“Xavier was at Jane and Eric’s Christmas party,” Matthew informed everyone, but mostly Nina, as he turned back to her. “Tall guy. British. Black hair. Deep voice.”
Every small description felt like a punch to the gut. Not just because I could see each trait like I’d drawn them myself, but because it was almost like Matthew was calling his presence here. Poof, there was the hair. Poof, now the eyes.
“No way,” Joni said. “Holy crap, he sounds hot.”
Oh, girl. You have no idea.
“He sounds like a jerk,” Marie countered.
Matthew nodded. “To be honest, doll, I was more focused on finding you that night.”
He grinned at Nina. But she wasn’t really interested in flirting.
“You don’t mean Xavier Parker, do you?” she asked.
I froze. This was just what I needed—the Ice Queen spreading her poison on the man Sofia was eventually going to call “Daddy.” I didn’t care how much sympathy I had for Nina de Vries. I wanted her to shut up before she ruined everything.
“Why, do you know him?” Matthew’s tone was curious, but with a threatening undercurrent that he always had whenever Sofia’s dad was mentioned.
“Not well, but we’ve met a few times,” Nina said. “He lives in London, but our social circles are fairly small. He went to school with Eric.”
“Who’s Eric?” Joni asked Marie, who just shrugged her shoulders.
“Probably one of her schmancy friends,” Lea put in.
“Shut up,” I hissed at them both, though none of them so much as spared me a glance.
“What’s his story?” Matthew was asking. “Frankie’s always been a damn mute about the guy.”
As I damn well would continue to be, I decided, slouching farther into my seat like I was a thirteen-year-old kid having her middle-school crush discussed like chicken dinner. The. Worst.
Nina continued, seemingly unaware of my torment. “He caused a bit of a scandal, from what I recall. He’s the illegitimate son of an earl or maybe a marquess.”
I jerked. What?
“At any rate, his father didn’t have other children, and then surprised everyone by naming Xavier as his heir instead of letting the estate pass to his cousin or nephew or whatever.”
At that, I sat up fully. Xavier had mentioned his father’s attempted bequest, but nothing about other family members. Or a freaking peerage. The way he made it sound, he and his father only had a brief (and failed) relationship, and all his recent success was founded more on his own merits.
This, however, was a story with several other dimensions.
“Grandmother’s butler, Garrett, was English,” Nina continued, “and had a lot to say about the whole ordeal.”
“Ooh, a butler,” Joni whispered loudly.
“La-dee-da,” Marie agreed, only to be smacked by Lea while Nina went on.
“It was this big to-do when a boy from East London was named presumptive heir to this title, apparently.”
“South London,” I murmured softly to myself, though no one else was paying attention, rapt as they were with Nina’s story.
In my mind’s eye, though, I could see Xavier’s smirk at the correction. He would have liked that I was becoming as particular as he was about these kinds of inaccuracies.
Of course, maybe at this point, he would have started laughing now that the colossal joke he’d been making for the last few months was finally finding its punchline.
I could already imagine the headline the British tabloids were so famous for: Son of Earl Fools American Trollop.
Earl. Oh God.