Page 170 of The Grosvenor's Ghost
We stand in front of each other for a good few seconds before he relents and knocks on one of the office doors.
“Come in,” a voice says from behind the door.
Albie looks at me, nods his head towards the door.
“Thank you,” I smile at Albie as he rolls his eyes and walks off, into the room next door.
I go inside and it looks just as you'd expect. Dark walls, dark wood flooring, bookshelves lining the walls holding useless books and vintage nick-knacks. Art lines the other side, a glass coffee table placed meticulously in front of a dark leather couch.But in the middle is a huge, dark mahogany desk, which Ronan Stratton sits behind.
He doesn’t look straight up at me, too busy scrolling on his phone to notice it’s me and not someone who actually works here.
“George, you better not have sent another cunting mime into my office—” he looks up. “Oh.”
“What’s going on with Freddy and Lenny?”
He frowns, those thick dark eyebrows of his caving in. “What are you doing here?”
“I thought you knew better than to answer a question with a question.”
He looks confused, a little smile pulling on the corners of his mouth. “What do you want?”
I walk over to his desk, a bit angry. “Are you fucking deaf? I want to know what is going on with my sister.”
He pulls back. “How would I know? She fucked off to America, remember?”
“No,” I shake my head. “She didn’t ‘fuck off’ to America, he forced her to go.”
“No he didn’t,” he shakes his head adamantly but there’s something about it. The way a man so sure of himself looks so unsure. Maybe it’s me, turning up here unannounced or maybe it’s the mention of my sister, but he looks thrown off.
I’m not sure why I came here—to him—for answers. He was the first person my mind went to when Freddy ended the call. Ronan knows everything about everyone so why wouldn’t he know anything about my sister? It’s obvious he loves her—I mean, Jesus, you haven’t seen the way he looks when he talks about her but I have—so why is he so shocked that I’m here.
After a minute of us staring each other down—which can I just say makes me incredibly nervous. His eyes are so dark that they kind of draw you in—he leans his elbows on his desk,glances away from and shakes his head. “I don’t know anything, Phoebe. I’m sorry.”
“Yes you do!” I throw my arms out. “Of course you fucking know something!”
“No, I don’t!” He shouts back, shaking his head. “If I knew something, don’t you think I’d tell you?”
“No, actually, I don’t think you’d tell me,” I shrug. “Because whatever is going on with her and Lenny, she clearly doesn’t want me to know but she rang me earlier and I’m worried, Ronan! I am so fucking scared so can you just tell me whatever it is you know.”
He blows out a breath, slaps the top of his desk and leans over. “I don’t know fucking anything now get out!”
I clench my jaw, stare at him. “Tell me.”
“Fuck. Off.”
He’s seething, frowning in a way that doesn’t make him look confused or worried but angry. Annoyed, even. I want to grab his shirt, pull him over the desk, lay him down and torture him until he spills whatever it is that he knows. Because he does know. It’s so fucking clear he does. But what isn’t clear is why he isn’t telling me. Why would he not tell me? She’s my sister. I have a right to know.
Who the fuck is Ronan in comparison to me? An old secondary school flame? He’s fucking nobody and yet he has the nerve to keep secrets about my own sister?
“Get out, Phoebe,” he says calmly even though he’s anything but and that, for some reason, screams something at me; I should leave. I need to leave before he does something.
I point at him. “If anything happens to my sister, the blame will lay right on your doorstep.”
He says nothing and I leave.
Chapter Forty-Two
Prince Arthur
