Maybe that wasn’t the best advice, but it had worked for me, so from now on, I was going to ignore everything Finn said and did in order to try and get a rise out of me.
“Playing hard to get?” he whispered when I completely snubbed him for the next half an hour.
“Playing hard to want?” I replied before mentally slapping myself. Dammit. So much for ignoring him. I’d vowed not to react to him anymore, and look how long that had lasted…
Okay, okay. This time it was for real. No more reactions. He could sleaze onto me all he wanted, and I wouldn’t respond at all. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.
Not now, not ever again.
Chapter Four
Rory
Today was D-day. Otherwise known as move-in day.
Any misgivings about sharing a building with Finn had been forgotten the second I stepped into my new bedroom; an executive suite on the tenth floor of the hotel. A man named Elijah, who was apparently the hotel’s general manager, had shown me into the room while James led Mom and Grandma to their new rooms, and I gasped as I took it all in.
“Wow!”
A huge bed with a quilted velveteen headboard stood on one side, made up with soft white sheets and a matching white quilt cover with gold brocade around the edges. A matching bureau, vanity and bedside tables made up the rest of the furniture on that side of the room, and I could also see a half-open door which led into a walk-in closet.
I glanced over to the left to see what appeared to be a kitchenette, lounge and dining area on the other side, and further down from that, there was an entrance to a spacious bathroom. I checked it all out before turning around and looking back at Elijah.
“This is all mine for as long as I live here?” I asked. It was like having my very own house, minus a laundry room.
He nodded. “Yes. Not as big as the penthouse suites, but still a decent size.”
“You don’t say,” I said, marveling as I checked out the incredible view from the window. It was more than decent. “Who has the penthouse? Just guests?”
“No,” Elijah said. “There’s two penthouse suites. We keep one available for high profile guests, and for the last two years, Finn has been living in the other one. James used to prefer living on a lower floor. Less time in the elevator.”
“Used to?”
“Well, now that he’s married your mother, he’s made Finn move out of the penthouse suite, and he’s moving up there with her. It’s much bigger and therefore more ‘homey’, which I’m sure Anna…er, your mother appreciates.”
“Oh,” I said with a gleeful smile, wishing I could have seen Finn’s face when he was forced out of his penthouse. “So where is Finn now?”
“This floor with you. Right next door, in fact.”#p#分页标题#e#
My gleeful smile immediately faded. Dammit. Out of every freaking room in the entire hotel, he had to be next to me? If this was some attempt by our parents at getting us to bond, it wasn’t going to work.
“Um…is that set in stone?” I asked. “I’d rather be next to my Grandma.”
“Your grandmother is on a lower floor. Second floor, to be more precise,” he said. “She told me she doesn’t like elevators, and at her age, we’d hardly expect her to be running up huge flights of stairs just to get to her room.”
“Oh. Fair enough. And I can’t move down to her floor?”
Elijah shook his head. “Sorry, hers was the only available room down there at the moment. Of course, once some of the second floor guests have checked out, we can have a look at possibly moving you down there.”
I sighed. “No, it’s okay. Too much effort. I’ll stay here. Grandma’s only a short elevator ride away, anyway.”
“Exactly. Now, do you need help unpacking? I can send up a maid.”
I smiled and shook my head. “No, thanks. I’m okay.”
He handed me an envelope. “This contains your keycard. If you lose it and need another, come and see me at the front desk. And in the right bedside table over there, you’ll find a list of numbers for room service, maid service, dry-cleaning and so on. Let me know if you need anything else.”
“Sure. Thanks.”
With that, he left, and I ignored my suitcases and sprinted over to the bed before jumping on it and bouncing like a child out of sheer excitement. At first, I’d been worried about leaving my childhood home, but living in a prestigious hotel was going to be awesome. Not only that, this bed was so damned big and soft. Much better than the crappy old single bed I’d had in Hunter’s Point.