Page 12 of The Grosvenor's Ghost
Athena rolls her eyes flippantly. “Apparently they all think they can buy time. But anyways,” she waves her hand around. “How are you? Seen Arthur yet?”
“No.”
She squints her eyes at me. “You’re avoiding him.”
“It’s been a day.”
“A lot of conversation could’ve happened between then and now.”
“I have a boyfriend.”
“One you hate.”
“How’s your relationship?” I smile.
She pouts, picks up a breadstick and waves it at me.
“Great.”
“Barbados?”
“Oh for goodness sake, Phoebe!” She throws the breadstick down. “Fine—fucking fine!” She huffs. “Since you’re begging to know, it was honestly, quite shit considering we spent the entire week doing fuck all on their big, stupid, super yacht.”
“How comes?”
She does a quick glance round—Digby and George are at the bar now having a drink—and then waves her blush pink manicured fingers at me to come closer.
“Get this right,” she starts. “So it’s like thirty degrees, the baby’s been screaming all fucking morning, no one’s slept but then George and Albie decide to drag us all out for a lunch with some guy they know. I’m so hot, literally fanning myself so hard with the menu that I’m worried it’s going to catch fire. I start feeling a bit sick. I get up to leave but then my legs just totally give out on me, I fall arse over tit in front of everyone and the next thing I know, I’ve woken up on the yacht with Albie handing me a full fat coke?!” And then she looks at me with big, wide eyes. “I mean, who’s still drinking full fat coke!”
I frown, deeply.
“I didn’t know Lottie went with you.”
“Oh, yeah—me, twins, Connie, Lottie, Charlie and baby.”
“You took the baby on holiday?”
Athena rolls her eyes airily. “We didn’t ‘take her’, Phoebe, Jesus. She tagged along with Lottie. She loved it.”
Squint a bit. “I doubt she did.”
Athena pulls a face, stares at me dumbly. “And how would you know?”
My smile slips and splats onto the floor, awareness dawns and she opens her mouth, reaches her hand over the table with a wince.
“I’m sorry—I didn’t mean…”
“It’s okay,” I compose myself with a small smile. “Oh—look, here they are!”
Digby takes the seat next to me, leans over and presses a small kiss to my cheek that actually feels more like a right hook. George slides into the booth next to Athena. Connie strolls in a minute later, takes a seat on my other side, looks a bit like he was in a rush—you know, hair messed up, cheeks red.
“Sorry, did this dinner with your dearest friends disturb your more pressing matters?” I ask him.
“What?” He swallows, looks around. “No—no. I’m here.”
I take a deep breath, look off to the side and take a sip from the champagne Digby ordered me.
Spencer’s next, sits down on the other side and I wonder for a quick second if they’re—surely not. I mean, that definitely stopped in school, didn’t it? What about Primrose?
