Chapter 41
“Inside the Asterdam Family,” a Forbes UK profile
Grace
I froze in shock.
“What the hell are you doing in here?” came an angry voice.
Mr. Asterdam stood in the doorway, flanked by three other men, including, once again, Mr. Eddington. I stared at Mr. Asterdam’s furious face, unable to respond. I couldn’t even hear my own thoughts over the pounding of my heart.
Luckily, Ethan was with me, and he thought much faster on his feet.
He turned his back and began hastily fiddling with the zipper of his trousers.
For a moment, I was confused—until through the roar of blood in my head, I realised what Ethan was doing.
Had I not been so terrified of the truth coming out, I might have felt embarrassed, but as it was, I just put on a sheepish expression and played along.
“Fuck,” Ethan swore, breathless. He turned to face the men as soon as his trousers were supposedly zipped again. The two men I didn’t know smirked slyly in my direction, but Mr. Eddington looked suspicious. “We’re so sorry. We didn’t mean to—”
“How did you get in here?” Mr. Asterdam cut him off.
“We were just looking for a quiet place,” Ethan deflected. “Please don’t tell my parents. They’ll hit the roof if they find out. And Grace would lose her job. Please!”
Mr. Asterdam ignored him and stepped into the room. His gaze swept the study, as if he wanted to make sure nothing was out of place. “I’ll ask you again: How did you get in? The door was locked.”
Ethan feigned confusion. If I hadn’t known the truth, I would have believed him. He was a good liar. No wonder I, and the rest of the world, had been taken in by his arsehole shtick for so long. “No, it wasn’t. If it had been, we wouldn’t be in here.”
Mr. Asterdam shot a questioning look at Mr. Eddington, who scrutinised us—he’d watched the door being locked, after all.
But after a few seconds, he shrugged helplessly.
James’s dad turned his attention back to Ethan and me, his lips pressed together.
I dropped my gaze, partly to play up my embarrassment and partly because I was terrified that he’d see the truth in my eyes: that I believed he was the monster who had my sister’s blood on his hands.
And I was fairly certain that the evidence was now on Ethan’s phone.
“I’m calling security,” he announced.
“Claude, please!” Ethan took a step towards him. “This is all just a misunderstanding. Grace and I just wanted to have a little fun. You know how it is.”
Mr. Asterdam didn’t look convinced, but Mr. Eddington laid a hand on his shoulder. “Let the kids go. They were only messing about. It wouldn’t be the first time.” He shot Ethan a pointed look.
Mr. Asterdam didn’t speak for a few seconds, then he nodded. “Fine. I won’t call security, but I want you to get out of my house. Take your things and leave. Understood?”
Ethan nodded. “Understood.”
I muttered something that sounded like an agreement.
We hurried out of Mr. Asterdam’s study. I grabbed my bag from our table and quickly let Kate know we were leaving while Ethan collected our coats from the cloakroom and called Wallace.
The driver must have been waiting nearby, because when we stepped out of the villa not five minutes later, he already had the car pulled up in the drive.
He opened the door for us, and we slid into the back seat of the limousine.
A moment later, the engine roared to life and the car rolled down the gravel drive towards the road.
Neither of us spoke a word, but in the silence of the car, my pulse finally began to calm and my thoughts slowed.
My eyes met Ethan’s, and I burst out laughing.
Not because the situation was funny, but because it was completely absurd.
Those four men, whose combined wealth was about the same as Ireland’s GDP, were probably sitting together right now, talking about how they’d walked in on me giving Ethan a blowjob. Oh my God!
Ethan stared at me as though I’d lost my mind, and perhaps he wasn’t entirely wrong. But after a few seconds, he joined in, both of us laughing as the tension drained away.
“I don’t know whether to be impressed or concerned by how quickly you came up with the trouser idea,” I said, tears of laughter in my eyes.
We had come so perilously close to getting caught that it really wasn’t funny.
If things had gone even slightly differently, we’d be in the custody of Asterdam’s security team right now.
Mrs. Darlington would no doubt have managed to keep Ethan out of trouble, but for me, the situation could have ended pretty badly.
Ethan gave an amused snort. “Both?”
“Let me guess. You’ve been caught doing something like that before?”
“Maybe,” he admitted meekly. I’d never been so grateful for Ethan’s playboy past as I was now. It was the only reason our excuse had sounded plausible. “It was the only thing I could think of in the moment. I’m sorry if it was weird for you.”
I wiped the tears of laughter from my eyes. “Don’t be silly. I don’t care what they think. At least one of them is a serious criminal, and we’ve got the proof. And it’s not like I ever have to see those men again. You do.”
“True. But they wouldn’t bad-mouth me—sad as that is.”
“I love misogyny,” I muttered sarcastically, because of course I was the only one they’d be ripping into.
The maid with no manners or decency, so greedy she’d probably drop to her knees for any random millionaire she came across.
I could only hope the gossip didn’t spread—not far, at least. Explaining to my parents would be a nightmare.
“But on the bright side, we have what we were looking for.”
Ethan pulled out his phone and opened the photos. “This is seriously messed up. I mean, it doesn’t surprise me, but all those transfers . . .” He shook his head. “That’s easily fifty million over four years that Claude’s handed out illegally.”
“So we can get him on more than just murder.” There was something deeply satisfying about the thought.
No matter how long his sentence for Amy’s manslaughter ended up being, it would never be enough.
But this way, he wouldn’t see daylight for a very long time—provided we handled this properly.
“Can Edgar find out where the money went for us?”
“I’m sure he can. I’ll message him first thing tomorrow.”
I put my hand on Ethan’s, feeling tears welling again.
This time, they weren’t tears of laughter.
They were tears of relief. Of gratitude.
Of sheer overwhelm. My only goal in the past few months had been getting justice for Amy.
It was what had kept me going, what had driven me on, giving me the courage to return to The Darlington.
And now we were almost there. Without Ethan’s help, I never would have made it this far.
“Thank you,” I said, my voice unsteady—and I didn’t just mean for promising to contact Edgar, which he seemed to understand.
“Of course.”
I squeezed his hand. My gold rings and the single silver one on his finger gleamed under the car’s interior light.
“None of what you’ve done for me these past months was a given.
You didn’t know Amy. You barely even knew me.
You had no real reason to help me. But you did, again and again.
Without you, I’d probably still be in the dark. I can’t thank you enough.”
My words shifted the atmosphere inside the car, sweeping away the lightness of our laughter and charging the air with a crackling tension that tingled against my skin. Though maybe that was just the way Ethan was looking at me. “I’m just glad I could help you,” he said.
“But why?”
“If you don’t know the answer to that, you really haven’t been paying attention these past few weeks, Dreamgirl.”
I inhaled the electrified air. “Sometimes I’m a bit slow.”
Ethan raised my hand to his lips with a quiet laugh.
He kissed my knuckles gently, one after the other, without taking his eyes off me.
“I’m falling in love with you, Grace. And there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.
Breaking and entering. Theft. Treason. I’d do anything for you.
Anything.” He pressed our linked hands to his chest, right over his heart. I felt it beating in time with mine.
“I’m falling in love with you too,” I confessed.
The smile my words brought to his lips undid me. He unbuckled his seat belt, and I did the same. Our bodies met in the middle of the car, colliding. And so did our mouths. Ethan pulled me onto his lap, and I wrapped my arms around his neck. A deep sense of belonging washed over me.
Things between us might have started out casually, but we had both become caught up in feelings for each other that weren’t supposed to be there, and now we were stuck in them. Together.
I couldn’t imagine anything more perfect.