Chapter 36 Lust Shouts. Love Stays.
Lust Shouts. Love Stays.
Christa
The Ritz has opinions about me the moment I walk through the doors.
They’re silent opinions, obviously. Judgement by chandelier. Raised eyebrows in marble. A faint, collective sniff that says you are either Very Important or Have Wandered In By Mistake.
I pause just inside the entrance, one hand instinctively drifting to my stomach. Six months pregnant means I am very aware of my body at all times. The curve under my dress. The weight of it. The way it announces me before I’ve said a word.
I am many things right now. Posh-adjacent is not one of them.
And then Geoff links his fingers with mine.
It’s the smallest movement and the loudest message.
Together.
I feel it ripple instantly. Ivy notices it first. Her eyebrows lift for half a second before she grins into her scarf like she’s just won something.
Miranda notices next, her mouth softening as she takes it in without comment.
Even Theo, who pretends to be oblivious to anything emotional, glances over and then pointedly looks away like he’s respecting a boundary.
No announcement. No speech. Just fingers laced.
Geoff squeezes once, reassuring.
“You alright?” he murmurs.
“I feel like the building is about to ask me my annual income,” I whisper back.
“You’re doing great,” he says, completely unbothered. “And, if it tries anything, I’ll distract it with charm.”
I snort before I can stop myself.
Ivy sweeps past us then, completely unfazed by the marble and the money and the fact that the carpet probably has a waiting list.
“Oh good,” she says cheerfully. “This place feels wildly inappropriate for me. I’m thrilled.”
Miranda follows with SJ in tow, one hand resting protectively on his shoulder, the other clutching a handbag that looks like it contains snacks, wipes, and possibly a small legal team.
She scans the room.
“SJ, we have to behave here,” she says mildly, then looks down at her son. “No running. No touching anything gold. And, if you lick a surface, I will leave you here.”
SJ sighs dramatically. “I’m bored.”
“We’ve been here twelve seconds,” Miranda replies.
“I was bored before we arrived.”
Lucy chooses that exact moment to make her entrance.
She is wearing a princess dress. Not a subtle one. Full skirts. Glitter. Tulle. A tiara that could double as a weapon.
She charges straight into the centre of the lobby and declares, at full volume, “I AM A PRINCESS.”
The Ritz freezes.
A man mid-sentence simply stops talking.
Theo shuts his eyes like a man asking the universe for strength.
Geoff’s mum steps forward.
She does not hush. She does not apologise. She does not try to make Lucy smaller to fit the room.
She crouches. On the Ritz carpet. In a coat that probably cost more than my first car.
“Well,” she says calmly, “I was rather hoping a princess would arrive.”
Lucy lights up like she’s just been knighted.
“You were?”
“Of course,” Elizabeth says. “Afternoon tea would be terribly dull without one.”
Lucy nods gravely. “That makes sense.”
She spins, skirts flaring. “Daddy, they were waiting for me.”
Theo opens his eyes. “Naturally.”
And, just like that, the Ritz loses its grip on me.
Elizabeth rises, smiles at all of us with the ease of a woman who has never measured her worth against a postcode, and gestures ahead.
“They’ve set us up in the Palm Court,” she says. “Shall we?”
We move together as a loose, slightly chaotic unit. Children wandering. Adults murmuring. Lucy waving regally at strangers like she’s mid-coronation.
Geoff keeps hold of my hand. No fuss. Just there. I notice more than one glance flicker our way and I don’t shrink from it. I don’t brace. I don’t explain.
I stand. Pregnant. Chosen. Steady.
In the Palm Court, SJ collapses into his chair immediately and kicks the table leg. “I’m bored.”
Ivy leans in conspiratorially. “There will be cake.”
He brightens. “Okay.”
Theo and Jasper sit opposite each other with the resigned expressions of men who have accepted that their lives now involve children, feelings, and women who don’t take nonsense.
Geoff sits beside me, close enough that our shoulders touch. His knee presses lightly against mine, grounding, familiar. My stomach shifts, the baby making its presence known, and, without thinking, he rests his hand there for a second. Protective. Casual. Ours.
Elizabeth pours tea like this is a daily ritual and not something out of which people make a personality trait.
She looks at me.
“So,” she says gently, “how are you feeling?”
I consider deflecting. Then decide not to.
“Good,” I say. “Overwhelmed. Happy. Slightly terrified. And very aware that I can’t see my feet.”
She laughs softly. “All excellent signs.” She reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. Firm. Certain.
Then, as if that small moment of sincerity needs balancing out before the universe gets ideas, Elizabeth Corbin straightens in her chair and claps once.
“Right,” she says. “Theodore, stop pretending you don’t know which teapot is yours. Geoffrey, sit up. You’re not in a pub. And Jasper, if you steal another cucumber sandwich, I will stab you with this fork.”
All three men freeze.
Jasper blinks. “Mum, I was not stealing.”
“You were hovering,” Elizabeth replies. “It’s the same thing with worse manners.”
Geoff straightens automatically, shoulders back like he’s been summoned by muscle memory alone.
“Yes, Mum,” all three of them say in perfect and deeply suspicious unison.
Ivy chokes on her tea.
Miranda presses her lips together, shoulders shaking.
I watch this unfold with a strange mix of delight and relief. No matter how tall they get or how successful or intimidating or broadly competent, they are still her boys. Still line-managed. Still mildly afraid.
Elizabeth reaches for the milk.
“And Theodore,” she adds, not looking at him, “do stop sulking. You’re forty-three, not fourteen.”
“I’m not sulking,” Theo mutters.
“You are,” she says. “I can tell by the angle of your jaw.”
Lucy watches this exchange with wide, fascinated eyes.
Slowly, deliberately, she straightens in her chair.
She lifts her chin.
She points a tiny finger at Theo.
“Theo-dore,” she says very seriously. “Sit up.”
The table goes silent.
Theo turns to her.
“Lucy,” he says calmly.
“Yes?”
“I am your dad.”
She considers this.
“Yes,” she agrees. “But she is the boss.”
Elizabeth beams.
Theo exhales. “You may not boss grown men around.”
Lucy frowns. “But Nana does.”
“That,” Theo says, “is a special exemption.”
Lucy thinks this through, then nods, satisfied.
“Okay,” she says. “I will boss you when I am Nana.”
Ivy loses it. She laughs so hard she has to put her head down on the table.
Miranda snorts. “I would pay money to see that.”
Jasper grins. “I’d move countries.”
Elizabeth sips her tea, serene.
“I’ll be dead by then,” she says cheerfully. “So do carry on.”
Lucy gasps. “Nana!”
Elizabeth pats her hand. “Not for a very long time, darling. Eat your cake.”
The women settle into easy chatter. Ivy and Miranda lean toward each other, heads close, giggling over something I don’t catch.
It’s that soft, familiar sound of women who feel safe enough to be silly.
Elizabeth listens, interjects occasionally, guiding the table like she guides everything else.
Calm. Effortless. In charge without trying.
Geoff’s hand finds my lower back, warm and steady.
I glance down at Lucy, who is carefully arranging petit fours in a line and whispering instructions to them.
“This one is the queen,” she explains to SJ. “This one is her helper. And this one is in prison because it is chocolate.”
SJ nods, deeply invested.
Miranda watches them, something soft crossing her face.
Elizabeth turns back to me.
“You fit,” she says quietly. Not a question. A statement.
I blink. “Sorry?”
She smiles. “With us. With him. With all of this.” She gestures vaguely at the table. The noise. The chaos. The warmth.
I swallow.
Geoff squeezes my fingers, once. Not looking at me. He doesn’t need to.
“I think,” Elizabeth continues, “that sometimes people confuse worth with polish. But polish wears off. Character doesn’t.”
I feel my throat tighten.
“Well,” Ivy says brightly, clearly sensing the emotional temperature rising and deciding to intervene before anyone cries into a scone, “this is all very touching, but I’d like it noted that the chocolate éclair is objectively the best pastry here.”
Elizabeth nods. “Correct.”
Lucy looks up. “I like the pink one.”
Theo leans down to her. “You may like the pink one. You may not declare war over it.”
She sighs. “Fine.”
I lean back in my chair, surrounded by noise and laughter and children and women who don’t shrink themselves. Geoff’s family. My family, apparently.
And, for the first time in a very long time, I don’t feel like I’m waiting for something to go wrong.
I feel like I’ve arrived.
The kitchen smells like garlic, lemon and whatever confidence Geoff has decided to sprinkle into a frying pan.
He’s standing at the hob, sleeves rolled up, brow faintly furrowed in concentration as he coaxes a chicken breast into behaving itself. There’s a glass of whisky nearby that he is absolutely not drinking from because he’s taking this seriously. Cooking-for-the-pregnant-woman seriously.
I’m perched on one of the stools at the island, feet hooked around the rung, hands resting on my stomach like it’s a habit I didn’t consciously pick up but now can’t stop doing.
It’s quiet. Comfortable. The good kind of quiet that doesn’t itch.
I watch him flip the chicken, precise but relaxed, and something in my chest tightens in a way that has nothing to do with hormones and everything to do with timing.
“Geoff,” I say suddenly.
He glances over his shoulder. “If this is about the chicken being underdone, I swear it’s still cooking.”
“No,” I say. “Stop. Please.”
That gets his attention.
He turns the heat down, sets the pan aside and gives me his full attention, leaning back against the counter with his arms crossed.
“You’ve said please,” he says. “That’s ominous.”
I swallow. This feels bigger out loud than it did in my head. I hadn’t planned it. It’s just arrived, fully formed, like an inconvenient truth.
“I realised something today,” I say.
His expression shifts. Not alarmed. Just open. Ready.
“Okay,” he says gently. “What?”
I take a breath.
“I think,” I say slowly, “that I might be in love with you.”
The kitchen does a funny thing where it goes very still without feeling tense.
Geoff doesn’t speak straight away. He doesn’t joke. He doesn’t deflect. He just looks at me, really looks, like he’s listening with his whole body.
“I wasn’t sure at first,” I continue, words tumbling now that I’ve started. “Because it doesn’t feel like it did before. There’s no lightning strike or panic or that slightly unhinged need to impress someone who hasn’t earned it yet. And that made me think maybe it wasn’t love at all.”
I let out a quiet, self-conscious laugh.
“But then it hit me. This feels… stronger. Calmer. Like it’s settled into my bones instead of my stomach. And now I’m wondering if maybe all those other times weren’t love at all. Maybe they were just lust. Or habit. Or wanting to want something.”
I look down at my hands. At the gentle curve beneath them.
“And this,” I add softly, “feels different enough to scare me.”
Geoff pushes off the counter.
He doesn’t rush. He steps closer, slow and deliberate, until he’s standing between my knees. He rests his hands on my thighs, warm and grounding.
“Christa,” he says quietly.
I look up.
“I’ve been in lust,” he says. “A lot. Enthusiastically. With commitment issues and questionable judgement.”
I snort despite myself.
“But this,” he continues, voice steady, “has never felt like that. It feels like waking up in the right place. I don’t need to perform or chase or prove anything. I just get to be here.”
My throat tightens.
“I love you,” he says. No hesitation. No flourish. Just truth.
He lifts one hand and presses it over mine on my stomach. The other cups my cheek, thumb brushing lightly like he’s memorising the shape of me.
“And if this is slower and quieter than before,” he adds, “I think that’s because it’s real. Lust shouts. Love stays.”
I blink rapidly, annoyed at my eyes for doing that watery thing.
“Well,” I say, voice wobbling despite my best efforts, “that’s inconveniently perfect.”
He smiles. Soft. Certain.
“Chicken’s probably ready,” he says.
I laugh, leaning into his touch.
“Well, that tracks,” I reply. “Because my life now includes emotional revelations, with perfectly cooked poultry on the side.”
He kisses my forehead, lingering.
And, for once, nothing in me wonders if this will disappear.
It doesn’t feel like a spark.
It feels like a home.