CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE – SYLVIE
I hadn’t meant to call him Tom.
It’d just slipped out. Rolled off my tongue like it was second nature to me to address him so personally, so intimately. And when he’d smiled at me as if I’d given him the whole world on a silver platter, my heart had thumped so loudly I wondered if it was going to start a riot.
It still was. Thumping, that was. Not starting a riot. At least not yet. It was very much still a possibility.
This soft, gentle side of him was wearing me down.
The nuzzling and the whispered plea for me to stay wrapped around me, burying itself deep inside my soul, and I already knew the truth.
I wouldn’t be able to leave.
“I want to forget this wedding exists, just for an hour,” I admitted softly, my voice tinged with guilt. “I don’t want centrepieces or dresses or seating plans. I don’t want to think about flowers. I just want to... I don’t know. Do nothing.”
“Let’s do nothing, then,” he said in the same manner one would say to eat a piece of cake.
As if it were easy to forget this wedding.
As if it were that simple to just turn that switch off in my brain.
“I can’t,” I mumbled, pressing my face into his chest. “I don’t do nothing.”
He reached between us to grip my chin and tilted my head back. His bright green eyes twinkled with something between amusement and pity, and his lips quirked on one side into the dirtiest smirk I’d seen in a while. “I bet I can help take your mind off it.”
“You—” I pushed at his chest, but he clamped his arm around my waist, keeping me firmly against his body. “Is that all you think about?”
He raised his eyebrows. “I was planning on a cosy night in with some junk food, a movie, maybe wrapping some Christmas presents. What were you thinking about, hmm?”
I pressed my lips into a thin line and half-heartedly glared at him.
“Well?”
“Oh, stop it!” I tapped my hand against his chest lamely. “After last night, can you blame me?”
“Why? Did you enjoy it that much?” He dipped his face closer to mine and brushed his lips across my cheek until they grazed my earlobe. “If making you mine again is what it takes to make you forget, I can make that happen for you.”
“I—” I inhaled sharply, swallowing whatever I was going to say, and peered down as heat flushed through my face. “You’re just messing with me.”
“I most definitely am not. All I need is your consent and I’ll have you on that desk with your legs wrapped around me quicker than you can say my name.”
“Be quiet.” The words came out as little more than a mumble as I nestled into him further.
“I never pegged you for a shy one.” He scooped my hair out of the way and pressed a kiss to my neck. “You weren’t shy last night.”
“You—” I jerked back, flattening my hands against his chest, giving him a full view of my rosy, red face. “Never mind me. I never thought you were so bold!”
He grinned, his smile reaching his eyes and making them shine. “You’re not great with hints. I thought I should be more straightforward about my desires.”
“I can feel your ‘desires’ just fine, thank you!”
“Oh?” He flexed his hips against me. “So you can.”
“Thomas, you—”
“Tom.”
“What?”
“Tom.” He brushed the tip of his nose against mine. “Call me that, and I’ll stop teasing with you.”
I drew in a deep breath, letting my eyes softly close. “Tom,” I whispered on my exhale.
His chest heaved, then he reached up to cup my face. “Never mind, I lied.”
His lips touched mine with an urgency that sent a shiver through me. I squeaked, thrown slightly off balance by his sudden attack, and gripped his shirt like it was my lifeline.
He kissed me and kissed me and kissed me, stealing them from me so greedily that I could barely breathe. My adrenaline spiked, and for a brief moment, every nerve ending in my body fizzed with something electrifying.
We moved backwards, and as my bum hit the edge of his desk, I was half a breath away from saying “fuck it, take off my clothes,” when five clear knocks echoed from the door.
Thomas pulled back and clenched his jaw, dropping his head. “For the love of God. I should have kicked everyone out.”
I bit back a laugh, pressing my hand to my mouth. Another three knocks sounded, and he groaned.
“You should see who that is,” I suggested, gently pushing him away from me.
“There’s nothing I want to do less.” Still, he turned, adjusting his trousers over his obvious erection. He sat on the sofa and plopped a cushion in his lap, making me laugh, and shouted, “What do you want?”
I quickly smoothed my hair down as the door swung open and Emily stepped inside. Her calculating gaze flitted between the two of us, and her lips twitched up to one side before she caught herself and schooled her expression back into one of nonchalance.
“Sorry to interrupt,” she said, and her inflection on the final word said that we were not at all discreet.
Which wasn’t my fault.
I wasn’t the one sitting with a cushion over my erection like a troubled teenage boy in his girlfriend’s bedroom for the first time.
Emily sent a pointed look towards the cushion on Thomas’ lap.
See?
Not me.
“You should run a brush through your hair, dear,” she said to me.
Okay.
It was a little me. But that was his fault to begin with, so was it really on me? I didn’t think so.
I coughed a little to clear my throat and ran my fingers through my hair again. Hopefully this time, I’d be more successful in smoothing it down.
“Your mother just called me,” Emily said. “I told her I insisted that you stay with us tonight given today’s events. She didn’t seem too happy—apparently, Hazel has spent most of the day in tears after you yelled at her.”
I blinked flatly. “Of course, she has.”
Her lips twitched the tiniest amount. “Yes, well, it seems she was hoping you would come and make things right.”
I buried my face in my hands. “I’m so sorry you have to deal with this. I’ll go and—”
“I told her that in my not-so-humble and unrequested opinion that the only one here who needs to make things right is Hazel. I also heard your grandmother going off on one in the background, so I don’t think I’m the only one thinking that way.”
Well, Nana was a firecracker at the best of times.
“So don’t even think about leaving,” Emily said, her sharp look adding an extra layer of ‘do as you’re told’ to her tone. “You have nothing to make right. The only thing you could possibly apologise for is for shouting at her, but even then, I don’t think you’re sorry at all.”
I pressed my lips together.
Well.
Maybe I was a little bit. I didn’t like upsetting Hazel. She was my sister.
“And I’m saying this as someone who always apologised just to keep the peace,” Emily continued, her gaze still fixed on me.
The softness of it spread a warm, motherly warmth through me, a sensation I was so unused to feeling.
“But I raised my children to only apologise if they were truly sorry. A worthless apology is worth far less than no apology at all.”
“In other words,” Thomas said, resting his elbow on the arm of the sofa and settling his chin into his hand.
“Don’t sneak off somewhere with your phone and send Hazel a half-arsed apology just to get everyone off your back.
You have enough to do without sweeping her bullshit under the rug yet again. ”
I was about to open my mouth and argue that I would never do that but rapidly changed my mind.
Yeah.
That sounded exactly like something I would do.
Emily smiled softly at me. “If you want to stay here for the next few days, you know you’re more than welcome to, darling. Your grandmother already shouted that she’d pack you a bag, and I can pick it up tomorrow.”
My heart squeezed. “No, I—thank you, but I can’t impose on you like that.”
“It’s not an imposition.” Thomas’ words were quiet but firm, and the certainty with which he spoke sent a shiver down my spine. “You’re many things, Sylvie, but an imposition is never one of them.”
I met his gaze, and in that moment, whatever swirling feelings I had for the man bubbled up and erupted, flooding my body with a warmth I knew I could never feel again.
And I knew.
That one day I would look back at this moment and wonder if this was the exact second I fell in love with Thomas Castleton.
“Are you sure?” I asked softly.
He raised his eyebrows. “Do I look unsure?”
I smiled, then shook my head.
“Right, then it’s sorted.” Emily clapped her hands together. “Tom, I’ll leave some pyjamas in your room for her. Unless they aren’t needed?”
My cheeks burnt at her teasing tone, but Thomas barely batted an eyelid.
“Mother, it’s time for you to leave.”
Emily sighed and turned towards the door. “Too far?”
“Just a little,” he agreed.
“I’m only trying to help. You know how I feel about Sylvie being my daughter-in-law.”
“Then stop scaring her off, you lunatic!” He threw his lap cushion at her.
She deftly avoided it with a quick sidestep. “If you don’t marry her, I’ll adopt her!” She ran out of the room with a cheeky cackle, tugging the door closed behind her.
A smile crept onto my face, despite the embarrassment that was still trickling through my veins. “You have such a great relationship.”
Thomas paused, looking at me. “Do we?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I’ve thought it for a while, but you can see how much you care about each other. I think I’m kind of jealous.”
He got up from the sofa and walked back over to me at the desk.
He brushed his thumbs across my cheeks, cradled my face, and pressed a gentle kiss to the tip of my nose.
“You know, there are more kinds of family than just the one you’re born to.
” He nuzzled his nose against mine. “I’ll let you borrow mine if you want to. ”
A smile tugged at my lips, and I leant into his touch. Into the warmth of his palms against my cheeks, the softness of the tip of his nose against mine, the gentle flutter of his exhales as they crossed my lips.
“Maybe just for a few days,” I whispered.