“Think you’re funny, do ya? No, what I meant is, I saw you, and you were all fucking beautiful and I dunno, I couldn’t think. I needed to have you. To mark you as mine.”
“Well, you did that.” Moving my hair out of the way, I indicated the love bite on my neck. He kissed it softly, then drew back to look at me, his expression uncertain.
I hurried to reassure him. “Hey, you didn’t see me complaining, did you? I love that people know I’m yours, Cade. I know we have to be discreet in front of a lot of the people here, and I just hope no one saw us together before we went into Cass’ dad’s office, but just seeing that mark—people will know that I’m taken.”
His expression cleared. “Good. I want them to know you belong to me. You’re mine.” Tipping my chin up, he rubbed his thumb over my pulse point, then dropped a hard, possessive kiss on my lips.
I locked my arms around his waist. “I know. I hate that we can’t be together in the open. I honestly don’t think many people would be bothered; after all, a lot of our uni friends know. I think. But we just have to be patient till this deal goes through, especially here, with some of the key players at the party.”
He sighed, pulling me closer to him and kissing my head. “You’re right. And we’d better get back, before people get suspicious wondering where we’ve disappeared to.”
With that, we made our way back to the upper floor to rejoin the others.
TWENTY-SIX
Back in the midst of the party, no one seemed to have noticed our absence, or if they had, they didn’t mention it. Caiden left me with Kinslee and Lena, but not before brushing my hair back off my shoulder so my love bite was on show. I rolled my eyes, but like I’d told him back in the bedroom, I loved that he’d marked me as his. I chatted, danced, and drank, having fun, constantly finding my gaze drawn to Caiden’s. I couldn’t stop smiling like a lunatic, and neither could he.
“Come on, stop eye fucking your boyfriend, and let’s get more drinks.” Lena tugged on my arm gently, and I followed her from the room, leaving Kinslee dancing with Cassius—apparently she was protecting him from a “psycho clinger” who wouldn’t take no for an answer.
We found Estella Drummond, Lena’s mother, in the kitchen, and Lena made a beeline for her. “Mum? We need more champagne.”
She turned to face us, a gracious smile on her face. Lena and Cassius both took after their dad, looks-wise—Estella was short, curvy, and dark-haired while Lena and Cassius were both tall and blond. “There’s plenty more in the cellar. Help yourselves, but don’t drink too much, please, Lena.”
“Alright,” Lena muttered with an eye roll, and added, “Thanks, Mum,” at my nudge.
We turned to leave the kitchen, almost running into someone coming in the door. He looked so much like an older version of Joseph Hyde that I stopped dead, a gasp falling from my lips.
He looked down at me, and a strange, indecipherable expression stole over his face, before it was wiped away and he strode past me without another look.
“Was that Joseph Hyde’s dad?” I asked Lena in a low voice, as we headed in what I assumed was the direction of the cellar.
“Yeah. It’s a weird one. You’d expect to see the Hydes and Granvilles at general events, since they are part of the Alstone elite, after all. But for some reason, my parents always invite them to their New Year’s party, too. They don’t like to leave anyone out. And between you and me, my mum thinks their whole rivalry is silly.”
“How did the rivalry start, anyway?” I followed Lena into the small lift at the end of the hallway, and she pressed a button marked -3. The lift began to descend with a shudder.
“No one can really remember. It was generations back, now. I think to begin with it was to do with the land ownership, and it all went to shit from there. Now they’re business rivals; although Alstone Holdings is so big and powerful now, the Hyde/Granville family can’t really hope to compete. And since my family, along with the Lowry and Cavendish family, run the business, and pretty much run this town, they kind of hate us.”
The lift doors opened into a cavernous cellar, with shelves full to the brim of bottles of wine and barrels stacked all along one wall.
“Huh. Money does strange things to people, doesn’t it?” I mused. “And by the way, this cellar is insane! Are we actually inside the cliff?” I ran my hand down the rough rock surface of the wall, the stone cold under my palm.
She shrugged. “It does, and yes we are. But without the money, we wouldn’t be here right now.”
I hummed non-committally. Sure, this house was literally like something out of a movie, and the Drummonds were clearly beyond rich, b
ut was all the hassle worth it? I couldn’t answer that. I’d never been in that position to judge either way.
Lena interrupted my thoughts by directing me down an aisle, tall shelves either side of us, and began piling bottles into my arms. “We may as well take a load up with us. They won’t last long, with the amount of people drinking.”
“Uh… Lena? These are kind of heavy,” I warned her, when my arms were aching and I genuinely didn’t think I could hold any more without sending them all crashing to the ground.
“Oh, sorry.” She placed the bottle she’d been about to dump on me back on the shelf and indicated for me to follow her back out to the lift, her own arms full. I silently prayed that I wouldn’t trip in my heels.
Back upstairs, somehow with all the bottles intact, Cassius and Weston came to our rescue, taking the bottles and setting them out. Cassius reserved one of the bottles, a huge grin on his face.
“Watch this,” he said to me, heading back into the room where most of our university friends were gathered. He stalked over to the gas fireplace, pulling the samurai sword that hung on the wall down from its holder thing.
“What the fuck is he doing with a samurai sword?” I muttered to West, as he placed the champagne bottle on top of the polished white stone mantelpiece and stuck two fingers in his mouth, sending a piercing whistle into the room to get everyone’s attention.