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‘The grapevine’s been chatty lately,’ I said, ignoring his probing as I made to eat my soup.
Hugh was a smarmy git. I’d known both him and Nicole as acquaintances for years, seeing them at parties and events. Occasionally a job would involve the Valettis in one manner or another. Nicole had always been aloof, but pleasant enough. Hugh was the opposite. Forever trying to insert himself where he didn’t belong. As a member of the family who was both older and male, I imagined it stung that his step sister would inherit the business from her father. Hell, I’d half expected that she would have suffered some sort of terrible accident over the years, leaving him to take over. But Tony couldn’t stand his lazy, indulgent, entitled ass any more than I could. There wasn’t a chance in hell that Tony wouldn’t have Hugh strung up by the bollocks if any harm befell his daughter.
‘We’re going out on the boat tomorrow. You should stay and come with us. A pootle around the loch with champagne, how about it?’
I would rather die.
‘Sorry, I’ve got to get back to the city after dinner.’
Hugh smiled, his mouth gaping like a deranged hyena. It was unsettling. ‘Don’t you want to spend some time with my dear sister? You’ve both got a wedding to plan.’
‘There’s plenty of time.’
Nicole and her step-mother ate in silence, barely glancing at myself or the others.
‘How are you?’ I asked, directing my question to Nicole, catching the narrowing of her eyes as she looked up at me.
‘Fine. Thank you.’
We need their connections; I told myself internally as my body screamed at me to get the fuck out of the situation.
‘Shall we have a dram after dinner, before I head back?’
Her eyes flicked past me to her bodyguard, who loitered at the edge of the room behind Hugh, before she pulled them back to me.
‘Sure. Sounds good.’ It sounded like I’d asked her to murder a puppy, not have a drink.
With a sigh, I continued to eat. The sooner the dinner was over, the better.
Nicole leant against the balcony barrier as the night sky dipped to an inky black, barely a light visible in the remote surroundings.
‘That was painful,’ I said, swigging my aged whisky as I sat on an ornate bench seat which was far prettier than it was comfortable.
‘It’s not normally so strained.’
‘So it’s just for me, then? Wonderful.’
A small smile turned the corner of her mouth as she watched me. ‘My father keeps trying to get me to call off the wedding.’
‘You really know how to inflate a guy’s ego.’
She laughed, and I smiled. Nicole really was a beautiful woman. All svelte lines and monied grace. But when she let go and laughed it really made her shine. It still did nothing for me in the pants department, though.
‘Do you need your ego inflated? You McGowan men never seemed to struggle in that area.’
‘All men need our egos to be stroked occasionally.’
‘Ain’t that the truth,’ she said, finally relaxing enough to come sit beside me, still leaving a healthy amount of bench between us.
The gentle slosh of the loch joined the sounds of the night’s creatures as we sat sipping our drinks, the cool of the evening settling a moist chill over me.
‘We don’t have to do this,’ I said, swirling the amber liquid that clung to the remnants of ice that littered the bottom of my glass.
‘You want to expand your interests. You need me for that. My name.’
‘I do. But why did you agree? You don’t need me.’
‘I’m almost thirty and the pressure to settle and create heirs for my father is crushing. The man I’m seeing isn’t an option. I need a man who’s acceptable to marry, and who isn’t repulsive. That’s you.’
