Lara widened her eyes and peered up at him pleadingly.
“Two seconds,” he whispered. He already had two plates in his hands and if he didn’t leave he’d likely lose the ability to resist smart mouthing C.S.
In the palatial hallway there were no clues as to which direction the others had gone. He wandered vaguely down the left hand side of an ornate staircase and heard plates clattering from beyond.
When he reached the kitchen, he was drawn to a sudden halt.
Cassandra had set her plates down on the work surface and Jamie was behind her. He put the plate he carried onto the work surface beside hers then put his hands on her waist and kissed the back of her neck where her skin was exposed.
Intrigued, Draco wondered if Jamie was about to get a kick in the nuts.
Jamie whispered something in his stepmother’s ear and she chuckled softly.
Pivoting on her high heels, she rubbed up against him.
Wow. Draco tried not to make a sound. Maybe this was why Jamie had greeted them with that comment about enjoying it while it lasted. He watched for a few seconds longer—just long enough to see Cassandra approved, because her head fell backwards and she pressed back into her stepson’s embrace—before he took several steps back into the hallway and said loudly, “is the kitchen here somewhere?”
He gave them a few moments to extract themselves from the incriminating position before he arrived behind them with the dirty dishes. He barely glanced at them as he deposited the dishes on the nearest flat surface inside the kitchen turned on his heel and left.
Back in the hallway, he discovered Compton Senior had followed him. The expression on Compton Senior’s face made Draco wonder. Perhaps he knew his son was making moves on his stepmother.
C. S. didn’t hold anything in his hands. They were in his pockets, and he stood in the central hallway blocking Draco’s path back to the dining room.
“Something I can help you with, Sir?” Draco knew it sounded cheeky, but he was giving the couple beyond the benefit of the doubt and warning them Compton was in the vicinity. He hadn’t particularly warmed to the old guy, but he respected him for building a massive business pretty much from scratch. Beyond that, there was a long way to go. Lara’s extreme efforts to impress her father told him enough. None of it was fair. Okay, there were probably reasons he didn’t understand. Compton Senior might be keeping Lara at a distance because she’d gone with her mother. The history was a mystery, Lara had confided very little, definitely not enough to form an objective opinion. Even so, Draco didn’t want C.S, to go in there and see what he’d seen. If he didn’t already know, it wasn’t the right t
ime to find out. So he did the decent thing and blocked the path.
His host gave a wry smile, his eyes narrowed assessing. “What are your intentions regarding my daughter?”
“Friendship.”
“Is that all?”
Subtle. “I understand your concern, Sir. We’re good friends, we share interests arising from the business degree were studying.”
Before he had a chance to respond, he heard a chair being pushed back in the dining room and Lara was on her way out.
C.S. wasn’t going to let it drop. They were currently barring each other’s paths. This was it, a roadblock. Draco knew he had to make his decision on how to handle things, and fast.
The concern marking Lara’s face as she approached made Draco take action. He didn’t want her unnecessarily rattled.
“Why don’t we discuss it tomorrow, Sir? If you have a convenient opportunity to hear me out. In the meantime rest assured that I’m a good friend to your daughter and mean her no harm.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Lara slumped into the taxi seat. “Thank god that’s over.”
“Yes,” Draco replied, absentmindedly.
“You were right about Charlie, he’s not just using when its party time.” It made her sad.
Draco looked at her. “I’m sorry I was right. Maybe he’ll grow out of it. Right now he’s basically pissing his life up against the wall.”
She nodded. “Is it like the person you knew who’d taken drugs?”
“Different circumstances. That person had nothing in life, no opportunities, not the way brother has. She thought she had nothing to look forward to, but her life changed later and there was so much more good stuff to come.”
Lara couldn’t help herself, she had to know. “Was it a girlfriend?”