Chapter 23
When I answered the doorbell to Katy six hours later, I was still reliving every last moment of the night before, and this morning.
Because Eliza had given me a whole lot to think about.
Having Sunday lunch with my family wasn’t the best way to decompress, but at least I’d be fed, and there would be wine.
“You look like you had a good time at the festival,” Katy told me. “I don’t care how much sleep you didn’t have, because it honestly cannot be as little as me. But please sober up and get your head in the game. I need you to be on top form today, because Margot has sprung a surprise.”
I slammed my front door shut and walked over to Katy’s grey People Carrier, where Bryce was at the wheel. He shot me a pained smile. I waved at my nieces, both strapped into car seats and kitted out in pink, looking like butter wouldn’t melt.
“Before we get in the car, what’s the surprise?” I braced myself.
“There’s been a change of venue. Margot told me last night that things are getting serious with Max, and she wants us all to meet him in a more informal setting. Lunch has been switched to his house in Highgate today, and he’s cooking.”
My mind blared, but it took me a moment to connect the dots. If Max Carpenter was cooking at his house, that meant we were having lunch where Eliza lived.
Also, that Eliza would be there.
With my whole immediate family.
The same woman I’d spent the past 24 hours having outrageously hot sex with.
This weekend had already proved it could rival anything that had gone before in weirdness. But now, it was taking it that step too far.
“No,” I told her.
“No?”
How to word this? “I mean, Margot’s the best chef. I don’t want Max’s cooking. Can’t we tell her we want to have it at her house?”
Katy looked at me like I was mad. “Feel free to call her, but she sounded all frothy and happy, like this was a big deal when she called this morning. I figure, we have to support her. She’s supported us enough over the past couple of years.”
There was that.
I closed my eyes.
This was going to be an utter disaster.
I slid open the door and said hi to Bryce.
“Morning, favourite sister-in-law.” Always his favourite joke.
“Aunty Boppy!” shouted Lily.
“Guck girl!” said Vivien, sucking on her fist and pointing at herself with her other hand.
“That’s right, you’re going to be good girls for lunch, aren’t you?” Katy told them.
I wasn’t sure the same could apply to me. The shock of what was about to happen was a little too much. My brain could not compute.
If you’d told me this morning when Eliza was riding my face that we’d be sat with both our families around a dinner table having Sunday lunch in a few hours, I would have laughed.
Yet, here we were, with Margot in high cackle mode, so wired and wanting everything to go well, her jaw hadn’t unclenched since I walked through the door.
And what a door it was. Margot didn’t go for men without money, and Max certainly fitted the bill.
When Eliza told me she was living with her dad temporarily, she’d forgotten to mention the pool and games room, sweeping driveway and the small matter of seven bedrooms. We could all move in here and still never see each other.
However, right now, there were eight of us huddled around the dining table, and it seemed like a criminal waste of so much house.
I reached over and helped myself to another Yorkshire pudding, figuring that carbing up was a good thing to do in the face of so much ‘what-the-actual-fuck-ness’.
“How was your pop star, and did she agree to the deal?” Margot asked, her floral dress dipping just enough to catch Max’s attention.
“She did.” Eliza’s voice was like hot honey being poured on me.
I wanted to lick it.
I needed to calm the fuck down.
But honestly, I was still recovering.
“She agreed to the whole deal, but we’ve got to move fast before her summer festival schedule kicks in,” I added. “She agreed to wear the brand, she loved the idea of a special edition, and she even proposed a future single tie-in.”
I couldn’t look at Eliza, so I focused on my lunch. Roast beef with all the trimmings. It was very good. Max could cook.
Could his daughter cook, too? Would she ever cook for me?
Stop it.
“That’s incredible!” Margot picked up her wine, staring at us both. Could she detect anything? I had to put my game face on and act like nothing happened, otherwise she undoubtedly would.
“It really was.” I risked a look at Eliza, then had a flash of her riding my face again. Blood rushed to my cheeks. This is why you should never see your family in the first throes of a thing.
Not that we were a thing.
“Roka was great, she even got us on stage, and we met a few famous faces. The whole thing was like a weird, fever dream.”
Eliza nodded, her cheeks flushed, too. “We went backstage, front of stage, stayed in an incredible glamping tent.”
“I couldn’t believe you agreed to camping,” Max laughed. He was way more ripped than I remembered, his biceps on show beneath his short-sleeved shirt, his stubble perfectly set to 5pm. “My daughter is not known for her love of the outdoors.”
“Even you would have been okay,” I told Margot, who was also famously allergic to nature. “This was five-star camping with champagne, a hot tub, pastries brought to your tent in the morning, a coffee cart whenever you needed it.”
Why had I mentioned the pastries? I glanced down at my nipple that Eliza had recently sucked dry. Glitter cascaded through me.
“Did you meet anyone famous?” Katy’s face lit up. “Did you meet Lady Gaga? She’s playing today.”
Eliza reeled off a few names, and Bryce and Katy made impressed noises.
“They were all really lovely. I met a woman this morning in the tent next to us. I’m sure she’s an A-List actor, but you know me and faces.”
“I do,” Katy replied. “Poppy is not fazed by famous people, mainly because she has no idea who the hell they are 99% of the time.” She shook her head, then sipped her wine.
“I was saying to Poppy when I picked her up, it must have been a late one because her eyes are still bloodshot. Tell me what time you were up ’til. Let me relive my youth.”
I really didn’t want to do that. My temperature rose smartly, and suddenly it was all a little bit much. I ate a mouthful of potato, then pushed back my chair.
“I’ll fill you in when I’m back. Just nipping to the loo,” I said.
Eliza immediately jumped up, too. “I’ll show you where it is. I need to plug my phone in. Poppy hogged the charger last night, and it’s nearly out of juice.”
I slipped into the downstairs loo and gripped the edge of the basin, staring at my reflection in the pill-shaped mirror.
My cheeks were flushed, my eyes still had that telltale glassy look that came from too little sleep.
In fact, I looked exactly like someone who’d spent the weekend having the best sex of her life.
The door opened behind me and Eliza slipped in, turning the lock with a soft click.
“Sorry,” she said immediately, leaning against the door. “I had no idea this was going to happen today. I assume you didn’t, either?”
“Believe me, I would have mentioned it. Or at least made up a mystery illness which meant I couldn’t come.”
I shook my head, then suddenly we were both laughing. Quiet, slightly hysterical laughter at the absurdity of sitting around a family dinner table pretending we hadn’t been doing unspeakably filthy things to each other mere hours ago.
The laughter died as we looked at each other properly for the first time since we’d arrived. The small space was charged, intimate in a way that made my pulse quicken.
Eliza licked her lips, then stepped closer, and before I could think of all the reasons this was a terrible idea, she kissed me. She made a habit of doing that, and I made a habit of falling for it.
I kissed her back for a few long, unhurried moments, before I came to my senses and pressed my fingertips to her chest.
As she leaned back, she inhaled deeply. “Sorry. It was just kinda torture sitting with you and not touching you.”
“I meant what I said earlier, and I thought we agreed,” I whispered, conscious of six other people sitting just down the hall. “This was a one-time weekend thing. We can’t keep doing it. It’s not part of the plan.”
“I know.”
She looked so hurt, my heart contracted. I didn’t want to be the cause of hurt to Eliza.
“It’s just... I can’t stop thinking about this morning. About your fingers inside me, about the way you—”
“Eliza.” I couldn’t take it if she was going to start talking like that, as if it wasn’t already playing like a really insistent movie in my mind. “I get it. But we can’t.”
She backed me up against the sink. “We agreed it was a weekend thing, right?” She kissed my lips, ever-so-gently, her breath hot. “It’s still Sunday.”
Something inside me snapped. If this was the last chance I was going to get to kiss her, maybe I should take it. Plus, she was right.
It was still Sunday.
“Fuck it.” I cupped her face between my palms, and kissed her with a ferocity that surprised even me.
She didn’t need a second invitation. In moments, her hand slipped inside my shorts, finding the edge of my knickers.
If I had resolve left, it crumbled completely.
We kissed again, deeper this time, urgent and desperate.
Her fingers found me already wet, already wanting her despite every rational thought in my head.
I had to bite down on her shoulder to keep from making noise as she worked me with the kind of precision that suggested she’d been paying very careful attention to what I liked.
Then my own hand found its way between her legs, and we moved together in perfect, silent rhythm, our breathing harsh in the small space.
When I came, it was in muffled, shredded silence against her mouth.
My body heaved as I caught my breath, and focused my attention on her.
She followed moments later, trembling against me as I held her upright.
We clung to each other, and I hoped that we’d been as silent as I thought, but I had no idea.
We stood there for a moment, foreheads pressed together, trying to catch our breath and process what we’d just done.
“This is insane,” I whispered, to her and to myself.
A few seconds later, I did up my shorts, washed my hands, checked my reflection and kissed her lips. “You’re going to be the death of me.”
I slipped out first, leaving Eliza to follow.
Back at the table, I picked up my wine glass with hands that were definitely not shaking and rejoined the conversation about Katy’s latest work drama as if I hadn’t just had a quickie in the downstairs loo.
A few minutes later, Eliza appeared, holding up her phone charger triumphantly.
“Found it!” she announced cheerfully. She plugged it in, then slid back into her seat.
I held my breath for a full minute, but nobody gave us a weird look or seemed any the wiser.
But I was wise enough to know this spelt trouble.