‘I had something really special planned for us tonight, baby,’ he says softly, ‘but I have a suggestion to make, instead. How about…?’ He breaks off to kiss me gently and my eyes slide shut. I’m struggling to keep them open if I’m honest. I’ve had a long day and all the adrenaline and drama of the last few hours have wiped me out.
‘…I’ll kiss you until you fall asleep, and then I’ll hold you until you wake up,’ he murmurs. ‘And then tomorrow, we can spend the day together? It’s Sunday – I was thinking that perhaps we could go and see Nelson and Dave? Or whatever you want?’
That all sounds just fine to me and I nod, snuggling into his warm body. I was so terrified earlier, thinking that my one rash action could potentially rob me of my now perfect life and hot relief melts through me again. It’s easy to panic, well – it is for me, anyway. I’ve gone from having nothing at all to everything a woman could want and the prospect of having all that snatched cruelly away from me made me rigid with fear.
Carter leans away from me, clicking off the bedside lamp, but he doesn’t say any more. I’m not bothered, I’m not even piqued that he hasn’t said those three little words again tonight. He’s given me more than ever before, together with the reassurance that beautiful Toria is not a threat and won’t ever be. I also comfort myself with the knowledge that it doesn’t matter at all if his dad hates me. Carter will be hightailing it out of all their lives as soon as that precious piece of paper is firmly in his hand.
He tips my chin up in the darkness and as his mouth meets mine, he sighs himself.
‘I’ve had such a wonderful day,’ he says and I can see his smile in the shaft of milky moonlight coming through the attic windows.
‘Me, too.’
Our mouths meet again in the darkness and he kisses me for a long time, before pulling my face into the crook of his neck and I sleep.
Thirty Five
Carter grins at me as he switches off the Audi’s engine at the top of our drive. It’s mid-afternoon on Sunday and, as per his idea, we’ve just spent the last few hours at Chapel View.
It’s a beautiful day, far too nice to stay in bed making love, and anyway – that’s planned for later on. Tracey was delighted to see us and today we went on the longer hack, talking and laughing in the sunshine together. We didn’t discuss anything else deep, just swapped information about our likes and dislikes, food, music and hobbies. Carter looked so happy as he lounged easily in Dave’s saddle and I’m not sure how much of that was from riding the horse himself or the playful, easy banter that we were so effortlessly sharing. Every time I looked at him he was either grinning or throwing his head back on a laugh. I love it when he really laughs, he looks so goddamned beautiful.
He unclips his seatbelt, turning to look at me and he tucks a stray lock of my hair behind my ear.
‘What do you want to do for the rest of the day?’ he asks, hiking a playful brow.
‘Well, Sunday evenings, I usually share a meal with Ellen and Jus – do you fancy that?’
‘Absolutely.’ He nods immediately. ‘That’s if they don’t mind, of course…?’
I roll my eyes. ‘Don’t be a dick, Carter!’ I laugh, which turns into a real giggle when he looks comically offended.
‘You did not just call me a dick?’
‘Yeah, I did!’ I fire teasingly. ‘Why – what are you going to do about it?’ I hike a cocky eyebrow, but I can’t wipe the smile from my face.
‘Have you ever heard of orgasm denial?’ he says innocently but I snort.
‘Really? Dream on, Carter! You haven’t got a prayer of holding out on me and you know it!’ I’m way too overconfident here, but I can’t help myself. And anyway – it’s hardly bullshit. He gives me a thoughtful look.
‘We’ll see,’ he says silkily, something fleeting his eyes for a moment and then he grins, picking up my fingers and kissing my knuckles. I climb out of the car, squinting in the sunshine.
‘You can grab a shower if you want – I’m going to. I’m all sweaty,’ I say, fanning myself with the front of my polo shirt and he smiles his thanks. He links our fingers as we make our way to the front door and I let us quietly into the house.
Justin and Ellen are in here somewhere, probably outside on a day like today and I wander down the hallway with Carter in tow. The Walkers don’t have a set Sunday dinner menu – occasionally it’s a roast, but sometimes a nice Thai takeaway. We always eat together on a Sunday, well – I eat with them most nights, if I’m honest. I don’t like my own company very much, I’ve had it rammed down my throat for most of my life, so I seek Jus and Ellen’s out regularly. I’m not totally thick skinned and I can tell sometimes when they’re planning a night on the rug in front of the fire without either of them having to drop any huge hints.
I push open the kitchen door and I can hear Jared’s excited shouts from the garden. As I’d imagined, the patio doors are open wide and as I lead Carter over to them, I can see Justin standing scrubbing out the huge gas barbecue. Jared is trundling around the borders, enthusiastically pulling the heads off flowers but Ellen makes me jump when she appears from the kitchen behind me, her hands full of platters of raw meat and burgers, wrapped in cling-film.
‘Ah! Just in time, both of you – I was going to give you a call. Barbecue in an hour or so?’ she says happily, hoisting a brow and Carter and I nod in unison, thanking her. Justin turns and grins at us, but it dips a little when his eyes lock with Carter.
‘Is there any development on last night’s situation?’ he asks, replacing the clean grill that he’s finished scrubbing with a wire brush. Carter takes a seat at the picnic table, smiling up at Ellen when she places the platters of meat in the centre.
‘I spoke to Philip earlier this morning,’ he says. He did, in my presence and it wasn’t a long call, but it made me feel a hell of a lot easier when he’d finished it. ‘Toria won’t be pressing charges or making a complaint to the Police,’ he tells Justin and I see relief flood his blue eyes at the words. I smile to myself. Despite his reassuring words of last night, that I had nothing to worry about and wouldn’t be charged with an offence, he was clearly more worried about it than he was letting on. He’s so protective, he could see the fear in my eyes last night and he wanted to take it away.
‘That’s good news,’ he says, wandering over and picking up the wrapped platters, taking them over to the barbecue and placing them on the table at the side. He looks over at Carter, considering something in his mind.
‘Carter. How do you fancy me running us over to yours on the Ducati, pick the Aprilia up and swap for an hour? We could go down to Formby, have a blast?’
Carter’s answering immediate grin tells Justin everything he needs to know and Ellen rolls her eyes.
‘Jesus, Walker – you’ve been itching to get back on Carter’s bike, haven’t you?’
‘Actually, I was thinking that Carter might like to ride the Ducati, seeing I haven’t yet returned the favour,’ he returns loftily and Ellen smiles as he dips to kiss her.
‘Hell, yeah,’ Carter says. ‘I’ll go in the Audi though – if you’ll follow me? I can leave it there.’ Justin nods as Carter gets up from the wooden chair, planting a kiss on my neck, his face one huge smile. He evidently can’t wait to ride the Penigale.
‘We’ll be back in an hour baby – leave the barbecue, I’ll sort it when we get home!’ Jus flashes Ellen a delighted smile and nearly runs into the house. Justin Adrenaline Junkie Walker… but who can blame the man really? He doesn’t have any other vices, apart from sex.
I grin at Ellen as she places a large bowl of leafy salad and a platter of wrapped rolls on the table now and I get up as she returns to the house, to help her. She nods towards the wine rack.
‘Get us a nice cold bottle and a couple of glasses – I’ll fetch the rest of this out,’ she says and I smile, nodding and by the time she’s emptied her hands on the patio table again twice, I’ve the wine poured and I push a glass into her hand as she takes a seat.
Jared, bless him, has fallen asleep on his back in the shade of the picnic table and Ellen dips to make sure he’s okay, smiling lovingly at him as she turns to face me again. She takes a sip of her wine, leaning back in her chair.
‘You sure you’re okay?’
‘Yeah.’ I take a sip of my own wine, before sliding the glass onto the wooden table in front of me. ‘I wasn’t last night, I was in bits at one point at what I’d done.’ I shake my head regretfully. Whichever way you slice it, the fact remains that I badly injured another person last night and my shoulders droop. Whether I’ve skirted a prosecution or not, it’s a black stain on my previously good character, even if this is only in my own mind.
Ellen reaches out to take my hand. ‘Oh love. Yeah, alright – not your finest hour – but having a drink thrown in your face is pretty inflammatory stuff,’ she reminds me, taking another sip of wine. ‘Plus the fact that she verbally insulted you, and at that point you’d done nothing wrong.’
‘I know.’ I chew my lip for a moment, wondering if I should share some of the things Carter told me last night, about Toria’s behaviour. ‘She’s deeply in love with him, Ellen. She can’t accept it’s over. He found her naked in his bed one afternoon a few weeks ago.’
Her mouth pops open. ‘Really? Fucking hell,’ she mutters, staring down at her wine for a moment and when she looks at me again, there’s the flicker of unease in her eyes briefly. She considers her thoughts for a moment, then, ‘She reminds me of Nick,’ she says sadly. ‘He could never accept that our marriage was over the moment I met Justin.’
I know this, and I suddenly know why there’s unease in her eyes. When Nick didn’t get what he wanted, he turned murderous and a chill slips down my spine. What if Toria, who due to her splattered nose now has even more reason to hate me, decides to up the ante? Flatten me with a car, push me under a bus? I shake my head roughly. I can’t think like that.
Ellen gives me a bright smile now, as if sensing that the conversation is taking a turn that neither of us want and she brings her foot up, resting it on the seat and her wine glass on her knee.
‘Is that all that was worrying you last night – the prospect of ending up with a criminal record?’
‘No.’ I shake my head, drinking more wine. ‘I was petrified that you and Justin would wash your hands of me, chuck me out,’ I mutter and she throws her head back and laughs.
‘Behave yourself! Jesus Pearl, you’re family – nothing that you could do would make that thought ever cross Justin’s mind, or mine!’ she says, smiling widely. ‘You belong here with us, Pearl, you always will.’
I grin back at her now, pouring a little more wine into both our glasses as she takes the conversation onto easier subjects.
‘So, you and Mr Carter, then?’ she says, hiking brow as I put the sweating bottle back onto the table. ‘Going well, is it?’
‘Oh yeah,’ I mutter thickly, clearing my throat. ‘The things he makes me feel, El, and I don’t just mean the sex.’
‘I know exactly what you mean,’ she replies, leaning back in the chair again. ‘It’s written clearly in your eyes, Pearl.’ A pause. ‘You’re in love with him, aren’t you?’
I nod miserably. I’m deeply in love with Carter, I have been from the moment he kissed me, I think, but instead of beaming back at my dear friend, my face alight with happiness, my chin is nearly touching my chest.
‘Yes,’ I murmur, looking down at my hands. ‘I’m hopelessly in love with him, but…’
I hear a thump as Ellen shuffles her chair a little closer to mine, peering under the table as she does to check that Jared is still spark out. She takes my hand again.
‘He hasn’t said it.’
It’s not a question, she knows he hasn’t, but she wants me to confirm it and I nod, finally dragging my eyes up to look at hers. They’re clouded with something that resembles almost pity and I struggle not to drop my gaze again.
‘No.’ It’s all I can force out. I don’t want to talk about why Carter hasn’t told me he loves me, don’t want to come to terms finally with what it means. Despite the touching-of-souls intimacy we’ve shared, all the firsts, the strength of the orgasms that I’ve wrenched out of him, he hasn’t said it.
Ellen regards me thoughtfully. ‘Have you said it to him?’
‘No!’ I blurt, my face horrified.
‘Maybe you should. Maybe he’s waiting for you to say it first?’
I shake my head. ‘And what if I do and he tells me that he doesn’t feel the same? How will I ever get over that?’
‘Pearl, in all seriousness, that’s hardly likely. I’ve seen the way that he looks at you.’ She smiles. ‘It’s the same way that Justin looks at me, exactly the same, and that man adores me.’
‘And he told you that he loved you before he’d even kissed you, on the night you first got together!’ I fire. ‘Carter’s taken my virginity, and the first time that we made love without a condom I thought he was going to break down, the strength of the pleasure and emotion…’ I break off suddenly, my chin wanting to shake and I grit my teeth for a moment, getting a hold of myself. I blink to rid my gaze of the gloss of saline that’s appeared over it and give Ellen a sad smile.
‘Pearl,’ she says reasonably. ‘You can’t benchmark Carter against Justin, it’s hardly fair.’ I nearly smile as I remember my exact thoughts from a few days ago. ‘Just because he hasn’t said it yet, doesn’t mean he’s not in love with you. That’s just words, the way he looks at you and acts around you are clearly screaming his feelings for you.’
‘Then why not just say it? He knows I want to hear it, the way that I look at him sometimes, when he starts to say something and doesn’t finish it…’
‘So he’s trying then?’ she says wryly and I shrug, picking up my wineglass again and taking a long, irritable swig.
‘I have no idea, El, because he doesn’t finish the damned sentence,’ I retort, thumping the glass down onto the picnic table too hard. ‘Anyway, I’ve promised myself that I won’t say it, not until I hear it from him first. It’s the only defence I have left.’
‘Defence against a broken heart?’ she says intuitively and I nod.
‘Which is bullshit, whether I hear him say the words or not, if he walks away from me.’ I shudder as I imagine feeling like Toria did last night, walking into a pub in a few months’ time and seeing him sitting on a stool with another woman plastered all over him. Their mouths locked, tongues intertwined. My belly shifts unpleasantly, the wine almost curdling for a moment and I try and push it away.
‘Pearl, he’s not going to walk away from you. Trust me,’ Ellen says confidently and I give her a soft smile. She doesn’t know that for a fact, but all I can do is run with this. I’m at Carter’s mercy, my heart and my entire future happiness are held in his long-fingered hands. He could crush me as easily as a rose, if he wanted to, grind me to dust in his fist and I pray it never happens.
‘Have you heard from Aaron?’ Ellen asks and I shake my head.
‘No. Did Justin tell you about what happened in the pub the other night?’
‘Yeah.’ She nods sadly. ‘I feel sorry for him, but if that’s the way that he’s going to behave, then I think you’re doing the right thing by taking a step back from him for a while.’
There’s suddenly a fart and then a wail from under the picnic table and Ellen finishes her wine, dropping to her knees and fishing out her crabby son. He’s flushed and sweating, despite being in the shade, but I know when Jared Walker reaches adulthood, he isn’t going to be a morning person. He’s irritable as fuck for the first fifteen minutes of waking and he’s grizzling against Ellen’s shoulder and rubbing his eyes as she stands.
‘I’m just going to get him changed, he’ll probably go down for a bit longer if he’s inside. He’s not sleeping well at night at all at the moment with his teeth,’ she explains and Jared looks at me, his crystal eyes huge with his tears, his rosebud mouth pouting. He’s such a gorgeous baby, I wonder briefly what
the hell he’s going to look like as a twenty one year old man. Incredible, probably. Like Justin, only hotter, if that is indeed possible, with white blond hair and mesmerising eyes.
I wave at Jared and he gives me a wobbly smile over his mum’s shoulder as she disappears into the house. I replenish my wine glass, fishing my phone out of my bag and waking it up. I’ve got a text from Gemma and I smile, remembering briefly seeing her hand in Rupert’s last night, just after the shit had hit the fan. I wonder if anything happened between them and I squint at the text, shielding my phone from the sunlight as I open it.
Hey, are you okay after last night?
I am, but I don’t want to get into all over text with Gem now and there’s other stuff that I want to discuss. My fingers tap quickly over the screen.
Yeah, I’m fine mate, thanks. I’ll fill you in next time I see you, we could do lunch one day?
I take another sip of wine, my subconscious reminding me to go easy, otherwise I’ll be plastered again by the time we go to bed. My phone whoops with her reply.
Rupert told me that she’s Carter’s ex and won’t let him go. I saw her fling her drink in your face – I don’t blame you for punching the witch! An emoji of a witch and one of hysterical laughter and I smile at the screen. Rupert filled her in, did he? I want details.
So… Rupert? Saw you holding hands with him, spill!
She reads the message and then my phone illuminates and shrills at me. I touch it open immediately. I don’t blame her for ringing – she evidently can’t be arsed to text war and peace.
‘Which base did you get to, then?’ I ask and she laughs delightedly.
‘What sort of a girl do you think I am?’ she returns haughtily and then I hear a soft sigh. Oh my… she sounds smitten already and she’s told me nothing yet. ‘I really like him, Pearl. He’s got an amazing sense of humour and his eyes, oh my God…’
‘You’ve still not answered my question, Gem,’ I probe, my own grin plastered over my face now. This is awesome, if she gets together with Rupert, we can do things together as a foursome, two best friends with two best friends.
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