Wicked Game

by Michelle Betham

  “Oh, Jesus!” He laughs, stepping back from me slightly, his hand still on my bump.

  “She kicked you.” I smile, and he looks at me and smiles back, a wide and beautiful smile that I hope with every beat of my heart our daughter inherits.

  “She kicked me …” He looks down, at his hand splayed out over my swollen belly, and then he raises his gaze and looks at me. “Can we still …?”

  I nod, and I smile again, he seems different, somehow. Calmer. Is the real Joe Millar finally starting to show himself?

  “Yes. We can.”

  I take his hand, and I still don’t know what I’m going to do. I want him, I don’t think I love him. Not yet. I may never love him the way he wants me to, but, am I willing to walk away all over again? I don’t think I have a choice.

  There’s always a choice.

  No, there isn’t. Not anymore …

  *

  She’s having my baby. Our daughter is growing inside her, and I had no fucking idea, but I know, now, and that’s it, I’m not letting her go again. She isn’t leaving me, she isn’t walking away, that isn’t going to happen. She doesn’t think she loves me? She will. In time.

  My job is complete now, carried out and executed far better than I could ever have anticipated, I almost feel sorry for Noah Ostberg. What he lost. What he threw away. I got it all, and so much more.

  His wife.

  His life.

  A beautiful ending to a story I created to bring that man to his knees, he deserved it.

  Will I ever tell Kari the truth? I don’t know. There was a time when I had every intention of doing so, but things have changed. I don’t think there’s a need for her to know anymore. What would it gain, telling her? Nothing.

  Job done.

  Game over.

  I won …

  *

  He pulls me back against him, his hand on my thigh as he carefully moves my leg, allowing him to push inside me from behind. And as soon as I feel him there, his body deep within mine, I know I’m going with him. I can’t leave him again, I can’t do it, for my baby’s sake I need to be with Joe.

  “Tell me if I’m hurting you,” he murmurs into my neck, his hand now resting gently against my bump, and I’ve never felt so close to someone, so connected, that attraction we’ve always had – that crazy, dangerous attraction, it’s still there.

  It never went away …

  “You’re not hurting me,” I whisper, taking his hand, our fingers sliding together.

  It’s slow, careful sex, I can tell he’s nervous, but I don’t want to be wrapped in cotton wool. I won’t break, he might think I’m fragile but I’m not. We can be this close, and it’s fine. It’s okay.

  He lets go of my hand, and I groan quietly as he touches me, I haven’t felt this in so long. Too long. And it feels good, his fingers touching me as he makes love to me … we never made love. We fucked. We had sex. Sometimes in front of others, once or twice on our own, but we never made love. And as his fingers bring me to a beautifully slow, almost ethereal climax; as he comes in a succession of measured, gentle convulsions, I feel our baby move inside me; I feel her daddy, inside me, and it’s the most incredible experience. That connection Joe and I already had, it’s just got stronger, become unbreakable, I may not love this man, not yet, but I think I can. I will. In time.

  He holds me as we both catch our breath, but I need to look at him now. I turn over, onto my side, my bump pressing against him, his hand on my thigh keeping me steady.

  “Come with me,” he whispers, pushing the hair from my eyes and I smile. He’s got me, he knows he has. He knows.

  “Okay.”

  I’m really willing to uproot this new life I’ve only just started to live? Because Joe Millar’s walked back into my world?

  He never left.

  “Okay,” he laughs, and he kisses me, and I hope and pray that this isn’t a dream. That this is real, because I can’t take any more kicks to the gut. I need to be able to trust him, before I can love him. I need to know him, and I don’t think I do, not yet.

  “I really, really need to pee,” I sigh, reluctantly leaving his arms, and he sits up and smiles at me.

  Joe Millar.

  My weakness.

  My obsession.

  My biggest mistake …?

  “I’ll go fix us some coffee.”

  “Peppermint tea for me, please. The bags are in the cupboard next to the microwave.”

  “Peppermint tea it is.”

  “Thanks,” I shout back over my shoulder as I almost run into the bathroom. And I have a second to think now. A moment to take stock, to make sure I’m not doing this as some kind of knee-jerk reaction. Because I’m scared of bringing this baby up alone? I’m not, scared of bringing this baby up alone. I’m scared of making a mistake, that’s all.

  Pulling on sweatpants and a T-shirt that hugs my bump, I join him downstairs in the cosy kitchen of my little white-board house. With its blue cupboards, wooden floors, and the cutest little dining nook that looks out over the now snow-covered yards of these gorgeous houses, it’s probably my favourite room. I spend a lot of time in here. And it looks even more inviting now with Christmas lights hanging from the ceiling and the wood-burning stove lit.

  “I’ve organised my plane to come and fly us to L.A.”

  He says those words so matter-of-factly, as though having your own plane is something normal – I didn’t even know he had his own plane. Just how much is Joe Millar really worth?

  “You have your own plane?” I ask, sliding onto the bench by the window, positioning a cushion behind me to support my lower back.

  “It’s just a small one.”

  I raise an eyebrow and take a sip of my peppermint tea. “Size doesn’t matter then, huh?”

  He smiles as he joins me at the table. “It’s coming on Friday. That gives us a day or so to sort things out here.”

  I look at him, I take another second, just to make sure. “Yeah. Okay.”

  I glance behind me, out of the window. It’s still snowing, but not as heavy as it was before. And it still looks beautiful outside with all the lights and the Christmas trees visible through windows that haven’t yet drawn their curtains. I’m going to miss this place. It was slowly starting to feel like home, and then it suddenly dawns on me – I don’t know where I’m going to be living now. I don’t know where home is going to be. Joe Millar is still very much an enigma I have yet to suss out fully, and I’m about to start a whole new life with him. A man who is, still, to all intents and purposes, a stranger to me.

  “Second thoughts?”

  His voice startles me slightly, and I look at him. “No. Not really.”

  “Not really?”

  I drop my gaze and stare down into my tea. “We’re having a baby together, Joe, and yet, I still don’t know anything about you.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  I look at him. “Everything.”

  It’s his turn to drop his gaze, and I’m sensing a slightly nervous edge to his body language. I don’t think he likes opening up to people, he isn’t that kind of man, for whatever reason.

  “Okay, well, I was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to British parents, so, believe it or not, Kari, we have more in common than you might think.”

  “British parents? So, you’re actually British?”

  “Well, my heritage is very much British, yes.”

  “How come you were born in America, if both your parents are British?”

  “My mom, she’s originally from a small village in Berkshire, and my dad was born in Edinburgh, but his family moved to New England when he was about five years old, so, he was brought up in the States, has the accent and everything, to listen to him you wouldn’t know he was Scottish. He met my mom when she was in New York on a college trip, and it wasn’t love at first sight, apparently. According to her she spent the first two days of that trip trying to shake him off, but, you know, I guess he was persistent.”

&nb
sp; I can’t help smiling slightly. “Remind you of anyone?”

  He drops his head and laughs. “Yeah … I get it.” His eyes lock back on mine. “Anyway, his persistence paid off, they fell in love after a whirlwind romance, and she eventually moved over to New York to be with him. They got married, moved to Boston, and then I came along. But by that time my dad had a new job, one that meant we moved around, a lot, when I was growing up, so, my childhood was spent in many different countries, and never really settling in any of them. Not at first, anyway. I was too young to remember any of my time in Tokyo, and I was only just beginning to enjoy my life in Sydney, Australia, when I was yanked from that one to start another one in England, and I wasn’t given anywhere near enough time in Germany to even begin to get used to any kind of life there. The most time we spent anywhere was here, in Scandinavia. By the time I’d hit my teens, my dad’s company had given him a permanent senior management position here in Stavanger, so, this is where I spent my high school years. And that’s why I spend a lot of time here; why I started my business here, even though I went to college in the States. But I came back. This is where Millar Readman began. Where its main offices still are. It’s a special place to me.”

  “Your mum and dad – do they still live here?”

  He shakes his head and briefly drops his gaze again. “No. They’re retired now, moved back to the States a few years ago. They’re living a quieter more settled life now, splitting their time between Florida and their home in Palm Springs.”

  “They must be very proud of you.”

  He looks at me, and he smiles, and for the first time since I met this man I feel like I’m actually starting to scratch below the surface of who he really is. He isn’t just this person I have an insane attraction to, he’s a man I could grow to love, if I give him a chance – give us a chance.

  “They are. I built Millar Readman up from nothing – my mom said it was because I knew how to talk the talk, how to get what I wanted, what I needed through charm, intelligence, and a knack of knowing the right people.”

  I return his smile, and as I look at him I feel like I’m seeing a whole new Joe. A different Joe. The real Joe?

  “And I think I did okay.”

  “You’ve got your own plane. You did better than okay.”

  He smiles again, and I’m sensing that he’d quite like to stop talking about himself now. I don’t think he’s comfortable doing that, but I needed to hear it.

  “None of that matters, Kari. It’s just stuff.”

  He really isn’t that same man I first met. That arrogant, self-assured man, he isn’t him, not right now.

  “What matters is us,” he says quietly, and when he looks at me I believe him. For the first time, I really do believe what he’s telling me.

  “We’re going to be okay, aren’t we?” I whisper, and I really didn’t mean to say that out loud, but I was thinking it. Because I don’t know if we are, this is still a risk we’re taking. This relationship is built solely on mistrust, power games, and sex. Everything we’re doing is a risk, but one I’m prepared to take.

  “Yeah. We’re gonna be okay.”

  He leans over to kiss me, and I close my eyes and let the taste of him flood me; let him course through my veins, infect me with his beautiful poison, I need him so much; want him so badly.

  “We’re going to be so much more than okay.” He smiles that smile again, takes my hand and squeezes it tight and I want to believe in fairytales. I want to believe that magic exists, that fate is a real and special thing but what happened between me and Noah, those bruises still haven’t healed. But they’re fading.

  Joe Millar was never supposed to be my future.

  And yet, now, he is …

  Twenty-Seven

  “Marry me.”

  “You really did inherit your dad’s persistent genes, didn’t you?”

  “Any stubborn ones in your family? ‘Cause you sure got those, sweetheart.”

  I turn around, biting down on my lip as I back up against the expanse of glass that looks out over the ocean from our stunning Laguna Beach home.

  “You think I’m stubborn?”

  “I know you’re stubborn.”

  “I just know what I want.”

  “You don’t want me?”

  He leans in closer, his lips brushing that space just below my ear, and I throw my head back and laugh quietly. “I don’t want to marry you, that’s different.”

  He looks at me, raising an eyebrow, but he’s smiling. “It is?”

  I pull him to me by his shirt collar, kissing him slowly, winding my fingers in his hair as his body presses against mine. “Yes, it is.”

  Our foreheads touch, his hand on my hip as we take a second.

  “I don’t want to rush anything,” I whisper, gently stroking the back of his neck, and then I drop my gaze and smile. “And I know that sounds – I don’t know. Considering how we met; how this whole, crazy relationship started, I mean, we rushed things from the beginning, didn’t we?”

  “Yeah. I guess we did.”

  “But here, where we are now, Joe … can we just stop and catch our breath for a while?”

  He smiles too, his fingers sliding up under my dress, touching my skin, and I bite down harder on my lip. “Okay. We can do that.” He cups my bottom, pushes me against him, his eyes burning into mine. “But you’re going to marry me one day, Kari.”

  “Maybe …” I murmur, closing my eyes as he dips his head, his mouth lightly brushing my collar bone and I bury my fingers in his hair. “Definitely, maybe …”

  “Come to bed,” he whispers, pushing my dress down, exposing my breasts, and I moan quietly as he kisses them.

  “We haven’t got time, we’ve got a party to go to.”

  “We’ve always got time.”

  He tugs at my underwear, and I throw my head back, close my eyes as I feel his fingers on my inner thigh … and then, coming from the baby monitor on the sideboard, we hear her. And we both smile.

  “Her timing still needs work,” Joe sighs.

  “You go see to her. She’s a daddy’s girl, she’ll be happier if you go.”

  He rakes a hand through his hair and steps back from me. “She’s always going to be a daddy’s girl.”

  I pull him back against me, kissing him gently. “And what about me, huh? Where does that leave me? I quite liked being daddy’s girl, too.”

  His face breaks into a wide grin, his hand splaying out over my bottom. “Oh, you’ll always be up there, beautiful. My two girls, front and centre of my fucking world.”

  I look up into his eyes, and I still struggle sometimes, to get used to this very different life I’m living now.

  “Go see to her, go on.”

  I push him gently away, smiling to myself as I watch him run upstairs to the nursery before I make my way out onto the deck. The sun’s just starting to go down, the sky almost a burnt orange in colour as I look out over the ocean. It’s peaceful and calm out here, and this house – I still can’t believe it’s where I am now. I can’t believe I’m here, can’t believe the life I’m living, the very different direction it suddenly took. Because of Joe.

  He was with me, when Hollie arrived, here in this house. He held me as she was born in a birthing pool, out on the deck overlooking the ocean, and it was the most beautiful experience. Something I will never forget, because the second he held his daughter in his arms; the very moment he leaned in to kiss her forehead, welcome her to the world, that was the moment I fell in love with him. The moment I knew that all the pain, all the heartache, it was worth it. Hollie’s changed us both, she’s made us better people, and even though there are still parts of Joe I feel he keeps closed off from me, I trust him now. I know he would never hurt me, he loves me, I believe that, now.

  I hear his voice and turn around, my stomach somersaulting as I watch him talking to Hollie; watch him hold her up in the air before bringing her back down, nuzzling his nose against her tiny one, her laugh ringi
ng out, I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy.

  “Hey, here’s Mommy!” He smiles at his daughter, and the way she looks up at him, she already worships him and she’s only a few months old. That power he has, that aura he creates, even our baby girl can see it. Feel it.

  “She okay?” I ask, kissing him quickly before I kiss Hollie’s warm, soft cheek.

  “She’s fine, aren’t you, pumpkin? I think she just wanted some attention.”

  “Hmm. Can’t think where she gets that from.”

  He grins, and I just want to wrap a bubble around our little family and keep us cocooned inside it.

  “My mom’s gonna be here in a few minutes, Kari, so, if you want to finish getting ready, I can handle things down here.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” I lean in to kiss Hollie again; kiss Joe, again, before I head upstairs.

  Joe’s parents have relocated to Orange County, so they can be closer to their granddaughter. They want to help, be there for us all as much as they can, and I’m grateful for that. More grateful than they’ll ever know, I need that support. It might look like my life is a living dream right now, but there are days when the isolation is crippling. Joe needs to be at the Century City offices a lot, he works long hours, because, despite what he told me, about his company not needing him anymore, they do. But, more importantly, he needs it, it’s a huge part of his life, so there are days when I’m alone a lot of the time, just me and Hollie, and although I’m trying, I’m struggling to make new friends. Having his parents around is a blessing. They’re lovely people, warm and friendly and they accepted me without question. Without judgment. They don’t know – don’t care about the past, how Joe and I met, they just care that I love him, and that he loves me; that he looks after us.

  My phone ringing interrupts my thoughts and I sit down on the edge of the bed to answer it. But when I look at the screen – when I see who’s calling me, I frown. I hesitate, and I consider ignoring it because I have no idea why he would be calling me, now, but I don’t ignore it. I answer it.