Stay the Night Read Online Free

again.
    Shaking her head, Bea faced Titania. “I sent him a text. I’ll have some information for you in a day, two at the most, unless he’s busy flirting with his groupies.”
    Two days. She shot back more of the tequila, shuddering at the bite.
    But she always stayed with the subjects she photographed—the better to learn who they were by observing them—so as soon as she convinced MacNiven to let her do a photo essay on him she could move in with him. And then she’d have money to find another apartment.
    In the meantime, she needed someplace to stay, so she swallowed her pride and faced her mother. The words stalled on her tongue, but she heard Gigi tell her it was okay, like she used to when then children. “Can I stay?” she blurted.
    Her mother blinked. “Where?”
    Somehow Titania resisted the urge to roll her eyes and say, In the cupboard . “Here. In your house.”
    “It’s your house, too, Titania,” her mother said, looking confused.
    “What happened to your apartment?” Bea asked.
    She shifted her weight, gripping her camera bag like a lifeline. “What makes you think something happened?”
    “Darling, your apartment is your castle, and if you had to choose between prison or this house, we all know it’d be prison.”
    She pursed her lips, glancing at Jacqueline. The last thing she wanted to do was prove to her mother that she was incompetent.
    Jacqueline shook her head. “I’m not leaving. Whatever you say to Beatrice, you can say to me.”
    “There’s a situation with my place,” she said, her jaw tight. “I’ve got everything under control. I just need a place to stay tonight.”
    “You swore you’d never step foot in this house, and now you’re asking to stay here?” Bea lifted her brow. “Yes, it’s obvious you have everything under control.”
    She rubbed her forehead. Who knew when she stepped off the flight from Rome that life would get so complicated? “I may have hit a tiny blip, but I know how to fix it. Everything will be fine.”
    “Of course it will, Titania,” Jacqueline said.
    She tried to detect sarcasm in her mother’s voice, but she only heard certainty. Was the woman trying reverse psychology on her?
    Bea shook her head. “I won’t be as easily appeased as Mother. I want to know why you need to stay here.”
    Titania crossed her arms. “I don’t see as it’s any of your business. Maybe I just need a change of scenery.”
    “This family is my business, and you’re part of the family.”
    She tried not to fidget under Bea’s steady stare. Her sister’s power radiated from her. She could have been in a boardroom as commanding as she looked.
    “You’re so bossy.” She waited for Bea to respond, but her sister just kept watching her with that implacable gaze. Titania finally sighed. “You’re not going to let me off, are you?”
    “Not at all.”
    “I seem to have been evicted from my apartment.”
    “What?” Bea sat up, her gaze sharp. “What for?”
    “I may have bounced the last three months of rent checks.” She made a face, remembering the conversation with her landlord and her own stupidity. “Due to a clerical error, I seemed to have drained my checking account.”
    “How could you have drained your account?” Bea asked, sitting up. “You make a fabulous living, especially for an artist.”
    “Like I said, it was a clerical error.” She looked her sister in the eye. “But I’ll be well-compensated for the MacNiven project.”
    “It could take weeks for that to come through,” her oldest sister pointed out.
    She downed the rest of the tequila, wincing. That wasn’t something she needed to be reminded of.
    “It won’t take weeks,” Summer said, shaking her head. “The one thing I’ve learned about Summerhill women is that they make what they want happen. Titania’s photos are brilliant. Ian MacNiven will want to be part of the project.”
    Suspicious. Was the usurper trying to score points, or was she being genuine?