Page 73 of The Grosvenor's Ghost
Frown. “How’d you know?”
He smiles. “Because they’re your favourite.”
I pull my arm out of his grip and cross my arms. “The way you’re smiling makes me think it was you—was it?”
He rolls his eyes to the high heavens. “Get a grip.”
“Well, what the fuck do we do then? We both have stalkers.”
Tilts his head, crooked smile. “Bit romantic.”
I grit my teeth, shove his chest. “You were the one just having a go at me for not taking this seriously!” And then my voice lowers. “Should I? Be taking this seriously, I mean? Should I be scared?”
Arthur reaches for me, I let him hold my shoulders and rest his head against mine.
“No. It’s fine. I’ll take care of it.”
“And how are you going to do that?”
“I don’t know but I will. I won’t let anything happen to us—my family won’t let anything happen to you.”
I swallow, glance down at my feet. “Do you promise?”
“When have I not?”
“Was that a rhetorical question? Because I can think of at least a hundred times you haven’t.”
“You’re going to hold that against me forever, aren't you?”
“You traumatised me—really fucked me up,” I mutter for the first time ever, I think.
“You’ve been fucking me up since I was five. I’d say we’re even now.”
“That’s not a fair comparison.”
He pulls back a bit, looks me dead in the eye. “The way you loved me makes it a pretty fair one in my books.”
I watch as he blinks, his eyelashes brushing the apple of his cheeks for the shortest second. It’s so messed up, isn’t it? The way his lips are tattooed with mine. The way I want him to kiss me even though I told him off for doing so.
He smiles like he knows and I suppose he does. I don’t know myself very well. I don’t think anyone does—we don’t know ourselves the way the people who love us know. The way they see us will never match up to the way we see ourselves. He knows me the same way writers know the alphabet.
“Do you want me to kiss you?” He asks.
“If I say yes does that make me a bad person?”
He shrugs carelessly. “Maybe but I’m not one to judge, am I?”
“Okay, then.” I nod. “Go on.”
So, he does. He kisses me while we stand in my boyfriend's kitchen. And maybe you think I’m silly and stupid and a total prick because what has Digby ever done to me? But I’m not, really. I just love him more than I’ll ever love anything or anyone else.
Chapter Eighteen
Prince Arthur
Debutante ball(shit)s are the most boring, elitist, twattiest events in the entire social calendar. None of my friends are here because they don’t actually come under the category for being a debutant. It really is only royalty and people who have titles.
Which means Phoebe is here.
