Epilogue #2
Poppy punched him in the arm. “Incorrect response, you absolute twatwaffle.”
“Hi,” I said softly as my hands landed on his chest and I gazed up at him. “Rafe? You okay?”
“You look different,” he said in a choked voice.
“Oh my God!” Poppy cried. “Where has my smooth operator brother gone? ‘What the fuck’ and ‘you look different’ are the best you can come up with? Are you serious?”
“Yeah, Rafe,” Zach put in. “Where’s your rizz, mate?”
But Rafe just ignored them. He was too busy scanning my face. His jaw was clenched so tight that a muscle was ticking at the side. “How soon can we leave?” he asked me and I frowned.
“You want to leave already? Rafe, we only just got here, and you’re giving a speech.”
The gala tonight was to raise money for domestic violence charities and women’s refuges in London.
Poppy had organized the expansion of the Sterling Foundation to support these causes over the last year under my guidance, and that of Mia Hardcastle and Lady Clare Harding, friends of the Sterling family and themselves both victims and survivors of domestic violence.
Mia and Clare were giving a speech together with other survivors, but I wasn’t ready to do that.
Not yet. Rafe would introduce them on behalf of the foundation.
He’d recently been appointed as a High Court judge.
So he had enough background knowledge of crimes against women to talk for hours, but he was going to keep his speech short.
The main event, he said, should be the survivors and their stories.
He moved suddenly then, but I didn’t flinch. My flinching days around Rafe were over. His hand shot out around my waist and the other came up to cup my face. He pulled my body flush with his and his head lowered so our lips were almost touching.
“Remind me again why I’m even here?” he muttered and I smiled.
“Rafe Mungo Bartholomew Sterling!” Poppy cried. “If you kiss her, I will kill you. Her lipstick is not to be ruined, you bloody caveman.”
“Also, I’m standing right here,” Zach said in amused disgust. “Your guys’ PDA is well out of hand.”
“I think we have to stay,” I whispered as I watched his pupils dilate. “Your speech, remember?”
“I barely remember my own name,” he whispered back.
“Honestly, Rafe.” The posh accent cut into our bubble and I turned my head to see Rafe’s mum frowning at us from next to Poppy. “Unhand poor Clara before you dishevel her completely.”
“Oh, let the young people have their fun,” Granny Sterling said as she approached on the arm of the earl who was looking almost as handsome as his son, both in their black tie.
The earl chuckled. “I think letting them have their fun might cause a bit of stir, Mum,” he said. “If it’s the kind of fun I think my son has in mind.”
“Daddy! Ew!” Poppy objected.
“Lord Sterling,” Mia Hardcastle interrupted, and we both turned to her and Lady Clare Harding, who were both smiling at us from a few feet away. “We’ve got the speeches now.” She turned to me. “Hi, Clara,” she said softly.
“Yes, do hurry up, Rafe,” Clare Harding said through her smile. “I’m sure you can ruin Clara’s make-up quite thoroughly after we’ve finished.” She winked at me and my face flooded with heat.
Mia, Claire and I had grown closer since working together on the Sterling Foundation. I knew that Mia used to be even more withdrawn than me, but sometimes that was difficult to believe. “Mind if I borrow your Rafe? We’ve got the speeches now.”
“Of course,” I said to her, smiling back. I would have moved to hug her, but Rafe’s arms were still locked around me.
I looked up at him. “You might have to let me go,” I whispered.
“Never,” he whispered back and my eyes started to sting.
“Oh balls,” Poppy said when she looked back at us after hugging Mia. “Not the eyeliner!”
“Honestly, Rafe,” Lady Sterling said. “Do bugger off. You’re keeping Mia and Clare waiting.” She turned to Mia and Clare. “I’m so sorry, darlings.”
“It’s fine,” Mia said in an amused voice.
Rafe sighed, eyes still locked with mine as if there was nobody else in the room. “I have to go.”
“Okay,” I whispered.
“Okay,” he whispered back, then kissed the corner of my mouth before he let me go.
“Don’t let her out of your sight,” he said to his dad, who walked over to me and took my arm.
“Of course not,” the earl replied as if affronted that there was even a small possibility he might leave me.
I suppressed an eye roll. All the Sterling men were incredibly overprotective; however, after a lifetime of the men in my family being anything but protective, I admit it didn’t annoy me as much as it should have.
“Come on, darling,” Lady Sterling said warmly after giving me the required cheek kisses. “Let’s find our table. Your friend Lily is there already, talking to the prime minister about educational reform. I’m not overly sure she’s safe to be left.”
“Oh balls,” I muttered as we hurried across the room. Lily was a goddamn liability. I was distracted as we walked through the crowd, but the earl’s voice was enough to refocus me back on him.
“My son loves you, you know,” he said, slowing us slightly so that we were out of earshot of the others. I looked up at him. He was staring across the room at the podium where Rafe was preparing to speak.
“I-I love him too.” I cleared my throat. Ugh, that bloody stutter creeping in again. It was rarer now, but there was an edge to the earl that brought it out.
He brought us to a stop a few feet from the table and looked down at me with his head tilted to the side. “I intimidate you, don’t I?”
I bit my lip. I didn’t want to insult him, but somehow I knew he would be able to tell if I lied. “Yes,” I whispered.
“You’re cautious. You’ve had to be.”
I nodded slowly.
“You’re right to be cautious.”
I blinked. I hadn’t expected him to admit that.
“But you know that, don’t you?”
I nodded again.
“My family can be dangerous in lots of different ways, Clara. We’ve been that way for hundreds of years.
But we will never be dangerous for you. I know it will take time for you to believe it, but we will never hurt you.
We protect our own. Understand me? You and Zach are under our protection.
You’re a Sterling now. And nobody fucks with a Sterling. ”
“Lord of the Manor!” Lily’s excited voice drew our attention as she hip-bumped the earl.
Actually hip-bumped the man! I may have been wary around this man, but Lily had no such reservations.
To her, he was just the posh grandpa of one of her kids who lived in a big house and who provided great Sunday roasts – well, at least his staff did.
But the earl was good at that good old boy front.
I was an exception in being able to see past that persona, but I’d had years of practice when it came to sensing dangerous people.
The Sterlings might be at the other end of the class spectrum, but in many ways they were much scarier than my family.
“Lily,” the earl said warmly. “Frightfully good to see you, young lady. Any more plays for us on the horizon?” The earl had bloody loved Sweeney Todd.
“Oh, I’m working on Mrs C to let me do either Animal Farm or 1984 but she’s being a bit stubborn. I guess the complaints we had after last year might have something to do with it.”
“I loved your play. Watching the Harding child slit my grandson’s throat was highly entertaining.”
“Thanks, Lordie S! I told Mrs C that not everyone thought it was ‘completely inappropriate’. Honestly, some parents are so sensitive. What’s a bit of cannibalism between friends? Bore off, poshos.”
He laughed. “Bore off indeed.”
Everyone started laughing around us then and I got the giggles as well.
I was still laughing when I looked up at the stage and my eyes locked with Rafe’s.
There was a small smile on his mouth as he watched me.
Clare Harding was talking to him, but he clearly wasn’t listening.
All his attention was on me. And his expression was fierce.
Rafe
The urge to drag Clara home had been stronger than usual since I saw her in that goddamn pink dress.
I’d had to arrive at the venue early, which I realised on seeing her may have been a mistake.
We definitely shouldn’t have been in public when I saw Clara in that dress for the first time.
My reaction was not for public consumption, especially among the “poshos,” as Lily so aptly called my friends and family.
English aristocratic restraint was legendary and did not generally include taking your girlfriend in your arms in the middle of a packed ballroom and looking like you wanted to eat her alive.
But now, finally, I could leave this stupid event.
I was trying my best not to be selfish with Clara.
For a long time, she would barely leave the house, so it was bloody brilliant that she felt comfortable enough to come out to one of these things.
But I had to admit that I didn’t like sharing her.
Of course, I’d hated the anxiety that had kept Clara housebound, but in the not-for-public-consumption, deep dark possessive part of my monkey brain, I had enjoyed having agoraphobic Clara all to myself.
However, now she was very much out. And beautiful.
So, so unbelievably beautiful. Of course, my Clara was always beautiful, but in that dress and with that lipstick, it was almost otherworldly.
Hence the need to take her home at the first available opportunity.
“What on earth is the hurry, Rafe?” Clara said breathlessly as I led her down the corridor towards the exit. “And where is Ozzie?”
“Ozzie is going for a sleepover with Margot Harding, God help him. We are going home before I kill any of my stupid fucking ex-friends for bloody well hugging you and kissing you and doing all manner of inappropriate things right in front of my face.”
Clara laughed and gave my hand a tug. “Slow down, you big idiot. I can barely walk in these heels, let alone run.”
“I’m not running,” I grumbled, reluctantly slowing my pace.
“Maybe not by your standards, daddy long legs. But us normals can’t cover ten feet in one stride.”
“Did you just call me daddy long legs?” I smirked down at her but did slow my strides somewhat.
I wished it was socially acceptable to simply pick her up and then walk as fast as I damn well wanted, but I doubted English high society was ready for that and I’d already embarrassed her enough for one night.
I would have just left our coats, but Clara’s dress was strapless, and it was freezing outside, so that wasn’t an option.
Plus, there was another very good reason for me to put my coat on, which was evident when I shook out the long, black wool overcoat and threw it on in one smooth movement, and Clara’s eyes flared as she watched me.
“You love doing that to me,” she complained, but that didn’t stop her from spinning around after I’d helped her into her own coat and slipping her hands through the folds of my suit to my chest, her head tipped up to stare into my eyes and a small smile formed on her lips.
“Doing what?” I asked innocently as I scanned her beautiful face.
“Putting your coat on all sexy like that.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I was merely attiring myself appropriately for this time of year, young lady. If that gets you going, then it’s down to your dirty mind.”
She laughed at that. The kind of laugh I fucking loved to hear from her, and I was fucking thrilled to be close enough to hear it.
All evening, Clara had been too bloody far away, and I’d had to endure seeing her laugh without actually hearing it clearly.
Her eyes were twinkling behind her glasses, her cheeks were pink and her fringe messy from me marching her across the ballroom.
For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. She was just that beautiful.
All my romantic plans went out of my head and I simply blurted out what I’d wanted to say for months.
“Marry me.”
Her laughter cut off abruptly. “W-what?”
“You’ll marry me.” Wow. I was the least romantic bloke in England.
I’d asked my girlfriend to marry me outside a cloakroom in a corridor.
No, actually I hadn’t even asked, had I?
I’d bloody well told her to. “Ah, bollocks,” I muttered.
“I’m buggering this up. I meant to do this somewhere special.
I was going to take you to Paris next week.
But I’ve been carrying this around and…”
I reached in my pocket and my fingers closed over the ring box. Clara watched with wide eyes as I fumbled, then eventually opened it, took out the ring and then grabbed her hand to put it on her finger. The large pink diamond glittered in the light.
“It’s your favourite colour,” I told her as she blinked down at the ring in shock.
“Only now it is,” she whispered.
“What, darling?”
“It’s only my favourite now. Only since you made it safe for me to like it again.” When she looked up at me, there were tears in her eyes. “You gave me colour back.”
“All I did was love you.”
“That’s all it took.”
I dropped her hand to cup her face and kissed her then, right in the middle of the bloody corridor. When I pulled back to scan her face, she smiled up at me.
“I’ve ruined your lipstick.”
“I don’t care.”
“Are you going to marry me or not?” I asked in a grumpy tone. I mean, she was wearing the ring, but I was a man of legalities. I wanted a verbal contract, goddamn it.
“I didn’t think you were asking. It seemed like more of a command. Something you’re good at.”
“Well, yes, it was.”
“And Lord Sterling expects his commands to be followed without question.”
“Yes, he bloody well does.”
“Well, I’d better marry you then.”
It was my turn to smile before I kissed her again.
Thank you so much for reading Law Maker.