“Angel?” Spencer calls. “Are you okay, sweetheart?” he whispers as he sits down beside me.
“Huh?” I push up onto my elbows. “Oh, I must have fallen asleep.” I sigh as I look down at myself sprawled across the sofa. My face falls. “Oh my God, I forgot to get you from work?” I whisper in a panic. “What time is it?”
He brushes my hair back from my forehead and smiles. “That’s okay, I called Wyatt when I couldn’t get you and he came to pick me up. We guessed you were asleep.”
I lie back down and put my forearm over my eyes. I just want this day to be over.
Spencer looks around at the boxes of my things spread everywhere. “What’s all this?”
“I moved in.” I give him my best attempt at jazz hands. “Surprise!”
He smirks. “I thought you were getting your own apartment.”
“I wanted my own Spencer instead.”
He leans down and kisses me. “I told you I didn’t mind.”
“I know.” I wrap my arms around his shoulders. “But I minded. I’m not coming into this relationship with anyone but you as my priority.”
“I love you.”
“Lucky. Because my father doesn’t want to see me again.”
“He’ll come around.” He sighs as he pulls me up by the hand. “Come on, get up and get yourself ready.”
“Why, where are we going?” I sigh.
“We have to celebrate. This is a big day. We just moved in together. Let’s see if we can find a bar that will play our song.”
I laugh. “There are no Australian one-man bands in London who know the song “Dream Catch Me,” Spence.”
“Karaoke it is then.”
*
Five hours later, and I’m smiling up at my handsome dance partner, rearranging his tie. “Thank you.” I smile.
“For what?”
“For dancing with me in a deserted bar at 1:00 a.m. on a school night. I know you’re trying to take my mind off of things.”
He spins me around. “You’re wrong about that, Prescott. I’m putting your mind onto things. This is a strategic move. I’m playing the game of champions.”
I fake amazement and narrow my eyes. “Oh, really? Tell me, Mr Spencer… ” I reach up and brush his hair back from his forehead and kiss him softly on the lips. “Is your brain in your dick tonight?”
“No, my brain is in my heart.” And what a beautiful heart it is.
“My erection is in my dick.” He kisses my temple.
I giggle at his ridiculous answer, and we sway to the music.
“Will you love me when I’m poor, Lady Charlotte?”
“Why would you ever be poor, Mr Spencer?” I smirk.
“Sheridan wanted me to go to New York next week for a tender meeting.”
I stop dancing.
“I said no.”
“What does that mean?” I frown.
“It means she has the right to pull my company’s contract.”
“Do you think she will?”
He shrugs and starts to sway us again. “I don’t think so. She’s ballsy but she’s not a bitch. She isn’t vindictive.”
I stare at him.
“My company supplies her with good quality steel, she knows that.”
“Why don’t you just go?” I say.
“Because I don’t want to leave you.” He kisses me again.
“It’s okay, Spence, I trust you. You can go. I don’t want you to lose business over us.”
“Angel.” He smiles down at me. “I will not be held for ransom from an old lover and risk fucking up what I have in this room. She can jam the fucking contract up her arse for all I care.”
I look around at our surroundings, unable to stop myself from grinning. “We have two drunks in the corner of this room. I’m happy to sacrifice them,” I offer.
He laughs as he looks around at the two old men sitting drunk at the bar. “I wouldn’t even give up them.”
Spencer looks over and spots Wyatt, and I see a frown crease his brow. “What’s wrong?” I ask.
“How well do you know Wyatt?”
“Why?”
“Nothing.” He frowns. “Just something he said to me the other night has me weirded out a bit.”
“What did he say?”
“He asked me if I’d ever fucked a guy.”
I stop dancing again. “What?”
He widens his eyes. “Weird, right?”
“Seems I haven’t been the only thing he’s been watching then.”
“What does that mean?” He frowns.
“Wyatt is into men and women.”
“What?” he gasps.
I giggle at his surprise.
“How do you know this?” he whispers.
“We’re friends, of course I know this. He was in a three-way relationship with a woman and a man for over twelve months. They broke up last year.”
“You think he’s checking me out?” he whispers, completely terrified.
“No, I think that was his way of trying to tell you that he’s bisexual without coming out and actually saying it. When he said that to you, did you ask him the same question back? Because I know that’s how he told Edward.”
“What do you mean?”
“He asked Edward if he’d ever fucked a guy, and Edward said no, and then Edward asked him if he had. Of course, Wyatt said yes… that he swings both ways.”
Spencer’s eyes close, relief pouring out of him. “Thank fucking God. I thought there was some sinister paparazzi story being concocted about me. I was freaking the hell out.”
I laugh out loud. “Spencer, why don’t you just ask me these things instead of brewing on them for days?”
“Hell, woman.” He rests his cheek against mine. “I’ve aged thirty years since I met you.”
I smile up at him. “Spence?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t sing our song to me.”
“Hmm.” He closes his eyes. “There's a place I go when I'm alone.” He rocks us to his whispered song. “Do anything I want, be anyone I wanna be. But it is us I see, and I cannot believe I'm falling.” He pushes me out by the hand and twirls me under his arm, slowly bringing me back to him. “Dream catch me when I fall.”
“Or else I won’t come back at all,” I whisper.
We smile at each other, and it’s like he’s the only person on earth.
My person.
“I love you.” He smiles as he holds me tight.
“I love you.”
Our moment is interrupted when his phone vibrates in his pocket. He digs it out and reads it. His eyes light up in excitement.
“Bree’s in labour.”
21
Charlotte
My phone vibrates across my desk and I answer it quickly. “Any news?” I ask Spencer.
“She’s five centimetres dilated.”
“Is she all right?”
“In Masters’ words, she’s a champion.”
Excitement sweeps though me. “How many times have you spoken to him today?”
“Every hour on the hour.”
I love these men, they’re so close. “Were you this excited when he had his other children?’
“Yes,” he gasps. “Babies are fucking exciting, Charlotte.” I smile dreamily as I imagine the day that Spencer becomes a father, and how excited he will be. I hope it’s to my children.
“Are you going to go see them tonight?” I ask.
“If the baby is here, we will.”
“We?” I frown. “I don’t want to intrude.”
“Don’t be stupid. You’re part of our gang now. Don’t you want to see the baby too?”
I smile goofily. “I do.”
“I also organised for us to look through that office space I found. The estate agent is meeting us there at six.”
“You… did?”
“What’s with the delay?”
“Spence,” I whisper. “Do you really think I can do this?”
“I know you can, angel,” he replies without hesitation. “You know you can, too.”
I nod with renewed determination. “You’re right, I can do this.”
“The building may not be what you’re looking for, anyway. We’re just getting a feel for it at this stage.”
“Again, you’re right.”
“I’ll pick you up from work at five.”
“Can’t wait, see you then.”
“Bye, angel.”
“Love you.”
“I love you, too.”
He hangs up, and I stare out the window. How this beautiful, thoughtful man loves me above all other women, I’ll never know.
*
“And through here is the kitchen.” The estate agent smiles.
Spencer leads me from the office to a large kitchen area. I’m fighting the huge smile.
“And the rental terms?” Spencer asks her casually.