38. “Stop Me From Falling” - Kylie Minogue
“Stop Me From Falling” - Kylie Minogue
Sunlight flirts with the drapes, teasing them until they finally relent and allow it to beam in and caress my bare skin. I feel well rested for the first time in an eternity, which is a miracle considering how many times we woke each other during the night. We’re like former dieters at a buffet.
Something akin to liquid paradise bubbles in my belly. I realize it’s bliss. Complete and utter bliss.
I am sandwiched by warmth: the sun’s rays on one side, Henry’s deliciously bare chest on the other. The light touch of his fingers drifts up my back. I incline my head and devour the sight of him sleep-tousled and sex-drunk.
Crinkles spread out from his eyes as the side of his mouth tugs upward. “Good morning, beautiful.” He buries his nose in my hair and inhales. “God, you smell good.”
I prop myself up to drop a kiss on his lips. “You’re still here. I didn’t think you did the whole morning-after thing.”
He grunts and rolls so I’m under him. “I don’t.” His lips on my throat fly me to another level of heaven. “We happen to be married. Besides, this is my hotel room. You’re the one who stayed over.”
I pinch the flesh under his arm. He squirms and grabs my wrists. “I can’t believe we’re here, after all this time,” I murmur. My body sighs his name as he consumes me. Henry.
“What do you mean?” His mouth travels lower and lower, waking every inch of my skin.
I roll my shoulders back as tingles of pleasure ripple down my spine. “I gave up hope so long ago, and now—” I gasp at a particularly hard nip at my nipple. “It feels like a dream. How did I get so lucky?”
“You are many things. Lucky is not one of them.” His voice is low and gravelly from sleep. The sound of it, coupled with the roughness of his stubble against my bare stomach, clenches my insides into a tight ball of pleasure.
“Agree to disagree,” I say right before he claims me, and I lose myself in him once again.
When we finally emerge from the bedroom, Henry’s designated room butler has set the table for two and kept the food in the warming trays. “Your Royal Highnesses.” He pulls out both of our chairs in turn.
Heat climbs my neck, and I wonder how much he heard while setting up. We weren’t exactly quiet.
Henry smirks at my embarrassment. He leans over to plant what I can only assume was intended to be a chaste kiss on my lips, but which quickly escalates into something much baser. Apparently, his pheromones turn me into an animal.
The aroma of bacon, sausage, and fried eggs must wake his stomach, because it lets out a loud protest. I break off the kiss and grin at him. “Maybe we should focus on assuaging one appetite at a time.”
After setting our plates in front of us, the butler gives a stiff bow and excuses himself.
“What kind of business brought you to London anyway?” I cut into my eggs. “Besides escaping me, of course.”
Henry narrows his eyes and gives me a sidelong glance. “I wasn’t escaping. There’s a hotel chain that needs restructuring.” He shrugs and spears a piece of sausage. “I’m in the process of buying it.”
I lower my fork without taking a bite. I assumed his reasons for being here had to do with Wesbourne and the Crown, not his own personal business. “You’re buying it? What are you going to do with it?”
“Hire a competent CEO to run it for me, one who won’t run it into the ground like the last one did.”
“You’re going to keep it?”
He takes a sip of coffee and nods. “Unless it seems more profitable to sell it to the highest bidder. In that case, I’ll use the capital from the sale to buy something else.” He spreads butter on a piece of toast and pops it into his mouth.
“You sound like you’ve done this before.”
Henry chuckles. “That’s because I have.”
I set my coffee cup back on the table. “How did I not know this?”
“It’s not something I really talk about.”
“Why didn’t you tell me when we talked about your dreams?”
“You’re not an easy person to impress. I wasn’t sure what you’d say.”
I tilt my head and look at him. “I think it’s amazing. Consider me duly impressed.”
“It’s more of a hobby than anything.”
“A lucrative hobby. What do you do with the money?”
He grins and licks the corner of his mouth. “Always so eager for information.”
“I want to know everything about you.”
He studies me for a few moments, as if trying to make up his mind about how much to tell me, then settles for brushing the crumbs from his fingers. “Why don’t we explore the city today?”
Half an hour later, both dressed in jeans and sunglasses, and Henry in a ball cap, we hit the streets of London.
He has somehow managed to convince his security team they won’t be needed.
My heart is thrumming like a bass guitar.
I’m finally with the man of my dreams after all these years.
Being this happy can’t last forever, can it?
“Where are we going?” I ask from the back seat of the taxi.
“Wait and see,” Henry says.
“Tell me.”
He shakes his head.
“Please?”
“Nope.”
“Come on!”
“You need to learn to appreciate surprises.”
“I do appreciate them,” I say. “I appreciate knowing what they are beforehand.”
He laughs and brushes his lips against my temple. “Just trust me.”
It reminds me of my conversation with Beck about our honeymoon and how he gave in to me without resistance. Maybe I do need to learn how to wait.
My breath rushes past my lips as the pillars of the British Museum become visible, the Pantheon on steroids. I pull Henry down for a kiss.
He chuckles against my lips. “Told you to trust me.”
Between the incredible exhibits, his hand entwined with mine, and the ecstasy that nearly chokes me, I rival a volcano on the brink of eruption. I could stay there all day, but Henry’s appetite demands attention.
We grab tacos from a street vendor and eat while walking down an insignificant sidewalk, dribbling hot sauce onto our chins.
Plates clatter in a nearby cafe as diners chatter over their fish and chips.
Diesel fumes clog the air, cut only by the potent stench of urine and weed.
The occasional gust of wind flutters bits of rubbish around our ankles.
It’s absolute paradise.
A deflated balloon careens along the sidewalk and punctures my bubble of bliss. Instant revulsion fills my veins. I kick at it violently.
“Easy there. It’s just a balloon,” Henry says. He grabs it and shoves it into a nearby trash bin.
“I hate them.”
“You hate balloons.”
I don’t answer, just take several deep breaths.
“Because of your dad?”
I look up at him.
He motions toward my bracelet. “You rub it every time you think about him.”
“I wasn’t there,” I say. The nausea roils in my stomach.
“Where?” He brings me to a stop with a hand on my arm.
“At the hospital. When he died.” I mumble the words, but the vision comes back anyway.
Henry stays silent, and I venture a peek at his face. It’s lined with concern.
“I should’ve been. But I was angry. Angry at him, like it was somehow his fault he was dying.” Angry at you for leaving me at the lowest point in my life. “My mum told me to come, but I thought I had plenty of time. I thought—” The words get lost in the sea of emotions in my throat.
Henry pulls me into his chest. “Hey, you couldn’t have known.” He rubs my back, and the gesture is so sweet, so comforting, I nearly fall apart right there in the middle of the sidewalk.
Instead, I bury my face in his baby-soft T-shirt and remind myself to breathe. “Mum told me afterwards that he was asking for me. He wanted to say goodbye.”
Henry’s arms tighten around me as the grief tries to pull me under.
“He died while I was on my way to the city.”
“Oh, baby.”
He folds himself around me, and we stand there on a deserted street in London, oblivious to everything but the bubble that is us.
After a while, he pulls back slightly. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you needed me most,” he says into my hair.
There’s no denying the firecracker of pain that whistles through my midsection before exploding with the rest. “You’re here now,” I tell him.
Our next stop is St. Dunstan-in-the-East, a parish church mostly destroyed in the Blitz during WWII.
It’s as breathtaking as the museum, in its own way.
The steeple soars above the blackened walls in eerie beauty.
A curving stone path winds around the park and promises a better view to anyone who will walk its course.
It’s a scene directly out of a fairy tale—the harsh Gothic architecture softened by the lush garden surrounding it, horns beeping from the street mingled with birds twittering in the trees, the pungent odor of sewage swallowed by the crisp, clean air of nature.
Two worlds combined into one idyllic oasis.
“Let’s take some pictures.” Henry sits and props a bent leg up in front of one of the immense arched windows.
He pats the space between his legs, and I snuggle into the cocoon he’s created.
The bill of his cap brushes the top of my head, and his arm is snug and possessive around my chest as he snaps selfies of us.
We look like sun-kissed, love-drunk teenagers on holiday.
I laugh out loud as he kisses that sensitive spot behind my ear, his thumb still tapping the shutter button.
“Mmm, now we’ll have something to remember today by,” he says into my ear.
I won’t need a photo. This day will be seared into my mind as the happiest of my life.
Henry slips the phone back into his pocket and wraps his other arm around to join the first, cradling me against his chest. A hint of black ink on the back of his upper arm peeks out from beneath the sleeve of his T-shirt.
I turn it to see better. It’s the letter C in a calligraphic font, the tiniest hydrangeas twining around it. I trace the smooth skin with my thumb.
“I didn’t notice this one last night. What does it stand for?”
A throaty chuckle tickles my ear. “What do you think?”
“I don’t—” Realization spreads like a physical sensation through my nerve endings. “Oh. But— How long—” My words are cut off by his lips on my neck.