His lips curled up in a victorious smirk, a clear winner once again.
“Ryan, was it?” He cocked his head condescendingly. “Was his name really Ryan?”
Please don’t talk about him in the past tense already, it doesn’t bode well for my love life.
I held his gaze only for a moment, before dropping my eyes with a scowl.
“No, it was Cameron.”
He returned to his coffee in triumph, as I stewed in defeat.
“Ryan’s my new brother’s name,” I added petulantly.
His mug came down.
“What was that?”
Fortunately, at that moment, we were interrupted by Louise—Nick’s housekeeper. Aside from myself and Max, she was the only person in the world with the elevator access code to get up to the penthouse. Originally, these things were supposed to be monitored carefully, and in all likelihood—they would probably all go through me. But after the second week of her buzzing my phone every ten minutes, I had surrendered the information without a moment’s pause.
It was a good thing too. If I hadn’t given up the numbers, there was a good chance she would have simply taken them for herself.
Of all the people that flitted in and out of Nick’s world, she was hands-down the most formidable. On her bad days, she might even give dear old Mitchell a run for his money.
Louise Müller had been a supply-runner and French patriot before marrying her fourth husband after the Second World War. The rigid stringencies of the reconstruction had found a permanent and willing host in dear Louise. Upon moving to Bavaria, she campaigned long and hard against the wearing of brightly colored fabric and the performance of lively music. She was a devout believer in hard work, and fiercely detested any of the superfluous frills society had to offer. (In Louise’s opinion, these ‘frills’ included consistent electricity and heated water. After facing jail the third time for performing a citizen’s arrest at Oktoberfest (her favorite annual tradition), Mitchell Hunter had scooped her up and sent her here—to reform his wayward son.
At a first glance, you might think that two such extreme opposites would have destroyed each other sometime within the first week, but strangely enough—Louise and Nick had found an odd sort of balance. She was the authoritative female presence he’d never had, and I think she saw him as her life’s greatest challenge. Over the years, they’d developed a precarious truce.
If she was surprised to see us up and about at such an early hour, she certainly didn’t say so. She merely stared pointedly at Nick’s feet, until he lowered them slowly off the counter.
I hid my grin in my coffee. The bastard might be able to best me at a cross-examination, but at least I wasn’t the one taking subliminal orders from their own house staff.
“Did you make a pile of all clothes for
the dry cleaners like I asked you?” she snapped in a thick accept, her eyebrows congealing into a single, threatening point.
My head swiveled to Nick with a wide smile.
Apparently, he was taking direct orders now too.
He flushed slightly and avoided my gaze.
“Not yet, I had a really busy...” He faltered under the force of her glare. “I was planning on going to...” Faltered again. “I was actually planning on doing it right now.”
With that, he downed the rest of his coffee in a single swig and hurried upstairs. After placing both our mugs carefully in the sink (under Louise’s watchful eye), I skipped up after him, ready to put my plan into action. I found him in the linen closet.
“So you know what’s so great about this guy? Cameron?”
I leaned against the doorway, watching as he haphazardly threw things into two separate piles on the floor. He seemed to have a system, but there was no rhyme or reason to it.
“The fact that you’ve finally remembered his name?”
I ignored this.
“The fact that I actually want to see him again.” Not exactly true, but it would work for now. “He’s not like all the rest—I think there might actually be something there.”
Nick picked up a sweater, glanced between the piles uncertainly, and ended up simply throwing it in the trash. I fished it out calmly, and he glanced up for the first time.
“Really.” He didn’t even phrase it as a question. “You named the guy after, who I’m only assuming is a fictitious brother, but you think this one’s got relationship potential.”