What does this mean for me now? Will I have to shop at Harrods and blend in with everyone else in that posh scene?
When I first visited Ethan at Mayfair, in my mismatched floral skirt and checked shirt, I looked like I’d been beamed down onto that spotless street by the TARDIS.
I climbed into the black taxi with Orson’s words ringing in my head. He’d sewn doubt in me again—something easy to do, given the entrenched self-doubt that nagged at me.
Ethan opened the red door to a three-storey Edwardian home that oozed aesthetic charm, just like everything around him. He hugged me warmly, like we hadn’t seen each other for a while, though I’d woken up in his ridiculously large bed that morning.
We’d been in London all week, staying together in Mayfair. Sheridan kept calling me to make sure I was okay. I think she missed my Ethan stories. I explained that we would catch up soon, and I would tell her all about Mayfair and its jaw-dropping antiquities and amazing art collection.
“It’s that sexy trophy boyfriend I’m more interested in. Not their art collection,” she’d replied.
Trophy boyfriend?
I thought of how his mother looked at me as though I was a terrorist about to blast their comfortable lives into smithereens.
How the fuck can this work?
I could only be that girl who, from an early age, spent hours strumming her guitar and staring out the window, living in a dreamworld of possibilities. That was still me—fragile at times, boisterous and bursting with inspiration at others.
But what about the ordinary me?I was her most of the time. Ethan was anything but ordinary. But he was also a great listener.
As kids, he would listen to me playing the guitar in the forest or by the duck pond. He used to sit there quietly for a while then toss a twig at me. He would turn into that wild boy and coax me into playing hide-and-seek or paddling around in his little red boat, where he’d pretend to be Mr Toad fromThe Wind in the Willows.
We’d often go down to the cliffs and watch the ships in the distance. Ethan would tell me lots of stories, like how a distant Lovechilde, part of Lord Nelson’s admiralty, thwarted Napoleon. Or we would spin in circles with the wind roaring around us—dangerous little games that might have seen us tumble over the steep cliffs.
We entered the living room with sky-coloured walls looking out over the park. I loved lazing on the window seat with velvet cushions.
His phone buzzed just as we entered. “I need to take this.” He looked apologetic as he touched my arm, something he often did.
Ethan was very tactile. He expressed himself through gentle touches, which always left a warm imprint on not just my skin, but also my heart.
I was less so, mainly due to insecurity. If I opened my heart completely, I might never stop, like one of those doting mothers who incessantly hugged their children.
I figured that call was about the spa, as he paced about holding the phone to his ear. Barefoot, he wore distressed jeans and a moth-eaten T-shirt with Tate Gallery faded onto it. The type of clothes that once only those living rough might have worn had become a staple for the superrich. I didn’t get that. But he did look sexy, especially with that rip below that arse that I loved to clutch as he thrust deeply into me.
I’d become an orgasm junkie around this man. Maybe that’s all this was: a sex feast. I just needed my heart to stay out of the picture, so that I could enjoy unbridled pleasure without paranoid thoughts of heartbreak stealing the show.
With those hard, sinewy biceps, which seemed to grow bigger each time I looked, Ethan raked and pulled at his hair as he spoke on the phone, leaving a sexy mess.
He must have noticed me ogling because his eyes landed on mine, and he smiled in that heavy-lidded, “let’s get naked” way.
To calm my racing pulse, I distracted myself by lifting a heavy modern art book from the glass-topped table and flicked absently through its satiny pages.
Ethan returned and squeezed my shoulder affectionately. “Sorry about that.” His extended sigh wasn’t lost on me.
“You look ruffled.” I placed the book back.
“That was Declan. They’ve closed Reboot.” He shook his head, looking disturbed, which surprised me. I hadn’t realised how important that project was for Ethan.
That was equally disappointing for me. I admired Declan for what he was doing. “Oh? Why?”
“It’s still open for business. It’s become quite popular with city corporates looking for some weekend punishment.” His dark chuckle made me smile. “The boys are being shipped out. There’s been a burglary at Merivale. A ruby necklace handed down from our grandmother. Worth around half a million or even more.”
I whistled. “And they’re sure that it was one of the boys at Reboot?”
“They’ve got footage of someone loitering on the grounds. I’ve met him. He’s an Irish boy. I like him.” He ran his hands over his face.
“That’s a pretty radical response, sending the boys packing.”