Shades of Submission: Fifty by Fifty #1: Billionaire Romance Boxed Set

by Hunter, Adriana

  Now would be okay, I figured.

  I’d lasted this long, but now would be an okay point to let the tears flow, and so I did.

  §

  Wedding photos in that sweet little churchyard was when it really got to me, and when Charlie revealed his sensitive side all over again. I couldn’t work out if this was a genuinely new side to him, or if he just reserved it for that very rare special occasion – so rare that he’d only ever hinted at it in passing in the year we’d been together.

  The church was ancient, maybe five or six hundred years old. The walls were built from split flint in that incredibly picturesque and distinctive Norfolk way, each wall a mosaic of broken, polished stone. Not long after moving to England, I’d spent a long weekend up here on the coast, and my abiding memories were of hoppy English ale and dressed crab and samphire for lunch outside flinty pubs, in flinty villages.

  Completing the picture of rural bliss, delicate white roses scrambled up the walls and around the church’s entrance, and a scattering of floppy white petals formed drifts on the ground like the confetti that was yet to be thrown. The whole setting was chocolate box and beautiful, and it reminded me of falling in love with England back when I first came to visit Ethan in Cambridge.

  As we gathered outside, the sun breaking through from behind a few fluffy white clouds, Charlie stuck close to me. That whole sensitive thing, like a new trick he’d learned.

  Around us, higgledy-piggledy headstones crusted with lichen and moss were crammed into the churchyard, and I was sure that if I looked closely there would be more Bentincks and Stanleys and Bentinck-Stanleys here, too, just as there had been inside the chapel.

  “So what’s with you, Ethan and Will?” I asked Charlie. The undercurrents between the three: there was clearly something there, some story from their past. A Cambridge thing, I guessed.

  Charlie shrugged, and smiled his easy smile. Classic deflection, Charlie, my inner voice said.

  “Nothing much,” he said. “We were friends at All Hallows.” All Hallows... that had been their college in Cambridge. “You know how it is. Friendships come and go. We were kids back then, wet behind the ears, and all that.”

  “So that’s why you’ll barely look at each other now?”

  A shift of the eyes, a hand in the small of my back again, and he was steering me towards the graveled area in front of the rose-decked chapel doorway, the subject changed, or at least diverted.

  “Okay, okay, if you’d all gather here around the doorway,” boomed the photographer, his rough Cockney accent at odds with the refined tones of most of the guests. “Make room for the happy couple. Better put them in the middle now, hadn’t we?”

  Ethan and Eleanor emerged then, pausing in the church doorway as if suddenly dazzled by the sunlight and attention.

  I was refined, I was dignified.

  For a second or two at least. Then I gave a girlish squeal, tossed my little clutch bag into Charlie’s hands and ran into my big brother’s arms.

  “You did it, E! You really really did it!”

  He hugged me back, he pulled away, and he gave that Dunkin’ Donuts grin, and then he said, “Trudy. Hey, Trudy. Meet my wife, Eleanor. Eleanor: Trudy.”

  I turned, smiling, still in Ethan’s long arms. “Eleanor. Ethan’s told me so much.”

  She blanked me. She totally blanked me.

  Her eyes flitted from Ethan to me, and her expression was unreadable, and then her eyes jumped back to my brother.

  I felt like a fly, a sweet wrapper blowing in the wind... something that momentarily snags your attention and then... gone... irrelevant.

  “Pleased to meet you,” I said, plunging on. She was my brother’s new wife, this was her big day. Of course she’s distracted. She has so much to deal with – she might not even realize who you are, Trudy.

  I looked up at Ethan again, but he had eyes only for Eleanor.

  I extracted myself from his embrace, stepped back, and then they were talking to someone else, a woman in a hat that was all feathers and lace, a man who looked like he was wearing a suit that might have fitted him twenty years ago, before he’d discovered Ben and Jerry’s.

  Charlie’s hand in the crook of my elbow, guiding me away. “Hey there,” he said, pushing my clutch back into my hands. “It’s tough, I know. Big bro’ has a new family. I get it, Trudy. I get it.”

  §

  That was what Charlie got, way before I got it myself.

  When our parents had died a year and a half ago, that had only left me and Ethan. I was his family; he was mine. We’d both settled in England already, by then, so at least we were on the same continent.

  But now...

  Now, Ethan had a new family. A family with history and breeding. A family that owned a large chunk of rural Norfolk and probably lots else besides. A ready-made family, taking him to their heart.

  I didn’t begrudge him that at all.

  I was happy for him. Genuinely thrilled.

  But that was the thing. I’d only ever seen it from his perspective: everything was working out for him, everything was swell. I hadn’t seen it from my own viewpoint: while Ethan might be gaining a family, was I in the process of losing what remained of my own? Had I already lost it, in that time when we’d drifted apart and Ethan had started to move in new circles?

  I hadn’t seen it at all, but Charlie had.

  Good old hard to read, frequently annoying and impossible to live with Charlie.

  4.

  The photos took longer than the wedding service, or at least that’s how it felt. Long intervals between shots while Will and a couple of other ushers I half-recognized conferred with the photographer and then scurried around organizing people.

  There were only about fifty guests – Ethan had said he and Eleanor wanted a low-key event, and I wondered now if this was to avoid paparazzi. Do the gutter press bother about weddings like this, families like Eleanor’s? Maybe.

  But even with only fifty guests, there were lots of different group shots to take: everyone together; bride’s family, groom’s family – well, me and Ethan, at least. That was a poignant moment, but a sweet one, too.

  “Groom’s family, groom’s family,” bellowed the photographer, and Charlie just gave him the kind of stare that must have had his balls crawling up into the pit of his belly. “Oh, erm, I mean, Ethan and Trudy,” continued the man, hurriedly consulting a list.

  Ethan and I stood by the chapel’s east-facing flint wall, me hanging onto his arm. “There’s donuts at the reception, right?” I said, and Ethan broke out into that big boyish grin again and that made me smile. The photographer clicked away and then it was done, over, Ethan returning to Eleanor, who had been watching us with beady eyes throughout that short interlude.

  Will was there in the family shots, which surprised me. Charlie had said he was an old college buddy; he might even be someone I’d met back when I first came over and had then instantly forgotten. A cousin, I guessed, now.

  Then, late in the photo shoot, he threw me completely.

  “Hey!”

  There was something about his voice that carried over the general hubbub of the guests. I turned, and realized he was actually calling to me.

  “Hey, groom’s sister, you’re needed, darling, okay?”

  There were so many responses to that, I was spoilt for choice. I bit my lip, forced a smile, and said, “What... me? Where? Why?”

  “Family pics, darling. Snap snap.”

  He turned away, and I remembered again Charlie’s observation that Will was accustomed to getting what he wanted.

  I was about to select from my range of responses when I caught Ethan’s eye and stopped myself. He smiled, shrugged, then gestured, beckoning me towards him.

  Family pictures at his wedding. Of course I would come over, bite my tongue, not rise to Will’s bait. Such an arrogant man.

  I let go of Charlie’s arm. Jeez, had I been hanging onto him all this time? We’d split up a year ago and yet he
was the solid rock for me here, at my brother’s wedding.

  I approached Will, smiled again, and offered my hand. Close up, he looked a little ... softer around the edges was the best I could put it. The dark stubble looked deliberate, not just the result of an all-nighter. Those dark eyes that could look so penetrating and beady now looked mellow, a deep brown that hinted at passionate depths, eyes you could...

  I stopped myself. Why did he keep making me go all Jane Austen?

  “Trudy Parsons,” I said. “Pleased to meet you.”

  He took my hand, his grip surprisingly gentle, but with a strength restrained rather than a strength that was absent. He could crush me if he wanted.

  I had a brief flash, incredibly vivid: the image of me folded up in his arms, his naked torso hard against me, his embrace strong – that power restrained, protecting, but always there. A man who could enfold me. A man who could squeeze me dry.

  Damn it, but I was blushing again. Why was I being so damned girly today? It just wasn’t me.

  “Willem Bentinck-Stanley,” he said, giving my hand a brief squeeze and then letting go.

  Bentinck-Stanley . I glanced at Ethan and Eleanor, then back at Will. He was smiling at me now.

  “Brother of the bride,” he said. “Looks like we’re family now, Miss Parsons. Shall we...?” He gestured towards my brother and his sister. “I think they’re waiting for us. Photographs, and all that.”

  I allowed him to steer me towards the two of them, weakening further, enjoying the firm guiding hand between my shoulder blades.

  I stood with Ethan, the four of us smiling for yet more photos.

  I closed my eyes, briefly, enjoying again that little fantasy: Will’s naked torso against mine, my breasts pressed against his ribs, the heat of his skin, the strength of his arms. Then I opened my eyes and smiled, and glanced across at Charlie, who was watching everything closely, minutely, an unreadable expression on his face.

  Maybe he was right. Maybe it was obvious that I wasn’t seeing anybody at the moment. Was my pent-up frustration written all over my face like a tattoo?

  §

  “The reception,” said Ethan, turning towards me as he paused from a conversation with Eleanor’s parents. “Talk at the reception, sis’? So much to catch up!”

  Poor kid. He was almost thirty, and two years my senior, but I still thought of him in those terms. He was the kid in a man’s body who still grinned at the thought of Dunkin’ Donuts and laughed uncontrollably at rude words.

  Poor kid... so many demands on his attention. I smiled and nodded and waved him away. We’d catch up. We’d erase the gap that had grown between us. We always did. I didn’t want him worrying about me now when he was looking so frazzled and flustered.

  “The reception.” I turned, and this time it was Charlie, appearing at my elbow, that hand on the small of my back. I remembered Will’s touch, only a short time before when we were posing with Ethan and Eleanor for photographs. Was there something about today that was bringing out the protective side of the men around me? Or was it more a possessive thing?

  Suddenly I understood something about Eleanor. This was such a conservative gathering, so in-grained with tradition, values passed down through the generations. It was a man’s world. You could see it in the body language, the way people behaved and responded.

  You could see it in the way Eleanor behaved around Ethan: everything for him, focused on him. Ethan, the man she had vowed to obey for ever more.

  “Hmm?”

  “It’s over there,” said Charlie, nodding in the direction of the rather grand manor house I’d noticed before. “Yeadham Hall. The family pile. Not too shabby, eh? Your boy’s done well for himself.”

  The Hall was, indeed, a not-too-shabby sight. It was about a quarter of a mile away, across a field full of dancing wheat and poppies and then a grand sweep of manicured lawn, roses and large, umbrella-like trees.

  “You’re saying we walk?”

  Other guests were already heading off through the pine trees at the bottom of the churchyard. I’d expected horse-drawn carriages, or a gleaming Bentley or Rolls Royce, at the very least. Not a hike across a muddy Norfolk field.

  “It’s the family’s private lane between the Hall and the church,” said Charlie. “It’s special to them. You know. Tradition and all that. It’s not far, Trude.”

  I stared at him, one eyebrow raised, and then, pointedly, looked down. I’d raised one foot, toes pointing towards him. My new Jimmy Choos. Peep-toe. Slingback. Needle-thin stilettos to die for.

  “In these shoes?” I asked. “I don’t think so...”

  Then I grinned. “Let’s drive,” I said. I’d parked out front. It’d probably take us half an hour to find some circuitous route around the country lanes until we found the Hall, but really, I wasn’t going to walk across that field – or along that tree-lined lane, or whatever – and ruin my Jimmy Choos, tradition or not.

  “I’ll drive,” said Charlie.

  I shook my head. “My car. You get a lift if you’re nice. That’s the deal.” It was that possessive thing again, that manly thing, rubbing off on Charlie, although he didn’t carry it well.

  “You don’t like me driving?”

  “I drive,” I repeated. “Deal?”

  That hand again, on my hip, sliding round to my back, drawing me hard against him. His eyes, so intense, all of a sudden.

  I couldn’t help but give a soft gasp. My eyes darted from side to side, and I suddenly realized that we were the last guests remaining in the churchyard. Most of the others were lost beyond the pines, on the Bentinck-Stanleys’ private path to Yeadham Hall. Just three or four guests were still visible through the slender, naked trunks.

  I looked back at Charlie, his face so close to mine.

  “Charlie...”

  He kissed me, his other hand working its way up my spine. I couldn’t move, couldn’t resist. It wasn’t in me, even if I’d wanted to.

  He knew me.

  He knew me so well.

  He knew that when he held me like this I would melt into his arms.

  His lips against mine were hard, possessing my mouth. His tongue was tender, probing, tasting of mint and a hint of cigarette smokiness. Our bodies just slotted together, his larger frame enclosing me, a scaffold for me to fit into.

  I let him kiss me.

  I was surprised to say the least, although he’d clearly had this on his mind since he’d first set eyes on me today.

  It had been a year! Surely he’d moved on? Surely I had?

  It was nostalgia, a nostalgia kiss, a kiss for old times, that was all.

  A kiss that shifted, worked along the line of my lips, across my cheek. A strong hand on the back of my head, turning me so he could kiss the lobe of one ear, teasing me with teeth and tongue.

  He was hard against me, pressing urgently against my body. I changed position now, turned so that his hardness was pressing against my belly, and then I started to move against him, almost imperceptibly.

  It was a nostalgia kiss. One that worked down my neck, following a familiar path down to my collarbone as his fist in my hair pulled my head back abruptly, a move that was always guaranteed to make me go weak at the knees, so that I melted into his strong, supporting framework even more completely.

  “Charlie...”

  “Hmm?”

  “Charlie...”

  The hand on my back, sliding down, cupping my ass, pulling me against that familiar hardness.

  He was right. It had been a while.

  I’d never done ex-sex, but... It was a wedding, my head was full of emotions, it was horny and intimate and God but Charlie knew how to work me, my emotions, my body, the steady build-up of mind-games so that now I realized the last couple of hours had been inevitably leading up to this. A courtship dance. A seduction.

  “Charlie...”

  We stumbled, staggered, like some drunken four-legged beast up against the wall of the chapel, so that harsh flinty hardness pres
sed into my back and I had a sudden vision of my Anoushka G dress being cut into cornflower blue tatters.

  I hitched my dress up a little so I could curl a leg around him, grinding myself against him, reciprocating his every thrust with a rolling of my hips and a tightening of that curled leg. The heel of my Jimmy Choo formed a hard line against his calf, and when I twisted my foot the point raked against him, spurring him on.

  His hand moved up and round from my ass, his knuckles playing down my rib-cage, across my belly, and my whole body rode up against the wall as he thrust.

  That hand... changing course, running upwards, hard knuckles against my ribs again.

  My God, I thought that was going to do it, I thought my desperation and bottled-up need was going to tip me over and that touch was going to bring everything to a peak.

  His hand cupped my left breast, squeezing hard so that I cried out.

  Frantic, I looked around. I couldn’t see anyone, but we were in full view of the church doorway. Had the minister gone, too? Had he joined the procession to Yeadham Hall, or was he still inside, just about to emerge and stumble into our urgent, shameless tryst?

  “Not here. Not here, Charlie...”

  He pulled away, his face red, flustered, his eyes staring mad with passion.

  Seizing my wrist, he led me round the chapel to where the churchyard was less well tended, and the graves packed even tighter. Here, a large slab lay, raised from the ground to about knee height, its surface crusted with hard lichen, forming kaleidoscope patterns of yellow, gold and silver.

  He pushed me back against it, his hands tight around my wrists now.

  My legs buckled and I sat hard. My gasp was stifled by his hungry mouth, as he leaned down over me, still pinning my hands to my sides by the wrists.

  I kissed back now. Hungry. Eager. Opening my mouth to his tongue, our teeth clashing, grinding, lips pressed hard against each other.