Page 22 of The Muse
I smirk and watch her some more, partly considering dragging her right back to the bedroom to show her what we could have achieved. “Go home, Ms Castlewood. I have work to do. You’re not helping me get on with it.”
She smiles, giggles, and then slips out and down the stairs with a spring in her step. I watch her go the whole bloody way until I hear the faint sound of the main door downstairs closing.
I'm still unsure what the fuck I’m doing.
And I'm still not going to that fucking meeting.
Chapter Ten
PERSEPHONE
My smile doesn’t fade after I close the door behind me. I hobble down the stairs in the awful shoes and confirm the car waiting for me is the one I ordered.
Scott Foxton.
I sit in a sort of stunned silence for a while, utterly blown away by the events of last night. Sure, I was at a low point. All those phoney and disapproving words, the eyes of everyone I’ve ever worked with looking down on me—it got too much, and I wanted to escape despite how dancing my own way felt. But to think that Scott would be my saviour?
“What’s the smile for?” my Uber driver asks.
“Oh, nothing,” I lie and look out the window as we travel through London.
I need a change of clothes and to soak my feet. Maybe a nap. I'm tired in a way that I'm not familiar with. I'm used to being exhausted. Of course, I am. My body has ached ninety-nine per cent of my life, but this is … different. A good different. My body's sore, but not in the same way my feet usually scream and burn. This is a glow radiating from me, and when my mind trips back over the visions from last night, it heats again.
I force the girlish grin from my face as the car pulls up to the gravelled drive. I might be young and relatively innocent when it comes to the male species, having had very little interest in them before Scott, but I will not fall into a stereotype that so many of my peers do. Becoming infatuated with a guy, falling into bed and then never speaking to him again, despite many attempts, is a story that too many of the girls have spoken of.
Another fact that keeps me away from men.
My mood sours as the car idles to a stop. Suddenly, no amount of sexy memories can change the cloud that Earlwood House casts over me. My feet trudge up the steps as if they're carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. But I know what it is—guilt. I’ve been immune to it in the car. I could still pretend. But not now as I open the door to my family home.
When I'm with Scott, it’s like something comes over me. I’m not Persephone Broderick anymore, I am Seffi Castlewood, and I want to keep being her despite the façade I’ve had to endure all of my life. If I stay as Seffi, then maybe it won’t matter that I’m deceiving Scott or keeping secrets from my family.
This will be a catastrophe if my brother finds out—hell, if any of them find out. But I can't deny the way that Scott looks at me makes me come alive. He’s challenged me, fought with me, and he's still a mystery. Yet, despite what I might tell myself, I can’t deny the pull I feel towards him. It's like our opposites are pulling us towards one another.
He is everything I should hate. He is my family’s enemy, for God’s sake, but that doesn’t matter when I’m with him. That arrogant ego of his has an effect on me that nobody else has replicated—nobody has even gotten close enough to try, and I don’t want anyone else to, either.
I push that thought away as I pull my shoes off and move to sneak up to my room, but voices pull my attention. From what I thought at the funeral, Landon was due to fly back to the States by now—obviously not if he’s still here.
“Father, everything is in hand. By the close of next month, it will be done.”
“Well, it couldn’t have come soon enough. They’d have run that paper into the ground if they had their way.”
My years of training have taught me to be light on my feet, and that’s a godsend when I need to sneak around wooden floors of old houses. I tiptoe and wait outside of father’s study for more. It makes me think of my actions as a child, as I crept around the empty house looking for company. I barely ever found one of my siblings to play with me.
“We’ve done the damage. And the timing will ensure we come out on top, don’t worry about it.”
“Coming out on top isn’t enough, Landon. I want you to make that family bleed.”
“You’ve seen the paperwork. I wouldn’t be surprised if you still insist on that when I’m CEO. Give it a rest.” Landon sounds gruff.
I push my ear against the wall and keep my silhouette in the shadows. The door to the study is cracked open enough that it’s not hard to overhear their conversation. And if it wasn’t for what I did last night, I would probably have no interest in what they're currently discussing. But last night did happen, and I'm still sore as a result. In several places.
A smile skips over my lips again at the thought.
“If it were up to me, they’d be getting even less,” Father says.
“And you’d be left without a deal. We low-balled them and they've bitten. We’re still a good margin off what that business is really worth. Something else you’re astutely aware of. What’s the real issue with this deal? Or should I say the Foxton’s?”
The reality of what I’m overhearing strikes, and for once in my life, I’m caught between not knowing what my reaction to this news should be. I've known that the Broderick business was taking over The Herald for a while. It's some big deal for Landon, but I guess I hadn’t really paid much attention to any of the goings-on until the words depicting my final performance were published. Funny how things turn out. If Scott hadn’t started all of this, I would never have had a reason to confront him. And now look at the mess I'm in.
