Chapter 17 Trad Wife Dreams #2
“Ooh! Bread’s here! I’ll go get it.” She made to leave the kitchen. I reached out, my fingers curling around her elbow.
“No,” I said firmly. Her pulse thudded against my thumb, and I stroked the soft skin there. “Let me. Our friends from last night have been loitering around the street at all hours. I don’t want them harassing you.”
She nodded, her lips parting. “That’s very … chivalrous of you. Thank you,” Her fingers rested on my forearm.
“My pleasure,” I replied, the words automatic, the tone rough and husky. I didn’t let go of her arm. She didn’t move away. Her gaze was two points of pressure on my face, and I couldn’t meet them … couldn’t stop staring at her pink lips, slightly damp from the sip of coffee she’d taken.
Was her chest rising and falling faster than before? Mine certainly was.
“I’ll make you some of your sweet black water, then.”
Neither of us moved. Her tongue darted out to daub her bottom lip. I swallowed back the sudden urge to kiss her. Because that wasn’t what was happening here … was it?
“That would be a very trad wife thing for you to do,” I joked, trying to lighten the tension that had gripped the moment. Her lips twitched. And finally, she slipped her hand from my arm, and stepped away.
“Well … go get your bread.” She nudged her way past, her back to me as she flicked the switch to boil the kettle once more.
And I wondered if maybe I’d made a mistake in the moment.
If she’d wanted me to lean closer, to press my lips to hers.
It had felt like it for a fleeting instant, but was it just me feeling these things?
I had so little practice with women, and that didn’t even consider my sad lack of social smarts.
I grabbed a T-shirt and headed out, cursing myself for not being able to read people.
I stopped short of the marina gate the second I recognised the paunchy man standing on the other side of it. Emotions churned in my gut, and I clenched my teeth against them.
“What do you want?” I grated before noticing the bakery bag in his hand. “Are you driving Ubers now?”
“That’s no way to greet your dad, Henry!” He barked out a laugh that turned into a hacking cough. “And no, I’m not driving Ubers. Lost my licence eighteen months ago. But the nice Indian man who left it with me said it was for ‘Irina’.”
He smirked, as my heart stopped. “Is that her name? My new daughter-in-law?”
“What do you want?”
“To see my son, who won’t answer my calls. Does ‘Irina’ want her bread? Where’d you find her, anyway? Soviet Sluts for Hire?”
Fury burned at the base of my ribcage.
“You’re not welcome here. You’re not entitled to my time, and you’re definitely not entitled to Irina.”
“Ah, but I have your bread.” He smirked, dangling the bag like he was tempting a donkey with a carrot. “Wouldn’t want the little wifey to go hungry, would we?”
My vision swam, my skin crawled. Words of anger and hurt pressed against the cage I’d locked them in—memories of going hungry while he gambled away rent money, of begging for secondhand uniforms, of drowning in Lucian’s too-big hand-me-downs, and the bullying I endured at school as a result.
He’d always chosen the pokies, TAB, or a roulette table over me.
I’d tried explaining it once—at fifteen, when he started asking for money the moment I’d gotten a part-time job. Again, when PlayStation games I’d bought vanished, pawned for cash.
When I’d left for uni, I’d stopped answering his calls. He’d stopped trying—until Tickle blew up. Then the calls started again.
“Cat got your tongue?” he mocked. “You always were a fucked-up kid, having your little silent treatment tantrums.”
“You mean my nonverbal episodes,” I corrected coldly. Tension was building between my shoulder blades, and I clenched my fists to try and disperse it.
“Whatever you want to call them. You’ve gotta admit, you were a bastard of a kid to parent, and you owe me for the shit you put me through.”
“I owe you a sum total of nothing,” I grated. “And I’d like you to leave.” I cursed the tremor in my voice, feeling the oncoming overload and wanting nothing more than to escape, to hide in my room and inhale my vape and hopefully get past it without a meltdown.
“You know, maybe I should just talk to your wife. She’s got more to lose here.”
Ice trickled down my spine. “What is that supposed to mean?”
He rolled his eyes, smirking. “Oh, come on, Henry. It’s obvious you imported a mail-order bride because you couldn’t find a single Aussie woman who would touch you with a ten-foot pole.
It’d be a shame, wouldn’t it, if I tipped the police off, and she got sent home …
it’s a bit of a legal grey area, isn’t it? ”
My fingers slipped on my suddenly clammy palms. He doesn’t know the truth. He’s just guessing because of her name.
But there were people out there who did know the truth. People I should be able to trust, like Atlas. And then people like this ex-girlfriend of Irina’s. But even if she had linked Irina to me, I doubted her plan of attack would be to track down my estranged father and have him do her dirty work.
Could I take the risk, though? Even if he didn’t know the truth, if he went to the authorities … that had the potential to be disastrous.
I needed him gone. I needed him away from me. And away from Irina.
“How much?” I hissed. I hated that he could still do this to me—undo years of therapy and work with a single smirk.
“How much what, son?” he asked, leaning closer. The yellowing grimace he threw at me made me want to throw up.
“How much mon—”
“Get the fuck out of here, Warren.” Lucian loomed over him, huge and menacing.
“That’s Uncle Warren to you.” His voice had lost some of the swagger of before, and he coughed nervously, the sound turning phlegmy.
“You aren’t my uncle, the same way you aren’t his father. You lost the right to call yourself that years ago. Now go the fuck home, or I’ll be the one calling the police to have you arrested for trespassing.”
The world blurred, and I stepped back from the gate. Lucian has got this. Lucian understands.
“Come on, Bax. He’s gone. Let’s take a few deep breaths, and then we’ll go back inside.”
I focused on my box breathing: in for four, hold, out for four, hold. It helped. The blurriness faded, but I was still wound tight, strung out, like one wrong move would snap me.
“Let’s start walking,” Lucian suggested. I moved, one foot in front of the other, keeping my eyes on my feet.
“You can’t ever offer him money, Bax,” Lucian murmured. “As soon as you do, you’ve set yourself up for him to come back, over and over again.”
“He threatened Irina,” I grunted, fists clenching once more. We were halfway back to the yacht. “I won’t let that bastard hurt her.”
“You’re in so fucking deep with her.”
It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t grace it with an answer.