“What the hell are you doing?” Paul said, sitting up.
He looked down and pulled the duvet up around me even though I was already plenty covered.
“I think I could ask you the same thing. Or should I say who?” he said, his eyes falling on me.
Paul glared at him, anger and hatred rolling off him in waves. “Get out.”
“Is she why you’ve vanished for the past week?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“I think it’s very much my business considering past events, don’t you?”
That was it—I couldn’t hold my tongue anymore. “Where do you get off being a bully?”
Roger’s mouth fell open. “I beg your pardon?”
“Kyra…” Paul whispered, placing a hand on my arm.
“You heard me,” I said, ignoring Paul. This arrogant bastard had not only tortured the love of my life for years but had also intruded on our most intimate moment yet. He was getting both barrels. “There’s no wonder really that Rebecca wanted nothing to do with you, is there?”
Paul groaned and put his head in his hands. Roger’s expression darkened as confusion and anger mixed together.
“You know nothing of our family situation, young lady. Be very careful.”
“Don’t I? So I don’t know how she left home the second she legally could and disowned you? I don’t know you had to buy her that yard and house to prevent your own daughter from living in a caravan because she preferred it to living with you? I also don’t know that she changed her surname to dissolve any association to you and only comes round for Christmas and birthdays as part of a deal because of the yard you bought her?”
He looked at me as hurt spread across his face for just a moment before his arrogance returned.
He glared at Paul. “You told her about Rebecca?”
I snorted. “No. I met her.”
“You what?” Roger said, now yelling at Paul. “You took her to meet Rebecca? What did we talk about back in the summer? I thought it had been made quite clear to you where we stood on that score and the situation with her?” He jerked his head towards me as he spoke the last couple of words.
“Oh, I know all about that,” I jumped in again before Paul could respond. “How you made him sleep with Mrs. Peters as part of your perverted little sex club, and told him if he wanted to be with me, then he’d have to share me with everyone else. Seriously, how sick are you?”
Roger’s face flashed a wry smile before he responded. “Listen to me, young lady. I know my own son better than you do. I know what he needs better than anyone else, and getting involved in a monogamous relationship is not something he needs or wants.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really,” he said, folding his arms over his chest.
“I know all about Cassie.”
He sucked in a deep breath but remained silent, giving me the opportunity to carry on.
“And I also know the only reason Paul won’t get involved with anyone is because he doesn’t want to see his own father fucking his girlfriend.”
I was so angry I didn’t care what I said as I felt the situation we were currently in was all down to him anyway. If he hadn’t forced Paul into his seedy sex club all those years ago, then maybe things with Paul and I would have turned out differently the first time around.
“He had jealousy issues,” Roger said, dropping his arms to his sides. “It’s the best thing for him.”
“Is it? So you don’t think him getting what he actually wants is the best thing for him? Him living the life he actually wants wouldn’t be the best thing for him, then?”
“Paul?” Roger said, glancing at his son.
“I hate it,” he said. “I always have done. I can’t stand the way you and Mum live. I would rather die alone than subject any wife of mine to what you do.”
“Oh.”
“And if you don’t let me live my own life, at the age of thirty-five, you’ll find yourselves completely childless.”
Giving us both a curious look, Roger nodded his head and closed the door, disappearing.
Paul and I both let out a sigh of relief before we flopped back onto the soft pillows and stared up at the ceiling in silence. A couple of minutes later, he rolled over on top of me, scooping his arms underneath my back as he nestled himself cheekily between my legs.
“Well, I guess that’s the complications over and done with,” he said.
I giggled at him as he nuzzled into my neck and slowly started planting kisses across my skin.
“I’m completely and utterly madly in love with you,” he whispered, his thumbs stroking my back.
I gasped in shock at the sudden outburst of his feelings. I rested my hands on his shoulders, ready to push him off me should this go very wrong.
“I know,” he said, raising his face so he could look me in the eye. “I said the dreaded ‘L’ word.”
I smiled at his sarcasm, giving him a withering look.
“I’ve tried to tell you twice in the past week and both times I’ve been interrupted so I figured I may as well just say it now the opportunity arose.”
I looked into those hypnotizing blue eyes swimming with love and tenderness. Why had I not seen this side of him before? It made my heart heavy and ache at the thought of where this could have gone if this had happened months ago.
“I’m crazy about you too,” I said, careful not to jump in with the ‘L’ word.
He grinned at me with a satisfied look on his face. “That’ll do,” he whispered. “That’ll more than do.”