I’ve never known her to be insecure, especially about us. Not that she’s ever let on to me and I’m pretty good at reading my wife.
“Baby, please don’t cry. Of course I didn’t stay up here on purpose. There’s nothing you could say or do that would keep me away from you. Not even a meltdown of Georgia proportions.”
She finally smiles and her blue eyes sparkle. She rakes her fingers through my messy bed hair, which is badly in need of a cut.
“I don’t deserve you,” she says while kissing my neck.
“Well, you’ve got me regardless. I need to shower and clean my teeth, baby. I want those little shorts and that vest gone by the time I get back. I need to taste you, and then I need to fuck you.” I’ve already lifted her out of my lap and am headed to the bathroom like a man on a mission as I speak.
“Then will you tell me what your dream was about?” she calls out, stopping me dead in my tracks. I turn back to look at her. She’s sitting in the middle of the bed with her legs crossed, looking as young as she did on the night I met her.
I love the fuck out of this woman. Have done for almost thirty years. Will do till the day I day. And if there’s any way for it to be possible, I will keep on loving her after that.
“Yes, Kitten. Then I’ll tell you about my dream.”
We don’t really ever talk about Chantelle. I don’t think it’s a deliberate thing, it’s just the way that it is. I have a small box in my safe with a few keepsakes from our relationship in it, including our wedding rings. I haven’t kept them for any sentimental reasons, I just don’t really know what to do with them.
After Chantelle died, I asked her sister if she’d like her jewellery. She told me to poke it up my arse. That wasn’t an option, so I put it in my safe and that’s where it’s stayed, mostly forgotten.
Simone Price was Chantelle’s half-sister; same mum, but different dads. I’ve no idea who her biological father is, but Colin, Chantelle’s dad, always looked after her right. Colin and I were joint owners of a club. When he died, Elle inherited her dad’s share. I assumed after Elle’s death, it would go to me, but she left it to her sister. I can only assume she did it because it was the only thing she had that was solely in her name. I also don’t suppose for a minute she expected to die so young.
I let the heat from the jets of water penetrate my skin and sooth my muscles as I think about how ironic it was that Simone eventually sold Elle’s share of the club to the Layton’s. Entwining mine and Georgia’s lives before we even realised it.
I would never forget the first time I noticed her walk into my wine bar. I’d spent the hot August day on the golf course, getting my arse whipped by Robbie. After, I’d gone back to my flat to shower and change, and as I came down the stairs and into the bar, I saw her.
She was tall, taller than the two girls she was with, and my eyes were drawn to her as she flicked her long dark hair over her shoulder. I moved through the bar without taking my eyes off her, desperate for a good look at her face.
I reached my brother and a couple of mates he was standing with at the bar, and he passed me a bourbon. I nodded a thank you and took my eyes from her, to meet his for a split second. When I looked over to where she was standing, she’d turned her back to me, but I positioned myself at the bar so I could watch her. I didn’t have a clue what the draw was; I just needed to see that face.
I chatted mindless shit with Rob, Tony, and Gary at the bar, but all the while, I took in her long legs and the fitted black dress she was wearing. She was skinny, a lot skinnier than most birds I’d been with … well, the ones I could remember anyway. I got this weird uncomfortable feeling in my gut at that moment, like, I don’t know. It just felt wrong to be thinking about other birds while I was looking at her.
My life was just getting back on track after the chaos that ensued after the death of my wife. If I were being totally honest, things had been spiralling out of control for some time before that. The drink, the coke, the women—I sampled them all to excess, and then after my marriage, the excesses became something of an addiction.
I’d married Elle out of a sense of duty and for the good of the family. Robbie was already engaged to Teresa, Josh just too young and irresponsible, and so it was left to me. I had felt the pressure to do right by the family business and marry Colin Turner’s only surviving heir and strengthen the King name by tying all of his businesses to ours.