Maisey Yates – An Australian Surrender: Girl on a Diamond Pedestal / Untouched by His Diamonds / A Question Of Marriage (страница 14)
He followed his grandfather down the hall, dark and carpeted with a threadbare Aubusson that spoke of age and money, into his study and shut the door. He crossed to the bar and took out two glasses, one for him, one for the old man, and a bottle of whiskey. He added three fingers of the liquor to the glasses and handed one to his grandfather, raising the other to his lips.
“What exactly are you playing at here, Ethan? Noelle Birch? Am I expected to believe this is a happy coincidence?”
Ethan shrugged and took a swallow of his whiskey. “Don’t know if I’d call it happy.”
“I’m certain I wouldn’t call it a coincidence. I know you far too well for that.”
“Maybe I’m in love.”
“Are you marrying her?”
He nodded once. It was the truth in the strictest sense. He was simply leaving out his plans for what came after the vows. “That’s the plan.”
“And you’ll be faithful to her?”
Ethan set his glass down on the bar top. “I’m not like my father. If I make a commitment, I honor it. I take care of what’s mine.”
“Now, that I trust. You know if I do pass the company straight to you what a slight it will be to Damien. Your father has been waiting for this all of his life.”
“I’m completely aware.” He was counting on it.
“He’s my son, Ethan, but I’m not proud of what he’s become. I want to make sure you do better for yourself. I want you settled before you get wrapped up in running a corporation like Grey’s.”
“No offense intended, but the one I run now is larger than Grey’s.”
His grandfather nodded. “True enough. Which begs the question why you want Grey’s so badly.”
Revenge was the easy answer, one that didn’t seem quite right in this scenario. But there were other reasons, more complex. Ones he didn’t like to dwell on. Those reasons took him back to being a boy, a boy with nothing. Of no importance to his parents. Barely worth a second glance if they passed him in the hall of their large family mansion.
“Because what you have is never enough,” Ethan said. “That’s how it is for businessmen. You know that. You always need more.”
“I don’t really know what it is you’re doing here, Ethan.” Nathaniel let out a sigh. “Maybe I don’t want to know. I just want you to be happy. Stable.”
“I’m stable. I know that my marriage to Noelle will make me very happy.” If not for the reasons marriages usually made people happy. If they ever did.
“I hope so. I assume you will want your grandmother’s ring?”
This was a huge part of making it all look real. “Yes.”
“I’ll go and get it from the safe.”
Ethan ignored the slow burn of guilt that mingled with the alcohol in his gut. Everything was working out now, just as he’d planned. The ring was another piece of the puzzle.
He downed the last of his whiskey, letting the fire overtake the uncomfortable emotion that was swirling in his stomach. Everything was starting to fall into place, and guilt had no part in it.
“You’re tense,” Noelle commented.
They were about five minutes into the drive from his grandparents’ house and he hadn’t spoken a word. His hands were locked tightly around the steering wheel, the muscles on his forearms corded, showing his strain.
“Not at all,” he replied, teeth gritted.
“You’re a bad liar.”
He tossed her a quick glance. “I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m not trying to lie.”
“Well, then you’re a bad liar when you aren’t trying to be a good one. You aren’t fine, even I can see that, and I’m not really an authority on reading people. You can use my mother as exhibit A on that one.”
He hunched slightly and shifted his hands lower on the wheel. “It doesn’t thrill me to lie to my grandparents.”
She swallowed. “I’m with you. Your grandmother is … she’s very kind.”
“She always is. She’s so stable. Calm.”
“Not like my mother at all.”
“Or mine.”
“Want to tell me about her?”
He leaned his head back against the seat. “Not in the least. You?”
“Don’t you already know about her?”
“I know what I saw. She was beautiful. Charming. She had my father under a spell. What did you see when you looked at her?”
Noelle bit her lip. “All of that. She could play this kind of sweet beauty, act a little bit naive so that she could get away with being demanding. But that was an act. She was smart. Smarter than I am, obviously. She used me to make money, and I can’t seem to manage that.”
“She was dishonest, you weren’t. That’s not smarter. That’s cheating.”
“Then what are we doing right now?”
“We’re cheating too. But it’s for a good cause. Trust me.”
She wished she could.
They were quiet again until he turned the car down a winding road that led toward the beach. Noelle unrolled her window and let the salt air and the sound of waves on the sand fill up the interior of the car. It was preferable to that ear-ringing silence.
Ethan pulled the car up to the front of the hotel and left it, keys in the ignition. He got out, slamming the door behind him, not bothering to come around for her door this time. She sat with her hands in her lap for a moment before opening her own door and following him in to the opulent lobby.
Her stomach tightened as she hurried to catch up with him, her high heels clicking on the black marble floors. She looked up at the high ceiling, at the five levels of rooms, each with a balcony that overlooked the massive lobby, ornate carvings on the hand rails with vines growing over them. Like a ruined city that still glittered with riches.
She’d been here before. Stayed here with her mother whenever she performed in Brisbane. It brought so many things back. Every time they’d come, she’d practically been frog-marched through the lobby on her way to the many-roomed suite at the top floor, and, jet lag not even accounted for, had been settled in front of the piano to practice within five minutes of her arrival.
And her mother had gone out, as she always did. To network or whatever it was she called it. And she’d been alone.
“We’re staying in the room with the piano, aren’t we?”
Ethan stopped dead in his tracks and turned, his dark eyebrows locked together, the heavy tension still radiating from his body. “Yes.”
“I’ve been here. We came to Brisbane quite a bit for a few years and we always stayed here.”
There was a strange light in his eyes, something cold. Dark. “Is that so?”
“Yes. I mean, I like it … it’s … nice.”
“If you’d like to stay somewhere else …?”
She shook her head. “No. It’s fine.”
She followed him over to the side of the lobby that had a stone wall and water running closely down the side of it. There was a line of elevators with golden doors, the water routed well around them so that people could step inside without fear of getting their designer clothing wet.
“When did you buy this hotel?” she asked, stepping inside the lift behind him.
“A few years ago. The first of my grandfather’s hotels that he surrendered to me. My father used to manage it.” He spat the last words out as if they tasted bitter.
“I don’t even know who my father is.”
He turned to her, his eyes hardened into black ice. “There are times when I wish I didn’t know who mine was.”
It was difficult to hold his gaze when he looked like that, when the remnants of his charming facade fell away and he was all hard, angry male. But she managed it. She’d spent a long time being submissive, doing as she was told and cowering in fear. She didn’t want to do it anymore.
“Why?”
“I think he was quite like your mother in many ways. A cheat.”