Finally, he blinked. He put his hands in his pockets and stared vacantly at the glasses on the table. “He’s fucking with you. Or maybe he was just testing to see how you’d react.”
I frowned.
It was hard to believe that was all it was. The look in Macalister’s eyes that night had been incredibly real. But perhaps he was a fantastic actor like his son. Plus, Royce knew his father better than I did. Shouldn’t I trust him?
“Okay.” I still wasn’t convinced but wasn’t sure what else to say. “I thought you should know.”
“I appreciate it.” He glanced at the door and put a hand on the back of his neck, massaging it. “Do you want to finish the tour? We got kind of . . . sidetracked.”
His easy smile chased away the unpleasant memory.
We were almost at the top of the stairs when Royce hooked a finger in the belt loop of my shorts and jerked me to a sudden stop.
“Hey,” he said. As he moved in to join me on the same step, the banister was at my back and his expression was hard to read. “I didn’t mean to make light of what he said. It’s fucked up, I know. You have to remember everyone in this house has an agenda. We’re all positioning to get what we want, and no one says what they mean.”
I lifted my chin to meet his gaze. “Including you?”
He placed one hand on the wall beside my head, then the other, trapping me beneath his hungry stare. His gaze roved over my face and settled on my lips. “Yeah, Marist. Including me.”
Royce leaned in and captured my mouth. He kissed me like a conqueror, and I was happy to be claimed as his.
Just outside of the doorway, someone cleared their throat, loud and excessive. We both froze.
I didn’t have to hear anything else or see him—I already knew. I could blame the cold draft on the air conditioning, but it was really Macalister’s frosty presence. Who knew how long he’d been standing there?
Royce straightened away from me the moment his father stepped into our view.
Macalister had on a full suit. Clearly, he’d come straight from the office, but it was a long ride from Boston, and he hadn’t so much as loosened his tie. He stared at us with his piercing eyes and drained all the heat from the moment.
“Marist.” He said my name like I’d done something wrong. “While you’re here, I wanted to let you know our lawyers are drafting the prenup. They should have it to me by the time you move in.”
Seeing him again was like walking into a spider’s web. Hundreds of invisible threads pulled at my skin. I wanted to sound confident but failed. “All right.”
His gaze flicked to his son and narrowed. “Royce and I will go over it together with you.”
The subtext was clear. This wasn’t a request, it was a decree.
Neither of us had a response, and Macalister must have taken our silence as acceptance because he nodded. “Well, then. Enjoy your evening.”
Friday afternoon, I finished packing. I’d put it off as long as I could, but I had to move in and be at the Hale estate this evening. Macalister wanted his meeting to discuss the prenup after he and Royce had come home from the office.
Ever since my contentious afternoon with my parents and the financial advisor, things hadn’t been great at home. My mother had been treating me to more and more passive-aggressive statements as the rest of the week played out, and although I was terrified of moving into the Hale estate, a small part of me was relieved to be leaving.
She was angry. A spoiled child throwing a tantrum.
As I zipped up my toiletries bag and put it in the suitcase, she was upset I’d told her to cancel the annual ski trip to Aspen the week of Thanksgiving. My family had been going for years, but the situation now was too dire.
“It’s not that much money,” she whined.
Her comment grated. If I’d learned anything from this ordeal, it was that she had no concept of money. It hurt me how her youngest daughter was moving out, and yet all she cared about was some lousy trip.
“You don’t even ski. You sit in the lodge with the other women and play cards.”
She scowled. “I enjoy spending time with my friends.”
I’d swear half of Cape Hill made the trip. It was almost more about social status than having an actual vacation.
But where were my mother’s friends now? She’d given up her luncheons with them at fancy downtown restaurants and stopped donating to their fundraisers. Her friends miraculously dried up with our family’s cash flow.
“Now that you’re engaged to Royce, our family should be there. You know how that trip is.”