ARROGANT BRIT (A BRITISH BAD BOY ROMANCE) (8 page)

“Your ancestor, Reginald Carlyle, was very
particular in his wishes,” Dad muttered. “His will was signed by the reigning
King of England, and cannot be overturned by a successive will. His rules
dictate when his wealth should be stripped of an inheritor and proceeded down
the chain.”

“And what happens when there are no
successors?” I angrily asked. “What if you drop dead and I never have a child?
I’m the last Carlyle in the chain. Can I dictate where the chain goes next?”

“What you have to remember about Reginald is
that he became fiercely determined to restore the family name to glory, no
matter the consequences,” Dad grunted. “Upon demise of the family name, the
entire Carlyle Fortune returns to the Crown.”

“The monarchy takes it all,” I realized with
horror. “If there’s no direct blood successor, it gets piled into the endless
coffers of the King and Queen.”

“Precisely.”

We sat in silence for a moment.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. All of
this was complete, utter
bullshit.
It
had never really occurred to me that I’d ever
turn down
the Carlyle Fortune. The inheritance apparently came with
a plethora of binding strings…

All those strings would be attached to me.

It’s not fair. This wasn’t the
plan.

“So, did you just call me down here to rip
away my dreams and send me back into the night, or was there some sort of
ulterior motive to requesting my company?” I asked bitterly.

“Ah, yes,” Father remembered. “I hadn’t even
meant to really broach that topic. But you will have all the time you need to
question Raleigh Carlyle, so long as you act quickly…”

“What do you mean?”

“Your grandfather is growing old,” he
replied, taking a final swig from his beer. “You can’t really tell, just
looking at him, but his health is vastly deteriorating. According to Mum, he’s
not expected to last the end of the year.”

“Granddad is
dying?
”

“He is, the old bastard,” Father nodded, his
eyes lost straight ahead. “The two of them will be here in the States shortly.
It’s likely that this will be your last chance to see him before he finally
keels over and slides back down into whatever pit of Hell he first crawled out
from.”

This was all a lot to process.

But I wasn’t prepared for the real bombshell.

“What’s bringing them stateside? I don’t
recall ever hearing about my grandparents flying our way.”

Dad looked at me with surprise, before
finally curling his face into a warm smile. “Oh, that’s right, neither of you
know… Sarah wanted it to be a surprise, after all. She’s not telling Clara for
a week.”

“Sarah wanted
what
to be a surprise?” I asked, feeling fear mount in the back of
my head.

My father flashed the backs of his knuckles,
revealing a modest silver band. “As much as I might hate your grandparents, I
wanted them to be present –
both
of
them, alive to see it, and how far I’ve come without them.

“You see… I proposed last night.”

Chapter 8

I grew concerned when Dalton didn’t answer my
texts all weekend. It wasn’t like him to ignore me, and I was beginning to
think that something was really wrong.

It was Sunday night when he finally rang. On
misguided principle, I almost didn’t answer.

“Hello, stranger,” I greeted him bitterly.

“Clara,” he replied over the phone. Something
was wrong with his voice. “I’m sorry that I’ve been distant the last few days,
I’ve just been… dealing with something.”

“Oh? What might that be?”

There was a pause over the line.

“My grandfather is dying.”

Regret instantly panged inside my heart. Here
I was, furious that he hadn’t been in touch since leaving early Friday night,
and he was grieving the coming loss of his grandfather?

Way to fucking go, Clara.

“Oh my god. I’m so sorry, Dalton. Is there
anything that I can do?” I asked tenderly, trying to quickly kill the residual
frustration inside.

“I want company. Can you come over?”

I paused. This was a big step.

“Are you… are you sure that’s what you want?”
I asked, swallowing my hesitation. I had a faint idea of the kind of
comforting
he’d want if I drove over
there, and I wasn’t quite prepared to give that. “I mean, I just don’t want you
to be disappointed or anything…”

“You’re right. Forget it,” he replied
tersely.

Second time I’ve fucked up today.

“No, Dalton, I didn’t mean it like–”

“I said
forget
it
,” he insisted. “Anyway. I’m going to just watch some TV and go to sleep.
Have a good night. I’ll see you in class tomorrow.”

With that, he hung up.

I stood there, holding the silent phone to my
head like an idiot for a couple of minutes. All sorts of thoughts spiraled
through my head –
How could I be so cold?
What would really happen if I went? Would he even open the door if I did?

Lowering my phone, I stumbled out into the
apartment like an emotionally drained zombie. Natalie was lying on the couch
with her boyfriend, Jared. Her head was in his lap, and he was absentmindedly
stroking her hair while they watched something together.

As if she had some sort of Super Roommate
ESP, she bolted upright as I came out.

“Hey. What’s the matter?”

“Oh, nothing,” I replied apathetically,
glancing up at her.

Her eyes slid from mine down to the phone in
my hand. “You finally got him on the line, didn’t you? And you heard something
you didn’t like?”

“He, uh, his grandparents are dying. I mean,
just his grandfather, I guess,” I responded mindlessly. “He asked me to go
over, but I didn’t think it was a good idea. When I said that, he got mad at
me.”

“Of
course
he’s mad at you, you big, dumb oaf,” Natalie chuckled, shaking her head.
“Look, so you’re not exactly the most comforting chick on the block. Whatever.
You know where he lives, right? Go see him.”

Jared nodded quietly, trying to contribute to
the conversation in some way.

“But he’s angry.”

“So what? He’ll be
fine
when he sees you. Maybe not
immediately,
but if you work some of your feminine charm on the
guy… eh, he’ll come back around.”

“You want me to sleep with him?”

“
You
do
you
, girl,” she smiled cheerily.
“If that’s what you want, then yeah. Just don’t do anything you’re not
comfortable with. I don’t think he’ll exactly be ready to totally jump your
bones if this is still sinking in.”

“That sounds reasonable,” I agreed.

“Good. So, get out of here and go to him.”

“You just want me out of here so that you two
can fuck,” I grinned sort of slyly, placing my hand on my hip. “Because you
guys are.
Loud. As. Fuck.”

“If
fuck
had a volume, I guess it would have to be pretty loud,” Natalie nodded to
herself. “But the loud sex is how you know it’s
great
sex. You’re totally right, though. I want to take this
beautiful, stupid boy to
Pound Town
until
the night’s halfway gone.”

“Did you just call me
stupid
?” Jared raised his eyebrow at her.

“Oh, baby,” Nat replied with a high, cooing
voice, caressing his cheek. “Of course I did. Honey, you’re as dumb as a burlap
sack of crap. But you’re cute, and your cock fits
so good
inside me…”

“I am
not
listening to this
,” I loudly reminded.

“You sure as fuck
are
if you’re not getting pretty and hopping in that rust-bucket
car of yours!” She replied airily, turning towards me and ignoring Jared’s
contemptuous look. “Go forth, young padawan. Your man doth require thy supple,
womanly figure! Fulfill thine destiny and fuck until the sun rises!”

“I’m not fucking him tonight!” I declared,
covering my ears and retreating from the room.

Natalie was loudly continuing her awful old
English accent and reciting pseudo Shakespearean gibberish, but I playfully
muffled out the noise as I changed into something more flattering than loose
pajamas.

Confident in my selection, I modeled it off
for her beside the couch.

Natalie responded in her most outlandishly
regal voice, accentuating practically every syllable: ““Oh,
darrrling
, you look
magnificent
.”

After a smug, countering smile, I snatched up
my keys and bid them goodnight. As far as I was aware, I was coming back, but I
didn’t want to make any presumptions about the night.

Especially when Dalton was mad at me.

Pulling up the directions on my smartphone, I
kicked my car into drive and navigated into the streets. It was awfully
convenient that he didn’t live very far at all. Even with some congestion, it
was insisting that I could be knocking on his door within a tentative fifteen
minutes.

After a few red lights, some jackass almost
sideswiping me to get into my lane, and a flock of pedestrians stalling traffic
for a moment, I was pulling in front of his home.

Dalton appeared to be renting a small house,
located on the edge of the city. There was enough room for maybe two cars in
the driveway – I could see his motorcycle, as well as a car I didn’t recognize.
Makes sense that he has one of each,
I
figured to myself.

Instead of trying to fit in there, I found a
spot a couple of houses down and parallel parked out in front.

My confidence wavered for the first time
since leaving my apartment. Confronted with actually
seeing him
again within a matter of seconds, I wasn’t precisely
sure what I was going to say to him.

Way to think this through, Clara.

I double-checked the address twice before
knocking on his front door. His house was wrapped in white wooden siding, with
his front patio receding beneath the overhang of the roof. There were a couple
of windows, with the curtains drawn, but I could see light filtering out.

A shadow moved. The curtain drew apart
slightly, and I couldn’t make out who was behind it. But the silhouette moved
back into place without greeting the door.

Oh great,
I thought to myself.
I’ve gone through all this effort, and he
just doesn’t want to see me at all?

Swallowing my frustration, I knocked again.
This time, the silhouette moved out of sight, and there came the sound of
creaking footsteps from just on the other side of the door.

I noticed the peephole, and stepped back from
it to give a better look, although I fully expected to be recognized.

“Hi?” I heard from the other side of the
door. The voice belonged to someone else – a guy, somewhere between both our
ages.

“I’m here for Dalton?” I replied, guessing I
was speaking to a roommate. “Do I have the right house? This is where he said
he lived.”

I heard the sound of the door unlocking, and
it creaked open enough for a grimy face to peer out. The stranger was clearly
trying to grow out a beard, but he wasn’t getting anything more than a thick,
scruffy mess. His eyes were jittery, and he could stand to wash his face off.

“For Dalton? Who’re you?”

I sighed.

“My name’s Clara. Is he here?”

The guy looked at me suspiciously before
shouting over his shoulder. He conspicuously kept his eyes glued to me, as if
I
were the shady one here.

“Hey, Dalton? Some
girl’s
here for you. Clara? Ring a bell? Want me to make her go
away?”

A muffled response came, and the guy looked
over at me with a half-sneer. “Uh, come in, I guess. Make yourself at home.
Don’t touch my stuff.”

“This is my first time here,” I told him in
barely-covered exasperation. “How am I gonna know what things are
yours
?”

The strange roommate froze, apparently
contemplating that. “You know what? Don’t touch
anything
then. My stuff is mine. Not yours.”

 
“Duly noted,” I replied crisply,
following him inside. He pointed me towards the couch as he took up residence
in a comfortable recliner, snatching up the remote. He turned the volume back
up on a TV that practically
dwarfed
even
our own, and I glanced around at my surroundings.

The house was decorated sparsely, but it was
surprisingly clean for a place where
this
character lived. Clearly, I didn’t have to worry about touching any of his
things… there’s no way that any of this belonged to him.

The furniture was nice and reasonably
expensive, with the exception of the filthy chair that the stranger occupied.
There were some throw pillows on the couch and a folded blanket, lying over the
back; it seemed like it had been bought without much consideration, just to
fill the space and look good.

The walls were a soft opaque tan color, which
worked well with the furniture selections and the sprawling Persian-style rug.
It seemed that the whole house bore beautiful hardwood floors, which probably
meant that it was going to be
chilly as
fuck
when the winter finally came.

As for mental stimulation, a nearby bookcase
carried a number of interesting books, including a lot of literary classics and
authors: Mark Twain, Stephen King, Anne Rice, Isaac Asimov, and a number of
others whom I barely recognized.

While I remained seated, glancing around my
new environment and taking in a few pieces of art on the walls, I heard a lazy
clamoring from deeper into the house.

A door opened, and heavy footsteps brought
someone our way until Dalton’s face finally peered in around the doorway.