“It’s my fault, I needed to clear my head and…” Fleur says carefully, and her meekness only serves to irritate me.
“Fault? We haven’t done anything wrong.” We’re not the first people to skip a lecture, it’s not going to ruin me or my degree.
Sighing, Dad strokes my face and then squeezes Fleur’s shoulder.
“Why’re you here? All of you?” I try to look around him, but he shifts with me, his gaze firmly set on the man beside me.
“Leo, I need you take them back to the house.”
“Wha—” My protest dies on my tongue as his words sink in. The most important one making me spin until I am eye to eye with him again.
Lips rolling between his teeth his gaze narrows on mine before he looks back to my dad.
My heart stutters as his name echoes in my head.
Leo.
It sounds so right in my thoughts.
Leo.
Tightening with the need to say it, my chest aches as my lungs start to burn with every passing second that I hold it in. And although I stiffen as he comes closer, I am yearning to know what his touch would feel like with nothing between us. What his breath could do to my skin.
“Make sure no one is following you, if they are, call Charles.”
“Got it.” Leo says as he shoulders my handbag and slips the last of Fleur’s sketches into hers.
“What’s going on?” I ask at the same time as Fleur says, “Please don’t call my dad.”
Ignoring us both, they exchange a look that really fucking irks me.
Why don’t I know what the hell is happening when he does?
“Dad!”
“Cassie, I’ll explain later. You need to leave right now.” Ushering me towards the back of the church, he squeezes my shoulder in what I assume is reassurance, but I get none. “Go,” he tells me, then he turns to Leo and he’s all business again. “You got everything?”
“Got it.” Answering my father, he hands mine and Fleur’s coats to us.
“Set up in my office and go through it.”
“It’s going to take me a while, Francis.”
“A while?”
“At least a couple of days.”
“We don’t have a couple of days!” This is one of the handful of times I’ve seen my father’s usually calm demeanour give, and if I wasn’t already flummoxed by everything, I’d be shocked. “Get them to the house, set up and get as much done as you can. Understand?”
“What is going on?” Pushing through the muddle of thoughts and feelings, I manage to ask.
It comes out a little too breathy and weak for my liking but my happy place has been invaded, and whilst I’m excited to see this guy that I’ve non-stop daydreamed about since the concert…I’m also confused as hell over his exchange with my father and with the obviously violent sounds coming from the back of the church.
My heart is racing, and I can’t find my calm or my cool.
And why is Freddie laughing so loud?
“Later, Princess.”