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I replied, telling her I’d be there anytime. I wasn’t a fan of Keira’s parents. I’d grown up watching them take more interest in themselves than Keira. Now, they’d moved to Greece and left her to deal with selling the family home.
My phone buzzed again with another text. I looked down and a shiver ran through me at the sight of Alfie’s name on my screen.
Are you home alone?
A.
I didn’t bother to ask him how he knew I was home. Fucking tracking system.
Yeah, but Keira will be here soon. Natalie and Ryan have a school thing. Why?
A second later, my front door opened. I let out a squeal, dropping my wine glass in surprise. It smashed on the floor, wine spilling across the tile. I heard Alfie’s unmistakeable footsteps as he stalked up the hall, and a moment later there he was, in the doorway to my grandma’s kitchen, in Ray Bans and his trademark three piece suit.
My mouth went dry and my pulse picked up. I was equal parts aroused and angry. I was quickly learning that those two emotions went hand in hand when it came to Alfie Tell.
“You know, it’s polite to wait for an invitation before entering someone’s house. It’s not okay for you to just bust in here whenever you feel like it.”
Alfie gave me a wry smile, putting his Ray Bans away and revealing those steel greys, glinting in the evening light that poured through the window behind me. He tossed his glasses onto the counter and looked around the home into which he’d trespassed.
“I don’t know how people don’t kill each other living in houses this small.”
My attraction soured in my gut. This was the part of Alfie Tell that I hated—the rank superiority complex. This was the part I needed to remember when he sent my libido into overdrive.
“Don’t start on my home, Alfie.” He gave me another wry smile. I scowled, realising I’d just given him another one of my pressure points. Before I could let him analyse me any further, I grabbed a cloth from the sink and knelt to clean up the wine and glass littering the floor.
“Stop that, Lola. You shouldn’t be cleaning up.” He crouched and tried to take the rag from me but I snatched it away.
“Do you want to do it instead? Or should I wait for Ryan to get home so he can play in the broken glass? Who else is going to clean it up?” He stopped short and I almost burst out laughing at him. He thought I had a maid.
I shook my head and finished soaking up the wine. “You could help, you know. This mess is your fault.” He gave me an incredulous look. Mr Billionaire didn’t clean up. But as I moved to pick up one of the large pieces of glass he gripped my wrist, silently moving me out of the way and picking up the shards himself. He placed them in the towel I held and watched as I put the bundle in the sink to deal with later. His brows knitted, as if confused by his own actions.
“Thank you,” I said, flinching when he reached for my hands. He turned them over, inspecting them. Whatever he saw satisfied him because he gave me a short nod and released me. I watched him, confused, as he backed away and cast his gaze around the room again. His eyes travelled over the fridge littered with my family life, at the dishes drying on the draining board. I wondered if he’d ever been in a home that didn’t have a dishwasher.
“Stop it, Alfie.”
His gaze flicked back to me, surprised. “Stop what?”
“Gathering information about me. You’re like AI or something. It’s creepy.”
“I’m just curious about you.” He stepped to the dining table and traced the haphazard lines of crayon and pen that littered its surface. “You let your nephew ruin your table?
“I ruined it first.” I followed his steps to the table and traced the older lines, the ones that had faded and sunken into the wood, a memory frozen in time. How many times had I sat at this table with my mum as she taught me to draw plants and my grandma bustled about in the kitchen? I blew the pain of those memories away and looked up at the man beside me.
“Why not replace it?”
“I’d rather have the memories.” I looked into those eyes.You don’t understand this at all, do you?I found myself feeling inexplicably sorry for Alfie Tell.
“You’re really happy in a place like this?” Just like that, my sympathy soured, but he was looking at me with curiosity, apparently oblivious to the depth of his insult. “You’re an anomaly, O’Connell.”
“I’m not an anomaly, Alfie. You’re just an alien on my planet.”
We gazed at one another for a moment longer, that ever-present tension thrumming between us. My skin seemed to vibrate with it.
“Get changed, I want to take you somewhere.”
I blinked at his sudden subject change. “I have plans with Keira tonight,” I reminded him, but he seemed unfazed, dismissing my plans.
“Cancel them.”