Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
REBEKKA
My legs are still shaking when Rian leads me back down the stairs to the bar, with my new charm tucked inside my purse.
The place is wedged. The lighting has been significantly lowered, offering us slightly more privacy.
He slips his hand around mine and guides me through the crowd to where Ivy, Avery, Scarlett, Layla and Zara sit with his brothers.
All eyes are on us, alight with curiosity.
‘Finally!’ Ivy cries, patting the seat beside her.
‘Oh, no!’ Avery shrieks, motioning for me to sit beside her. ‘She’s sitting next to me.’
I laugh as Rian rounds the table and helps me into the seat beside his sister Zara. ‘You’re safest here. Zara doesn’t want all the gory details of my dick.’
Zara’s face wrinkles in disgust. ‘I most certainly do not.’ She hands me a glass of champagne from the table.
‘Well, I do.’ Avery climbs over the table in six-inch peep toes in her desperation for details. ‘This was an accident waiting to happen.’
‘It wasn’t an accident!’ Ivy yells. ‘It was an inevitable turning point in their love story, right, Beks? Probably should have happened in the first act, but better late than never!’
‘Leave the books to me, honey,’ I tell her with a grin.
‘Mind the glasses, Avery!’ Rian raises his hands in the air in despair. ‘Killian.’ He turns to his middle brother, the scary looking one. ‘Control your woman!’
Killian snorts. ‘If you can control your woman, you don’t have the right one! Trust me.’
Caelon, James, and Sean guffaw from the other side of the booth.
‘Fuck. My. Life,’ Rian mutters, pressing a kiss to my cheek. ‘Guys, I’m going to do the rounds. Look after my woman, or no one will be able to control me if something happens to her, got it?’
‘Oh, Baby Beckett’s all grown up!’ Scarlett coos.
‘Beat your chest like a caveman,’ Ivy calls. ‘You know you want to.’
‘I’ll be back shortly, okay?’ Rian’s eyes linger on my lips for a long beat.
‘Okay.’ I reach for the champagne in front of me as he backs away like he’s leaving for a military tour instead of a lap of his new bar.
‘Oh. My. Fucking. God. Tell us everything,’ Ivy demands, leaning over Zara.
‘Don’t,’ James begs, shaking his head. ‘Spare us the details, please.’
‘If you don’t like it, sit somewhere else,’ Scarlett says, blowing him a playful kiss.
‘Let’s start with the “my woman” remark,’ Layla says. ‘That was soooo hot.’
‘Layla!’ Avery squeals. ‘It’s always the quiet ones. Next you need to spill the deets of your and Sean’s sex life. I bet you two are filthy behind closed doors.’
‘Oh, you have no idea.’ She winks, and Sean snorts.
‘Spill,’ Scarlett demands. ‘Chemistry’s been brewing between you two for months.’
‘Years,’ Sean interjects dryly.
Guilt snakes into my stomach again, threatening to steal my happiness once more. ‘Do you think I’m awful?’ I ask lowly, addressing no one in particular.
‘No,’ everyone answers unanimously.
‘Your husband is awful,’ Sean remarks, lifting his whiskey glass to his lips. ‘But perhaps you should leave him before you and Rian get involved.’
‘If only it were that easy.’ I shake my head.
‘Fuck him,’ James mutters. ‘He didn’t leave Rebekka before he started dipping his dick elsewhere. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.’
‘Just so we’re one hundred percent clear.’ Scarlett arches over the table towards her husband. ‘If you so much as think about dipping your dick elsewhere, your goose is cooked, burned, cremated,’ she warns.
‘Baby, I wouldn’t dream of it.’ He winks at her. ‘I can barely keep up with you, let alone go looking for more work.’
‘Huh.’
‘I would leave Anthony in a heartbeat if I could.’ I sigh. ‘But it’s so much more complicated because our marriage was arranged.’ As I say the words out loud, the truth of them sinks in.
‘What’s meant for you, won’t pass by you,’ Ivy pats my knee. ‘Don’t overthink it. Anthony’s out having fun with his mistress tonight. He’s the one setting the standards, leading by example.’
‘You know, you guys aren’t really selling the whole marriage thing to me.
’ Doubt creeps across Avery’s features as she glances down at her enormous engagement ring.
Scarlett told me Avery’s father cheated on her mother when she was a kid, which is why it surprised me when she told me to have some fun with Rian.
Maybe she sees me as her mother twenty years ago and would love her mother to get her own back? Who knows?
‘I admit, mine is less than conventional, but it was an arrangement between our families at the end of the day. You guys are in love. It’s different.’
‘So is Rian,’ Sean mutters.
My stomach somersaults, and the air exits my chest with a whoosh. I fake a cough and pretend not to hear him.
‘Sweetheart, you have nothing to worry about,’ Killian takes Avery’s hand, firing the death stare at everyone else around the table. ‘Becketts don’t cheat.’
‘Why would we want to? When we have you?’ Caelon wraps an arm around Ivy’s shoulder.
‘So, are you guys going to set a date?’ Ivy asks Avery and Killian. Caelon nudges her and shakes his head.
‘We will when you guys start selling it better.’ Avery picks up her drink and draws from it.
‘I’ll sell it very quickly,’ Scarlett glances at her husband lovingly.
‘It’s like waking up with your best friend every day—Sorry, Avery—you know you’re my original BFF, but he does things to me that you never did.
’ She giggles and clinks her glass against Avery’s.
‘It’s never feeling lonely again. It’s having the trust and freedom to express yourself, in and out of the bedroom.
Basically, it’s beautiful—when you’re married to the right person. ’
Zara pretends to vomit beside me. I avert my eyes, willing the tears that are threatening not to spill. Ivy takes my hand and squeezes it. ‘I still think you’ll be a Beckett one day.’
‘If only…’
Rian chooses this second to reappear. ‘Are they taking care of you?’ He drops a hand protectively on my shoulder.
‘Yes, thank you.’
‘We were just discussing the merits of marriage.’ Scarlett beams at him.
‘I guess it depends who you’re married to.’ Rian’s fingers give me a reassuring squeeze. ‘Do you want to get out of here?’ He glances around the crowd. ‘I got rid of the press, but maybe you’d prefer if we went somewhere quieter?’ Compassion creeps into his eyes.
‘But it’s your big night.’ I motion around at the crowds swarming by the bar and on the dance floor.
‘It’s the biggest night of my life,’ he murmurs into my ear, ‘but that has fuck all to do with the club. Do you know how long I’ve wanted you for?’
Butterflies swirl in my stomach; the urge to be alone with him again is all-consuming, but it can wait a couple of hours. ‘Probably the same amount of time I’ve wanted you for… three years, four months, two weeks and five days.’
‘Stay at my place tonight, please.’ He brings my fingers to his lips and kisses them one by one.
‘Well, whatever happens, I’m not going back to the penthouse tonight. I can’t.’
Not after all that’s happened.
I can’t face Anthony. Not just because of the public humiliation and his blatant disrespect for my reputation, but because despite all that he’s done to me, I don’t know if I can look him in the eye.
Not now I’m in love with his best friend.
Not ever again.
But I have no idea how to manipulate the situation, because I know without a shadow of a doubt that whatever I do, my husband will never release me from our marriage.
To him, I’m a possession.
And even though he doesn’t want me, he won’t tolerate me being with anyone else. Especially Rian Beckett.
‘Good. That’s settled. In fact, I think you should stay for a few weeks.’
‘I suppose I could tell Anthony I need some space. We’ve both behaved badly; it’s not entirely uncalled for, before one of us murders the other one.’
Rian glowers. ‘If he so much as lays a finger on you.’
‘He won’t.’ At least I don’t think so anyway. A flashback of the way he eyed me in the kitchen on New Year’s Eve morning bursts into my brain. A shiver ripples over my spine. Yes, maybe it’s safer to get some space.
Rian motions for Zara to budge up so he can squeeze in next to me.
He leans into my ear so his family can’t hear us, but Avery isn’t even trying to hide the fact her ears are pricked up like a dog’s.
‘Anthony behaved badly. Time and time again over the years. You at least tried, Rebekka. How much more will you give him before there’s nothing left for yourself?
Stay with me for a few weeks, please. Nothing has to happen between us again—not until you’re ready.
I just hate the idea of him chipping away at you all the time. ’
The prospect of staying with him is so tempting.
But the problem is, there’s no way I’ll be able to keep my hands off him. Not now I know what I’ve been missing out on for all these years. It’s not just the sex; it’s the intimacy—feeling cherished, protected and desired. Rian is my safe space.
He has been for a while.
‘Don’t worry about anything.’ Rian presses a kiss to my temple. ‘I’ll get Callaghan to fetch some of your things. Maybe a cooling-off period is exactly what you need.’
I don’t think I’ll be cool at Rian’s place.
In fact, something tells me things will be hotter than an inferno.
But while Anthony is parading his PA around Dublin, I may as well have some fun.
But this can only ever be a fling.
Or I will lose everything.