Chapter 8

8

I knock on Morgan's door and wait patiently. He'd stalked back to his room a few hours ago, after being summarily dismissed by his grandfather, which I imagine was probably a bit hurtful. Unfortunately, when Mr Ashton-Drake gets in these moods of his, there's nothing we can do but wait for him to come out of it.

Although I know Mr Ashton-Drake's son—Morgan's father—passed away unexpectedly when he was only in his twenties, I don't know the full story of how Morgan came to grow up in the US. I'm also very curious as to why he doesn't seem to have had any contact with his grandfather during that time, but I don't want to pry.

I shift restlessly and raise my hand to knock again. I'd decided to give Morgan some space after the disastrous visit with his grandfather, but I haven't been able to settle. Usually, I wouldn't be so forthright with a guest, but Morgan isn't a guest exactly, he's Mr Ashton-Drake's family, and the thought of him being unhappy makes something hot and unpleasant squirm in my belly. I don't like it when people are upset, and I can't help but want to cheer them up.

No matter how many times I told myself to just let him be, I ended up wandering upstairs to room 419 and pacing the corridor, arguing with myself all the way. In the end, my need to make sure he was okay won out, and here I am, standing outside his door like a very smiley stalker.

Maybe this was a bad idea.

My hand drops, but before I can turn away and head back down the corridor, the door is yanked open, and Morgan stares down at me angrily. I can't help it—my dick gives an interested little twitch. God, he's hot when he scowls like that. Makes me want to let him do bad things to me, but it's not very professional of me.

I sigh. Such a shame he's off-limits.

"Good afternoon." I give him a smile. "I wondered if you were hungry? You missed lunch and Aggie is about to start serving an early dinner. I know I've said it before, but you really don't want to miss her stew and dumplings."

"I'm not having dinner," he says sharply. "I'm leaving. Call me a cab, please."

He turns and strides back into the room while still talking to me, so I have no choice but to reach out to stop the door from slamming in my face and then follow him inside.

"I'm afraid I can't call you a taxi," I tell him apologetically.

"Why the hell not?" he snaps as he approaches the bed where his open suitcase lays half-packed.

"Well, it's just that?—"

"It's no wonder this place is empty if you can't even offer to call a cab for the guests who want to leave."

"It's not that. Of course I would call one under normal circumstances, but it's just that?—"

"I should never have come here in the first place," he mutters to himself as he turns towards the dresser and opens a drawer, pulling out the clothes he obviously unpacked earlier. "I knew it was a bad idea, I should have listened to my gut. But no, I listened to my idiot brother instead."

"Um, if I could just?—"

He shoves the clothes into the case and as he does, I see Leona appear beside him. He, of course, can't see her. She peers at the haphazard pile and shakes her head, rolling her eyes.

He turns back to the drawer to get the rest of his clothes, and I watch open-mouthed as Leona calmly plucks the pile out of the suitcase behind his back. He drops a fresh pile into the suitcase as she turns and places the first pile back in the drawer.

"Uh." I raise a hand. What on earth is Leona doing?

"I should have just stayed in New York. The press would've gotten bored and moved on sooner or later," he continues muttering. By now, I'm not sure he even remembers I'm in the room, let alone expects my participation in this very one-sided conversation.

He stares down at the contents of the case in confusion. Turning to look over his shoulder, he frowns when he sees that some of his clothes are back in the drawer.

"And another thing," he says. He turns to retrieve them, but as soon as his back is turned, Leona once again plucks the pile from the case and returns them to the drawer. "Where does my grandfather get off, saying he'll see me and then kicking me out of his room before I can so much as open my mouth and utter a single word? Do you think I wanted to be here?"

"I think?—"

He looks across the room to me, and his dark eyes make butterflies erupt in my stomach.

"All these years and not so much as a phone call," he hisses under his breath. "I don't even know what I'm doing here," he growls. "And where the hell are my clothes?" He stares down at the now empty suitcase.

"Mr Ashton-Drake," I say, drawing his attention. "I'm sorry, but you can't leave."

"Why?" He glares at me. "I don't want to be here and my grandfather has made it pretty obvious he doesn't want me here either. So why the hell should I stay?"

I point to the window where we can both see a heavy flurry of fat snowflakes fall.

"What?" He shrugs. "It's just a few flakes. That'd be considered a light dusting in New York."

"Yes, well, this is England," I reply. "A few flakes of snow and everything grinds to a halt, but snow on this level? There's no chance of getting out. All the roads into the hotel are impassable, Rosie says the local plough has broken down, and the local council have already run out of road salt."

"Well, they need to call someone to get some more, then."

"We're one of the more rural areas so we're not a priority, especially as we have plenty of food and fuel. We just have to wait it out, I'm afraid. But the good news is they can probably dig us out by February."

"February? Are you serious?"

I nod. "Look on the bright side. February is only just over a week away, and they may be able to get the roads cleared earlier. Or not. Our weather is a bit unpredictable, what with climate change and everything."

"There's no way out?"

"We're having unseasonably heavy snow at the moment," I explain. "It hadn't fully melted from the last heavy fall a couple of weeks ago, and now with this blizzard heading in unexpectedly, it's made things much worse. They've sent out weather warnings and a lot of flights have been grounded too."

I watch as he sinks onto the bed in defeat and rubs his hands over his face tiredly. Leona is now nowhere to be seen, so I step a little closer.

"I'm sorry," I say softly. "About your grandfather and about the snow."

"Neither of which are your fault." He looks over to me once more. "Do you always apologise for things you have no control over?"

"Often." I chuckle. "Do you always try to control everything around you?"

"Often." His mouth twitches and my fingers itch to trace the beautiful curve of those soft-looking lips, so I jam my hands in my pockets to stop myself from reaching for him.

"But you're wrong anyway." I inch closer, feeling a little guilty about the current situation with Mr Asht0n-Drake. "About your grandfather, that is. I should have read his mood better. I'm know how he gets when he's stressed. He doesn't do well with change or surprises. You showing up has unsettled him, I think. I should have given him more time to get used to the idea before I put you both in the same room. I was just so excited that he had family come to visit him. He never has any visitors. The only people he ever sees are me and Rosie, Aggie, and John the Maid. Dilys checks in on him sometimes, but she struggles with the stairs."

He frowns. "Who's Dilys?"

"The bartender."

He shakes his head. "Doesn't matter anyway. I didn't exactly come here for a social visit."

"You didn't?" I reply in confusion. "Why did you come here, then?"

He stares at me, the furrow between his brows deepening and the grip of his hands tightening on his knees.

"Sorry." I grimace. "That was rude. It's not my business. Forgive me for asking." I turn to leave, realising he probably wants some space and privacy, but pause when I hear his voice.

"Honestly, I don't know what the hell I'm doing here." He admits slowly. I turn back to face him, he glances up from his perch on the edge of the bed, looking so miserably frustrated that I'm again hit with the urge to soothe away that frown and make him smile. "Stupid, huh?"

"I don't think so." I incline my head toward the edge of the bed beside him. He nods, so I take a tentative seat beside him, careful not to crowd his space.

"I was in Chicago dealing with a problem at one of our larger hotels and the next thing I knew, my name was plastered all over the papers. Some asshole reporter had put my name together with this place, just after that guy was killed here. They love dragging my name through the dirt whenever they can. A few papers ran with it and then it got blasted all over social media. They dug up what happened to my dad—my biological dad—then they started dragging up all the previous deaths linked to this place."

"Oh," I murmur. I'm not sure what to say, but I feel bad that he's been drawn into the mess we inadvertently caused.

"Yeah." He sighs. "I shouldn't have reacted. I know better. It would have all blown over in a matter of days, but I guess it was the proverbial straw. I was pissed and so sick of having it all thrown in my face. I was halfway across the Atlantic before I calmed down enough to realise this probably wasn't a good idea."

I wince. "Sorry. This is kind of my fault, then. The murder mystery weekend was my idea."

"Oh, really? Did you murder the guy?"

"No. Turns out no one did. He fell on his own sword, so to speak."

"Then it wasn't your fault." He sighs again, and he sounds so… weary. "It's all just one big clusterfuck."

"Mr Ashton-Drake," I begin, but he cuts me off.

"Morgan," he corrects. "You may as well call me Morgan. You say Mr Ashton-Drake and I think you mean the crazy old guy with no pants that's supposed to be my grandfather."

"Morgan," I say gently. "I don't think coming here was a mistake, whatever the reason you got on that plane. Your grandfather does want to see you. Believe me. Otherwise he'd have refused flat out in the first place. He's just prickly and, like I said, he doesn't react well to change. Just give him time. You're going to be here for a few days or at least until the snow clears enough for travel. Why don't you try to get to know him? I know he seems… eccentric. And, well, I guess he is, but underneath it all, he's a very sweet and kind man. He just tends to be a bit grumpy."

Something that seems to run in the family, I think in amusement as I watch Morgan.

He huffs. "You sound like you know him well."

I shrug. "I practically grew up here. It's all I know. Mr Ashton-Drake was always really nice to me, and I guess I kind of thought of him as my de facto grandparent since I don't have any of my own."

"You don't?" He studies me, his dark eyes narrowing curiously. "No family at all, other than your mom?"

"I do have family." I smile. "They're all here at the hotel."

"What? The staff?"

"Yes, the staff. They're a quirky bunch, but fun and loyal." He seems surprised by this, but I nod. "Why don't you come and have something to eat?" I offer. I want to get him out of this room where, judging by his current mood, I'm sure he'd quite happily sit and brood all evening.

"I'm not hungry," he rumbles like a sullen teenager.

"Okay." It is, after all, his choice. I rise to my feet and head towards the door. "If you change your mind, just head down to the dining room."

He doesn't say another word but watches contemplatively as I leave the room.

Clicking the door closed behind me, I head down the corridor.

I wish I knew why he hadn't come to see his grandfather before now, but I can't ask. It would be too rude and intrusive. I'm also not about to go snooping for information. If what Morgan said was true, an internet search would probably bring up half of what I want to know about him, but how much would actually be true? It also seems like a horrendous invasion of his privacy.

The thing is, I wasn't lying when I said earlier that Mr Ashton-Drake had wanted to see him. He did, but the moment he was actually confronted with Morgan, his anxiety had got the better of him, which is why he was so rude and grumpy. It's a self-defence mechanism and also the reason why I still call him Mr Ashton-Drake instead of Cedric, even after all these years and how well I know him. It makes him more comfortable to have that slight degree of separation, a protective layer.

I don't know the exact circumstances that triggered Mr Ashton-Drake's anxieties, but I'm pretty sure it had something to do with Morgan's father's death. It was before my time, way before I was born even, but Aggie and Dilys worked here back then. They know some of it, if not all—after all, you can't usually hide much from the staff in a place like this. But I've never asked and they've never told. I've always thought some things are best left buried.

Now, I'm not so sure.

I think both Morgan and Mr Ashton-Drake need to have a conversation. I won't push them though. I'm not one for interfering, not like Rosie, bless her, who can't help meddling in people's private affairs. With all the best intentions, of course.

Knowing Mr Ashton-Drake the way I do, I know he needs to warm up to Morgan in his own time. The funny thing is, Morgan's expressions and adorable grumpiness are almost an exact mirror of his grandfather.

The apple really didn't fall very far from the tree. I chuckle out loud, then sigh. I get the feeling Morgan has a lot more going on under that frown than most people realise, but if he turns out to be as stubborn as Mr Ashton-Drake, nothing will get resolved.

I mean, the man's gorgeous and, as much as I'd love to slip into his bed with him and offer him a more personalised service, I also wonder if maybe he could use a friend.

Shaking the thoughts of Mr Ashton-Drake's sexy grandson from my mind, I shove my overeager libido back into the cupboard it's been hiding in for the past several months and head towards the kitchen to see if Aggie needs any help.