Free Room to Breathe by Nicole Brightman

another Lord or someone similar it would be expected that I was doing so in preparation of a proposal. There is no such thing as casual dating in that circle. On the other side, if I were to start publicly dating someone from a different, let’s just say circle again, I would have to be very careful about that girl’s motives.”
    “Whoa, are you worried about my motives for hanging out with you? Do you think I am trying to get something out of you? Because you can have your damn clothes back. I thought we were just having fun together,” I can feel my face start to burn but this time it is for a very different reason. He can’t seriously be worried about what my motives are. I mean for the love of god he is the one that was insisting I take his gifts.
    “What? Oh God no! This isn’t coming out right,” He scrubs his hands through his hair and over his face. “I don’t mean you. I mean there are other women out there that would want to date someone like me for all the wrong reasons and it can get very unpleasant. You would not be sitting here if I thought for a moment you were that kind of woman.”
    “Okay, go on,” I say as I exhale. I wasn’t even aware I had been holding my breath.
    “Okay, this isn’t working. Let me start at the beginning. Just be patient with me. When Sarah died I was a mess. I had no idea how to deal with the loss, so I did what any twenty-four year old man does when they faced with heavy emotions. I ran from them,” he explains as his eyes turn sad for a moment.
    “I started spending a lot of time with my best mate, Tristan. He is a good guy but certainly not the head of the morality police. We drank and partied a lot. There were always lots of girls around but for a while I barely even noticed them. I was too caught up in my guilt from not being able to save her.”
    “She had cancer, I am sure you did everything possible for her,” I try to reassure him.
    “I know that now but at the time I felt like there should have been something I could do to save her. Then one night I met a woman named Hannah. She was sweet and not like most of the women hanging around. She could actually hold a conversation. She was in school to be a doctor.” Okay why is he telling me about some girl he dated?
    “I wasn’t interested in starting a relationship with anyone but I really needed some stable companionship. So we developed sort of an unspoken arrangement. I allowed her to live in the flat I had in London and took care of her other expenses. She accompanied me to various functions I had to attend and provided the emotional support I needed to really grieve for Sarah.”
    “Okay,” I say scowling slightly. I am still not sure where this is supposed to be going.
    “I am getting to my point, I promise. One night at about one in the morning a woman showed up on our door in hysterics. It seems that she had a similar arrangement with a man who was considered quite wealthy. Only, he had made some poor choices and was now broke. She had found out two hours earlier when he came to tell her that the flat she was living in had been sold and she had to be out by morning. She had nowhere to go and nothing really to her name. I agreed to let her stay at my flat as well for a few weeks to get back on her feet.”
    “Are you trying to tell me that you have some home in London full of single women?”
    “No, not really anyways. So it just happened that I have a cousin I had told about my arrangement with Hannah. He mentioned he would really love to find the same thing. He was just too busy to date anyone but thought it would nice to have a companion.
    I decided to introduce him to Hannah’s friend and they really hit it off. Only this time to protect them both I had my barrister draw up a contract. It was a confidentiality agreement mostly. It had a part that he had to give her a certain amount of notice before taking away a residence from her too. It worked out really quite well for both of them. In