by Jo Briggs
"Do you mind if I put on some music?" He queried.
"No, that is fine. I am used to working with a lot of background noise. My studio gets rather chaotic when we are under pressure to put the collection out, or have photographers booked to come around for a showing." She had a team of twenty working for her, varying from style consultants, colour predictors, textile designer, pattern cutters, merchandising consultant, and PR consultant. Her main day-to-day conversations were held with her assistant, Maria; she was her frontline defence, fielding the majority of day-to-day responsibilities away from Elle, enabling her to spend the majority of her time sketching her ideas on paper or on computer. As Elle was a perfectionist about every pattern or fabric used with her creations, the only person to bypass Maria was her assistant designer, Luke, for that final say so.
William disappeared into the media room, to turn on the music system; he had hi-tech speakers wired into every room, so the music instantly drifted to her ears.
William had brought her a mug of tea before he settled down in front of his own MacBook that was connected to a larger external screen.
After working her way through half of the unread mails, she started up her Skype software to talk to her son, a regular occurrence at this time of the afternoon. He was boarding at the same private school he had been at since they moved back from Florence, two years earlier. Her friend had recently opened up a second facility in London, and that was where Christian was staying in the meanwhile.
William became distracted from his own work by overhearing the light-hearted interaction between her and this unknown child. He showed a more mature intelligence that seemed older than the five years he had thought the child looked in the flesh. Towards the end of the conversation, Elle introduced William to him. Her son had seen old photos of his dad, but he did not know his name. She thought Christian probably would not connect William to those photos, but was a touch nervous about making the first introduction.
William himself noticed a familiarity in the child's face, but he simply put it down to having the advantage of many of Elle's features coming through. At least he now knew Christian was the name of her son, as he had hoped, something he was relieved about. It had been playing on his mind that he would have to up his game to compete with another man, who might have already been dating her.
Methodically, she spent the next couple of hours going over the remaining emails, and fired off replies where needed. Totally absorbed in her work, she hummed along to the songs, but her thought trail was suddenly interrupted by a velvety male vocal coming through the speaker with a guitar strumming lightly in the background. The voice seemed oddly familiar, but she could not quite place it, or the song.
"Who is that singing?" She asked curiously, looking up from her computer and over at William.
His cheeks were bright red. "Me," he said quietly, feeling quite embarrassed. He was going to kill Gina. He had removed that song from the iPod on several occasions, but it always made its way back onto it when Gina came to stay.
"You?" She said incredulously, quite taken back. She had remembered he liked to sing, but she never remembered it being this incredible. She continued, "I don't recognise the song though, is it a cover?"
"No, it’s a song, I wrote myself. A friend of mine from Cambridge is a music producer; Gina arranged as a birthday surprise, a few years ago, to have some studio time, and my friend mixed and recorded this song, and a couple of others for me." He explained, feeling slightly awkward. He just hoped she did not notice the lyrics, and recognise that it was clearly about her.
She listened intently to the rest of the song. "It sounds fantastic, Will. You can truly feel the emotion of each word." She felt breathless listening to the intensity of his singing voice; it made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. As the chorus repeated several times, she began to wonder whom he had written it about, obviously someone he cared about profoundly. She felt quite jealous that another woman had invoked such a song from him. A sudden thought that it might have been written for Charlotte. This idea made her feel nauseated. "She must be quite a woman to have inspired such a song." Elle tried to sound casual as she spoke these words, but he noticed a slight waver in her voice.
William got up from his desk, knelt beside her chair, and placed his hand over hers. "Yes, she is." Elle tried to pull it away.
"William, please do not torment me with information like that." She said abruptly, frustration written over her face "I know I have no right to be jealous, but I am!" She tried to move the chair, to allow herself to stand and move away from him.
William stopped her from moving, trying to pull her into his chest.
She looked at him blankly for a few moments. She began to feel rather stupid that a straightforward thing as him writing a song for another woman could produce such an emotional response; after all, there was no reason why he should not have written it for another woman, and he owed her no explanation. "I am sorry, Will, for acting so pathetically; you owe me no explanation.” Her eyes were smudged with tears.
"Elle," his voice was level and patient and his expression soft from emotion. "It was about you, silly! You have always been my muse, and will continue to be so." He stretched over to kiss her tentatively, trying to reassure her.
She allowed herself to kiss him back.
"I believe you have been worked enough today. William said quite firmly. "Go and get your glad rags on, and I will take you out to dinner." He straightened himself up from his kneeling position and closed the lid of her laptop before she could protest.
She smiled at this course of action. "OK"
Slowly, she removed her riding attire and stepped into the large walk in shower unit within her en-suite bathroom. She let the warm water run all over her body, as she leaned up against the cool tiles. She certainly was acting like an emotional wreck in front of him. Yes, he had been nothing but kindness personified and showed his concern during the two emotional outbursts she had had so far. So much for impressing him as a strong businesswoman whom everyone else thought she was. He always had a way of seeing right through any facade.
Deep in thought, with the water noise running in her ear, her back was towards the glass door of the shower unit; she did not notice the door open, and a naked William step behind her, and snake his hands down the side of her body. "Mind if I join you and save on the water!" He whispered in her ear. She nearly jumped out of her skin. "Oh my G-d Will, you scared me" She exclaimed as she spun around, but quickly stepped into his embrace.
The inevitable moment arrived. He wanted to start making her his again. The way she had reacted to the thought that he had written a love song for this imaginary other woman was enough to silence any doubts for now. Their lips met, shyly at first, and then quickly deepening into old familiarity, his tongue daring to dart forward to tangle with hers, his hands rubbing against her softness, sending tingling sensations that jolted every nerve end in her body to life, as the water rushed over them. William pinned her against the tiled wall with his upper body, whispering words of endearment as the kisses became more frantic, before he finally pulled away their breaths ragged with exhilaration of the moment.
He stepped from underneath the water, turned and looked straight into her eyes. "Never doubt that I adore you." With that, he was gone, disappearing off to dress for their dinner reservation.
Elle was left feeling quite overwhelmed by the interaction. Her skin was still warm from his touch, her lips swollen; pulse racing and a thrilling tug across her chest. It took her quite a few minutes to peel herself off the ceiling, One word flashing through her mind, WOW
Half an hour later, he knocked on her bedroom door. "Are you ready or shall I go downstairs and wait?" He called.
"No, come in. I will be right with you," She replied. She was eager to impress him with her attire, so checked herself in the bedroom’s full-length mirror one more time, before stepping into the sitting room area of her suite where William was lingering.
He had dressed in a smartly tailored suit that had been cut from an expensive navy pin stripped material. It brought out the sapphire gleam of his eyes. Her heart swelled with pride at the man who stood in front of her, he surely had earned his title of one of the top 50 sexiest men in the world tonight.
She had chosen a one-shoulder, deep chocolate dress that ended at her ankles, emphasising her curves in all the right places, while not being overly figure-hugging, a pair of silver spiked heels on her feet making her as tall as William. "You look stunning, Miss Benedict." He said placing several kisses on the curve of her neck, which left her stomach doing cartwheels, and her knees weaken in anticipation. There was already a visible red mark on her neck from their shower scene earlier, his territory marked.
His reward was a pearly white smile.
Wine talk and Glad rags
William had chosen to take her to a popular oyster bar and seafood restaurant that was about half-hour drive to the east of Derby. A Michelin star chef ran it. They shared a starter of his favourite dish of oysters in a chill coriander dressing, with a main of her favourite of King Prawns and scallops. In between the course, he could not stop touching her, entwining his large fingers around her slender ones, as they conversed about current affairs and politics. They had always enjoyed a light-hearted debate.
With the dinner plates cleared away and both having polished off half a bottle of red between them, he plucked up enough courage to see if a less guarded Elle would give answers to the least probing of his long list of questions.
"So now you have stables; I hope you feel comfortable to take Pepper? She was a gift to you after all." William was trying to assess her reaction to such an idea. He wondered if Elle was totally over the repercussions of losing their child after falling from the horse, despite having another child since. He knew he still experienced a residual emptiness over the loss, even though he was now a father to a delightful daughter of just over eighteen months. At the time of the loss, it hit them both hard. Elle had already been in a spiral of misery over her parent's death for several weeks before the fall, although discovering she was pregnant had drawn her out of her shell for a while, the consequent loss caused the black mood to take over once again.
Taking a sip from her wine, she said without hesitation. "Of course, it was my error of judgement that led to the accident; it was not the animals fault. And also for the sentimental reason that she was my first gift from you,” She stated simply.
"Do you ever ponder on what if there had been no accident, or at least its survival?" He knew this maybe a dangerous question to ask, but he had to start understanding her thoughts about what had ripped apart their idyllic beginning, and turned it into a nightmare.
Her eyes flashed with a dark ember; an emotional fire began to burn. She gulped nervously, as she weighed up the options of whether to use this opportunity to tell him of the existence of his child. Would it be better to do it in public or private? Would he make less of a scene in public? She did not feel brave enough to test out the theory just yet. "
For the first few months or so, I felt guilty every day for losing it. It was only when I could put that guilt aside, that I even contemplated what it might have been liked to have had a child at that point, and what the child would have been like. I believe what compounded the situation of the loss of our baby was the domino effect it had on our relationship." She spoke slowly, her voice controlled. "But, I must confess, when Christian came along it somewhat eased the pain at the loss of the first one; not replacing it, of course."
His fingers remained laced around hers throughout their brief exchange. "You know that I don't blame you, it was purely an accident. I just regret that you didn't seem to think we were strong enough to get through it, and simply try for another child of our own." After meeting her son earlier, he was curious about who the father maybe; the child must have been conceived in under a year of her leaving him. She had clearly found someone else who could comfort her through her grief more adequately than he could. No man had been mentioned by the Binghams when Elle had come back to London after her self-imposed exile in New York with a small baby.
Elle noticed he did not ask anything about Christian. She was pleased that he had at least met him via Skype. With that one hurdle out of the way, she had just the crucial one to go - explaining that Christian was his.
She sighed. "It was not as cut and dry as thinking that I didn't think we were strong enough to get through it. I was simply too immature to see the bigger picture. I just knew I couldn't stand dragging you down into my melancholy world, so I thought it best to leave, but as the saying goes, you don't truly know what you had until you have lost it. I was so wrapped up in my selfish bubble that I had built up around myself; I did not stop to think what my actions might be doing to the people around me. It’s a lesson I have only recently come to terms with."
He noticed they were down to the dregs at the bottom of the bottle as he went to pour himself another glass of wine, the alcohol making him feel bolder with the question asking. He attracted the attention of a waiter to order a second bottle. He was on a roll, so did not want to stop now. Clearly, he was passed being of a fit state to drive, but he would just order a taxi to take them home, and get Edward to collect the car in the morning.
“I know we agreed to talk about this after your birthday, but I would like to explain about Charlotte before then, in particular, to clear up any misapprehensions she may have given you about my relationship with her.”
Elle swallowed nervously, a slight apprehension building in her throat. “Ok,” she agreed in a small voice.
“She is the only person I have been with since you. I know this will sound like a lame excuse, but I did not intend to get involved with her at all. Every few weeks, she would pop up outside my office conveniently, when I was heading to lunch alone, it was not until years later, I discovered a temp working as an assistant to my PA was a close friend, and she used to pass on my schedule on to Charlotte. We ended up going into a bar a few times. At first it was for an excuse to find out any news about you, since I knew you were still close at that point. But, admittedly, it was nice to have a drinking partner; I had been drinking myself into a stupor alone most nights before that.”
Mortified, Elle could not help but interrupt to ask. “You were drinking because of me?”
“Shh, let me answer questions afterwards. I just need to get this all out there.”
“Ok, sorry.”
“Anyway about four months after you headed off to New York, my P.A suddenly upped and left, due to a family crisis on the other side of the world, leaving me with no assistant, so I promoted the temp, Abigail into the permanent position, and naively agreed to her suggestion to hire Charlotte as her assistant. Charlotte had been between jobs at the time, and she had yet to show her blackmail habits, so I did not see the harm.
Elle’s brow shot up her forehead in reaction to his mentioning blackmail. Wonder what she blackmailed him about. She also noted the timings of Charlotte working at his office were perfect for her having access to William’s mobile. It definitely gave her opportunity to delete Elle’s messages, before he saw them.
“Anyway life went on; Charlotte only stayed a couple of months when she got fed up with my policy of not fraternising with the staff. She seemed to think that our lunches would automatically start up again if she left, but after a rather undignified argument about an event, she knew I was attending alone, that she felt I should invite her. By this time, I felt more composed about our breakup, so I was less easily influenced by her suggestions of us socialising together. It’s not as if she would have ever interested me in the first place, if she had not been your friend. From then on, she seemed to disappear from the face of the earth. It was probably a full two, or three, years later that I met her by chance again. She seemed to know always when I was at my most vulnerable. I had just received specific piece of news that knocked me off my feet, and I started drinking heavily again.”
; Elle struggled inwardly to keep herself quiet. What news?
“This news really brought it home to me that I needed to start moving on, and I could not keep mooning after you, so one night after drinking with Charlotte, we ended up in bed. As morning came, I regretted what I had done straightaway, but she had her claws into me, and would not retract them as much as I protested. This one night materialised into the pregnancy you saw the night before Charlie and Jess’ Wedding. Seeing you again brought it home to me that, I could not be with her when all I thought about was you. She could tell I wanted to be with you, and we had a tremendous argument that night – “
“I heard the argument.” Elle could not help but admit.
“- about my promise that I would marry her for the sake of the baby – “It seemed to take him a second to hear what Elle had said. “ - you did?”
“Yes, I heard everything. I heard her slip-up and almost tell you something she had done to keep me away from you.”
“Did you know what she had done?”
“No, not until that night.”
“So you know about the deleted messages.”
Elle nodded uneasily. “Up to that point I had always presumed you had simply ignored the messages yourself, but Cate had started to suspect Charlotte might have interfered instead, since she had a lot to gain by keeping us apart. “
“You spent all those years thinking I had ignored your messages? No wonder you gave me the cold shoulder that night.” His face expressed the shared feeling of despair for all the years wasted, due to Charlotte’s interference.
“I am sorry about that; it was the only way I could cope with the rejection I felt, knowing you were with her of all people. However, when I heard her gaffe, I realised I had been wrong in that assumption.”
“So, why did you leave that night? Why did you not confront Charlotte, or warn me about what she had done?” William felt incredulous that Elle had not said anything about this at the time. All the heartache it would have saved.