Page 8 of Between Here and the Horizon
“Looks that way,” I agreed. I wasn’t too sure if I meant it, though. Part of me felt missing, like I’d carved out a chunk of my heart and forgotten to bring it with me on the flight from California.
“Ronan and the children are already up at the house. If you like, we can drive around the island and I can point out where the amenities are before we head back there. You won’t be expected to start work until tomorrow, so today’s all yours. You can sleep if you’re jetlagged, or you could go for a wander, have an explore or whatever.” It sounded like the idea of exploring the island bored the back teeth off him.
I opted for a quick tour and then back to the house. Sleep wasn’t on the cards after dozing all the way from the airport in the back of Carrick’s taxi, but the effort of being on the road for so long had wiped me out. Lying on my bed, reading and relaxing in the quiet, sounded perfect right now.
Hilary showed me where the local grocery store was, the post office, the bank. He drove me from what he called the Church Quarter all the way across the other end of the island—a grand total of twenty minutes in the car—to a town called Richmond, to show me a beautiful, sweeping lake there. After that, he announced that it was time to go back to The Big House.
“The big house?”
“That’s what everyone calls it, the Fletcher’s place. It’s been in the family for generations. Real old Irish estate money, apparently. A lot of people from the island used to be employed there back in Victorian times. Cooks, service staff, groundsmen, that kind of thing. No one’s been living there for a long time now. I think the residents are still in shock when they see the boss tearing around on his motorcycle.”
Huh. Ronan was old money. That explained a lot. He exuded an air of entitlement that went beyond his position as director of the Fletcher Corporation. He wasn’t New York businessman arrogant, as Mom suspected. He was wealthy third generation Irish landowner arrogant. And where the hell did he even get a motorcycle out here?
I was nervous about seeing him. Nervous in a strange, girly way, which was absolutely crazy. He’d been shitty to me in my interview. He’d managed to strip me down and somehow make me feel less than an inch tall in a period of fifteen minutes, and still his looks and his confidence unsettled me. I shouldn’t let it happen, but every time I remembered him entering into his office and sitting down at his desk in front of me, I was helplessly undone. Six months I had to live in the same household as him. Six months was a long time. I was either going to be helplessly in love with the asshole by the time mid-April rolled around, or I was going to hate him more than anyone else on the face of the planet.
When Hilary turned the Land Rover into a long, arrow-straight road and suddenly “The Big House” appeared in front of us, I understood why everyone called it that. The building wasn’t a house; it was a mansion. A huge sandstone monstrosity, three stories high, with eight pillars, four on either side of the massive entranceway, propping up a deep lintel that ran from one end of the building to the other. I counted a total of eight windows on each of the floors. How many rooms did that equate to? The place was obscene. It made perfect sense that the Fletcher family, circa 1890, had needed to hire half the island to run the place.
“Seriously?” I couldn’t keep the comment in as I sat there, blinking up at the house, which only kept getting bigger and bigger as the Land Rover sped up the driveway. “All this? For Ronan, me, you and two small children? We’ll be lost half the time.”
Hilary laughed under his breath. “Not for me, actually. I’m heading back to New York tonight. Ronan’s asked me to keep an eye on things back in the city for him and report back if anything goes awry.”
So, Hilary was more than just a driver. That didn’t surprise me. He had a way of holding himself and of speaking that made me think he was highly educated. Weird that he’d been the one to come and collect me from the beach, but then again Ronan Fletcher obviously didn’t mind doing things a little differently. “If you need anything, you can always give me a call, though. Here.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small black leather wallet. “I have some business cards inside. Take one,” he said, holding the wallet out to me.
I did so. I flipped the wallet closed and returned it to him once I had the card, but not before noticing the photograph slid into the clear plastic window inside: Hilary and Ronan, both wearing sweat-stained t-shirts, covered in mud, heads tilted back, both laughing raucously at some unknown hilarity that I was never going to be privy to. It was strange to see Ronan laughing; he looked like another man altogether.
No one greeted us inside the house. I didn’t know what I’d expected of the interior—maybe something along the lines of a faded, aging manor house, with wingback chairs, chaise longue nestled into the bay windows, heavy, thick curtains with rich brocade, fastened back with gold tassel ties. What I was not expecting was the height of modern luxury. Cool, polished marble floors. Expensive looking flat screen TVs and sectional sofas so big you could fit at least seven or eight people on them at once. Everything smelled new, and looked like it had been shipped out from Pottery Barn or Macy’s, from the wildly shaped glass vases to the thick pile rugs underfoot and the fur throw that was arranged neatly over the back of a plush cream armchair.
“Don’t worry. It’s not real.” Ronan Fletcher’s voice echoed around the cavernous lounge space, bouncing off the walls so that it took me a moment to figure out his exact location. Standing in a doorway by the window, he was dressed in a simple plain black t-shirt and a pair of black jeans. His feet were bare, which, for some reason made me blush. What the hell was that about?
His dark hair had been slicked back when we met last, full of product, but now it was swept back out of his face in thick waves that any girl would have killed for.
“I’ll take your bags up to your room, Miss Lang.” Hilary’s hand on my shoulder almost made me jump; I’d completely forgotten he was there.
“Oh, don’t worry. I can do that.” I tried to rescue the handle of my luggage from him, but he was too quick for me.
“It’s not a problem. I have to go and pack up myself anyway. And I’m sure Ronan wants to have a quick word with you as well.”
“That’s right. Thanks, Hilary. Ophelia, come and sit down. Let’s go through a few house rules, shall we?” Cool as ever, Ronan sauntered into the room and sat himself down on the sectional, throwing one arm over the back of the sofa. His body wasn’t as rigid as it had been back in New York, but there was still a reserved quality to him that made him seem remote and detached from everything around him. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but that standoff-ish quality was all at once both so overwhelming and so incredibly subtle that it made my head spin.
I went and sat on the other side of the sofa, perching myself on the edge, knees pressed together, hands resting on my thighs, back ramrod straight.
“You look very uncomfortable,” he said. “Don’t be. This is your home now, Ophelia. For the next six months, anyway. Relax. You’ll be miserable here otherwise. And I don’t want that.”
He was right, but it was going to take me a little longer than five minutes for me to start throwing my feet up on the furniture and lounging around in my sweats. Still, I leaned back into my seat, trying not to be so stiff. “You said there were house rules?”
“Only one or two. Simple, obvious things that don’t need saying, I’m sure. For the sake of clarity, however, it’d probably be better to just get them out of the way and then we can both move on. Agreed?” I hadn’t noticed the way his cheeks dimpled before. Probably because he hadn’t smiled once during our meeting in New York. Now, with the faint suggestion of amusement teasing at the corners of his mouth, they were just about visible. Connor had inherited the feature from his father. It was crazy how alike they were.
“Firstly,” he said, holding up his index finger. “I wanted to thank you. I know…I know I’m not an easy person to be around, Ophelia, and I also know that I wasn’t very…” He seemed to grope for the remainder of his sentence. It took him a while before he continued. “I wasn’t very pleasant at your interview.”
“No, you weren’t. You were a jerk.” The words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them. Oh, shit. Where the hell did that come from? Too late to clap my hand over my mouth and shut myself up. Impossible to claw the words back into my mouth where they belonged. What waswrongwith me?Ronan’s eyebrows lifted slowly, his eyes burning a hole in the side of my face. I couldn’t look at him. Not directly, anyway. I could only manage a pained sideways glance. He looked a little stunned.
“Wow. No one has been that frank with me since Magda died,” he said.
“I’m sorry. That was out of line. I shouldn’t have—”
“No, no, please. Iwasa jerk. I behaved in a very jerky manner. For that I apologize. I’m not in the habit of being nice to people anymore. I should probably have had someone else interview you.” His voice was rich and smooth, like warm coffee. The accent I’d had such a hard time placing on him when we first met made a little more sense now, here on the island, where it seemed nearly all of the occupants were of Irish descent. It was barely there, but a couple of words he said were faintly tinted with a little brogue. Listening to Ronan speak was an unexpected pleasure that made my toes curl inside my shoes.
“I doubt you would have allowed someone else to make an important decision like that for you,” I said. “You don’t strike me as the sort of person who would entrust the care of his children with just anyone.”
