by Emma Chase
“This is your family?” Her big, pretty eyes are so wide they may actually fall out of her head.
“Aye.” I give her hand a squeeze. “I guess a few couldn’t make it; it’s usually more crowded.”
We’re greeted in quick succession as we move through the house—to where the alcohol is—that’s key.
There’s my brother Arthur and his friendly, beady-eyed wife, Victoria. My weirdest cousin, Robert, whose claim to fame is a record-breaking collection of decorative socks. There’s my never-married twin aunts on my dad’s side, Bertie and Lois, who can finish and start each other’s sentences. And on and on it goes—an assembly line of introductions:
Have you met Abby?
This is my girl Abby.
Say hello to Abby.
“My head is spinning,” she exclaims when we finally make it to the back. “This is worse than medical school—I’m never going to remember who’s who.”
I lean in close and press a kiss to her hair. “We’ll make you flash cards, and have study sessions that rely heavily on flashing.”
Abby laughs out loud. And it’s now officially my very favorite sound.
But then she angles her head, her brows scrunching in confusion at someone across the room.
“Tommy—I think that girl just ran her finger across her neck at me. Like the sign for slitting a person’s throat.”
I glance over. “Yeah, that’s Mellie. She lives next door—she’s got a bit of a thing for me.”
“Wow.” The corners of Abby’s magnificent mouth turn upward. “Should I be worried?”
“Probably.” I wink. “Stay close to me. You’ll be all right.”
And she’s laughing again.
Over her shoulder I spot my dad behind the bar, with my mum in her apron beside him, and I lead us over.
“Dad, Mum—this is Abigail Haddock. Abby, these are my parents, Rupert and Maggie.”
I gave my dad the inside scoop on Abby a few days ago.
“Welcome, Abby.” He comes out from behind the bar, shaking her hand first and then hugging her. “It’s so nice to meet you, lass.”
And she glows, blooming beneath the light of his warmth like I knew she would.
“It’s a pleasure to be here, Rupert, thank you. I’m happy to meet you both as well.”
“You’re every bit as lovely as Tommy said you were.”
Hands on her hips, my mum’s gaze darts from my father to Abby and back.
“Tommy said, did he? He hasn’t said anything to me.”
My dad pats her arm. “You were busy, my pet.”
“Oh, this is for you.” Abby lifts a bakery box from the shopping bag in her hand and passes it to my mother—with a banoffee pie inside that she stopped to purchase on the way here.
My mum turns the pie this way and that like a food critic or a health inspector searching for nits.
“Store bought, how fancy. You don’t bake your own?”
“No,” Abby confesses, “I’m afraid I’m not much of a baker.”
“She’s a surgeon, Maggie,” Dad announces—already so proud.
“Hmm, I see.” My mum smiles in that derisive, snooty way that’s not really a smile at all. “I’ll just take it to the kitchen for later. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Maggie.”
My mother continues to smile—sweet as arsenic.
“You may call me Mrs. Sullivan.”
Right. Fucking grand.
Things go downhill from there pretty quick.
With a beer in my hand and a soda in Abby’s because she’s on call, we claim a comfy corner and talk to my uncle Bardan about the goings-on at the harbor where he’s a dockworker.
From the corner of my eye, my sister Janey approaches Abby on her right. While Bardan goes on about the installation of the new pilings, I hear Janey’s voice, low and lethal.
“Hurt him again and I’ll hurt you.”
My head snaps around.
“Lay off, Janey. It’s not necessary.”
But Abby lifts her chin and doesn’t shy away from my sister, which is good—if you ever go up against a raging mother-bear it’s best not to show fear.
“I understand.”
After Janey moves on, I try to put Abby at ease.
“Don’t pay her any mind. If she didn’t like you she wouldn’t bother threatening you.”
Janey makes a liar out of me when Logan and Ellie arrive—hugging Ellie warmly and taking chubby-cheeked Finn from her arms.
And that’s how it goes the rest of the day.
The extended relatives are kind enough to Abby, and she and Ellie really hit it off, chatting long and easy. But my sisters—they ignore her. Blatantly. Nastily. And I have no clue why.
Once I catch Bridget and Janey and Fiona whispering and giggling in Abby’s direction—like mean girls in fucking school. The only reason I don’t blow like a firecracker is because she didn’t notice, and I don’t want to embarrass her.
A few hours later, out in the back, my niece Rosie comes running over excitedly, displaying her mud-coated little hands. She stumbles, but Abby catches her—and ends up with two perfect mud handprints on the front of her dress.
“Hey, Tommy,” Andy calls from the grass where he and my cousins are playing football. “Lionel’s gotta run. You wanna fill in for him?”
I start to turn him down, but Abby interjects.
“You should play.” She gestures to the stain on her dress. “I have to get some cold water on this anyway. Then I’ll come right back and watch you.”
And she says it in a way that makes me think she’d like to watch me do other things. Naked things.
Or maybe I just enjoy connecting Abby to naked every way I can.
“All right.” I nod, jogging across the yard as she heads into the house.
But about ten minutes later when Abby still hasn’t come back, I bow out of the game and go looking for her. I find her coming out of the kitchen—almost colliding into me as I was about to go in.
“There you are. I was just—”
Her eyes are too shiny, her mouth too taut, her skin a shade too pallid.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” Abby shakes her head—lying to me. “I’ve been called into the hospital—I need to head out.”
“I’ll drive you.”
“No, don’t be silly.” She puts her hand on my chest. “You should stay here with your family. I’ll take a taxi. It’s fine, Tommy.”
But it’s not fine. Nothing about her right now is fine. She’s skittish and devastated—a sad little bird who can’t fly away fast enough.
Outside, I hail a cab for her. Standing in the open door, Abby reaches up, pressing goodbye lips to mine.
“Ring me when you’re home,” I tell her.
She forces a smile for me, then climbs in.
I watch her drive off and then I turn back towards the house—like a volcano ready to spew. My blood is hot, livid—not just about the mean-girl bullshit from my sisters and mum, but at myself.
Because whatever cut into Abby, it happened on my watch.
And that shit does not fucking happen on my watch.
When I walk into the kitchen, they’re all there—cackling like witches around a cauldron. My voice is deceptively level but sharp as a blade, shutting their mouths the second I start speaking.
“I thought you knew me. I thought you knew me well enough that I didn’t need to tell you she means something to me—that bringing her here already said that loud and clear. But apparently that’s not the case, so I’m saying it—she’s fucking important to me.”
I jab a finger at Janey, where she’s sitting lock-jawed stubborn at the table.
“You fuckin’ knew that more than anyone.”
“Mind your mouth,” my mother bites out.
Janey’s eyes drop to her hands on the table, telling me if she doesn’t feel badly already, she will very soon. Bridget and Fiona have the heart to look contrite as well.
My mother, on the other hand, stands straight and unrepentant, and I know that she was the ringleader—that my sisters were unwelcoming to Abby because she told them to be. And whatever nasty swipe sent Abby running, it came from her.
“What did you say to her?”
She dries her hands on a towel and shrugs. “Only the truth—that she’s got no business being here with you. That the two of you are just wasting your time.”
I want to put my hand through the goddamn wall.
“You don’t even know her. You have no idea how hard it was for her to come here today, but she did it. She did it for me.”
Because I promised her it would be fun. I told her this is how real families are, what they do. Fucking Christ.
“You’re a working man, Tommy—you’ll be one until the day you die. A working man’s life is only sorted when he’s got balance. When he’s got a partner taking care of all the demands that need doing that he doesn’t have time for because he’s out working himself to the bone. You think it’s easy? Running a house, raising a family, making a home. It takes grit and sweat . . . and that girl doesn’t know the first thing about it. She’s all about herself, her career—she’s not for you, lad. Her type can’t even boil water and they have no desire to learn.”
I scrape my teeth against my lip, trying to keep in the harsh words that are busting to get out . . . that I won’t be able to take back.
“You know, Mum—I always knew you were hard. Tough. But I never thought you’d be small.” I shake my head. “That is truly disappointing.”
I throw up my hands, disgusted with the lot of them. And then I walk out the door.
Bridget calls after me, “Tommy, wait.”
“Let him go,” I hear my mother say. “When he sees reason, he’ll come back.”
* * *
The next afternoon I meet up with Abby on a bench outside the hospital on her break. It’s a sunny day, clear skies, but chilly. Her cheeks are freshly pink from the cold and she’s looking sexy and sweet in light blue scrubs, a puffy coat and a knit cap on her head.
I kiss her soft lips and hand her one of the two cups of tea in my hands. We sit comfortably side by side for a while, watching a horny squirrel chase the playing-hard-to-get object of his affection in frantic circles before disappearing into a bushel of secluded branches up a tree.
He’s like my spirit animal.
“Your mother hates me,” Abby states in a matter-of-fact sort of way.
I take a sip of my tea.
“It’s not personal. She was going to dislike anyone she didn’t handpick herself.”
Abby nods silently.
“And I don’t exactly blend with your family either,” I add. “Though I’m betting they’re too dignified to say it, I don’t imagine they like you with me.”
“No,” she says quietly, “I don’t imagine they do.”
Then she reaches down, putting her hand over mine where it’s resting on my leg, threading our fingers together and holding on tight.
“But I like you with me.”
And I’m so fucking proud of her. This is all new, hard territory, but she’s facing it headfirst—holding her ground, holding our ground.
“I figured as much.” I smirk. “Especially the other night—you seemed to like you with me a whole lot when I pulled you up onto my face and you gripped the headboard and I did that thing with my tongue . . . ”
She starts blushing fiercely and bumps my shoulder, but I go on.
“And you moaned so loud I think you scared the life back into those pitiful plants. What did you do to them, anyway?”
Abby’s laughing now, shy and giggly.
“Shut up, Tommy.”
The sunlight’s all around her, making her hair shimmer with gold and her long-lashed eyes a seafoam green—so damn pretty it tugs right at my heart.
I lean towards her, smiling, brushing her nose with mine . . . because how can I not.
“Make me.”
She doesn’t disappoint. Abby presses her sweet lips against mine, playful at first, then delving and stroking—making it wet and hot and messy.
Shutting me up in the very best way.
She rests her forehead against mine, breathing out a little sigh.
“Our families are kind of the worst.”
“They are.” I look into her eyes. “It’s going to have to be just you and me, then.”
“Just you and me . . .” Abby smiles. “Yeah.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Abby
TIME GOES ON, AS IT tends to do. And life changes—the good, slow, building sort of change that’s only decipherable months later when you gaze backward and realize your past existence is unrecognizable to you now.
Tommy insists on buying me a television and installs it on the wall of my front parlor.
I resist at first, but as deftly as its irresistible installer did, it lures me in, seducing me completely. And before I know it, we’re wrestling for control of the remote and spending lazy afternoons on the sofa, snuggling and kissing, while I point out the inaccuracies of an otherwise riveting medical drama.
One day I insist on reorganizing the closets and cabinets in Tommy’s flat—because it’s a bloody miracle the man can find anything in the chaos of their shelves. He doesn’t just let me, we do it together.
I get used to the sight of him coming home on days when he’s been guarding a client—how he slips out of his suit jacket, all broad shoulders and thick arms, and removes his gun from its holster and stores it in the bedside table drawer. He picks up my habit of sparing the lives of spiders and other crawly things that have wandered inside, setting them free outdoors instead of splatting them with a shoe.
And our lives weave around each other—a beautiful mismatched quilt of laughter and sex, sleeping and rushing around, silly chats and soul-stripping conversations and perfect unforgettable moments.
My fourth year of residency melds into the fifth—challenging and demanding and amazing. S&S Securities grows larger, expanding their operation and reputation. Sometimes our schedules keep us apart for days, but the reunion is blissfully worth it.
Ellie St. James gives birth to her and Logan’s second child—a chubby-cheeked cherub of a boy they name Declan—and just four months later, she’s pregnant again with their third.
We don’t avoid our families out loud, but we’re not chomping at the bit to see them, either. There’s the occasional awkward brunch at Bumblebridge, and it’s not Tommy’s presence that makes it awkward—it always was, I see that now—I don’t think my family knows how to be any other way. But it’s his presence in my life that allows me to admit it.
There’s the unavoidable birthday at the Sullivans’ here and there. Tommy’s sisters warm to me, his brothers are endearing and his father is a delight. But Mrs. Sullivan remains cold and unhappy—going out of her way to make me uncomfortable in those small, subtle ways some women are so skilled at.
On Christmas Eve, Tommy meets me for dinner in the hospital cafeteria during my shift. It snows on Christmas Day and we use that excuse to not step a toe out of bed.
On Easter Sunday, he’s in London for work, so I take the train and surprise him when he’s off the clock, wearing a lace, pastel lingerie confection that Etta helped me pick out. It ends up shredded on the floor of his hotel room before the night is through.
Being in a relationship with a bodyguarding man is thrilling and beautiful—but never boring.
Nothing exemplifies this more than the night I’m called down to the emergency room for a consult and find Tommy bleeding from a bullet wound to the thigh and being dragged in by Logan and James under each arm.
“What happened?” I gasp, guiding them to a gurney.
“It’s a long story,” James explains.
Tommy’s eyes are glazed and his smile is loopy.
“I got shot,” he tells me.
“All right.” James shrugs. “Maybe not so long after all.”
; The wound isn’t fatal, but he needs surgery.
Hospital policy and common sense force me to pass him into the care of Riley Bowen—the talented but still snide doctor who never quite got over the insult of my turning him down for dinner last year.
He reviews Tommy’s chart and checks the wound, clicking his tongue. “These things can be unpredictable. Let’s hope he makes it.”
I realize he’s joking, that he thinks he’s being funny.
But Tommy’s rubbed off on me more times than I can count, and in a variety of ways.
“If he doesn’t make it, Riley, I’ll cut your heart out and feed it to your mother.”
Tommy grins up at me from the gurney.
“You’re so romantic, Abby. I think you might like me . . . just a bit.”
I cup his jaw tenderly, smiling soft. “Just a bit.”
Tommy breezes through the surgery fine and dandy. His recovery is another matter entirely. Whoever said doctors make the worst patients clearly never encountered a bedridden bodyguard. They’re the worst—and it’s not even close.
In the early days of his recuperation, he’s sullen and cranky and itching to argue.
And then I master the art of the striptease and the careful lap dance to keep him compliant. And “blow jobs”—those always cheer him right up—so it’s a win for us both.
* * *
If I pick up the ins and outs of being in a relationship with a bodyguard, Tommy catches on quick to what it’s like being in one with the daughter of an aristocrat. Which means mandatory attendance at various charity functions several times a year. We haven’t encountered Alistair Lipton at any of the previous events—it’s possible he’s dropped off the face of the earth or left the country, but I don’t care enough to find out.
Tonight, it’s a black-tie gala in support of an organization that specializes in congenital heart condition research that’s particularly dear to the Queen, and to my family. I emerge from my bedroom in a slinky dark green gown with a cleavage-revealing neckline and beading throughout the snug bodice. My heels are high, my hair is down, shiny and curled at the ends, and I feel good—even pretty.