“At any rate,” I said coolly, “I want to know where she is right now. What do your men have for me? Make it good.”
“She’s at her parents’.”
“And …?”
“And she’s safe.”
“She hates her dad,” I mumbled, a fact that wasn’t intended for his ears. I was worried. Not about Belle being unhappy with the situation—the little wench deserved a bit of trouble after what she’d put me through—but for her father’s safety.
“Daddy issues, huh?” Sam chuckled darkly. “Couldn’t have seen that from miles away.”
“Bugger off.”
“Not sure what it means, but right back at you, mate,” he volleyed with an unfortunate, yet bizarrely accurate Australian accent.
“Wrong nationality, wanker. Make sure she doesn’t leave their sight this time,” I warned. “Heads will roll if they lose her again.”
“Whose heads?”
“Yours, for starters.”
“Is that a threat?” he asked.
“No,” I said calmly. “It’s a promise. Boston may fear you, Brennan, but I don’t. Keep my missus safe or bear my wrath.”
There was a beat of silence, in which I supposed Sam considered whether he wanted to go to war or simply bow out of the argument.
“Look, she doesn’t seem to be venturing outside their house very often,” he said finally. “I think having people on the house at this point is excessive. Almost counterproductive. Because as it stands only a handful of people know where she is. If there’s surveillance on her ass, it may draw more attention.”
This surprised me. Belle was the kind of thrill-seeking woman to arrange a public orgy in the Vatican. And I couldn’t imagine her parents’ house offered many attractions. Nonetheless, it was good news.
I was going to deal with her as soon as I got back to Boston, which should be within the next twenty-four hours.
“Fine. No surveillance.”
“Hallelujah.”
“It was terrible doing business with you.”
He hung up on my arse. Wanker.
I sat back in the leather seat and drummed my knee, taking London in as it zipped past my window. The congenital grayness, the oldness of a city which had braved wars, plagues, fires, terrorism, and even Boris Johnson as mayor (this is not a political statement; I simply found the man entirely too eccentric to be anything other than a party clown).
I thought about how I’d left Louisa in Boston. Her tear-clogged throat, red eyes, and wilted posture. How I was never going to see her again, apologize to her again, explain myself again—and how I was completely fine with no longer hating myself for a decision I’d made when I was eighteen.
I wasn’t fair to her.
But then my father wasn’t fair to me.
I’d spent my entire adult life trying to repent for what I did to her by depriving myself of things. It was time to let go.
Show me a person with no wrongdoing in their past and I’ll show you a liar.
“Sir …” The young man behind the wheel caught my eye through the rearview mirror.
I turned my face to him, arching a brow.
“May I ask you something?”
He had an old-school, cockney accent. The kind I’d only heard in movies.
“Go ahead.”
“How’s Boston in comparison to home?”
I thought about the weather—better.
The underground system—the T wasn’t even half as reliable as the tube.
The people—both were brash and held high, no-bullshit standards.
Culturally, London was superior.
Culinary-wise, Boston was better.
But at the end of the day, none of that mattered.
“Boston is home to me,” I heard myself say. “But London will always be my mistress.”
And it was right there and then that I realized home was where Emmabelle Penrose was, and that I was in love with the maddening, infuriating, terribly unpredictable woman. That, in fact, Sweven had been more than a conquest, a game, something I wanted for myself simply because I knew I couldn’t have it. She was the pinnacle. The end game. The one.
And even if she didn’t know any of that.
She had to know that I loved her.
I had to tell her.
I suppose you could say I paid a surprise visit to my mother, not because she hadn’t been expecting me—she had—but because I falsely indicated to her that I intended on making a pit stop in Surrey to visit an old friend.
Anyone who knew me was also aware I hadn’t kept in touch with anyone from my previous life. Mum didn’t quite know me, so she bought into the story.
Worse still, I didn’t really know her anymore.
But I was about to get a glimpse of the real her.
I’d walk into Whitehall Court Castle unannounced and see what things looked like when they weren’t putting on a show for me.
I slapped the grand double doors open. Two frantic servants were at my heel, trying to physically stop me from entering the manor.
“Please, sir! She isn’t expecting you!”
“Mr. Whitehall, I beg you!”
“My mansion, my business.” I breezed in, my loafers clicking on the golden marble into the main drawing room. The beams above my head closed in on me like trees in a forest.