said Liam. “Depends on whether you count the balcony.” He wandered in and picked up a wrap from the selection of food on the coffee table. “Want one?”
“I’m good, thank you.”
Behind us, the door clicked shut, and I tried to ignore the way my heart jumped. We were alone together in the most beautiful hotel room I’d ever seen. The walls were painted cream and decorated with white wood paneling. Wooden floors gleamed under the afternoon light.
“Oh,” I said, “French doors.” The views stretched for miles, the sun hovering over the trees in the distance.
“They just call them doors here,” said Liam, chuckling at his own joke.
I rolled my eyes and stepped into the living room—the salon. The ceiling rose high above, with ornate moldings curling at the corners like icing. And then beyond it, the bedroom, an orange-and-peach hand-tied bouquet lying on the perfectly turned-down bed.
I could sense Liam standing silently behind me, taking it in—the bed, the en suite, the intentional romance of the room—and the awareness slid slowly down my back like heat.
“Do you mind if I just use the bathroom, and then I’ll get out of your hair?” he said after a moment.
“Oh, of course.” I perched on one of the emerald-green armchairs as my phone buzzed again from my bag. Kelly.
Kelly: I’m all right. Thanks for checking, though.
Me: What are you going to do?
Kelly: Don’t know, I already missed a couple of car payments, so I’ll have to find something fast. Mum says I can’t move back. Dave’s nephew’s in my room now.
Me: That doesn’t sound all right, Kel.
Kelly: Jason said I could move back in to his if I have to.
Me: You can’t stay with Jason! He tracked your location, remember??
Kelly: He says he’s changed.
Me: Kelly … he smashed your phone.
Kelly: Only because I didn’t answer it. Anyway, I won’t have much choice if I don’t make the cut.
Me: Okay, we’ll figure something out together, hon. Don’t panic.
A cold chill ran over me and dropped straight into my gut. This was Liam’s fault. Nobody else’s, his.
And here I was, playing girlfriend in a fairy tale chateau like a Disney princess. I looked around the room. All this beauty—the painted walls, the herringbone floors, the white linen—felt like scenery painted carefully over something rotting.
Was this how a man like Liam lived with himself? He surrounded himself with money and beauty so he didn’t have to think about it?
Liam walked back in, drying his hands with a white towel. “Feels like it’s got some history. Not just another expensive hotel.”
I turned to him. “I thought this would be standard issue for you. Didn’t you holiday in places like this as a child?”
“Not quite.”
“No?”
“We didn’t have that much money growing up. We didn’t go without, but—” He laughed lightly. “My mum would have thought she was in heaven here.”
Hard to believe from a man whose father was a billionaire real estate mogul. Liam’s idea of not having much money probably meant the swimming pool didn’t have a heater.
I walked into the bedroom. Not a wall-mounted hair dryer in sight. There was a delicacy, a fragility to the decor, as if the room might shatter if you breathed too loudly.
My stomach churned. Monish might have to pull his kids out of school, and Kelly was seriously considering moving back in with her toxic ex. It was grotesque. And now, I was part of it too. Ignoring what was really happening because, on some level, I wanted it.
I wanted him.
“So … you’ll take the bedroom?” He hadn’t left the salon, like he sensed he didn’t have an invitation to my quarters.
Well, good. As far as I was concerned, he didn’t.
“That’s what was agreed.” I walked over to the second balcony and pushed open a door, looking for a distraction. The late afternoon air was warm, scented with flowers. I could hear a fountain somewhere in the gardens below.
“Okay then,” he said. “I’ll sort something out with the rollaway when it shows up.”
Back in the salon, Liam flicked through a folder on the desk—Things to do in Chantilly.
“Liam,” I said. “I don’t get it, how you ended up at that posh school on your CV … Westchester, was it—?”
“Winchester.”
“Right. Winchester—if your parents didn’t have any money.” I frowned. “What’s with the I grew up poor story? I know you didn’t crawl out of the slums of Hackney.”
Did he really think I’d buy it?
“Oh. Right.” He sat down on one of the velvet armchairs. “You’re correct. I most certainly did not crawl out of the slums.” He looked up at me from below a crumpled brow.
No, I wasn’t falling for this. Liam had been raised with a silver spoon in his mouth, and now he was trying for a rebrand, as if it might make up for walking all over people. People like my friends.
“Well? This doesn’t really add up, does it?” I asked. “And you didn’t mention anything about your impoverished childhood on your dating CV, either. You went to Oxford, Liam. Oxford. I can hardly think of anything more privileged.”
He leaned back in the chair and looked out the window.
It was quiet in the room, the light making everything look like it had been put through a filter.
“It wasn’t impoverished, as such but—my parents split when Ben and I were young.
My mum moved back to the UK, and my father stayed in the States.
He sent her money, but basically, she had to do it on her own. And when I got to eleven—”
“What?”
“Well, my father said if she didn’t send me off to the boarding school he’d chosen—Winchester—he’d stop paying child support—cut it all off. Mum didn’t agree, but he wanted Ben and me to get a decent education. Said he wanted to ‘make a man of me.’” His fingers made small air quotes.
“Oh right. And when’s that meant to kick in?”
As soon as I’d said it, I wished I could claw the words back. They hung there in the air like a tiny verbal pinprick. Spite.
Liam glanced over at me, then looked down. I saw his chest rise and fall slightly, then he put his hands on his knees and braced his arms, before standing stiffly.
“I’ll leave you to it, Andrea. Let me know when you’re done. We leave at ten to seven.” He walked toward the door.
I felt like I’d been hit in the stomach.
Why had I said that?
It was hard to imagine anything could hurt Liam Roth, but those stupid, throwaway words had. I was no better than that shop assistant, Sylvia. Mean for the sake of being mean.
“Liam …”
He turned back toward me, waiting, but I didn’t know what I wanted to say.
His face was neutral again. “I’ll come up and change when you’re done. Text if you need anything.”
As soon as he was gone, I flung myself onto the bed, staring at the ceiling. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. I should never have agreed to this, I’d had my out with the room mix-up, but I hadn’t taken it because I’d wanted something I knew I couldn’t have.
I pressed my face into the pillow and wished I could undo the last ten minutes.
I’d have been better off taking the risk of redundancy like everyone else.
What fun would it be working there without my friends, anyway?
Taking a payout to pretend to be the girlfriend of a man I knew was ruthless, so he could trick a minister into giving him whatever special deal he was after—what did that make me?
But it was more than that, and I wished I could ignore it.
His softness when he spoke of his mother, the way he’d changed the subject when Bonnie had cast her barb about the hotel, and how he’d smoothly hidden her etiquette guide from Dex.
Picking up on my discomfort at the clothing store.
Politely pretending he hadn’t been attacked by a box of incontinence pads and penis gel sachets.
And the scars all over his body that we both knew I’d seen, but that neither of us had mentioned.
My stomach twisted.
Why did this feel so complicated? Liam was from another world, one I could never fit into, that much was obvious.
A world where people flew in private jets and stayed in French castles and never had to google which knife to use.
Where you were born belonging, not auditioning. I could fake it for a night, maybe two.
But he’d always know.
And so would I.
There was a knock on the door, sharp and hard.
Was it Liam? Relief flooded through me. I wanted to run to him and throw my arms around him, tell him I didn’t mean it and I was sorry, that I knew he was kind and sweet and that there must be some sort of misunderstanding, and could he just please, please not fire my friends?
But that was nonsense, I needed to get a grip. This wasn’t some stupid fairy tale. Liam was all about the numbers. That wasn’t going to change.
I froze and listened. Another rap on the door, a brisk sort of irritation under the efficiency.
“Andrea? May I come in?”
Great. Bonnie.
I leaped off the bed and dashed to a mirror. Only a few streaks of mascara—I wiped them away with a finger. She’d never know I’d just been crying into a five-star pillow.
“Of course,” I called, my voice bright and fake.
The door opened, and she stepped in, tablet in hand. Her gaze dragged over the room in a slow sweep—the flowers, the balcony, the bed. There was a half-second pause before she smiled again.
“Well,” she said. “They’ve certainly put you somewhere lovely.”
And clearly somewhere above my pay grade, as far as she was concerned.
“Yes, thank you,” I said. “It’s beautiful.”
Why did I thank her? This was all Liam. His money, his choice. His decision to have me there. Was that what was getting under her skin?
Bonnie crossed to the desk and set her tablet down beside my etiquette folder, her smile tightening another notch.