My Weakness

by Alison Mello

  I followed his delicious body towards the bed, eager to see if it was as comfortable as it looked. As upset as I’d been over the past two weeks, I couldn’t deny it had been pure torture for me having his body close to me every night for the past week and not touch him. I knew he wouldn’t make a move and I didn’t know where we currently stood with each other so I wasn’t going to make a move either.

  I watched him strip off before he lifted the duvet up and patted the bed for me to join him.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, stripping off.

  “What do you mean?”

  “With us?” I settled in beside him, cuddling up against him.

  “Do you really want to do this now?” he asked, stroking my hair off my face.

  I nodded, telling myself I had to do this now.

  As brilliant as it had been having him there for me over my recent upheavals, I didn’t want to continue on with him if he was always going to reject me. I had given in to my true feelings for him after realising Scott had been a complete and utter lie because I had done nothing but crave Paul. But at the same time, if he and I weren’t ever going to happen, I needed to know so I could do something to get past it and move on properly, not rush into something because I was desperate for something I currently wanted from him.

  “It’s complicated, darling, you know it is,” he said.

  “Take the complications out of the situation for the moment. Ignore them. Then what?”

  “What do you mean? If it was just simple and straightforward?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, then I’d be asking you to consider being with me,” he said, tracing his index finger down my cheek.

  “Okay. First complication?”

  “My parents.”

  “In what way?” I knew the answers but I needed him to spell them out.

  “The business.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Is there a way to get around that?”

  He looked thoughtful for a moment. “Well, when they hand it to me I could always sell it I guess,” he said. “Or go into partnership and remain a silent partner.”

  “Okay. That’s a start. What else?”

  “Mr. Peters.”

  “Surely, though, if he undoes whatever he did, he would be taking himself and your father down too as accomplices?”

  He nodded to me.

  “Can you not use that as a bargaining chip?”

  “It’s proving it.” He sighed. “You’ve heard lately of all these cases being uprooted as new evidence is discovered etcetera; that’s what they would do to me.”

  “So catch them out,” I said, meaning record them like we had done Tim.

  He gave me a wry smile. “I’d already been thinking about that.”

  “So what other complications are there?”

  “Well, I guess work isn’t a problem anymore seeing as I own the company so that’s one down. I suppose all that’s left is my living situation once my parents kick me out and what will happen financially.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, a lot of our finances are tied up in several joint ventures. It would be very messy and a right headache to get around.”

  “I guess it all boils down to one thing,” I said.

  “What’s that?” he asked, running his hand through my hair.

  “How badly you want this. Us.” My heart rate increased by the second at the heaviness of the situation combined with his gentle touch.

  “You have no idea,” he whispered, inching his face closer to mine. “I’m absolutely crazy about you.”

  He glanced a feather light kiss over my cheek, coating me in goosebumps. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the delicate kisses he placed all over my face.

  “I would have thought after everything you might have figured how I feel about you?” he said.

  I fluttered my eyes open, immediately drawn to his swirling, twinkling eyes. I faltered with a response—I didn’t know what to say.

  He pulled his arms tighter around me, cushioning our lips together. I felt nothing short of giddy as I revelled in our kiss, the feeling of being back in his arms once again. Nothing could stop this ascent to heaven.

  Or so I thought.

  His bedroom door burst open, making us both jump. “You’re home, then?”

  I peered over the top of the duvet to see Roger stood in the doorway, absolutely fuming mad.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  “What the hell are you doing?” Paul said, sitting up.

  He looked down and pulled the duvet up around me even though I was already plenty covered.

  “I think I could ask you the same thing. Or should I say who?” he said, his eyes falling on me.

  Paul glared at him, anger and hatred rolling off him in waves. “Get out.”

  “Is she why you’ve vanished for the past week?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “I think it’s very much my business considering past events, don’t you?”

  That was it—I couldn’t hold my tongue anymore. “Where do you get off being a bully?”

  Roger’s mouth fell open. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Kyra…” Paul whispered, placing a hand on my arm.

  “You heard me,” I said, ignoring Paul. This arrogant bastard had not only tortured the love of my life for years but had also intruded on our most intimate moment yet. He was getting both barrels. “There’s no wonder really that Rebecca wanted nothing to do with you, is there?”

  Paul groaned and put his head in his hands. Roger’s expression darkened as confusion and anger mixed together.

  “You know nothing of our family situation, young lady. Be very careful.”

  “Don’t I? So I don’t know how she left home the second she legally could and disowned you? I don’t know you had to buy her that yard and house to prevent your own daughter from living in a caravan because she preferred it to living with you? I also don’t know that she changed her surname to dissolve any association to you and only comes round for Christmas and birthdays as part of a deal because of the yard you bought her?”

  He looked at me as hurt spread across his face for just a moment before his arrogance returned.

  He glared at Paul. “You told her about Rebecca?”

  I snorted. “No. I met her.”

  “You what?” Roger said, now yelling at Paul. “You took her to meet Rebecca? What did we talk about back in the summer? I thought it had been made quite clear to you where we stood on that score and the situation with her?” He jerked his head towards me as he spoke the last couple of words.

  “Oh, I know all about that,” I jumped in again before Paul could respond. “How you made him sleep with Mrs. Peters as part of your perverted little sex club, and told him if he wanted to be with me, then he’d have to share me with everyone else. Seriously, how sick are you?”

  Roger’s face flashed a wry smile before he responded. “Listen to me, young lady. I know my own son better than you do. I know what he needs better than anyone else, and getting involved in a monogamous relationship is not something he needs or wants.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really,” he said, folding his arms over his chest.

  “I know all about Cassie.”

  He sucked in a deep breath but remained silent, giving me the opportunity to carry on.

  “And I also know the only reason Paul won’t get involved with anyone is because he doesn’t want to see his own father fucking his girlfriend.”

  I was so angry I didn’t care what I said as I felt the situation we were currently in was all down to him anyway. If he hadn’t forced Paul into his seedy sex club all those years ago, then maybe things with Paul and I would have turned out differently the first time around.

  “He had jealousy issues,” Roger said, dropping his arms to his sides. “It’s the best thing for him.”

  “Is it? So you don’t think him getting what he actually wants is the best thing for him? Him livin
g the life he actually wants wouldn’t be the best thing for him, then?”

  “Paul?” Roger said, glancing at his son.

  “I hate it,” he said. “I always have done. I can’t stand the way you and Mum live. I would rather die alone than subject any wife of mine to what you do.”

  “Oh.”

  “And if you don’t let me live my own life, at the age of thirty-five, you’ll find yourselves completely childless.”

  Giving us both a curious look, Roger nodded his head and closed the door, disappearing.

  Paul and I both let out a sigh of relief before we flopped back onto the soft pillows and stared up at the ceiling in silence. A couple of minutes later, he rolled over on top of me, scooping his arms underneath my back as he nestled himself cheekily between my legs.

  “Well, I guess that’s the complications over and done with,” he said.

  I giggled at him as he nuzzled into my neck and slowly started planting kisses across my skin.

  “I’m completely and utterly madly in love with you,” he whispered, his thumbs stroking my back.

  I gasped in shock at the sudden outburst of his feelings. I rested my hands on his shoulders, ready to push him off me should this go very wrong.

  “I know,” he said, raising his face so he could look me in the eye. “I said the dreaded ‘L’ word.”

  I smiled at his sarcasm, giving him a withering look.

  “I’ve tried to tell you twice in the past week and both times I’ve been interrupted so I figured I may as well just say it now the opportunity arose.”

  I looked into those hypnotizing blue eyes swimming with love and tenderness. Why had I not seen this side of him before? It made my heart heavy and ache at the thought of where this could have gone if this had happened months ago.

  “I’m crazy about you too,” I said, careful not to jump in with the ‘L’ word.

  He grinned at me with a satisfied look on his face. “That’ll do,” he whispered. “That’ll more than do.”

  Epilogue

  Well, it was fair to say my life changed rather drastically over the past six months.

  Paul and his parents managed to iron things out—eventually. It was Paul’s mum who finally made Roger see they couldn’t impose their own lifestyle choices onto their children. Paul made his plans about the future of their business quite clear. In the end, they decided to split the businesses up. Paul kept the nightclubs and took sole charge of them whilst his parents continued on with their own lifestyle choice of the club. They would sell it on in the future, when they were too old, and keep the money behind for Paul and Rebecca once they were gone. They had also moved out of the house and bought themselves a new estate a few miles down the road. Paul had been utterly gobsmacked when they handed him the keys and told him they didn’t want to force him out of his childhood home.

  Paul also kept himself at the head of Mr. Collins’s company and all was going swimmingly well. The new branch out in Germany had sprung into life last month and he had moved two of the directors out there permanently to control it whilst he stayed back here—with me.

  I wanted to keep my job at the company but Paul refused to have me stuck behind a desk, restrained from the joys of a good life when he had more than enough money to “keep me,” aside from my own small fortune from Mum’s shares. After some rather heated discussions we came to an agreement and a very suitable compromise was reached for both of us. His relationship with Rebecca had flourished considerably since everything happened and I found myself going into business with her. I evented her top horses, including Eloise, and helped her with her breeding and training programmes. Burying myself in horses for hours every day was perfect heaven to me.

  Ash and Ben announced they were getting married at the end of the year after they had now permanently relocated themselves out in Texas. Ash was teaching Ben about horses and they were making a good go at running a dude ranch along with some help from the locals.

  Tim was awaiting his trial, which was scheduled for next month. He pleaded guilty to all charges and it was pretty much set in stone he was going away for life. The children who he had taken inheritance from over the years were all given their money back from their unfortunate mothers and any leftover had been donated to local equine charities.

  Nelson had been flown over here and was currently standing at stud at the yard. We were making an attempt at introducing American Quarter Horses over here and it was going well. It was a joyful relief for me to ride him after the seriousness of the competitions I had with the eventers.

  Molly and Chris had gotten divorced rather quickly. Chris pushed it all through, at an insane cost, and managed to get it finalised last week. We kept in touch loosely as after being victims to the same thing, it had been daft not to. We had always gotten along anyway. Molly moved to Wales to get a fresh start. She never attempted any sort of contact with me and I was grateful.

  Scott moved out to the States courtesy of his father. I was a little saddened to hear he had been shot and killed in a series of riots that took place in Boston where he was visiting for a few days. I knew he never intended me any harm and I felt that was a rather sticky end to meet. Paul, on the other hand, along with Ash, were rather obvious in their gleeful snickering.

  I was now living with Paul. I moved in when his parents moved out in the new year. It didn’t feel rushed or forced; it just felt right. I had even managed to say the dreaded ‘L’ word to him shortly after I moved in. He reacted with a couple of tears but insisted it was merely his eyes sweating and I wasn’t to tell a soul about his strange bodily function.

  This evening, I lay in bed listening to the rhythmic breathing of my sleeping beautiful Greek god next to me. I lifted my left hand up in the moonlight streaming through our window and twirled the sparkling diamond around my third finger with an aching smile spreading onto my face. He’d proposed to me only a few short hours previously.

  I’d been competing at a one-day event with one of the up and coming youngsters. After a rather sticky situation at one of the fences out on the cross country course, we came home, splattered in mud and me utterly overjoyed I was still alive after he refused a simple log fence and sent me flying into a puddle of mud.

  I slid down from the saddle weak at the knees and gasping for breath. I’d turned to lead the horse back to the lorry when Paul’s grinning face greeted me. He hugged me in his designer clothes before bending down on one knee. Opening a dark blue velvet box, he presented me with a stunning diamond ring and the words, “If this is the worst you’ll ever look, which I think it is, then I’d still marry you right now if I could. Will you marry me?”

  He’d been grinning like a Cheshire cat as he’d said it, full well knowing how I’d react to him doing that to me at such a horrifying moment.

  I pushed him over into the squelching grass before jumping on him like a starfish on ecstasy and screaming my answer in delight. I then interrogated him as to why he couldn’t have given me hearts and flowers and let me look my best.

  His response, with a big grin, had simply been, “Because then it wouldn’t have been a surprise.”

  I couldn’t believe after the past year of insane highs and hitting real rock bottoms, after giving in to my wants of him and then ignoring him for the needs of my own life, I finally found everything I ever wanted and needed in him.

  I had finally found my happy ending.

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  About the Author

  C J Laurence lives in a small village in Lincolnshire, England. Born in the grand year of 1986, she has lived around this area all her life. Mother to a soon-to-be nine year old boy, C J works full time Monday to Friday in a busy accounts office. Her mind is a constant whirring stream of ideas, characters and scenarios and by the time she gets home at night, emptying her head is the number one priority.

  Her pen name is a tribute
to her late father, Laurence, whose ideas of the universe sparked the beginnings of her first paranormal book. This particular story is being walked through many rewrites in order to give her father the best story she can muster from his thoughts. Fairly new to writing compared to some, C J began her first novel in early 2014. This story was of a serious tone, centred around domestic violence. She is hoping to publish this into the main stream at some point.

  Outside of the literary world, C J has a passion for horses, a love that has burned away since the age of six. Having had to have her beloved mare put to sleep in 2014, C J has only just recently rekindled her relationship with horses and is now learning the wonders of Western riding. As well as natural horsepower, C J also has a passion for mechanical horsepower and harbours a rare female love for cars. Having her own weekend toy of a performance car, C J is often found drooling over pictures of high powered motors—ranging from old classics to brand new supercars. Perhaps her most bizarre love, the one which drives her long suffering partner crazy, is that of conspiracy theories. C J is always looking for hidden meanings and manages to find conspiracies in anything you can think of. She can only hope you like this side of her twists and turns in her books!

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