Chapter 2 #2
“You were attacked by Adam in your hometown. Your mother was killed by a drunk driver there. Anything can happen to you anywhere.” His jaw ticked with his obvious worry.
He took a breath. Patience. He was attempting patience.
“I won’t suffocate you, I promise. I’ll just feel better being away from you all week if I know where you are.
You can stay in Harrington too, if you like. ”
That got my attention. Alfie had re-started renovations on the site ever since I’d called him out for neglecting it. “It’s ready for guests?”
“Aside from a few touches. It’s finished enough on the outside to be filmed and it’s ready enough inside for you to stay there.”
Staying in a huge historical house would be pretty cool.
“And our Evergarden?”
Alfie’s eyes softened. The garden I’d designed just for him had been left to rot but over the last year it had finally started to become a reality.
“Riley’s been working on it.”
“Good.”
“Good?” He gave me a hint of a smile. “Does that mean you’re not angry with me anymore?”
“Yes. Fine. I’m not angry anymore.” I allowed him to pull me into his lap and I pressed as close to him as I could. I could never get close enough to this man. If I could crawl under his skin it still wouldn’t be enough. “It’s only a month, Alfie.”
He nodded but I could see he didn’t like it.
He’d gone out of his way over the last few months to avoid travelling and being away from me.
I understood it, I hated being away from him too, but this wasn't healthy.
It felt like he was trying to make up for lost time.
Always holding on too tightly, afraid that he would lose me.
Didn't he see that the only way he could lose me was if he broke me again?
“How do you know our producer anyway?”
“Julia? I know her through the club.”
My stomach dropped. There was only one club he could have been referring to. The Never Tell Club. The den of debauchery he’d founded at only eighteen and was still going strong nearly twenty years later. My mind immediately leapt to just how intimately he likely knew this woman.
“Oh,” I muttered. I didn’t relish the idea of working with someone he’d slept with.
“I’ve never had sex with her,” he said, answering my unspoken question. “Our personalities clash in that area.”
I opened my mouth to ask him what that meant, then I changed my mind. “I don’t think I want to know.”
The tea arrived and I poured us both a cup that neither of us touched. Alfie’s brows were drawn into a line, his mouth set in that way that told me he was deep in pensive thought. It was tempting to ask what was bothering him but with Alfie, it was always better to let him talk in his own time.
I sat in his lap, kissing him from time to time. His thumb ran over my naked ring finger.
“Why won’t you announce our engagement?” He'd asked me that question a hundred times and I still didn't have a solid answer.
“Why won’t you introduce me to your mother?” I'd asked him that question a hundred times too and he gave me the same answer he always gave.
“I don’t want you around things that will hurt you.”
“She can’t hurt me.” I wasn't afraid of Carolyn Tell.
This woman that I had never met and yet still somehow despised.
She had never laid a hand directly on Alfie, but she had stood by and done nothing as he'd suffered his father and brothers brutality.
Yes, I hated this woman, but it should be her that feared being hurt, not me.
Maybe that was what Alfie secretly feared.
That I would take vengeance on her on his behalf.
Maybe he just wanted those ghosts left locked away and he was worried that I would bring them out into the open again.
I didn't blame him for that worry, he'd seen me let my temper get the better of me more than once.
“I'm not afraid of her but I have to meet her eventually. And your sister, Grace, I need to meet her too. You can't keep us apart forever.”
“Not forever, I just want to keep you to myself for a bit longer.” He adjusted me in his lap, sliding one hand up my thigh.
“Why won't you marry me, Lola? You said yes, you accepted my ring even though you won’t wear it.
You told me you loved me, you've given yourself to me again. Why are you holding back now?”
“I’m just scared,” I said softly.
“Of me? You're unsure of me?”
“No. I’m the most sure of you. I'm unsure of life with you and how I fit into it. Your world still feels so overwhelming to me. I love you but sometimes it's hard for me to see how we'll meet in the middle. Where we'll live, how we'll fit around each other.”
“Where do you want to live?”
“Wherever you are,” I replied.
“Right back at you.” He gave me that small smile. It melted me. It always would.
“Just let me have more time, please. I haven't changed my mind. I love you and I want to be with you, I just need more time.”
“You're sure it's nothing else? Sometimes I think what I did to you, all of those fucking awful things that I did to you, are still here haunting you.”
“They are. Not all the time but they're still there. I do trust you though. I see the change in you.”
“But you still don’t want anyone to know we’re engaged? You’re not sure enough of me for that.”
I chose my words very carefully. Discussing this topic was like handling a bomb. “I just don’t want Keira and Natalie thinking I’m making another bad choice. Dating you again is one thing—”
He scoffed and I knew it was the word ‘dating’ that he hated.
“They’ve accepted that but marrying you…I worry how they’ll look at me. Like I’m an idiot that can’t make smart decisions when it comes to men.”
“I'm impatient. I always have been. I want everything immediately and I usually get it, unless it regards you and then I have to practise compromise and patience. My two least favourite things.” He gave me a wry smile.
“If I were to be patient now, I would remember that though we've known each other for three years, we've only been a solid couple for a collection of months.
Months in the beginning where you didn't know what you were to me and in truth, even I didn't know what you were to me. And then I hurt you, over and over again I hurt you. Then years apart, then together, and I fixed so much of what I’d done but I hurt you again and still we weren't a couple.
Until now. You were always mine and I was always yours but we weren't a couple.” He chuckled then, making me frown.
“What’s so funny?”
“Not funny exactly, but perhaps ironic that I was able to call you my fiancee before I could call you my girlfriend.
You agreed to marry me based on love and lust and connection alone.
I think I'm guilty of underestimating how much else we still have to build. Again, ironic considering that building things is my business.” He nodded then as if he'd made a decision, a private pact with himself.
“I'll give you more time, Lo. I'll show you how things can be.
These last few months have been good between us, haven't they?” He sounded unsure and it hurt me to hear it.
He'd been trying so hard, so hard at something that even at thirty six he still had no idea how to do.
“Yes,” I assured him, “it's been wonderful.” I thought about breakfast this morning and how sweet he'd been. I was frustrated with myself for not being ready but I had to trust my gut. “I just need more time to have a life before I'm ready to be a wife.”
He laughed at my cheesy line. “It's easy for me to forget that you're a decade younger than I am.
I certainly wasn't ready to be married when I was twenty seven.
With anyone else I think it would be difficult but when I think of life with you it just feels easy.
Not you, you are most definitely not easy but life with you has always been right, even when we're fighting.”
I kissed him and it was only a moment before he lifted me and placed me on the desk.
It was the second time today we'd been in this position and I was sure we'd be here again before we slept.
It came to us easy, sex as simple as breathing.
I opened my legs as he unfastened his trousers and he slipped inside, so wet, so slick, so simple.
He rocked into me, pulling breathy moans from my mouth.
I slipped off the sleeves of my dress and unfastened my bra, my breasts spilling free.
His hands found them, gripping and pulling.
“I’ll only wait one month more though. Promise me, no longer than that.”
I didn’t have to think about it. “I promise.”