One Too Many

by Jade West

  I didn’t feel any threat at all, in fact. Not tonight, and likely not ever again. Call me a dumbass optimist, but I was flying high, determined that if Heath was some fucked-up trial sent to test us, all he’d done was leave us stronger. Sure, the grinder may have dragged us through with gnarly teeth in those early days after his departure, but we’d healed stronger, better. Not least with the breathing space of a financial buffer in our account to ease the stress away.

  Winning should have been everything. Beating that smug cocksucker in a way he couldn’t dispute should have brought a grin to my face like no other. But the victory wasn’t nearly as glorious as I’d imagined.

  I found myself questioning if victory ever was really that glorious when it came at others’ expense. My dad had claimed so, ready with a firm handshake and a clap on the back whenever I’d done him proud, but invariably I was always out to topple someone else right afterwards to earn more of his praise. Always more, more, more.

  My happiest moments in my lifetime were undeniably with Grace, knowing she was there at my worst as well as my best. Knowing I didn’t need to prove my worth to her every day of my life. Being able to breathe easily at night in her arms, knowing she was mine and I was hers.

  But still, here we were. Heath in our midst, on some crazy mission to fuck me over, for reasons unknown.

  He wouldn’t manage it.

  My heart did a joyous flip as she pulled away from him and headed back inside where she belonged. I was waiting in our bedroom with the lamp on low and the bedsheets folded back to welcome her, soaking her in with warm eyes when she crossed the threshold and headed my way with a wince and a smile. She tossed her fluffy cardigan aside and kicked off her pumps, coming for her side of the bed without so much as a bathroom detour.

  My arms were ready and waiting as she sought them out, her skin cold to the touch as she pressed to my side.

  “That was really something,” she told me. “I’ll be aching for a week.”

  “A good ache, I’m hoping.”

  Her giggle was intoxicating. “A good ache, yeah. I just hope my dainty parts go back to some semblance of normality.”

  I didn’t broach the subject of him at the railings, and it took her a minute, breathing steadily against my shoulder as she warmed herself with my body heat.

  “He’s a lost soul under all that cash-rich swagger. I think he’s searching for something he isn’t even sure he’s searching for.”

  “He’s a cunt,” I said, simply.

  She slapped my arm playfully. “Brett Foster, don’t be so dismissive of other people’s shit. That could be us one day, searching for something.”

  “Searching or not, he’s still a cunt,” I repeated. “I suspect he’ll always be a cunt. Ruining other people’s happiness with his cunty ways.”

  She didn’t have a response for that. It took me a while before I continued, enjoying the sensation of her skin against mine.

  “So, what’s the cunt searching for?”

  “Love,” she said, just like that, and it made me laugh out loud.

  “Sure he is.”

  “He is,” she insisted. “Whatever happened to him, he’s so cynical he’s a black hole. He doesn’t think it exists.”

  “Maybe it doesn’t for a selfish prick like him,” I said, my smile still bright as my laughter eased off.

  “Or maybe he’s a selfish prick like him because he doesn’t believe it exists.”

  “That’s a chicken and egg situation I don’t want a part of.”

  She pressed her lips to my shoulder. “I hope we’re the ones who make him rethink.”

  “By you taking his dick at the same time as mine? Unlikely, sweetheart.”

  She stiffened at that, pulling away enough to flash me a look of disappointment.

  “What?” I said. “It’s the truth.”

  “There’s more to this than me taking two dicks at once.”

  I shrugged. “I doubt he’s thinking all that deeply about it, Grace. He wanted to fuck us over, and we proved he was full of bullshit ego. That’s what he’s smarting about.”

  It was when she rolled over and nestled down under the covers that I knew she was stewing on something bigger. She welcomed my arm as I wrapped it around her waist and held her tight.

  “Talk to me,” I whispered. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “You’ll say I’m stupid.”

  I kissed her neck and she shivered. “I’d never say you were stupid.”

  I gave her breathing space, waiting in the quiet for her to formulate her words and wondering eventually if she was already lost to sleep. She wasn’t. Her fingers squeezed mine before she started speaking.

  “I think he’s realising that what we have is real. I think he’s struggling with it.”

  “Struggling to see us happy? Yeah, because he’s a cunt.”

  I was ready for her to stiffen and she did. I was apologising before she squirmed away, sighing deep as I urged her to continue.

  “We could show him,” she said. “I mean, he’ll see it, from being around us. Maybe it’ll open his mind, make him think it’s possible.”

  “And that’s what you want, is it? To help the guy in his quest for love? He comes along wanting to destroy everything that matters to us, and you want to set him on his merry may with romance in mind?”

  She shrugged in my arms. “I believe in helping people. Sometimes the people who need help the most aren’t the people we think deserve it.”

  “He definitely doesn’t,” I insisted, but my resolve was weakening in the face of everything the asshole had brought on us.

  “He saved our hotel,” she added, but I sighed.

  “By trying to destroy us.”

  “Doesn’t matter, he saved the hotel and brought us back to life. Brought you back to life.”

  She was right on that front. I felt more of a man than I’d felt in months. It was me running through my veins, and the relief was welcome.

  “So, what do you propose we do?” I asked her, and she shook her head.

  “I don’t know. Show him, I guess.”

  “Show him by inviting him for threesomes every night this week?”

  The look she gave me over her shoulder was nothing short of wonder. “We’re going to do this every night?”

  “If that’s what you want. It’s your fantasy.”

  “And what about yours? What’s your fantasy?”

  My smile was all real and all for her. “To see you happy, no matter where we find it.”

  “I love you, Brett Foster,” she said, and landed a kiss on my lips. “I’d marry you all over again if I could.”

  It was all the encouragement I needed to agree to the unbelievable.

  “Alright,” I told her. “We’ll show the prick what love is. We’ll see how much he can stomach. Be warned though, there’s more to this than some asshole on a quest to break down marriages all over the country. He knows me. Knows us. Fuck knows how or why, but he does. This wasn’t just a random seaside visit for him.”

  She held up her pinky finger and I linked it in a promise before I even knew what I was agreeing to.

  “We’ll show him who we are, no matter what,” she said. “And I’ll get hold of Sarah and see where’s she’s at with her mystery solving. We’ll get to the bottom of his hate the Fosters attitude, if there really is one.”

  “Deal,” I said. “But can I at least have a silent gloat when I kick his ass all over again in the rerun?”

  She managed a laugh this time. “You really are your father’s son. I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

  But she was wrong.

  For the first time in my life I felt like anything but.

  And for the first time in my life, the prospect of change didn’t feel so bad.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Grace

  I could barely move when I woke up. My ass felt like I’d taken a train, my pussy aching so bad as I got out of bed.

  Brett was
sleeping soundly. It was earlier than the alarm, the light a dull silver through the window as I stepped on over.

  I felt different. Alive and raw and perfectly sore. But most of all, I felt loved. Maybe now more than ever.

  I’d been loved my whole life, from my incredible parents to my awesome sister, through my gaggle of school friends to the man who’d love me since my teens. The idea of never having experienced love that could stand the test of time was a tragedy I couldn’t fathom, not for the life of me. The prospect of expecting nothing more than a life of self-serving coldness was enough to bring a shiver to my spine.

  The toughest shells hide the softest creatures, and the smallest dogs often have the loudest barks.

  The bark of Thomas Heath was pretty damn loud, especially with the boom of hard cash to back up its volume, but I couldn’t help thinking this was maybe deceptive. An illusion I was only just beginning to glimpse beyond.

  Maybe he was one of those delicate souls in a bitter barricade. Maybe fate had brought him here to find help in the most unlikely of places, just like he’d offered it to us. A silver lining under a very ominous cloud.

  Of course, there was the possibility that I was overthinking things and he really was just a selfish cunt, as Brett would say, but I couldn’t shake it off. I watched the sea crash along the shore outside, the life his dirty proposition had saved for us, and I couldn’t deny the urge to help him right back.

  Sometimes help comes from the strangest directions. Hell knows, we’d discovered that for ourselves. Maybe he’d discover it too.

  My husband woke with the alarm and reached across my empty side of the bed in his quest for me. He raised his head once he discovered my absence, and I greeted him with a smile from my place at the window.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Morning, gorgeous,” his sleepy voice welcomed. “How are you feeling?”

  My walk must have said it all when I crossed the room back to him. He pulled a grimace on my behalf as I fell into his arms, but I didn’t want his sympathy, I wanted his promise for more.

  Just not today.

  Today was about recovering. About a quiet hotel day with our happy guests and Thomas Heath.

  I was humming all the way through my shower, soaping up Brett and giggling as he soaped me up right back with tickling fingers. My mood was light and easy, genuinely happy after months of tension, and so was his. It was in his eyes, his smile, his silly gestures. It was in the way he stared at me in the mirror while he brushed his teeth and I towelled down. It was in the way his hand took mine once we were dressed and heading through to the kitchen, his whistle bright as sunshine as he dug out the supplies for breakfast shift.

  I liked all this. I liked it a lot.

  And I especially liked Thomas Heath’s appearance at the breakfast table shortly before nine. He took a newspaper from the rack and set himself down at a window seat, spreading it out over the lap I’d ridden so thoroughly the night previous, and I approached with a confidence I’d never known in his presence, my smile bright and easy as I asked him for his order.

  “What’s it going to be? You must have quite an appetite.”

  His smirk was back on his face but not convincing. “Several of us have quite an appetite around here it seems.”

  “Must be the sea air,” I said, choking back a ridiculous giggle. I wasn’t a giggler, not even in high school, not really, but the urge was intense, laughter threatening to spill loud and dumb through our breakfast room. I guess that’s what true happiness does to you.

  He leaned toward me, his beautiful face cocked just right to catch the morning sunlight. “The sea air and one horny little pussy, Mrs Foster. I’m now well aware why your husband has been so keen to keep hold of you all these years.”

  There it was again, the allusion to the past in his words. Nothing concrete, but still it was undeniable. My belly fluttered with a whole host of nervous vibes, but loudest amongst them all was that knowing, knowing that he knew us, just as Brett had said.

  That’s what had me reaching for my mobile phone just as soon as I’d scribbled down his order for a full English and retreated into reception.

  I opted for a text message, seeing as my sister was rarely on social media.

  Any news on Polly Piper? Thomas Heath is back here. I need to know ASAP please xx.

  I hadn’t so much as made it through to the kitchen with the order book for Brett when the buzz struck up in my jeans pocket.

  He’s back?? Wow. I’m on it. Kids have been crazy and she wasn’t in the bakery last week. Sick or something. I’ll head down there this lunch and put her on the spot.

  I loved my sister. The string of hearts and kisses in my response must have made that clear enough to her, too.

  Maybe Polly Piper would lead to nothing, especially now they were no longer friends on social media. Sarah may draw a blank and we’d be back to the drawing board, but the tickle up my back dared to hope for more.

  I shared the news with Brett when I handed Heath’s order over and he quirked a brow.

  “Let’s hope she strikes gold. Her digging skills better be good.”

  I nodded. “They run in the family.”

  He smiled at that. “You’re in the wrong career. Fuck hotel management, you should retrain to be a detective.”

  It wasn’t the first time he’d said that. I waved him off like always, wondering afresh whether this was really the right gig for us. We were still doing shit on our search for a chef, our bookings picking up to steady, but still on the rocks with that shitty hotel opening down the road.

  I guess I was still wondering about the finer details when I headed out to Heath with his morning coffee. His eyes ate me up as I placed his mug on the table, this time without the crappy little sachets of sugar he despised.

  “Penny for them?” he asked, and I met his gaze before deciding he sounded genuine.

  “Just a penny?” I replied, a smile on my face as I dropped into the seat opposite. I was done with the cruddy barriers and suspicions between us. He was him and I was me, on home turf, struggling to keep this place on its feet and done with dancing around the fire of his crazy games.

  I took a breath before I answered him, watching his well sculpted fingers as he took his mug and lifted it to his lips.

  “Your money helped, but this place still needs work.”

  He swallowed his first sip of coffee, avoiding his grumble at the quality. “This place is doomed with the hotel opening down the coast,” he told me, and my stomach tightened. “You’ll waste money trying to save it. You’ll waste time trying to hang on. Not just you, but everyone else in this village alongside you.”

  “You don’t know–” I began, but he carried on talking.

  “I do know,” he said. “I’ve been dissembling other businesses for years. First that rival hotel will open and bring bargain seekers flooding in. The chain stores will follow, lapping up the new trade and choking out the established businesses. You’ll have cheap arcades and ice cream vendors. Chain grocery stores and budget boozers. This place has numbered days ahead, I’d be making the most of them if I were you, with one eye on the exit.”

  “There is no exit,” I told him, and my voice was much huskier than I intended. “We’ll never sell this place for what we bought it for, even if we wanted to, which we don’t.”

  He tipped his head. “Then get out as quickly as you can.”

  I shook my head. “Brett would never leave.” I paused, deciding whether I should really spill this stuff to someone who seemingly wanted to destroy us. I opted to carry on, unsure what difference it could possibly make. “The inheritance from his dad paid for it. His dad was…” I tried to weigh up the words.

  “Was what?” he asked, shifting forward in his seat with more interest than I’d have anticipated.

  His eyes were wide and focused. His stance attentive in a way I’d never seen.

  Maybe he wasn’t all that bad. Not really.

  Maybe I could tell
him. Should tell him.

  Maybe he’d be able to help me unravel all this sorry shit and wade through to safer turf.

  “His dad was demanding,” I finished. “That won’t come as much of a surprise, I’m sure. I mean, you’ve seen Brett. He’s competitive to the max. Always trying to be a winner, no matter what the odds.”

  “Competitive is one word for it,” he said. “I have plenty of others.”

  “That’s rich coming from the guy who offered us obscene money to destroy our life.”

  “Not your life,” he replied. “Just your marriage.”

  My eyes were wide and focused right back on his. “That is our life.”

  Something moved in his eyes before he looked away. He stared through the window at the waves, and I stared at him. Something was happening, to the man who’d rocked up on our doorstep with a proposition of filthy insanity. Maybe to us too, but definitely to him. I couldn’t put my finger on what that something was, or what it meant, but it was there, skirting at the edges of whatever messed-up connection we were developing here.

  Moving figures took my attention. Two boys running along the railings with their buckets and spades swinging wide. I couldn’t hold back the smile as their poor mother dashed along after them.

  That should be me one day, chasing after our children, right here, in this place we loved so much.

  “That’s what you want, is it?” Thomas asked, clearly reading my thoughts. “A perfect little family in this perfect little cove?”

  “No family is ever perfect,” I told him, which was certainly true. “But I want my own little imperfect family in this perfect little cove, yes.”

  He didn’t say a word, so I continued with mine.

  “My sister has two girls, they love it here. Seeing the magic in their eyes as they shape their dreams out of sand down there is one of my greatest treasures. They’re amazing. Their imaginations are amazing. I hope we get our own slice of the same incredible cake one day.”

  Still he said nothing. Again I continued, this time with a question.

  “What about your family? What are they like?”