Two Rings And A Grudge

CHAPTER FOUR

Celeste Lin POV

By half past eleven that night, the rain had turned London into a smear of yellow streetlights on black road.

My heater blew weak, dusty air. I sat in the back car park of The Hearthstone, a greasy all-night diner with one dead neon letter, and looked at my banking app.

Availiable Balance: £14.22.

It’s a strange feeling, watching your whole life shrink to a number with a decimal point. I held it together for about four seconds. Then it came out anyway, ugly and loud, and I cried with my forehead pressed against the steering wheel like a woman in a very bad film.

“Fifteen thousand pounds,” I told the dashboard. “Five years of saving, and a ,man with a nice smile took it.”

I wiped my face with my sleeve, which helped nothing.

More tears came.

“And now Gran leaves me a warehouse and two million pounds, and I can’t touch a brick of it unless I marry him.” My voice cracked on the last word. “Oliver bloody Vane. Why, Gran? I’m sleeping in a car. I’ve got fourteen pounds. And my only way out is the one man who looks at me like dirt?”

Except that wasn’t how he’d looked at me that morning, was it? That was the problem. For a second, with my breath on his collar, he’d looked at me like something else entirely, and then he’d stepped back as if I were a live wire.

I smacked the wheel with the heel of my hand, once, twice. It hurt. I didn’t care.

When I ran out of words, I just sat there breathing, the windows fogging, my stomach growling like a small, offended animal. So coffee. Five pounds’ worth of dignity.

I grabbed my jacket, shoved my hands in the pockets, and pushed through the diner’s squeaky door. It smelled of old grease, burnt coffee and bleach.

The only person working the counter was a tired teenager with a name tag that said Nick. He didn’t look up until I was right in front of him.

“Large dark roast, please,” I said. My voice still sounded wrecked. I cleared my throat, putting a crumpled fiver on the counter. “Nothing else. Just coffee.”

“Sure.” He took the note, rang it up and slid a few coins across. Then he filled a paper cup from the pot at the back, snapped the lid and pushed it towards me.

I took one sip and stopped.

Weak. Lukewarm. Sour. Dishwater with ambitions.

“This is decaf,”

He frowned. “No, it’s the dark roast.”

“I’ve tasted it,” I put it down. My hands were shaking, and I hated that. “I'm having the worst week of my life, mate. Just give me a proper cup. Please.”

He looked at the cup. Then at my red eyes and soaked sleeves, and something in his face shifted. “Yeah. Wrong pot. Sorry.” he tipped it into the sink, and came back with a fresh one, hot enough to feel through the paper. “On the house.”

“Thank you.” My throat tightened, and I had to look away.

It was the first warm thing I’d touched all day. I headed for a corner booth near a plug, because my phone was on three percent and so was I.

Then I saw who was in the last booth, and stopped.

Oliver Vane. Under a buzzing white light, glasses off, two fingers pressed hard against his eyes. Hair messy, collar open. Across from him, curled up beneath a yellow blanket, Zoe was fast asleep.

His sister had died two years ago, and he was raising her child between operations despite having all the staffs in the world.

My stomach did something that had nothing to do with hatred, and I resented it deeply.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,”

His head came up. He put his glasses back on and the shutters came down behind them. “London has eight million people,” he said, rough and low, “and somehow you ruin every room I’m in.”

“I came for coffee, Vane,” I matched over, my boots squeaking on the sticky floor. “Do you follow me around just to glare at me through those ridiculous glasses?”

“Keep your voice down.You’ll wake my niece.”

I bit down on my lip bar. “You’re a big, important surgeon. Why are you in a greasy diner at midnight? Don’t you have a penthouse to look down on people from?”

“I’m waiting for Zoe's medicine from the night pharmacy across the street.” He leaned back against the red seat, perfectly calm. “My evening was fine until you brought your temper into it.”

“My temper?” I leaned over the table until my face was inches from his. I could smell green tea on his breath, and see gold flecks in his hazel eyes. His gaze dropped to my mouth for exactly half a second, and came back up as if it had never left. “You walked out of a two-hundred-million-pound inheritance because your ego couldn’t survive thirty seconds of compromise.”

“Compromise? You lasted under a minute.” He leaned in too, until his chest almost touched the table. “You were handed a warehouse to turn into your own studio, and two million pounds. You say you want to be a real artist, and you threw away the one thing that would make it happen.”

“You think this is about a building?”

“I think you’d rather be right than be safe,” His voice was stern. “You’d throw away real security just because of your pride.”

Something hot went through my chest.

‘Pride?’ It came out low and shaky.

My fingers dug into the paper cup until the sides bent, and coffee crept toward the lid.

“You sit there in your clean shirt, with your fat bank account and your fancy hospital, and you call it pride?”

“I call it a bad decision.” He sat back, folding his arms.

“You don’t know the first thing about me!” I slammed my free hand flat on the table and the sugar packets jumped. A man at the counter turned around. I didn’t care.

“Then tell me,” he said, flat and bored. “What exactly am I missing?”

His calm was the worst part. My hands were shaking and my throat burned. I was so tired, so cold, and so sick of him sitting there so clean and so sure.

“You want to know what you’re missing?” I said. “Everything!”

“Lower your voice. You’re being dramatic.”

That did it. Something snapped inside me.

“I’m sleeping in my-”

I shut my mouth so hard my teeth clashed.

The whole diner went quiet. Even the dishwasher in the back stopped clattering.

My heart was pounding in my ears. Oliver had gone very still. He had heard it. Of course he had.

“Your what?” he said quietly.

“My friend’s flat,” I said, much too fast. “I’m sleeping at my friend’s flat. On her sofa. It’s fine. I’m fine.”

I backed away from the booth, squeezing my cup so hard the lid pooped off and hot coffee ran down my hand.

“Celeste.” He was on his feet, towering over me, and his shadow fell across my face.

“Forget it,” My voice cracked. “I have to go.”

I spun around and ran for the door.

I didn’t make it two steps. His hand closed around my wrist, right over where the coffee burn, warm and firm. He held me in the middle of the aisle like it was nothing, and my whole arm lit up like he’d flipped a switch.

“Let go of me,” I whispered, glaring up at him through the wet hair stuck to my face.

He didn’t. He didn’t even blink.

“Answer me,” his voice was low, almost a growl. “Where are you staying?”