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Perhaps there’s another way.
With newfound gusto or maybe just feeling high from all the sugar in the iced tea, I rise to my feet and stalk towards the house. I bump into Orna as I step into the corridor.
“You okay?” she says with a frown.
“I want to see him. Lorcan. Where is he?”
She glances down the hall to check we’re alone then pulls me into the shadow of an alcove. “What are you planning, Poppy?” she asks wearily. “Look, what happened on the patio earlier. That wasn’t Lorcan getting soft, that was Lorcan distracted. Please don’t put yourself in reach of his wrath.”
I gently slide my arm out of her grip and flash her a reassuring smile. “I don’t want to rock the boat, Orna. I promise. I just want to speak to him.”
She runs one last look over my face and lets out a dramatic sigh. “Your funeral. I’ll show you to his study.”
I’m led through the entrance hall and up a snaking twin staircase, then down corridor after corridor, until we come to a stop outside a solid oak door.
She stops, mid-knock, to give me one last chance. “You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Rap, tap, tap, then she scurries down the hallway, mouthing good luck over her shoulder.
“Enter,” comes a grunt from the other side.
My palm is sweaty as I twist the doorknob and creak open the door. Lorcan is sitting behind a desk, a stack of papers in front of him. His eyebrows shoot up when he sees me.
“What’s wrong?” he glowers.
“Nothing. May I come in?”
His eyes narrow but he nods, inviting me into the room. Feeling his burning stare following me, I run a finger over the wood. “This desk…” I murmur. I recognize it from theChristie’sarchives magazine I used to study in the school library.
“Roosevelt’s.”
I can’t help but mutter “wow,” as I feel all the history it holds under my fingertips.
“What is it, Miss Murphy?”
There’s more than the grand desk separating us. It’s the ice-cold darkness in his eyes; the way he sits deathly still in his chair, fingertips clasped together in a prism. Pinning me with a glare that says he wishes I wasn’t here.
I wish I weren’t here either.
But I straighten up and match his gaze. “It’sValentina.And I have something to ask you.”
“No.”
“You don’t even know what it is yet!”
Steam hisses from his nostrils. “Fine. What?”
“I want to help you.”
“And how, in the ever-loving fuck, can you help me, Miss Murphy?” he says, with something resembling a smirk.
“With your accounts. I’ll get them straight for you.”
He drags a hand through his hair, not caring when black curls fall in front of his forehead, then twists in his chair to stare out of the window. “Then I’ll change my question. Why, in the ever-loving fuck, would you want to help me?”
“Because I’m bored.”And I might have a better chance of escaping from your office.“I need something to stimulate my brain.”
