Chapter 35 Rafael
Rafael
‘You look beautiful,’ I say under my breath. ‘Don’t be nervous.’
‘They’re your parents. Of course I’m nervous.’
Aurora fusses with her dress as we walk from my car to the front door of my parents’ house.
I glance to the side, the rear balcony and patio calling to me like an evil spirit in an Ouija board.
But this time I’m not going to walk around the corner and torment myself.
I’m going to walk in the goddamn front door like a sane, normal man.
And introduce my girlfriend to my parents.
Girlfriend.
The word brings a smile to my lips. We haven’t had that conversation yet. But Aurora is living under my roof, sleeping in my bed, waking up and smiling at me every morning . . . telling me she loves me.
She’s my bloody girlfriend whether she realises it or not. She’s perfect. She’s incredible. She’s mine. And even though I didn’t plan this, never thought I’d ever allow myself to get to this point, I have. Realisation has slammed into me with the force of a nuclear explosion . . .
I’m completely, ridiculously, obsessively in love with Aurora Thorne.
And I want the world to know.
‘Should I call them Mr and Mrs Fairfax, or . . . ?’
‘Call them Hillary and Stan. My mother will tell you off for making her feel old otherwise.’
‘What about your father?’ Aurora whispers.
‘Don’t worry about my father.’ My jaw tenses, but the feel of slender, soft fingers threading through mine has it relaxing.
‘I’m nervous, but I am excited to meet them,’ Aurora says.
‘Good.’ I squeeze her hand, then narrow my eyes at the smile tugging her lips. ‘What?’
She shrugs, blushing. ‘It’s just . . . you’ve given me everything I could ever want. I only need my father freed and all my dreams will be coming true.’ She gazes up at me like I hung the damn moon. So open. So trusting.
Deceit burns like a wildfire in my gut.
She looks away, her attention fixing on the imposing front door of my parents’ home.
I need to give her back her father even if it kills me.
She’s been working for months to free him, going as far as getting an undercover job at Dominic’s house.
She’s desperate. And she’s smart. But she’d never have unravelled everything with Dominic and this Ella woman.
Christ, I never even saw it coming and I thought I knew everything about Dom. The only clue was Larkhay . . .
Dom and I have helped one another in the past. He helped save Fairfax Guardian after my catastrophic fuck-up. But most of all, he helped keep it a secret from my father. And then when he came to me a few months ago after the theft from his firm, asking for my help . . . of course I agreed.
I just had no idea what doing it meant.
I’ve spent months chasing after my money when I should have been chasing the truth, the way Aurora has. And when we get home, I’m going to give it to her. The complete, ugly truth. I’m going to confess the one last secret she needs to hear.
It’s the hardest one to tell her, but I can’t put it off any longer.
The diamond engagement ring I had Sullivan Beaufort make and courier over from New York is burning a hole in my safe at home.
I want her father out of prison.
Then I want it on her finger.
I want Aurora Thorne to be Mrs Aurora Fairfax.
I just hope she still gives me that chance when she finds out what I did.
Taking a deep breath, I ring the front doorbell, rearranging my features into a picture of calm.
‘I love you,’ Aurora says, seeming to know exactly what I need to hear and when I need to hear it.
I gaze at her, drinking in her beautiful, innocent expression, and committing it to memory. That final niggle, that hesitation I have about what I’m opening her up to if she loves me, is fading fast. But even though this is what I want, there are moments it still scares the hell out of me.
‘I love you too.’ I lift our entwined hands to my lips and graze her knuckles with a kiss at the exact moment the door swings open.
‘Oh!’ My mother claps her hands together in front of her face, her eyes glowing as they zero in on Aurora. ‘Thank heavens. You’re real!’ she declares, tugging Aurora from my grasp and enveloping her in a crushing hug.
‘I didn’t fabricate a girlfriend when I accepted your dinner invitation, Mum,’ I say, my lips twitching in amusement at Aurora’s shocked expression as my mother lets her go.
‘He always says he’ll bring someone one day, but he never has,’ my mother tells Aurora. ‘And then he turns up with you! What a treat!’ She grins. ‘I’ve already heard a lot about you from Dove. I didn’t think I’d be seeing you with my eldest son,’ she titters. ‘Maybe Gabriel.’
‘Gabriel?’ I bark, making my mother wave away my concern with a laugh.
‘He’s not as grumpy as you are, Rafe,’ she says lovingly. ‘You’ve got a good heart under all that frowning,’ she adds, for Aurora’s benefit.
Aurora glances up at me, then smiles at my mother. ‘He does. A really good one.’
My heart rate picks up as I stare into her eyes, my lips curling into a smile.
‘Well,’ my mother announces, sounding delighted, ‘get yourselves inside. Everyone else is here. Except Angelo, but he’s on his way.’
We’re ushered inside and Aurora sneaks a sideways glance at me.
Girlfriend? she mouths.
‘Girlfriend,’ I whisper in her ear, loving the way the pulse in her neck flutters faster at my proximity.
Her smile is bright as my mother closes the door and links arms with her, leading her down the hallway. The two fall into easy conversation, Aurora complimenting the house and how lovely dinner smells as we walk towards the kitchen.
I hang back, one step behind as I watch, my head growing light.
Aurora’s wearing a new figure-hugging cream dress I insisted on buying her when I took her shopping a couple of days ago.
The dressing room at home is now filled with racks of new outfits, all in her size.
As well as shoes, bags, accessories. None of which she wanted, but all of which I insisted I buy for her.
After helping her unpack it all, I sat her on that chaise and took my time eating her out, surrounded by all her shiny new things.
Turns out spoiling her gets my dick hard.
Everything about her gets my dick hard.
We walk into the kitchen. Dove beams, calling out a greeting from where she’s pouring drinks at a sideboard, and Gabe waves from the other side of the room.
I move closer, my hand falling to Aurora’s lower back as I sense her hesitation at being faced with my family – or namely, my father.
Dove’s her friend, and she’s spent enough time working with Gabe to be comfortable around him.
And she and my mother seem to have hit it off.
So that just leaves him – the suited tower of a man rising from his seat on the far side of the room wearing a curious expression.
I dip my mouth to her ear, admiring the new diamond earrings and necklace I bought her, bright and dazzling against her soft skin.
‘Breathe,’ I instruct.
Aurora shivers. She’s nervous, and I know it’s meeting my father that’s got her wound up tight like a knot. Even taking my time coaxing three orgasms out of her before we left home hasn’t loosened her up.
‘I know,’ she whispers back. ‘I just want to make a good impression.’ She smooths her dress as my father crosses the room.
The uncertainty on her face makes me recall the story she told me about she and her father going on holiday when she was a child and being upgraded to a nicer hotel.
About how she felt she didn’t belong there.
But here, beside me, is exactly where she should be.
My father stops in front of us. ‘Evening, son.’
‘Evening, Dad.’ I nod at him as his attention fixes on Aurora. ‘This is Aurora, my girlfriend. She’s moved in with me.’ Might as well get straight to the point.
He does a good job of not over-reacting, but I know my father.
The slight hitch of his brows tells me he’s zoned in on that nugget of information, already dissecting its meaning.
I’ve never lived with a woman before. Sure, some have stayed at my place for a few days here and there, but I’ve never made anything permanent. Never felt the desire to.
‘It’s a pleasure to meet you.’ He takes Aurora’s hand and shakes it, studying her with an interested smile.
‘You too,’ Aurora replies. ‘Thank you for having me join you all for dinner tonight.’
‘My son told us there was someone he wanted us to meet. We were intrigued, weren’t we, Hill?’ he calls to my mother. ‘Tell me, what makes you so taken with my son? Because I know it’s not his jokes.’ He chuckles.
‘Quit bombarding the poor girl, Stan,’ Mum scolds. ‘She’s barely walked through the door.’
My jaw tightens. He thinks he’s being funny, but I hear the digs, loud and clear.
But what hurts most is what he isn’t saying.
He should just ask outright, ‘What do you see in my son? A man who almost cost us Fairfax Guardian once?’ Because that golden topic will come up sooner or later.
Maybe it’ll take a few visits, but it will happen. He won’t be able to stop himself.
My father glances at my stony expression and chortles. ‘Ah, it’s his easy-going nature.’
Aurora hesitates, clearly uncomfortable as she picks up on his sarcasm. ‘Well—’
‘It’s his big dick, isn’t it, bro? Runs in the family.’
Angelo walks in, grabbing his crotch lewdly, and despite the vulgarity of his arrival, I could kiss him for arriving in time to stop me from telling my father where to shove his dinner invitation before whisking Aurora back out of here.
‘Angelo!’ my mother tuts.
‘Please don’t talk about my best friend and my brother’s dick in the same sentence,’ Dove scoffs. ‘I still have to eat dinner.’
Benedict runs over from beside Gabe and starts rubbing my mother’s calves until she bends and feeds him a piece of chicken from the roasted one on the counter.
‘Don’t encourage the fleabag, Hillary,’ my father scolds. ‘It’ll be doing its business in the garden next.’