Page 18 of Duke It Out
She downs her whisky in one and stands up, tossing the end of her scarf back over her shoulder. “Right. Well, I must love you and leave you. Edie, best of luck. You know where I am if you need some moral support.”
With a flurry of kisses, Annabel disappears, and I’m left alone in the study with a no less furious Rory. He stands, hands braced on the desk, pinning me with a look of disdain that only centuries of noble breeding could produce.
“Yousaid you were a bartender,” I say, even though I know I shouldn’t.
“I said no such thing.”
I cast my mind back to the night of Annabel’s launch.
“But you gave me champagne.”
“Youtookchampagne. It’s another thing entirely.”
How the hell did I ever think someone that crisply well-spoken was bussing tables in a bookstore? The same man who whispered filth in my ear, made me come three times, and vanished with the sunrise… the man I’d oh-so-confidently told I was an investigative journalist.
“Do you have any idea what kind of mess this is?”
I look at the desk scattered by papers and square my shoulders defensively. “Annabel is right, you know. I’m more than capable of turning your father’s notes into whatever kind of family history you need.” I might have lied about myjob title, but I didn’t lie about what I can do. This is my chance to prove I’m more than a hack filling space.
He laughs mirthlessly. “Do you think for a second I think you’re only here to write my father’s memoir? You’re a self-confessed liar and a fantasist, and I don’t trust a single word that comes out of your mouth.”
My pulse roars. How fucking dare he. “And yet here I am. Hired by your own foundation, no less. Signed off by your own expensive lawyer.”
His lips part and for a moment I think he’s about to let loose with some ice-cold retort, but instead he raises his chin and stares at me steadily, as if daring me to look away.
“If that’s all,” I say, “I’m going to find my room.”
“That’s all,” he says.
I feel his eyes on me as I walk out of the door and back into the library. I’ve no idea where my room is, no idea where Janey might be, and no idea how I’m going to handle the next three months. But I’m buggered if I’m going to let Rory Kinnaird get between me and this job. I’m staying put this time and I’m going to prove him wrong.
8
RORY
This hasto be a fucking joke.
The door slams, rattling in the frame. I hear her footsteps marching across the library, and a moment later, there’s another bang. Christ.
I rub a hand over my jaw. The stubble is rough. I should have shaved before the flight this morning, but I got caught on the phone to the New York office. If I’d known I was going to walk into this, I’d have?—
My phone rings.
“Kinnaird.”
“Rory, just checking in to make sure you’ve taken delivery of Miss Jones.” Hugh Cresswell, Executive Director of the Kinnaird Foundation. “Trevor spoke highly of her after the contracts were signed, and I gather Annabel has been singing her praises.”
I grit my teeth. “She’s here.”
“Everything alright?” I can hear him typing at the same time. “I know it’s not ideal, but let’s get this squared away first, and then we can start—” He pauses, choosing his words withcare. Hugh was a high-ranking barrister for years. “—on putting things right, shall we say.”
He’s too polite to spell it out, but we both know exactly what’s on the line: money, reputation, and the last scrap of goodwill he hasn’t already burned.
I grunt an acknowledgement. For centuries, the Duke of Kinnaird has added to the family archives – a carefully curated legacy of power, wealth, duty and influence. Until now, that is. I look around the shitshow of my father’s study. His diaries are a chaos of half-baked anecdotes, conflicting accounts and whisky-stained ramblings. As if I don’t have enough to deal with trying to pull the estate, the foundation, and the whole bloody house of cards back into order before it all collapses.
“You know this is the only way to get on top of things.” Hugh has an uncanny ability to read my mind.
“I know.” How the hell am I supposed to tell him that the idea of bringing in a writer was great in theory, but the reality was a disturbingly sexy redhead I never expected to see again? I walk across to the window, raking a hand through my hair. I focus on the foundation reports, the financial projections, the estate liabilities – anything but the memory of Edie lying against crisp white sheets, her mouth swollen from my kiss, the way she’d arched up to me when I…
