The Art of Inheriting Secrets(79)

Kisses. I smiled as I sent the text.

At the doorway to the stairs, I paused to scramble for my keys, always lost in the bottom of my bag no matter how often I tried to create a system of pockets for things. I opened the door and skipped up the stairs to my door. It took a moment to unlock it, as always, because the key was old, but eventually, it turned, and I dropped the bag on the counter.

“Well, hello, Countess.”

I practically jumped out of my skin, shaken out of my dreamworld by a voice that was totally out of context. Grant stood like a surly giant on the stairs, his hair greasy and tousled, along with his clothes, which looked as if he’d slept in them. He probably had. It was a long trip from San Francisco to London.

“What are you doing here?”

“Just thought I’d come see for myself what you’d inherited.”

I moved to close the door, suddenly aware of the paintings stacked like gold bricks against the wall. He’d know exactly what they were. “I am not going to talk to you without a lawyer.”

His flat palm and a carefully placed foot kept the door from closing. “C’mon, Olivia. I never thought you’d be this person, all materialistic and shit. We were good together, and if the situation were reversed, I’d do the right thing.”

“I’m doing what’s right.” I looked up and shrugged. “Which I already told you. I don’t know why you came all this way.”

He tossed his hair out of his eyes. “Just let me talk to you for five minutes, will you?”

“What is there to talk about? We broke up. I’m finished.” I fingered my phone in my pocket, wondering if I should call the police.

“Did you break up because of all this?” He gestured toward the town and consciously or unconsciously toward Rosemere. “I had the driver take me by the estate, and it’s a fucking castle! Did you think I wouldn’t live up to some class standard?”

“That’s ridiculous.”

He looked over my shoulder. “More of your mother’s paintings?”

“None of your business.”

The proprietor of the shop, my landlady, stepped out on the landing, her tiny arms folded over her chest. “Everything okay here?”

“It’s fine, Mrs. Su.”

“We’re old friends,” Grant said over his shoulder. “Nothing to worry about.”

She stayed put, and I was grateful.

Another foot on the narrow stairs made Grant turn. I peered around the door and saw Samir, freshly showered and wearing a linen shirt the color of new leaves. Despite the tension of the moment, I felt a surge of lust over the glow of his skin, the curve of his mouth. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Olivia,” he said in crisp British, the crispest I’d ever heard from him. “Are you ready to go?”

I leapt at the manufactured excuse to escape. “Sure.” My hands were shaking a little as I moved to close my door.

Smoothly, Samir said, “Hello. Samir Malakar.”

“Samir, this is my ex-boyfriend Grant. I’ve told you about him.”

“Nice, Olivia,” Grant spat out. “Jesus Christ.”

Had he always been so crude? It had never seemed like it before, but maybe England was changing me.

“You go now,” Mrs. Su said to Grant.

He eyed her. “I don’t need directions from the landlady.”

“Go, Grant. I have nothing to say.”

For one more minute, he stood stubbornly on the stairs, looking from me to Samir and back. “This is your boy toy, huh? He gets the money, and you get hot young cock.”

My ears went bright red. “You need to leave, or I’m going to call the police.”

He laughed in an exaggerated way. “Fine. I’ll see you in court.”

He headed down the stairs, and Samir stepped sideways into an alcove to allow it. I half expected Grant to throw an elbow, but he only glared.

Samir came up, touched Mrs. Su’s arm. “Thank you.”

“I don’t like him.”

I looked up at Samir. “We have to get all the paintings out of here.”

“Yeah, we will,” he said and closed the door to the apartment. “Are you all right? He was pretty nasty.”

“I’m fine.” The green shirt was open at the throat, and I swayed forward as if drawn by a magnet to kiss the hollow there.

“I was charged with bringing kisses,” he said. Swinging me around to press my back against the wall, he leaned in and kissed me, and I met it eagerly, opening to his tongue, running my hands under his shirt, over his smooth, muscular back. In seconds we were lost.

Over my lips, he said, “All I have thought about all day is this.” His hands ran down my sides, pulled up my hem, skimmed my thighs. “I have had so many fantasies about this dress,” he said and pressed into me.

“What kind of fantasies?” I breathed.

“This,” he said and, with a single movement, pulled the two sides of the V neckline apart, revealing my breasts in a lacy little bra I’d known he would see. “Oh, yeah, this,” he said and kissed my throat, my breasts, then my mouth.

I was already on fire, unfastening his jeans, shoving them off, and he was pulling up my skirt, yanking down my panties, and then we were tangled, deep, tongues and hands and legs and everything.