“Ladies, ladies,” I said, throwing in a carefree laugh. “That’s nothing.”
“Nothing?” Bridget asked incredulously. “Delaney, you’ve been evicted!”
“Delaney’s been evicted?” Candace shrieked, finally joining the call.
I leaned against a massive tapestry woven with fine threads of gold and pinched the bridge of my nose. Great. Just great. Should I just get a billboard to announce to the world how poor I am? Maybe the lady who did my nails in town hadn’t heard yet.
“I hook up with one footballer and I miss everything,” Candace added.
I laughed along with Aubrey and Bridget as I wandered into a library with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves stuffed with leatherbound volumes, dark mahogany ladders to reach the highest ones beneath a stained-glass ceiling, and big, comfy chairs positioned in front of a stone fireplace.
“First of all, Candace,” I said, running my finger along a row of books, “let’s not pretend you didn’t hook up with another footballer just this Tuesday. Second—”
“Hey, he played polo,” Candace interjected grumpily.
“I thought the polo guy was Wednesday?” Aubrey asked as I left the library.
“No, no,” Bridget answered. “Wednesday was the track and field guy.”
Candace’s Portuguese accent got thicker the angrier she got; it got thicker just now.
“You are all… all… argh, you’re all idiotas!”
I laughed as I rounded the corner to find myself at a pair of glass doors leading into an expansive modern gym in what looked to be an old ballroom, given the gold-encrusted chandeliers, tall windows, and ornately carved moulding around the fresco-painted ceiling. As my friends teased each other back and forth, I glanced from equipment to equipment, all top of the line, but didn’t find Ronan anywhere. Not surprising, I thought. Treadmills and vodka martinis didn’t exactly go together.
As I continued my search, I was relieved that the discussion had shifted from my basic shelter needs, only for Bridget to have to go and ruin everything by being a good friend.
“Wait, so Delaney, if you’re not at home…where exactly are you?”
At the top of the next flight of stairs, I stopped outside an office that looked untouched, its antique desk, green lamp, and demure bookshelves of reference books looking more like a set for a movie than an actual office. I ducked my head in but moved on when I found it empty as well.
“Delaney?” Bridget prodded. “Hello?”
“Sorry, sorry,” I mumbled and then lied, “I’m looking for my bra.”
The truth was I didn’t want them to know that I was here looking for help, that I was here because it felt like my only option. It was easier to pretend that it was just a casual hook up.
“You met someone?” Aubrey asked, sounding wary.
I supposed that doubtfulness was well-earned. I tended to frighten or irritate or offend men away (far, far away) long before we got anywhere close to calling a cab at the end of the night. I was “abrasive”, “rude”, “arrogant”.
I was myself, as far as I was concerned. And if someone didn’t like it, they could walk on along. And most did. Most did quickly, and without looking back.
“I did meet someone,” I said just a little defensively. “And we had wall-shaking sex all night long, if you must know.”
The image of me passed out in the most comfortable bed I’d ever been in with my mouth wide open and drool spilling onto the silk pillowcase came to mind as I meandered into a small room with a large skylight and a massage table that smelled like essential oils. Yes, of course Ronan required at-home massages for his arduous schedule of leeching off the poor and irritating me.
“Who? Who did you meet?” Candace asked. “Is he cute? Does he play a sport?”
I shrugged as I descended a narrow staircase, which must have been intended for the help since it led into a Cheesecake Factory-sized kitchen. I snagged a cookie from a platter on my way past the professional-grade ovens.
Crumbs dusted the front of my silk pyjamas as I chewed and said, “I’d say he scored fucking plenty last night.”
Aubrey groaned.
“You didn’t say who he is,” Bridget said.
I could practically hear her hacking into some police database, seconds away from asking me the last four digits of his social security number.
“And you didn’t say if he’s cute,” Candace jumped in to add. “Blue eyes? Brown? Tall? Muscular? Is his jawline so sharp it could cut you?”
I rolled my eyes. How was I supposed to tell her that, like everything else about him, Ronan was irritatingly handsome? He was the kind of handsome that got under your skin. He was like an itch you knew you shouldn’t scratch because it would only make it worse. Those sharp blue eyes made him look like a cunning con man, the shades of purple beneath his lower eyelashes like a tortured poet, his sloppy, loose, carefree lopsided grin like a pothead after a real nice toke. He was a mystery—a mystery I didn’t want to unravel. Or rather, a mystery I didn’t want to want to unravel.
“Delaney Rose Evans, you tell me his name right now or I’ll activate the GPS on your phone I installed when you were arguing with the upstairs neighbours,” Bridget threatened.
And I believed her.
“I don’t know,” I said, lazily waving my arm as I walked around the windows facing the expansive lawn in the back of the mansion. “Ronan O-Something.”
Bridget choked on what I guessed was probably her third coffee of the morning.
“Ronan O’Hara?” she asked, her voice strained. “Please tell me you’re not talking about Ronan O’Hara from The White Room.”
“Who’s Ronan O’Hara?” Aubrey butted in, clearly confused. “Wait, wait, I don’t know who he is.”
“You clearly don’t read gossip magazines,” Candace said. “Or else you would certainly know who Ronan O’Hara is.”
“With all the work at The Jar, I barely have time to read Push or Pull signs on doors,” Aubrey replied. “Someone please tell me who Ronan O’Hara is!”
I was slightly distracted from the conversation as I squinted toward a pool at the far end of the mansion. My steps quickened along the long sunny corridor. I only sort of listened as Bridget explained that Ronan was the sole heir of his father’s multi-billion-dollar corporation, that he had a reputation for squandering away his wealth on drugs and drinks and double-Ds, that he was the CEO of his father’s company in name alone because he was so irresponsible; basically that he was the goddamn iceberg that would sink the Titanic. Which I pretty much knew.
Plus, I was distracted by something else at the moment.
“Delaney, he’s using you,” Bridget warned. “That’s what he does. He just wants a little bit of fun out of you.”
“Who says I want anything else but a little fun out of him?” I said, angrily yanking open the glass door to a large outdoor patio and just beyond it, a luxurious pool. “Look, I’ve got to go, okay? It’s way past fuck o’clock.”
I hung up, interrupting another groan from Aubrey, and stalked with clenched fists to the edge of the pool. The sunlight stung my eyes as I glared down at the clear aquamarine water and the piece of shit floating atop it.