He wanted to break something. “For fuck’s sake.”
“I didn’t come all this way to debate whether or not I should marry Conrad. I’ve already agreed to do it. It’s a done deal.”
“You do know what year it is? Fathers don’t get to go around selling off daughters. You have a say.”
“Of course I have a say.” Dylan beat down his temper enough to notice she didn’t look upset. She looked annoyed. At him. “If I didn’t want to get married, I wouldn’t. It’s not as if my father would force me down the aisle with a gun to my back. You’ve met him. You know he’s not like that.”
Dylan certainly had met Lord Fuckface, who had sneered down the length of his nose at the likes of Dylan Kilburn, Irish trash, anywhere near his precious daughter.
Or that was how Dylan assumed the man had felt. It was how he imagined he’d feel if he had a daughter—especially a daughter like Jenny.
“Sure, and he’s a real peach.”
“It’s just that once I get married, that’s it,” Jenny said, ignoring his comment on her father. Having lectured him more than once on how shit it was to dislike people simply because they were richer than him—not an issue he had much any longer. “It will be however it is with Conrad, and I’ve already made my peace with that. We’ll have children and a good life. I’m sure of it.”
“As long as you’re sure.”
He didn’t point out that her presence on his deck suggested otherwise.
She glared at him. “It’s something Erika said. It’s something she’s always said, actually. But I guess it feels a little more urgent these days.”
“I’m not sure I would take advice from the likes of Erika,” Dylan said mildly. “Unless you have a hankering to go clubbing. For a year.”
He had no quarrel with Erika. She was a gorgeous little mess and always had been. The only reason Dylan hadn’t tried it on with her back in Oxford was because she’d been so close with Jenny. And Dylan was never going to do anything that might create a wedge between him and Jenny—especially her friend.
“She settled down,” Jenny told him. “Quite seriously, actually.”
Dylan laughed. “Are we talking about the same Erika?”
“I know.” Jenny grinned. “But yes. She’s even going back to Oxford to finish her degree.”
“Is she now.” Dylan laughed, and it wasn’t forced. “I’ll be damned. I wouldn’t think it would matter to a trust fund princess if she finished a degree or not.”
“I told you. She’s turned over a new leaf.”
“I can’t abide people with every advantage in the world pissing it away. Good on her.” He eyed Jenny more closely. “Do you feel you need to turn over a new leaf too? I don’t even know what that would look like. Saint Jenny, queen of good works, got a first, as I recall.”
“I understand academics,” she was saying, with that passion in her voice that made his cock ache, though it was never directed where he wanted it. “And I love the charity. It makes me feel good to help, if I can. To be honest, I still love the role I played for my father. We’re all we have.”
The way she said that tore at him, and kept him quiet. He didn’t understand the bargains she made with her father. Dylan’s contact with his own relatives was limited to their semiannual attempts to extort money from him, which they’d started during his time at Oxford, so he could only assume that having a family member he loved would be a transformative experience that could possibly lead to arranged marriages. Or something.
But they’d spent years comparing and contrasting their families and upbringings without Jenny turning up in Australia. This didn’t quite seem like the time to continue that conversation.
“It’s beginning to feel like you’re leading up to something here.” And it was harder to keep his voice mildly lazy. To produce that friendly grin. “Better get to it. The suspense is killing me.”
“Sex,” she said.
For a curious moment, Dylan thought something must have plummeted from the sky above and hit him in the head.
His ears rung. He was almost light-headed.
But no. He wasn’t imagining it. His Jenny, forever his friend and decidedly off-limits, was sitting opposite him talking about sex.
Not having a laugh about his revolving bedroom door. Not rolling her eyes at his conquests. She was staring at him with what looked like naked sincerity in her eyes, and...blowing his mind.
“Did you just saysex?” he asked, because he had to make sure.
He expected her to laugh. To roll her eyes at him and call him a pervert for hearing sex everywhere.