Your Loss by Layla Simon

CHAPTER THREE

GEORGE

The momentI step through the front door, a man takes my phone. He’s polite, dressed in a top and tails like an old-time movie star, and smiles apologetically, but he’s resolute. When I sputter a few excuses about how I need it in case my father phones with an emergency, the man politely nods as he continues to extract from it my hand.

“Your dad’s fine,” Lachlan murmurs, checking his own device. “At least, he was when my friend left him. Sore enough to think twice next time but you won’t miss any emergency calls.”

Thank goodness. I briefly close my eyes in relief.

He puts his palm on my lower back, propelling me forward. The dress is so flimsy it does nothing to protect me from the cold and his touch catapults warm sparks up my spine, making me shiver at the temperature change.

The floor ahead of me is fashioned from large marble blocks, each tile at least a metre square. Two large doors bar entry into the rest of the house. They’re double height and inlaid with gold accents that bring warmth to the reddish wood.

“This place is magnificent,” I whisper, afraid to talk too loudly in case I’m not meant to be speaking at all.

My eyes dart in all directions, trying to see all the fancy details at once. A task they don’t have capacity for, so they keep changing direction, picking at the small things and leaving the overall picture to form by itself.

“It’s the foyer,” Lachlan says, a small frown pinching his eyebrows together. “You should at least save your compliments until you see inside the house.”

“Oh, I don’t think I’m ready for the inside yet,” I lob back, only half joking. Not that it matters either way because he strides confidently forward, the hand just above my waist steering me ahead of him.

“Wait,” I say, panic rising at the thought of everyone who might be behind those impressive doors. “What’s this party for again?”

“It’s for me to endure and for you to smile, make pointless conversation, and nod your pretty head politely throughout. That’s all you need to know.”

As we step within a few feet of the internal entrance, a servant inside pulls the door open and holds it until we pass through. My steps falter while my head practically spins in a circle like the little girl out of the exorcist. Except, instead of spraying pea green vomit, it’s pure admiration that comes spilling out of my mouth.

“Are you serious?” I exclaim the moment we’re inside, openly gawking at the painting hanging to my right. “That’s a Vermeer. Is it real?”

“Probably a copy,” he answers dully, curbing my enthusiasm for a split second until I spy another treasure.

“Is that a Faberge egg?”

His hand moves to my side, its companion reaching for the opposite hip and turning me away from the things I so desperately want to look at. Instead, he aims me at an imposing figure with hair dyed as black as night, a beard using up most of his facial real estate, with bushy eyebrows making a solid claim for the rest.

The man’s eyes are so deep in shadow I can’t make out their colour—if they have any colour at all. With the way the rest of his face converts into an expression of distaste, they might just be blank holes poked into the fabric of the universe.

“This is my father, Creighton.”

I hold out my hand and the man stares at it for a second. Despite the thickness of growth around his mouth I can still clearly make out the curl of his lip.

“We’re not into touching in this household,” Lachlan says with a soft snort, the puff of his warm breath teasing the hairs on the back of my neck. “Just in case poverty is catching.”

“Oh, I…” As the glare continues, clearly expecting something, I try a curtsey instead. “Pleased to meet you, sir. Your house is beautiful, and I love the artwork. I’m hoping to—”

“Where’s Kari?”

“Fucked if I know,” Lachlan says, his grip momentarily increasing on my hip. “Out enjoying herself with a variety of other men? Curled up in bed alone? I’m not her gatekeeper.”

“We were expecting you to bring her.”

“So was I until she called this afternoon to cancel. Now, I have this delightful… Georgina? Georgette?”

“George. Just George.”

“Right.” He smiles and shakes his head, bending so his warm breath sends tingles through my hair. “I have this G-G-George instead.”

“Surname?”

“Yes,” Lachlan butts in before I can get my mouth to frame the answer. “She has one of those. Is Mum about?”

Creighton’s eyes finally move off me, leaving a charred trail in their wake. I rub above my eye, trying to budge it, and belatedly remember I’m wearing full makeup for the first time in forever.

Makeup, minus the eyebrow pencil currently smeared across my fingers.

Creighton raises his hand and jerks two fingers. From the far side of the room, a staff member scurries across, dressed in a ridiculous French Maid outfit that seems more fitting to a brothel dress-up collection than an actual working uniform.

“Yes, sir?”

“Please show George where the bathroom is. She needs to fix her face.”

“Jesus, Dad. She doesn’t need an escort. Gerald took her phone.”

“When you’re inside my house, you follow my rules. How long have you known this”—that lip curl again—“young woman?”

“About three”—his father’s stern expression relaxes—“hours.” It tightens again.

“Stick to her side throughout the evening,” he tells the maid. “And you.” He points a finger at Lachlan. “Get her surname to Menzies so he can perform a background check.” He reserves one last stinging glare for his son. “You should have done that immediately.”

“She’s not—”

“Immediately.”

He steps forward, looming into his son’s personal space. A pity because Lachlan’s hands have returned to cup my hips, so he mostly invades mine. Not that the elder man appears to remember I exist. He’s far too focused on his progeny to notice the girl being used as a shield.

“Unless you’ve finished playing whatever game this is, whereupon you can send her home.”

My chest lurches in excitement. I’ve been trying to live in the moment since whatever-this-is first started. Not a hard task given the moments after his proposal have been spectacular.

To have a clutch of staff at the city’s leading department store clean me, dress me, and fix my hair had been a dream. I’ve never been much of a girly-girl, but I have my moments and today fell squarely into the fantasy camp.

The car as well, that was excellent. I hope Lachlan’s still too drunk to drive when we leave because tearing along the highway at midnight sounds like a splendid end to the evening.

But leaving right now and not having to make small talk with party guests of such a high calibre that they don’t even pretend to be polite? That sounds pretty damn good.

Leaving before I find out exactly what Lachlan means by everything and anything, sign me up.

Instead he growls, “I’ll find Menzies.”

A man breaks away from a nearby group and wanders over. “Are you taking my name in vain?”

“Could you perform a background check on this young woman? George…?” Creighton looks at me expectantly.

“Lytton,” I say, then spell it out, nerves spiralling out from my clenched jaw.

“Just a moment.” He taps a message on his phone and smiles in that polite way that indicates he’s waiting, and it won’t be long enough for a conversation, then his phone beeps. “No one under that name.”

Lachlan’s hands tighten on me again, then he lets his arms fall away. It feels like he’s abandoning me to my fate.

His dad’s expression grows even darker. “Any other names your friend goes under?”

“Oh… ah…” I gulp and wring my hands together. “Isn’t me not being on a database a good thing?” The strained pause lasts long enough for me to get the message. No.

“Do we have a problem?” Creighton asks his son, raising his eyebrow.

“No problem,” I hastily interrupt, trialling a laugh before giving it up as a bad joke. “George is short for Georgina…” I trail off as the man shakes his head. “But it’s also my middle name, so you could try Yvette.”

Another few taps on the keys and Menzies expression doesn’t look hopeful. My dad has been adamant that we keep our real names under cover in order to skate under whatever radars might seek us out. He made me swear to keep it secret.

A simple thing to agree when I’m not standing in front of a man able to perform a background check almost instantaneously from his phone.

“There’s n—”

“Or you could try my father’s surname,” I babble, desperate to confess anything if it means I’ll be left alone. On the one hand, Lachlan’s dad might just kick me out of the house if he can’t verify my identity, leaving me to make my way home by myself.

That sounds like a pretty comfy option, but he might equally shoot me in the head, dump my body out the back, and research everything he needs to know in the morning.

That’ll mean he uncovers who I am, revealing the extent of the debt we left behind in Auckland. Except by then he can’t go, “No worries, just wanted to make sure you weren’t targeting me,” because I’ll still have a hole in my skull where my brains leaked out.

“We’ve been using my mother’s m-maiden name,” I hurriedly say, my volume increasing in tandem with my desperation to get the correction out. “I’m not even sure if my birth certificate registers his surname but just in case”—I wave a hand limply at his phone—“you know, your system doesn’t recognise…”

“Just give me your best name,” Menzies says, his eyes as flat and filthy as an old bronze coin. “The name most likely to produce an accurate search.”

“Yvette Georgina Worthington.”

I stare at the floor, feeling a slight sense of relief as Lachlan’s hands creep back to my hips, then link around my waist. “Little liar,” he whispers in my ear as I close my eyes and miserably wish it were tomorrow already. Or next week.

Shit, if anyone’s taking requests, then a decade from now would be fabulous.

“She’s clean,” Menzies says, letting out a whistle between his teeth. “Some overhang from a biker gang up north—”

“I’ll clear it,” Lachlan interrupts.

Menzies continues as though he didn’t speak. “But it’s under the limit and looks like she’s a bit young to be the initiator.” He tears his gaze from his phone screen to look me up and down. “They want her held as collateral.”

The world slows while my blood forms into icy crystals, scraping the insides of my arteries with their sharp edges, cold flooding into my extremities. “What? What does that m-mean?”

“I said I’d clear it,” Lachlan snaps. Menzies glances at Creighton, who inclines his head.

“Do it. The last thing I need is some MC gang deciding they have beef with us.” His gaze turns back to his son. “This is your idea of a suitable date?”

“I evaluated her based on how good she’d be to fuck, not how much she owes to a gang nobody ever heard of.” Lachlan pulls me back, so I’m under his arm rather than standing in front of him. The possessive touch scrambles my head nearly as much as his blunt words, sending my brain into freefall. “Perhaps you should prioritise your next marriage along the same lines.”

Creighton dismisses him with a tiny shake of his head and turns back to me. “While you’re under my roof, I want you to stay with Lock or have this maid”—he pushes her towards me—“escort you. No wandering off by yourself under any circumstances, are we clear?”

I nod so eagerly that I could qualify as a bobblehead. “Yes, sir.”

Lachlan decides at that moment to curl his right hand into the fancy mess of my hair, grabbing hard enough that when he pulls, I tilt my head back. He presses his lips to mine, such an obvious demonstration of possession that I’m not sure if it’s the exhibitionism or the actual kiss that robs my lungs of their next breath and sends my head into a tailspin.

I expect him to pull away when I hear his father moving. Instead, the kiss deepens, his lips softening as he moves his left hand from my hip to my cheek, cupping along my jawline and holding me exactly where he wants me.

Between my heart already beating hard from the strange situation to the slight layer of shame for being touched so publicly, my body struggles to deal with a host of confused information.

My excited delivery system bumps out its messages, speeding and colliding, trying to report on so many mixed signals that my nerves become completely overloaded, dissolving into full body tingles.

Lachlan pulls back, gently wiping his thumb over my bottom lip while my eyes fix to his, stunned. “That’s better. Now you actually have something to repair.” His voice drops lower, for me only, “Thanks for making me look like a jackarse in front of my father.”

“I didn’t mean—”

He nods to the maid, waiting by my elbow. “Go on. Your face is a mess.”

The statement echoes off so many similar sentiments lurking in my head that my expression must betray me, and he hooks me back towards him.

“I just meant your makeup. Don’t worry. I still have every intention of taking your beautiful arse to bed at the end of this.”

My head buzzes, my lips are swollen and hot. I’m not sure how I’m meant to take his statement and not worry. If I’d held doubts about how he plans to end this night, they’ve gone.

The waiting maid clears her throat. “It’s this way,” she says, taking my elbow and guiding me in the right direction.

I follow her without further delay, grateful when she leads me into a quiet space where we can shut the door on the imposing family. Unfortunately, the comparative peace gives my mind carte blanche to think its worst.

I haven’t been with anyone since moving here. My last relationship hadn’t been the greatest, something my ex took pains to point out repeatedly was my fault. I’ve never slept with someone for money or in trade, never even thought about it, and don’t have the slightest idea of how that will change things. Of how I’ll feel about myself when I wake tomorrow morning. Of what it will be like if I want to stop but can’t.

My stomach tightens so hard it pulls at the nerves in my throat, making it so I can’t get a deep breath.

“I’m not sure how to fix my face,” I tell the young woman since she’s stuck in here with me. “I don’t have any supplies.”

She nervously cups her elbows, frowning. “Could you wash it off?”

I stare, biting my lip then stopping when I see that’s not helping. My makeover is so pretty I don’t really want to destroy it, so I dab at my eyebrow with a tissue, wiping away the smear at the edge and trying to push the pencilled outline back in the right direction.

Not too shabby but my mouth is a different story. The topcoats designed to make the colour stay for the entire evening crumbled under his lips. My mouth looks like it was coloured in by an enthusiastic but clumsy child, completely unable to stay within the lines.

I dab, dot, smear, lick, push, and return to dabbing with no noticeable improvement. Finally, I do as the maid suggested and wipe all the lipstick away, then muddle around with the edges, trying to make my natural skin match the foundation and God-knows-what-else used to disguise my blemishes.

“Are you really here as Lachlan’s date?” the maid asks as I finish.

She blushes, eyes cutting away when I meet the reflection of her gaze in the mirror.

“That’s right.”

“You’ve… Have you been out with him before?”

I shake my head, remembering his instructions. “I know him from school and just filled in tonight when his date cancelled.”

She chews on her bottom lip and glances away, fumbling in the apron that I thought was purely decorative but turns out to contain a handy pocket. “Here,” she says, passing me a small plastic wrapper. Inside are two white pills. “They’re like Xanax but quicker. If you take them a few minutes… before… then they’ll help.”

I stare at the tiny pills, my anxiety increasing by leaps and bounds at the coded message. I tuck them into my bra, my voice squeaking as I ask, “Help how?”

But the woman disengages, moving to the door and holding it ajar with a mask of politeness in place. “You’re finished?”

I’m so nervous now that I shake my head, not because I need to use the facilities but because anything that postpones me going back to people that I apparently need drugs to ‘help’ with, is a win.

She clicks her tongue, but lets the door swing closed again, standing next to it like a sentry, eyes cast down in a picture of demure civility.

Even trying to make things last longer, I’m soon done. I wash my hands so thoroughly with their fancy soap that it’ll probably go down in germ legend as a battle to end all battles, every soldier killed in a devastating defeat.

But there’s only so many times I can lather and rinse and with the maid’s frown deepening with each passing second, staying becomes as nerve-wracking as leaving.

As I exit the room, my eyes immediately scour the surroundings for Lachlan. He’s standing with another man of the same height but a slimmer build, and I head towards the pair despite the maid’s bizarre warning pinching my stomach into a tiny, squirmy ball.

At least if he kisses me again, he won’t damage my lipstick.

He wasn’t kissing you, idiot. He was sending a fuck you to his father.

All true. The father who still lurks nearby, glowering at everyone in attendance. Lovely host. I must remember to never stop by again.

I close my eyes, wishing I could teleport to the end of this evening and curl up at home, alone, in bed.