Chapter 17 #2
“I do.” He looked conflicted and I waited patiently for him to tell me what was bothering him.
“I used to have nightmares about this place. After we broke up the first time. I kept dreaming about you being here, so happy, but then as soon as I set foot in it my touch would start to poison everything. The bleeding hearts became barbed vines that wrapped around you, cutting you. In my nightmares you’d scream at me, begging me to stop hurting you.
I couldn’t get to you to help you.” He shook his head.
“I don’t know why it still bothers me so much. ”
“It was just a nightmare. This is real life and you can get to me now. It won’t look like your nightmares, I promise. But you have to take off your shoes first,” I said, kicking off my own boots.
“I’ll get dirty feet.”
“Yes.” I tried not to laugh at him. “That’s the point.” I knelt down and untied his shoes myself. I peeled off his socks and left them behind. “Come on.”
He squeezed my hand tighter as we walked down the steps, through the flower wheels decorated with honeysuckle and jasmine. When we reached the bottom he stilled, taking it all in.
“What do you think?”
“It’s almost exactly how I imagined it.”
“Almost? What’s missing?”
“Our children.” I froze and he squeezed my hand.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to give you a deadline for those.
” He walked through the garden. I held back, watching him.
It felt like a lifetime since I’d dreamed up this place, holding him in a jacuzzi tub, trying to exorcise his demons that I couldn’t even name yet.
“We had our first kiss in this spot.”
“I remember.” I smiled. “When you kissed me I’d never felt anything like that before.”
“Me either. I didn’t expect it.” He crooked a finger at me, beckoning me. I walked towards him as if I had no choice. “You grabbed me by the soul, Lola. I’ve spent a lot of time wishing you’d let go, now I’m going to make sure you never do.”
His mouth found mine and I met his urgency. Our kiss was just as intense as the first time. He lifted me then knelt, lowering me to the ground. He wasn’t waiting anymore and I wasn’t going to make him.
“Careful,” I teased as he unfastened the buckle of his belt. “You’re going to get dirty.”
“That’s the point.”
I unfastened the button on my jeans and lifted my hips so he could pull them off. I made short work of the buttons on his shirt. I pulled him to me, hungry for him. He hitched my legs up over his hips, hurried hands pushing up my t-shirt so our skin could touch.
I gasped as we connected. I arched my back, basking in the sensation of him moving inside me coupled with the dappled sunlight warming my skin.
His mouth barely left mine for a breath.
He only kissed me and moved gently, deeply.
I held onto him, pulling him back to me with everything I had.
Two days apart was a lifetime when things weren’t right.
He’d made love to me with a rich intensity that I felt in every fibre of my being and when it was over, I was desperate for more. But I let him go. He rolled onto his back, pulling me with him until I lay sprawled across his heaving chest.
“I don’t ever want to leave this place.”
“You’re the boss,” I reminded him. “I’m pretty sure we could live here forever if you wanted.”
He chuckled softly. “Now there’s a thought.”
We were getting married in a year. That was the agreement. When Harrington was finally finished and the Evergarden was in full bloom, we would get married. A warmth spread through me whenever I pictured it. Alfie Tell would be mine, forever. It was an incredible thing, to be chosen for life.
Alfie didn’t want to wait that long of course, but he understood I didn't want to step on Natalie’s toes.
Every day she had sent me venues she and Riley were looking at, ideas for dresses.
Their wedding was happening as soon as they could find somewhere that wasn’t fully booked.
I envied her eagerness. She knew right away where she wanted our father in her life.
I needed at least a year to figure it out.
I sat in the clawfoot tub in my Harrington bathroom, picking Evergarden dirt from under my fingernails.
The occasional tear ran down my cheek. Most days, missing my mum was bearable.
Other days, it ached acutely. I needed her presence, her advice.
I needed her to help me pick out flowers for the wedding, I needed my gran to teach me how to be a wife.
Mum would tell me to forgive, gran would tell me to never forget.
I heard the creak of the bedroom door, Alfie had finally finished his work call that had interrupted our reunion. He stepped into the bathroom, already stripping out of his clothes.
“The waters’ dirty,” I warned him.
“I don’t care.” He climbed in, water sloshing over the side of the tub. His arms cocooned me, smothering me in security.
“Work?” I asked him.
“My mother. We’re having lunch next week.” My stomach clenched. His mother was the last thing I wanted to think about.
“I want to come. I don’t want you facing her alone.”
He looked like he wanted to argue and I was surprised when he agreed. “Fine, but please behave yourself.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, trying to keep the conversation light. I didn’t want Alfie falling into a black hole over that woman.
“You know exactly what I mean. My mother is not worth creating drama over.”
“No drama, but maybe I can make her like me. I’m a delight, you know.”
“I do know but I doubt she has any intention of liking you. The purpose of this lunch is likely to turn me away from you.”
I fell silent. I hated that he was probably right. And all because I wasn’t wealthy.
“You really don’t trust her, do you?”
“We don’t have a relationship, Lola. Not like you and your mother, not even like you and your father who was a good parent until he left.
My feelings for her aren’t conflicted. She knew what they were doing to me, my father and Charles, and she did nothing because she didn’t want to complicate her perfect life. ”
“I don’t understand,” I muttered. I never would understand it. His family sounded like aliens. Creatures that I could never relate to.
“They’re narcissists, Lola. Sociopathic. They lack empathy and mock compassion. That’s why they turned on me. I cared too much and my father found it embarrassing, Charles liked to exploit it and my mother, she just didn’t care.”
“What about Grace?” To me, she was the forgotten Tell.
Charles, his father, his mother, their damage had taken up so much of our lives that there hadn’t been room to talk about Grace.
I’d looked her up online and seen pictures of her.
She was gorgeous of course, a statuesque heiress.
She was a wedding dress designer and married to a man named Ethan.
Her social media was purely business though, no personal photos, so it was difficult to figure out what kind of person she was.
The only photos I could find of her and Alfie together were staged family photos from their childhood.
“I barely know her, I suppose. She’s always been cold, like my mother. I expect she’s just like her.”
“But you don’t know? She has her own business, right? How come?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why does she work when she doesn’t have to? If she’s just like your mother, I mean.” He didn’t answer me. I realised Grace was an empty space he’d never given himself room to think about. “Nevermind, we don’t have to talk about her tonight. One complicated family member at a time.”
His lips rested over mine, gentle, intimate. I shivered as his fingertips trailed over my arms, up to my shoulders where he began to massage me. I stifled a huff when he pulled away.
“I don’t want to talk drama anymore, Lo. What would make you happy this weekend? Do you want to think or not think?”
I settled against him, wishing I could sink into his skin. “Not think please.”
“I can do that.”