Between Here and the Horizon (6 page)

Huh. Ronan was old money. That explained a lot. He exuded an air of entitlement that went beyond his position as director of the Fletcher Corporation. He wasn’t New York businessman arrogant, as Mom suspected. He was wealthy third generation Irish landowner arrogant. And where the hell did he even get a motorcycle out here?
 

I was nervous about seeing him. Nervous in a strange, girly way, which was absolutely crazy. He’d been shitty to me in my interview. He’d managed to strip me down and somehow make me feel less than an inch tall in a period of fifteen minutes, and still his looks and his confidence unsettled me. I shouldn’t let it happen, but every time I remembered him entering into his office and sitting down at his desk in front of me, I was helplessly undone. Six months I had to live in the same household as him. Six months was a long time. I was either going to be helplessly in love with the asshole by the time mid-April rolled around, or I was going to hate him more than anyone else on the face of the planet.
 

When Hilary turned the Land Rover into a long, arrow-straight road and suddenly “The Big House” appeared in front of us, I understood why everyone called it that. The building wasn’t a house; it was a mansion. A huge sandstone monstrosity, three stories high, with eight pillars, four on either side of the massive entranceway, propping up a deep lintel that ran from one end of the building to the other. I counted a total of eight windows on each of the floors. How many rooms did that equate to? The place was obscene. It made perfect sense that the Fletcher family, circa 1890, had needed to hire half the island to run the place.
 

“Seriously?” I couldn’t keep the comment in as I sat there, blinking up at the house, which only kept getting bigger and bigger as the Land Rover sped up the driveway. “All this? For Ronan, me, you and two small children? We’ll be lost half the time.”

Hilary laughed under his breath. “Not for me, actually. I’m heading back to New York tonight. Ronan’s asked me to keep an eye on things back in the city for him and report back if anything goes awry.”

So, Hilary was more than just a driver. That didn’t surprise me. He had a way of holding himself and of speaking that made me think he was highly educated. Weird that he’d been the one to come and collect me from the beach, but then again Ronan Fletcher obviously didn’t mind doing things a little differently. “If you need anything, you can always give me a call, though. Here.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small black leather wallet. “I have some business cards inside. Take one,” he said, holding the wallet out to me.
 

I did so. I flipped the wallet closed and returned it to him once I had the card, but not before noticing the photograph slid into the clear plastic window inside: Hilary and Ronan, both wearing sweat-stained t-shirts, covered in mud, heads tilted back, both laughing raucously at some unknown hilarity that I was never going to be privy to. It was strange to see Ronan laughing; he looked like another man altogether.
 

No one greeted us inside the house. I didn’t know what I’d expected of the interior—maybe something along the lines of a faded, aging manor house, with wingback chairs, chaise longue nestled into the bay windows, heavy, thick curtains with rich brocade, fastened back with gold tassel ties. What I was not expecting was the height of modern luxury. Cool, polished marble floors. Expensive looking flat screen TVs and sectional sofas so big you could fit at least seven or eight people on them at once. Everything smelled new, and looked like it had been shipped out from Pottery Barn or Macy’s, from the wildly shaped glass vases to the thick pile rugs underfoot and the fur throw that was arranged neatly over the back of a plush cream armchair.
 

“Don’t worry. It’s not real.” Ronan Fletcher’s voice echoed around the cavernous lounge space, bouncing off the walls so that it took me a moment to figure out his exact location. Standing in a doorway by the window, he was dressed in a simple plain black t-shirt and a pair of black jeans. His feet were bare, which, for some reason made me blush. What the hell was that about?

His dark hair had been slicked back when we met last, full of product, but now it was swept back out of his face in thick waves that any girl would have killed for.
 

“I’ll take your bags up to your room, Miss Lang.” Hilary’s hand on my shoulder almost made me jump; I’d completely forgotten he was there.
 

“Oh, don’t worry. I can do that.” I tried to rescue the handle of my luggage from him, but he was too quick for me.
 

“It’s not a problem. I have to go and pack up myself anyway. And I’m sure Ronan wants to have a quick word with you as well.”

“That’s right. Thanks, Hilary. Ophelia, come and sit down. Let’s go through a few house rules, shall we?” Cool as ever, Ronan sauntered into the room and sat himself down on the sectional, throwing one arm over the back of the sofa. His body wasn’t as rigid as it had been back in New York, but there was still a reserved quality to him that made him seem remote and detached from everything around him. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but that standoff-ish quality was all at once both so overwhelming and so incredibly subtle that it made my head spin.
 

I went and sat on the other side of the sofa, perching myself on the edge, knees pressed together, hands resting on my thighs, back ramrod straight.
 

“You look very uncomfortable,” he said. “Don’t be. This is your home now, Ophelia. For the next six months, anyway. Relax. You’ll be miserable here otherwise. And I don’t want that.”

He was right, but it was going to take me a little longer than five minutes for me to start throwing my feet up on the furniture and lounging around in my sweats. Still, I leaned back into my seat, trying not to be so stiff. “You said there were house rules?”

“Only one or two. Simple, obvious things that don’t need saying, I’m sure. For the sake of clarity, however, it’d probably be better to just get them out of the way and then we can both move on. Agreed?” I hadn’t noticed the way his cheeks dimpled before. Probably because he hadn’t smiled once during our meeting in New York. Now, with the faint suggestion of amusement teasing at the corners of his mouth, they were just about visible. Connor had inherited the feature from his father. It was crazy how alike they were.
 

“Firstly,” he said, holding up his index finger. “I wanted to thank you. I know…I know I’m not an easy person to be around, Ophelia, and I also know that I wasn’t very…” He seemed to grope for the remainder of his sentence. It took him a while before he continued. “I wasn’t very pleasant at your interview.”

“No, you weren’t. You were a jerk.” The words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them. Oh, shit. Where the hell did that come from? Too late to clap my hand over my mouth and shut myself up. Impossible to claw the words back into my mouth where they belonged. What was
wrong
with me?
 
Ronan’s eyebrows lifted slowly, his eyes burning a hole in the side of my face. I couldn’t look at him. Not directly, anyway. I could only manage a pained sideways glance. He looked a little stunned.
 

“Wow. No one has been that frank with me since Magda died,” he said.

“I’m sorry. That was out of line. I shouldn’t have—”

“No, no, please. I
was
a jerk. I behaved in a very jerky manner. For that I apologize. I’m not in the habit of being nice to people anymore. I should probably have had someone else interview you.” His voice was rich and smooth, like warm coffee. The accent I’d had such a hard time placing on him when we first met made a little more sense now, here on the island, where it seemed nearly all of the occupants were of Irish descent. It was barely there, but a couple of words he said were faintly tinted with a little brogue. Listening to Ronan speak was an unexpected pleasure that made my toes curl inside my shoes.
 

“I doubt you would have allowed someone else to make an important decision like that for you,” I said. “You don’t strike me as the sort of person who would entrust the care of his children with just anyone.”

He looked at me for a long time. And then: “You’re right. I wouldn’t. So here I am, apologizing, and here you are, so far from home. A stranger in a strange land.” He turned and looked out of the window beside him, eyes fixed on something in the distance. “I suppose that leads me to the most important rule I’d like you to adhere to. You don’t know anyone here on the island. It would be tempting, I suppose, to try and make friends. Guy friends. Maybe someone special to spend time with. Romantically,” he added on the end, as if his point wasn’t being made quite clearly enough. I was hearing him loud and clear, though, and I was already squirming in my seat.
 

“Ronan, believe me. I’m not planning on shimmying down a drainpipe to go and hit first base with a local. I’m here to look after the children. That’s it. I have no interest whatsoever in meeting people, male or otherwise.”

He gave me a tight-lipped, awkward smile. “I’m sure that’s true. But like I said. Best to just get these things out in the open and then we can move on. I don’t want any guys brought into the house at any point, okay? I definitely don’t want you to have guests in your room. I don’t ever want there to be a situation where Connor or Amie might find a man they don’t know wandering around in his underwear, okay?”

My cheeks were crimson; they had to be. A mixture of outrage and embarrassment fired through me, fizzling just under the surface of my skin. I felt like I was burning up all over. “I’m not that easy,” I snapped. “I wouldn’t just invite a guy back to my room to hook up, if that’s what you’re implying.”

Ronan shook his head, now looking down into his own lap. “I’m not implying anything. I’m just stating what the rules are. I’m sorry if you find that offensive, Ophelia, but my children are very important to me.”

“I know. Of course they are. But—”

“The only other thing I ask of you is that you don’t ever let them down onto the beach by themselves. Somehow swimming lessons seemed unnecessary in New York. Stupid, I know. I plan on dealing with the matter, getting them enrolled in classes as soon as possible, but for now if they’re outside, don’t let either one of them out of your sight. Agreed?”

I wanted to defend myself further—it was insane that he thought I was going to be throwing myself at random men, left, right and center—but I could see backtracking and arguing with him over this wasn’t going to serve any greater good. “Yes. I’ll be very vigilant of them, you have my word.”

“Good. Now, the library on the top floor is at your disposal. There’s a home movie theatre in the basement that you can use to watch movies with the kids. You can use that for your own personal use in the evenings as well, once the children have gone to bed, but you should always keep your ear out for them. Amie’s usually pretty good at going to bed and staying there, but Connor’s a night owl. He’ll be up and wandering around in the middle of the night if he can get away with it.”

“Yes. Not a problem. I can handle that.” My mind was still reeling from the prospect of an entire library upstairs along with a movie theatre downstairs to register much of the other house features that Ronan then explained to me. I did get something about a guest quarters. A lap lane swimming pool, also downstairs, that the children
were
allowed to play in while supervised, since it was only four feet deep.
 

“The only area of the house that is off limits to you is my study,” Ronan said. “I have a lot of sensitive documents in there. I could literally go to prison if unauthorized people caught sight of them. It’s really important that Connor and Amie never go in my study, Ophelia.
Never
. Under
any
circumstances. Promise me right now that you’ll never let them inside.”

An intensity had overtaken Ronan, a fierceness shining in his eyes as he spoke about his office. His tone was sharp, harder than I thought it probably needed to be. So sad that the guy was so desperate to lock himself away in his study away from his children all the time. I knew lots of parents that were like that back in California, though. There were an awful lot of investment bankers and people working in the financial quarter back in Manhattan Beach, and a lot of them had very little time for their sons and daughters. In Ronan’s case, the loss of his wife must have had a lot to do with his reluctance to spend quality time with his kids. I hadn’t seen a picture of Magda, but it would be strange if her children didn’t carry some piece of her in the way they looked, the way their voices sounded, or the things they said. It had to be hard for him to even look at them sometimes, even now.
 

“I promise I won’t let them into your study. Ever,” I said. “Over my dead body.”

Ronan winced—a flutter of uncharacteristic emotion that made me cringe myself. I should really have learned by now to think before opening my mouth. I had no idea how his wife had died. It could have been an accident. It could have been some awful, fatal mistake that had cost her her life, and here I was making over my dead body jibes. God. Way, way too soon.

“They’re very well-behaved most of the time,” Ronan said. “If you tell them not to do something, they usually obey. You won’t need to reprimand them very often. If you do have to punish them for acting up, I’ve found the most effective way to do that is to have them sit down and write me a letter, explaining what the problem is and why they’re not on best behavior.”

Not what I was expecting at all. Most parents confiscate their kids’ technology to teach them a lesson these days. It was the most unimaginative way to control the way they conducted themselves, and yet it was also the easiest route. The kids weren’t going to kick and scream or create a scene in public if you took their iPads. They were going to be silent as church mice until you gave that shit back. If you threatened to take cell phones away, you could practically work miracles with a child’s attitude.