by Jane Lark
My hands came up with the same tug of emotion she must have felt–it was spewing like a volcano inside me. My palms pressing against her cheek bones, my fingers curved in her hair. “I love you too”, I said, right before I kissed her. Love, longing, need… commitment… swayed around inside me.
The rain hit me. The umbrella was gone. I broke the kiss and looked into her eyes, “You’re all I want too. Just you, baby. Nothing is gonna happen to us…” Her parents could do their best to split us up, they’d been trying. They wouldn’t succeed. They only pushed her closer to me, and couple-y wasn’t gonna be boring, when she was the other half of it–of me.
Whatever trance held us broke as another gust of wind blew stinging rain into our faces. “Shit, Justin…” She looked away, and my gaze followed to see the umbrella sailing on the wind down the street, causing cars to slam their brakes on, screeching to a halt. Laughing like idiots we both turned and started chasing the thing.
Chapter Fifteen
My palms were sweating. I wiped them on my pants. I knew for a fact that Portia would not want me to do this. But I had to… I’d been brought up to do things right, and if I was going to do anything right. Then it was going to be this.
Shit. When my hand lifted to knock on the wooden door leading into her dad’s office, all my muscles tensed, gripping and trying to stop me from doing this. I ignored the instinct to run and struck the door hard with a single knock.
Then I rolled my shoulders back and let my hands drop, trying to relax. I wanted to look confident. I was not going to let the guy make me feel small.
“Come!” The firm call came from within.
I glanced over at his personal assistant who sat at a desk behind me. She nodded. Like I was Dillon and needed encouragement.
I thought of Portia who would be in the office back in New York. I’d lied to her. I’d even got Keith, the editor, lying to her. I’d got him to tell me in front of her that he wanted me to go out of town to a photo shoot to make sure they set it up right.
Wrong.
I’d caught a plain to California last night to come see her Dad. At that stage, I’d been full of determination but now… now it was something a little like cowardice which gripped in my belly.
Shit. I took a deep breath just as the PA’s intercom buzzer went. Then Portia’s Dad’s voice blasted through it. “Is he coming in or not?”
Yeah, he was going in…
My hand gripped the door handle and pushed down, opening it.
My back stiffened as I walked in and then closed the door behind me; trying not to look weak or nervous, and not to turn my back on him–the enemy.
I took another subtle deep breath, before turning fully, facing him directly and looking him in the eyes. Portia had got her eye color from him.
“Justin.”
He didn’t stand up. He sat behind his big impressive desk; looking one-hundred percent the domineering billionaire with the world at his feet.
My spine stiffened even more as I pulled up to full height, letting the determination that had brought me out here flood my nerves. “Mr. Hemming.”
He tapped the end of the fountain pen he had gripped in his hand on the edge of the desk impatiently. “So tell me, to what do I owe this honor?”
I’d met Portia’s parents about six or seven times in the months we’d been together. They didn’t like me. Every time it had been awkward. They didn’t think I was good enough for her. Financially and socially–I wasn’t. But none of that mattered because she thought I was good enough. We just went. We got on. We laughed together. We connected. She was such a part of my life now that I couldn’t define anymore what was mine, and about me, and what was her. We were one thing. Portia and Justin.
I wanted to wipe my palms again but I didn’t. I stayed standing, kept my shoulders relaxed and met his glare that said I was nothing but dirt from the ghetto who shouldn’t be anywhere within a mile of his daughter. “I am gonna ask Portia to marry me. I’ve come to get your blessing.”
He leaned back suddenly like I’d punched him, his fingers gripping the arms of his chair as his eyes widened. Then he recovered, still sitting back, he tilted one eyebrow at me. “And you seriously think I am likely to give it to you?”
“No…” In answer to the smirk I saw playing on his lips, I moved, leaning forward on to his desk. I kept my voice down, so his Personal Assistant wouldn’t hear, but I wanted to get this straight. “But I’ll marry her anyway. I just wanted to do the right thing…” His blue gaze held mine, hard and fixed. “…and I want you to do the right thing too.”
My palms pressed down on the smooth, dark wood. My fingers splayed wide as I leaned further over the desk, shoving my words in his face. “By her.”
I straightened up again, standing and looking down on him. “It isn’t her fault you mess around. And it isn’t her fault your wife puts up with it. It wasn’t her fault she was brought up by strangers, miles away from you. That’s your fault. She may act like she doesn’t give a shit about you. But that isn’t true, you know. You do know that, right?” I left a pause but he didn’t speak or nod, or anything. “Well anyway, I came all the way here to do the right thing and tell you to do the right thing too. You can keep refusing to accept we are together. That’s fine, it’s your choice….” My hands lifted and gripped the tense muscle at my waste. I’d researched this speech so many times on the way up here, and right now I was hanging on to my nerve with an iron grip.
“If you carry on though, you are gonna lose her completely. She wants me. I know that. I know she’s gonna say yes and eventually she’ll get too pissed off with you sniping and cutting at me to bother seeing you at all. That’s fine by me if that’s what happens. She’ll cope, ‘cause she’s strong. She proved it to you when she walked out and set up a life in New York. But that isn’t what she wants. She wants you to be a Dad. Dependable. Reliable–not embarrassing. It’s up to you. Do what you want. But one day, the two of us are gonna get married and have kids. And you can change and give Portia what she deserves from a father, or you can carry on, just as you are, and have nothing to do with our lives and your future grandkids. Up to you”.
“My dad, I’m glad he’s gone, I never want to see him again. If he turned up or I saw him in a street, I’d walk past him and pretend he wasn’t there. Is that what you want Portia to do to you? My dad, he’s a lost cause. Nothing would make him change.
“But you… You’re an intelligent man. When the fuck are you going to grow up and start being a father to her? You are better than this…”. I threw the last words at him with a pointed finger to enhance them as anger rushed into my voice.
That was it. I was done. I’d said my piece. I’d tried. “You can listen to me or not, up to you. I don’t care. Thanks for listening. Bye. Have a nice day.”
With that I turned my back and started walking out. I’d done what I had come here to do, now I could go back to Portia and do what I really wanted to do.
As my hand touched the metal door handle. I heard him move, like he was sitting forward. “Justin!”
My hand still on the door, I glanced back, my gaze clashing with the intense blue-gray of his.
“You have my permission.”
I turned away again before he could see the smug smile that crept over my lips. “Thank you.” I opened the door without looking back and walked out.
~
Justin’s fingers gripped my hand harder, they were wrapped right around it, and the pressure of his grip seemed anxious. He was in a weird mood today. He came over really nervous. Justin was always relaxed but he wasn’t relaxed today. As he held my hand, his arm didn’t hang loosely like it normally would, the tension in his muscles made the grip, and the movement of his arm feel awkward.
We were walking around Central Park. The sun was out. The day wasn’t hot but when you were in the bright spring sunshine, it heated your skin. It was one of those days when one minute you wanted to strip off your coat and then the next, when you
hit a shaded avenue of trees, the chill caught you and you wanted to put it back on. I’d left mine on for now, just absorbing the heat of the May sunshine into my bones, after such a freezing, hideously harsh winter. This was so nice.
I glanced up at Justin as we walked around the water where there were loads of kids with their Dad’s playing with model boats. I guess this was a haunt for broken families, for guys who had their kids to spend a few hours of contact with on a Sunday. “Are you okay, Justin. You seem really tense. Is something wrong?”
His brown gaze came down to me as his head turned, and his broad lips twisted a little, in an expression that confirmed his anxiety. But verbally, he denied it. “Fine. Just enjoying the company and the sunshine.”
I’m sure my expression showed some doubt.
“Nothing is wrong with your Mom or the others?”
He’d had to go away on a job for the magazine in the week, he’d been acting odd before that, and even odder since he came back; like he was uncomfortable. If I didn’t know any better, my battered belief in people would think he was having an affair, the way he’d been acting all secretive and holding back on me since he’d been told about this trip to take part in a shoot for the magazine–and yet, I had heard Kevin ask him to go, so I knew the trip was genuine.
I looked ahead again as we came up to the opening of the paved area on the right, where the sculpture of Alice in Wonderland stood.
There were more kids there. I pulled on Justin’s hand. To go look at it for a moment.
He let my hand go as we walked over and then rubbed his palm on the backside of his jeans. He was nervous, but he wasn’t admitting it, and I didn’t know why.
There was a boy, maybe around four or five, gripping the bronze ears of the March Hare and dangling from them like the Hare was a climbing frame. Kids were always climbing all over it. Another little girl sat on one of the mushrooms gripping the dormouse, like she was joining in the tea-party.
I sat down on the bench that ran in a three-quarter circle about the sculpture, caught by a sudden sense of longing and happiness as the girl’s mother walked up behind her, touched her shoulder, and leaned over to join in the game. A man came up then and touched the woman’s shoulder as another little girl who looked so like the one on the mushroom, but older, ran around to the other side and climbed up the figures to claim a seat on Alice’s lap.
Alice in Wonderland.
My fingers gripped the cold bench as Justin sat next to me, resting his elbows on his knees and leaning forward.
I felt like Alice in Wonderland. I’d lost faith in life, in people, love and happy endings. But now I had that back. Justin may have been in a weird mood but I didn’t doubt him at all. I knew I could trust him. I believed we’d have our happy ending.
I glanced at him.
His head was down, like he was focusing on something mentally. Maybe it was just something at work stressing him out. I think the shoot he’d been called out to do had been some sort of big deal.
Letting go of the bench, my hand then lifted and settled on the firm muscle of his back. He hadn’t even worn a coat, he just had a black cotton T-shirt on but I could feel he was warm beneath it. “I love you.”
His head turned to look at me, the movement of his muscle stirring beneath my fingers, and he gave me a broad wide reassuring smile; some thought hovering in the depths of his brown eyes. “I love you, too. Come on, let’s go hire a row boat out, seeing as the day’s so nice.”
I smiled too. “That would be fun.”
His fingers wove in between mine and clung a little too aggressively to be normal as we queued, and when I offered to go halves on the boat hire, he discouraged me with a grunt. “No, just let me pay. This is my thing.”
“Okay.” Something was definitely up if Justin had got snappy.
I’d wait until we were out on The Lake and then I’d probe him carefully, and see if I could pull whatever it was out of him. I guessed he needed to talk it out, and then he’d be okay after…
A guy held the row boat as Justin gripped my hand and I climbed in. Then as I perched on a wooden bench at one end, he got in and occupied the one at the other end.
“Have you rowed before?”
“Yeah, but do not expect perfection…” He threw me a smile, and a glint caught in his eye, flashing a hint of his usual self.
As the guy pushed us off, Justin gripped the oars firmly, leaning forward and dipping them into The Lake. Then with a strong stroke, he leaned back and the boat cut through the water, as little splashes and ripples stirred either side of us.
“I used to row lots. There is a lake in the grounds of my parents’ house. I can take over–”
“Maybe after…”
After what?
I didn’t say anything, just leaned to one side, dipped my fingertips in the water and enjoyed the sensation of it as he pretty skillfully cut us a path out into the middle. He wasn’t a bad rower at all. “We’ll have to bring Dillon with us and come and do this again.”
He smiled. “Yeah.”
“He’d love it–”
“Yeah, and he’d be fighting me to have a go on the oars, and crash us into the bank…” He laughed.
He was relaxing now; his gaze was warmer.
I sat up, smiling at him. “This day is perfect isn’t it?”
A deep breath pulled into lungs suddenly, swelling his chest, and the anxiety that had been hovering for hours, maybe days, suddenly flooded his eyes, and stiffened his posture. My gaze left his as he moved, pulling the oars into the boat. What on earth was going on that he was so messed up by it?
Leaving the oars in the brackets, he shifted off the seat, one knee dropping onto the hull of the shallow boat as his other stayed raised, and his hand pulled something out of his jeans pocket.
“Here–”
“Justin, kneeling in a boat is not a good idea,” as it rocked unsteadily, and his hand lifted, with something gripped in his fingers.
He caught hold of my other hand as the sunlight catch whatever he gripped. It sparkled.
Oh my God.
My gaze spun to meet his and his brown eyes were glowing with love and questions now, shining like dark amber. “Yes, it is a perfect day. But what makes it most perfect, Portia, is that I’m with you. I want to be with you forever. I want to marry you. Not in a hurry, just whenever. But I want to make sure I’ve claimed you now so you know just how I feel and everyone else does too. Will you marry me?”
His eyes burned with emotion. The same emotion gathered inside me in a storm, spinning in excited turmoil.
My hand shook as I clasped his fingers, absorbing the solidity of his grip. He was reliable, my best-friend–everything I’d ever dreamed of. “Yes.” There was no doubt in me, but the word came out on a stunned breathless whisper. I swallowed, took a breath and said it more clearly. “Yes. I want to marry you. Oh, Justin…” Tears came in a rush as I let go of his hand and threw my arms around his neck leaning forward. “Thank you…” I sobbed as he laughed and the boat rocked, water slapping at the sides.
“Steady.” His pitch was deep. “You’ll make me drop the ring, and we’d lose it forever if it goes in The Lake.”
I sat back, still sobbing and wiping tears away, shaking. Now he was relaxed, his muscle loose and his vibe easy, as he took up my left hand.
The touch of his fingers was gently protective as he slid the ring on.
Emotion caught about my heart and squeezed tight, more tears trickling down my cheeks as I looked at it.
The gold was warm, and a beautiful solitaire diamond glinted up at me, sparkling in the bright spring sunlight.
The pressure of Justin’s fingertips lifted my chin, and then his warm, wide lips pressed against mine.
My hand, wearing his ring, came up to the back of his head–I still loved the shape of his head–and I pressed my lips back against his and then opened my mouth. Then I remember with a flash of an image, doing exactly the same thing in the pool on New Ye
ar’s Eve, it had been me who’d started this.
My drunk brain had been way more intelligent than I’d thought.
When the kiss broke, his forehead pressed against mine, as we breathed steadily, sharing breaths.
I laughed quietly. “Dad will go nuts you know.”
Justin’s long narrow fingers embraced my nape and squeezed my neck in comforting reassurance. “He won’t.”
Then he leaned back a little smiling.
“I never went on a photo shoot for the magazine. I went to speak to your Dad. I asked for his permission to marry you.”
My body jolted back, rocking the boat, as he moved on to the opposite bench again.
“No! What did he say?”
“Yes.”
“He didn’t…”
“He did. Call him.”
“You’re kidding me right…” Even though I answered with disbelief, I was already searching for my cell.
Justin caught hold of the oars and started rowing, watching me with a smile; it carried happiness and humor. I found out Dad’s contact and called his cell. Looking at Justin as it started ringing.
“Hello, Portia.” His voice was heavy and deep, but it sounded warm–different.
“Dad.” I took a breath and let it slip back out my lungs. “I’m engaged. To Justin…” As I said the words, there was a grip of wonder inside me. I was engaged to Justin. We’d get married, build a life together, have kids. I had a happy ending to hold on to–a fairytale I really believed in.
“I know–” I could hear him smiling. Now that was weird, he hated me being with Justin.
“He said he asked you.”
“He did.”
“And?”
“And I gave him my agreement. I respect the boy for coming out to California. I guess, you’ve found a good one after all, Portia…”
I looked at Justin, my eyes trying to express my disbelief. He just smiled.
I wish I knew what he’d said. I wish I’d been there.