Page 76 of The Grosvenor's Ghost
“Oh,” she pulls a face, as if to brush it off. “I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah,” she shrugs simply. “I trust that you’ll keep me safe.” She shakes her head. “Anyway, I saw you in there, talking to Astrid.”
“It’s nothing,” I laugh under my breath. “Just our parents—”
“Stop saying that.”
“What?”
She puts her cigarette out on the wall behind us and drops the butt into a planet pot—not too sure how happy my nan will be about that.
“Have you had sex since you’ve been back?” She asks outright, arms crossed over her chest.
“Excuse me?” I pull back a bit offended.
Phoebe rolls her eyes, gives me a dumb look. “Have you been laid since you came back to London?”
“No?” I laugh. “Why would I?”
She throws her hands about airily. “Because you’re single and you’re friends with the most notorious shaggers in the entire city! Trust me, I’ve seen Albie and Connie’s contacts, they’re practically a little black book.”
I can’t stop laughing as she’s going on.
“Honestly, Arthur, you need to get yourself back out there. Go out and bed some little princess, I’m sure Astrid would appreciate it. You’ve had your troubles,” she waves her hand up and down at me. “But haven’t we all? Doesn’t make you any less of a person. But if you don’t want to sleep with someone you know then book yourself a suite at House and I’m sure the twins would be more than happy to help out a fellow sexually frustrated friend—I mean, that is what friends do isn’t it?”
“I’m not sexually frustrated.” My mouth hurts with how hard I’m smiling but she’s dead serious, not even a slight twitch at the corners—nothing. “I’m just not interested, Phoebs.”
“That’s weird. You are a man, afterall.”
I cock my head to the side, grin, stare down at my feet.
“Do you want to kiss me?” She asks then, out of nowhere.
Chapter Nineteen
Lady Phoebe
His head shoots up, eyes wide. “What?”
I shrug. “If you kiss me, I won’t tell.”
“I thought you didn’t like kissing me behind Dicky’s back.”
“Yeah, well,” I swallow. “Digby isn’t here.”
“Do you want to kiss me?”
“I always want to kiss you.”
He doesn’t lean in but I know he wants to so I take the lead. I grab his hand, pull him closer to me and press his lips to mine and for some reason this kiss feels different to all the others. Feels a bit like our first kiss when we were about eleven. We did a lot of stuff before he asked me out. If you asked anyone else, we’d been dating since the start of school but he never actually asked me until I was sixteen. I didn’t know why. Maybe he was scared? Unsure? Didn’t want to drag me into his life?
But I enjoyed it anyway. We were on holiday. The Grosvenor’s and the Cadogan’s. A rare moment during the summer when our parents weren’t busy. We were staying in the most gorgeous villa at Chevalier Blanc in the Maldives. And I think it was probably the happiest two weeks of my life. I don’t remember any other significant holidays apart from this one. Theo was sulking the whole time, though, because Mia wasn’t allowed to come along. But Arthur was ecstatic. We spent the days on boats, watching dolphins and having near death experiences every time Theo and Arthur climbed to the highest rocks and back flipped off. At nighttime, when everyone else was asleep, we snuck off to the pool in his villa which was next door to ours and went swimming. We swindled our ways into theprivate spas and yoga sessions to laugh at our parents and it was truly, wholeheartedly the best time.
But on the last night of our holiday when he knocked on my villa door to go swimming, he seemed nervous.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked, splashing him with water.
