The Contract (Nightlong #1)

by Sarah Michelle Lynch

  “What about me? Why didn’t you make me wear one?”

  I stood and glared at him, tears filling my eyes, my arms folded. “Just think before you get all shitty over this one thing, Dante, okay? Think carefully before you say another word.”

  He held his hand up. “You’re seeing my doctor to get sorted, end of.”

  I hightailed it right out of the room and like the lost girl I was a little over a week ago, I sobbed into my pillow upstairs because of his lack of understanding.

  Twelve

  ON MONDAY MORNING, SEXTON DROVE me out to Surrey to a private medical practice Dante had been using his whole life. It was certainly a drive out of his way so I assumed his doctor must be good.

  I felt sad as we drove there, and slightly broken. We’d slept in separate beds last night; after working late, Dante had gone to one of the spare rooms and slept there.

  After Dr Clare Heron took my weight, height, blood pressure and a urine sample, she asked, “So what is the purpose of your visit, today? Other than checking in as a new patient.”

  She must have sensed I had something on my mind.

  “Have you got my notes from my old doctor?”

  She nodded slightly. “They faxed copies this morning after Mr Sinclair called.”

  “Well, I… get a period maybe once every three months. I don’t keep check of the dates. I’m having a period right now. I just became sexually active–”

  I cut myself off, thinking I sounded like a silly teenager, full of nerves, embarrassment and doubts.

  “You want contraception?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m surprised you haven’t used the pill, Ciara.”

  “I was told it wouldn’t hurt, but I don’t know… I get cellulite using it.”

  “We could try another. One doesn’t fit all.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Of course. You’re perfectly healthy.”

  “Okay, good.”

  “Are children something you want?”

  I crossed my legs and stuffed my hands between my thighs, looking down at my lap. “Yes.”

  “It’s perfectly possible.”

  “I was told–”

  She started typing away at her computer and mumbled, “Don’t tell anyone I said this but some physicians think it’s kind to be cruel, especially when teenage pregnancy is involved.”

  “You mean, I got told I couldn’t have kids to put me off ever trying again.”

  “Many miscarriages are followed by perfectly healthy births and it’s only natural after loss that a girl or a woman might want to try again.”

  I gulped. “I’m not sure my partner… Mr Sinclair, wants children.”

  She nodded slightly, that patient/doctor confidentiality thing languishing in the air between us like swollen rock-salt clouds threatening to pour into open wounds.

  “I’m guessing it’s early days. Give it time?”

  “You’re right.”

  “Here’s a prescription,” she said, “you can pick up another batch in six months after a follow-up, and then we can put it on repeat, just to make sure it’s a good fit. Any problems, come back. I would take extra precautions for the first two months to make sure the pill has started working properly. Okay?”

  I nodded. “Sounds fine.”

  “See you then, Ciara.”

  I left the room wondering why I didn’t want to escape it.

  I turned back to her and asked, “Do you do bereavement therapy here?”

  “We do.”

  “Thanks, I’ll mention it to Dante.”

  She shook her head. “I wouldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I just wouldn’t.”

  Not knowing what else to say to the doctor who knew more about my lover than me, I walked numbly out of the surgery and towards the chemist next door.

  My prescription filled, I climbed into the Phantom and asked Sexton, “Let’s go have coffee and cake somewhere ridiculously extravagant, on me.”

  Eyebrows raised, he said, “Is this necessary? He wants you back home right away.”

  “Oh, it’s as necessary as air, right now.”

  “Very well.”

  “YOU said ridiculously extravagant,” Sexton said as he pulled into the Ritz around an hour later.

  “Oh my god.”

  “Yes, quite.”

  We valet parked and everyone looked stunned to see I was taking my driver for afternoon tea. Sexton didn’t stand out in the restaurant though – he looked very much at home – like he was brought up with a silver spoon in his mouth, too.

  “I think we actually ought to put this on Dante,” Sexton told me.

  “Yes, I agree. He deserves to pay.”

  Sexton drank his tea, having demolished his side of the three-tiered tray a lot quicker than me.

  I’d started off with my sandwiches with the crusts cut off, the vol au vonts and little salmon wraps, and now I was slowly making my way through miniature cakes and macaroons.

  “Does he say much about Daltrey to you?” I asked my driver, feeling downright brazen.

  Shaking his head, his grey eyes looked clear when he replied, “Never.”

  “But you know he was murdered?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve got to help me out here, Sexton.”

  He sat sturdy and poised, opposite me. “He won’t appreciate me saying anything.”

  “He won’t know you’ve said anything. Do you think he keeps me around just for my looks? I’m not so stupid, you know? I’ve had to keep coming up with new stuff all these years to keep his mind occupied.”

  He nodded in agreement, readily accepting that was all true. “I know but… you’re emotionally involved. You can’t predict how you might react to what it is he is, what he does.”

  “He told me already about the job.”

  “Oh… I see.”

  He started rubbing his hand through his stubble, looking suddenly nervous.

  “He’s emotionally retarded, we all know that. Just tell me–”

  I saw the look of astonishment on his face and he retorted, “That’s not it at all, Ciara. He’s more emotionally aware than all of us put together, it’s why he corners people off into neat boxes. Creates rules and regimen. It’s how he copes.”

  “He should have counselling.”

  “He has.”

  I nibbled the corner of a salted caramel macaroon and swished it down with some Earl Grey with lemon. It was such a fine afternoon tea, it really was. The best of my life, in fact.

  “Ciara, want some advice?”

  “Yes!”

  He took a deep breath. “For all his faults, I still love him, everyone does. We all know he’s limited how close he lets people get, so believe me when I say whatever it is you’re doing, keep doing it because you’ve gotten closer to him than anyone else has done in a decade. Remember that.”

  “Keep doing what I’m doing?”

  “Yes.”

  “But I’m… now we’re together, it’s difficult to be patient.”

  “He’s difficult full stop, but then you knew that already.”

  “Yes.”

  My phone rang and it was Dante. Hating to answer at the dinner table, yet also hating to keep him waiting, I answered anyway.

  “Hello darling.”

  “Don’t ‘hello darling’ me, where are you?”

  “The Ritz. I railroaded Sexton into afternoon tea…” I winked in the driver’s direction. “…I needed a pick-me-up.”

  “When will you be back?”

  “Couple of hours. Do you really need me back given you’re probably up to your armpits in work, or are you just being anal?”

  “The latter,” he mumbled, sounding in defeat.

  “I’m perfectly safe and I shall see you soon.”

  “Okay,” he sounded downhearted, “as long as you’re safe.”

  “I am. I love you.”

  “I love you.”

  He hung up and I put
my phone on the table.

  “See?” Sexton asked.

  “What?”

  “He just worries about you.”

  I threw back the champagne I’d had alongside my tea and caught a waiter’s attention. “Can I take away my cakes? We’re running to a tight schedule.”

  “Of course, madam.”

  “Please, it’s miss.”

  “Oh… okay, miss.”

  I laughed, cackled even. Whispering under my breath, I told him, “Sexton here is my driver and bodyguard. Not my sugar daddy.”

  The waiter rushed off, blushing, and Sexton sniggered to himself – his fine garb not usual of a driver.

  “People these days,” I laughed, feeling triumphantly evil.

  We got out of there quickly and walked a few laps of the royal parks nearby, picking at my cakes as we chatted about life. Sexton told me about his tours as a younger man in the Falklands and I told him about my humble background and having dozens of cousins all over the world, all of whom would open their door anytime, just because I shared the same name. I told him shame made me leave Ireland and shame had made me solitary. I talked of fishing the Blackwater back home in County Cork and catching salmon as long as my leg, of people never locking their doors, of villagers knowing each other’s names and sometimes stopping for hours to chat, when they were only meant to be passing through. My former lifestyle seemed to be a wonder to him. I mentioned my pregnancy and how I was a little naïve as a teenager, as most Catholic-reared children are when they’ve received little to no sex education.

  Sexton listened, and I listened, and I think we gave each other a healthy dose of therapy that afternoon.

  BACK at home, I jumped the stairs and raced to our bedroom to change into something pretty for Dante. He caught me dressing in the walk-in closet and the moment I heard him say my name, I turned and charged into his arms.

  “You’ve been gone ages, I didn’t think you were missing me.”

  “Oh I was.”

  I attacked his mouth and he returned my kiss full pelt.

  “I hate it when we’re not friends.”

  “We’ve never been friends,” he said in a husky, breathless whisper, his kisses all over my face, “you’re my fount of all pleasure, you’re my heart.”

  “Ah Dante, kiss me baby.”

  He dug his hand in my hair and held my body with the other, pulling me close, his kiss relentless and hungry. It was like a reunion.

  Like teenagers we fell on the bed to make out and did so for a long, long time, happily, and without the promise of sex. After we both lost our breath, he nestled in my chest while I teased fingers through his sleek hair.

  “What did the doc say?”

  “I can likely have kids.”

  “Oh.”

  “Oh?”

  “I don’t want to quarrel again, Ciara. I hate it.”

  “Hey, I wasn’t quarrelling. Just on the end of your sharp tongue.”

  His chest inflated. “I’m sorry.”

  “I am, too. Listen, I have some pills now but we’ll have to be careful until they work in a couple of months’ time.”

  “Okay. I’ll just pull out until then.”

  I looked into his eyes. “That’s no guarantee.”

  “It isn’t?”

  Shaking my head, I was surprised a man this intelligent didn’t realise that. “No. You could still leak little Dantes inside me before you even come.”

  Since leaving Ireland, I’d learnt everything I needed to know from books.

  “Oh.”

  “Yes, oh.”

  He pulled me on my side and dug his hand into the back of my knickers to squeeze my butt.

  “Dante, no–”

  “I’m just warming up my hand.”

  “Please, don’t.”

  “Why? I don’t mind…” He dragged his lips up and down my throat, raising gooseflesh all over my body.

  “I do.”

  “This might be our last chance for me to come inside you before, you know.”

  I held his cheeks in my hands, looking into his eyes. “I could still get pregnant, even like this. It could still happen. The odds are probably a squillion to one, but there’s always a chance.”

  He pouted. “I really should’ve asked Mum to give me a sister, shouldn’t I?”

  “Yes, dear. You know fuck all about women.”

  “Well, I knew to use a condom with all the others.”

  My heart stopped and I was quiet. I stilled and realised, throughout this six-year period there could’ve been others.

  “What others?” I mumbled.

  “There were others, but I never loved any of them. There haven’t been any other women since we met, I swear on my life.”

  I grabbed his face again, bringing his eyes to mine. “Why did you make me wait six years? How could you stand it? I can hardly stand to think about all that wasted time. I wish I’d known, wish I’d had the courage to jump you so long ago. I felt so wretched for so long, Dante. Nothing crushed my spirit as deeply as thinking you didn’t love me.”

  “I do love you and it wasn’t wasted time,” he murmured against my lips, his body moving on top of mine, the dress I was putting on in the closet when he found me earlier still only half zipped up at the back. He leaned down and pressed his lips to the corner of mine, and then to my nose. “I think we’ve gotten to know one another in a brilliant way, yes? You certainly have become the little firecracker I always knew you could be.”

  “Fuck it,” I exclaimed, ripping off his shirt.

  I dragged him off the bed and we merged under the rainfall shower, ripping each other’s hearts open again.

  OVER dinner at the dining table (I was humouring him), I tentatively asked, “Will I meet any of your people?”

  Shaking his head, he finished chewing his food before telling me, “Not if I can help it.”

  “Is that for their benefit or mine we don’t meet?”

  “Both.”

  “When are we going back to Paris?”

  “Why do you ask?” he asked nicely, but I sensed his suspicion.

  “I feel like a spare part here. When you’re working, I don’t have anything to do.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  I chewed my lip and tried to hold his gaze but it was hard looking him square in the eye, especially after he fucked me the way he had earlier, so raw and real.

  “I want to write but whenever I try, the story doesn’t work out the way I want it to. I plan and plot out novel after novel but each time I write stuff, it doesn’t… mesh.”

  Eyebrows raised, he stared. “You want to be a writer?”

  “Umm-hmm. I am a writer. Since forever.”

  “Wow.” He put his fork down and put his hands together, pressing both thumbs to his mouth with his elbows resting on the table. “Well, you need a good device then. Something like a Mac?”

  “My old Toshiba laptop works fine.”

  Shaking his head, he insisted, “The right hardware will write the book for you, wait and see. I’ll order something but in the meantime… there’s a room which overlooks the rear garden on the first floor, we can make that your office. Or there’s other rooms…”

  I gulped. “Really? You would support me?”

  “Of course. Don’t let your talent go to waste.”

  “How do you even know I’m talented?”

  “Because I know you.”

  He reached over the table for my cheek and kissed me, stroking his thumb across my eyebrow from where he sat adjacent to my place setting.

  “I feel like none of this is real.”

  “I do, too.”

  “Dante, I just…”

  He smiled a tiny smile. “I know, baby.”

  I rubbed my foot up his trouser leg under the table and asked, “So anyway, about Paris?”

  He sniggered. “Why does she like Paris?”

  “I like being in charge of you in Paris.”

  He pressed his lips together, a
flicker of lust in his eyes. “I like that, too.”

  “But we like it the other way, too?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “We like both ways.”

  “We love both ways,” I giggled, trying to stifle my laughter beneath a hand.

  “It’s also so much better,” he looked over his shoulder, checking Ayda wasn’t heading round the corner, “when we add sex at the end of a session.”

  I wriggled my eyebrows in admission. “There’s no reason we can’t play here, is there?”

  “Well, we could… but I don’t feel comfortable about doing all that, not here. You know?”

  “Work and pleasure and all that.”

  “I can just about fit making you come into my thought processes while we’re here, but I can’t think about playtime, too. I’ll become too distracted and that means mistakes might slip in.”

  “Okay,” I said, forking some steak and hollandaise sauce, “so we’ll save all the dirty, dirty stuff for Paris…”

  “…and all the filthy sex we’ve been having here can continue, but the much filthier, much kinkier stuff remains a preserve of Paris.”

  “We’re agreed,” I said smiling, sipping some wine. “I think the words ‘filthier in Paris’ should be highlighted front and centre in the Oxford English Dictionary with the meaning, ‘one only gets spanked in Paris’ alongside.”

  “See, you’re a writer Ciara.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.” There I was, sure one minute, uncertain the next.

  Yes, I was a writer.

  “Hush, you’re my woman. You can be anything, do anything.”

  We toasted to that and the meal ended with him carrying me upstairs for naked kisses and cuddles under the duvet.

  Swaddled together, there was no better feeling in the world than having him close, his warm skin against mine. His woodland scent consumed me, with a mixture of pine and oak, not to mention the ocean smell enmeshed in his hair. I loved nothing more than being in his arms, staring at his face, my finger caressing his Adam’s apple, up and down. He stared back at me with wonder and it made me feel shy.

  “What?” I asked repeatedly, hating how he searched my face constantly, stroking his fingertips over and over my skin.

  “You.”

  “What about me?”