CHAPTER EIGHTEEN – HAYLEY
The next morning I woke to the wonderful sensation of being beside someone in bed. I opened my eyes and smiled at Beckett. Then I lay still and closed them again, letting every nerve savor the sensation of being beside him, bodies touching from toes to arms.
I have never felt like this for anyone.
I had lovers, sure. Boyfriends—two or three. But nothing like this wonderful, amazing man who was with me now.
I opened my eyes again and studied his face. He was asleep, those green eyes closed. His profile was aquiline and fine, his features well-made. It wasn’t just that, however, that made him amazing. It wasn’t his beauty, nor his grooming. It certainly wasn’t his wealth or status in society. It was something intangible: the humor and the understanding, the nature of his care for me. That was what made him remarkable.
I have never felt so loved.
I smiled. My whole body was bruised and aching, and I was sure I had sustained bruises in places I’d never had bruises before. But I felt wonderful.
“Beckett?”
He had stirred, his breath changing. He woke up. I was looking into his eyes when his gaze opened.
“Hayley,” he said. I smiled. He opened his arms and I snuggled up closer.
We kissed. I had always been shy of kissing in the mornings, as usually one’s mouth doesn’t taste that good. But with him, I felt so natural. We kissed and clung together.
“Beckett,” I whispered again.
“What?” he said gently. He propped himself beside me and stroked my hair. “What is it, dear?”
“Nothing,” I said, feeling the term “dear” warm me from within. “I like saying your name.”
It was his turn to blush, which he did, colorfully.
“What?” I asked. “My dear?”
He sighed and stroked my hair. Kissed me. Then lay down on his back, looking at the ceiling.
“Nothing,” he said quietly.
I felt my heart sink. Had I upset him? What had happened? Did I do something wrong?
“Beckett?” I asked quietly. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” he said again. “It’s just…” he rolled over and his face was a picture of concern. “Hayley. I’m so, so sorry.” He put his hand over his eyes.
I stared. “Beckett? What…” I sat up and looked down at him. “What on earth are you sorry about? Really!”
I laughed. He rolled over and looked at me with a puzzled grin.
“What?”
I couldn’t help it. Now that the laugh was there, it wouldn’t stop until I had laughed myself out. I lay back down again, giggling helplessly. He looked on, a confused grin in place on his face.
“I’m…I’m sorry, dear,” I managed between shaky gulps of breathing. “But I can’t believe you think you have to be sorry! That was the best…the most wonderful night ever. And you’re sorry for that?” I sighed. I reached over and stroked his hair, feeling suddenly very maternal. I smiled at him.
He smiled back. His green eyes lit with warmth. He stroked my hair and drew me close. We kissed.
“Did you mean that?” he asked, a moment or two after we had rolled apart. He lay on his back, I on my side, studying him.
“Mean what?” I asked, curious.
“Was that really the best?”
I laughed. “Oh, Beckett!”
“What?” he asked, sounding offended.
“Yes,” I assured him, still grinning that he needed the reassurance. “Yes. Categorically,” I added. “The complete and utter, absolute best.”
He grinned.
He looked so proud of himself that I wanted to laugh.
“You do know, of course,” I said with mock-seriousness, “that this is a problem?”
“It is?” he frowned, suddenly intense and concerned again.
“Yes,” I said steadily.
“Why? What’s a problem?”
“It means that you now have the very, very hard task of outperforming your own performance. Because I expect great things from you, you know.”
He grinned. “I take that as a command.”
“Good,” I said, feeling a flare in my stomach of pleasure when he said that. “Do that.”
He laughed. “You know, I think you’re the only woman who tells me what to do.”
“I doubt that,” I said with a warm grin. “I think all three women under this roof probably boss you about terribly.”
He laughed. “Mrs. Delange is the worst, though,” he said. “I’m quite terrified of her.”
We both chuckled. I nestled closer to him and we lay together, listening to the morning sounds of the manor: sparrows chattering in the tree beyond my windows, a car somewhere on the road, the distant clatter of pots and pans in the kitchen down below as Mrs. Delange started cooking the meal.
“What time is it?” I asked, yawning.
“It’s about eight,” he whispered. He lifted his watch and checked, then put it back on the table where he must have placed it last night without my being aware.
“Yes,” he nodded. “It’s five to eight. I should get up now.”
“Why?” I asked, teasingly.
“It’s Monday,” he explained.
I rolled over, watching him as he slid out of bed and hunted around for his clothes. His body was ripples of muscle and I lay back, drinking in the sight of him shrugging on his shirt and running a hand over his head to flatten his hair, dressing himself. He had a primeval grace—rugged, powerful, sincere—and I felt immense pride in having him here in my room with me.
When he was dressed, he sat down on the bed. His eyes lit up as he looked at me.
“You’re so beautiful,” he groaned. “I don’t want to leave you here. My mind will be in bed all day, with you.”
I grinned. “I’ll come and have breakfast with you,” I promised.
“Good,” he said. “Or I’ll be rushing through work at double time, wanting to come back to you here, to slide into this bed and kiss you everywhere.”
I felt my body melt. “You don’t make a convincing argument to get me downstairs with you,” I grumbled.
He laughed. “Well, I should stop now, then. I want you downstairs with me. I want you upstairs with me. I want you, dear.”
I laughed. “You know how I feel.”
He leaned in and kissed me.
Then I was dressing as he stretched his back and did some sit-ups, and we were heading downstairs together.
Mrs. Delange came into the breakfast room to find us sitting side-on to each other, drinking coffee he had made for us and giggling about something in the daily papers.
“Well, well!” she beamed. “Here are the happy pair! I’ve got muesli and toast and porridge, if you’d like some?” she asked.
I smiled. “No, thanks, Mrs. Delange. Toast and muesli is fine.”
“Good, good!” she beamed at us again, then set down the tray.
Beckett looked at me when she’d gone.
“I think she’s guessed something, and she seems pleased,” he said, smiling.
“You mean…” I trailed off, feeling a slow, sweet blush creep into my face. “I suppose we are closer—it’s pretty clear to everyone.”
“Yes,” he nodded.
We were sitting together side by side, my thigh pressing his, our chairs pulled close. My body seemed to be glued to his like some strange magnetism pulled me toward him. My foot rested on his and my arm rubbed his shoulder. It was as if, having known him once, I could not bear for us to be apart even by an inch.
We were still sitting like that at eight-thirty, when the door opened and Estella, flushed and in a singlet and shorts, came in from the road.
“Oh!” she said, looking from Beckett to me, face quite blank. “Hey, Dad!” She nodded to me. “Hayley. Um…remember you were asking me about the rose arbor?”
“Yes,” I said, only vaguely recalling our conversation a day or so before about the grounds.
“Well, I asked Spencer and he’s got the key. If you want to go in, just get it from him. You’ll find him in the guard post at the back.”
“Oh,” I said in a small voice. “Thanks,” I added.
“No problem,” she said. She stretched up, leaning sideways to give her long back a stretch, then repeated it to the other side. “I’ll go shower and then have coffee before Dad has to head off. Okay?”
“Sure,” Beckett nodded. “See you just now, sweetie.”
“See you, dad,” she said, and walked quickly through the room and up the stairs. I could hear her trainers on the stone staircase and then they stopped, muffled by the carpet in the upstairs hallway as she headed right, to her suite.
I moved close to Beckett. He lifted his coffee with his left hand, leaving his right where it rested over my hand.
“She seemed odd this morning?” I asked, feeling suddenly worried.
“She’s getting used to us,” Beckett murmured, turning the page where we had been reading the paper together. “I think she was okay with it at first—it was so sudden and all—but now that she’s thinking about it, it’s getting harder to understand. She’ll be okay soon enough,” he said reassuringly.
I frowned. I wasn’t so sure. Estella was a smart girl: bright, wise observant. But she clearly adored her mother and I could see that my presence was going to be awkward. I sighed.
“I just hope she doesn’t hate me too much,” I conceded.
He stared at me, his handsome face concerned. “She doesn’t hate you, dear,” he said quietly. “I’m sure she doesn’t hate anyone.”
I smiled and nodded, but privately I was less sure. I liked Estella and I respected her position with Beckett as the apple of his eye. I could also completely sympathize with her hostility toward me, which was why I knew that it was big, intense, and justified.
I just hoped that, when she finally told Beckett how she felt, he would understand. And that he would not feel it necessary to choose between us.
He stirred beside me and kissed me.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he said gently.
I smiled at him, then kissed him back, gripping his soft, wavy hair with my hands to turn his face to mine.
We stopped kissing and he smiled, reaching for the paper. A minute or so later, his daughter entered.
“Hey, dad,” she said, flopping down into the chair opposite him. “Got big plans for today?”
“Nothing too big,” he said, reaching for a second slice of toast as she poured her coffee. “In fact, I was wondering if you’d like dinner somewhere?”
Estella frowned. “I don’t have any plans for this evening,” she agreed slowly. “What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking maybe we could eat here,” Beckett said carefully. “Just us. Ask Mrs. Delange to make something special…you know, the casserole she does you like so much.”
Estella beamed. “Mrs. Delange’s upside-down casserole? Hurray!”
I shot him an inquiring glance, but he just smiled softly and I guessed it was some in-house reference I would have to learn. I smiled at Estella and poured a second coffee for myself.
“Well,” he said gently, “that’s settled.”
I nodded.
“Yes!” Estella said happily. “It is. You come home soon, though, Dad,” she added with a straight face. “You know what Mrs. Delange is like if it has to wait in the oven too long.”
He laughed. “I know! I was scared I was going to be sent to Coventry the last time I was late home from a meeting and she’d cooked the meal.”
We all laughed. I smiled at Estella.
“I take it this is a habit of his,” I said.
“Yeah,” she nodded, smiling at me. “Daddy’s nickname is Mr. Late. At least, it is with family and friends. In business circles it’s Mr. Punctuality.”
He laughed and I smiled at him, remembering how insistent he had been about meeting times when we had first met, what seemed a lifetime earlier in his office.
“All true, sadly enough,” he said, pulling a face. I laughed.
“What do we do if he’s late?” I asked Estella.
She grinned at me, eyes sparkling. “We have to punish him…maybe Mrs. Delange can hold back dessert.”
Beckett pulled a face at her and we all laughed. I smiled at Estella and she smiled back. It seemed that for the moment, at least, she had decided to accept me.
I smiled at Beckett, grateful to him for having sorted that one out. He smiled back and stood, with a regretful expression, pushing in his chair.
“Well, Mr. Punctuality has to leave,” he said gently. “Before I get re-named and my business name becomes Mr. Late.”
“We wouldn’t mind,” Estella said, “as long as your family name is Mr. Punctuality.”
She looked a little wistful and I smiled at her. I could feel sorry for her, always wanting her father to be closer, to care about home more than he cared about work. In that moment, I felt the same way.
All I could do—all we could both do—was look forward to that evening. When he would come home.
I finished my coffee, chatted a bit with Estella, who seemed subdued now that her father was away again. I detected a forced note to our conversation, as if she resented my being here, but hid it well.
Maybe I’m just being hypersensitive to it all, I told myself. After all, I was the newcomer here and there was a lot to get used to. I tried to be as understanding as I could. It wasn’t like she was rude or standoffish, after all. We talked a while longer and then headed upstairs to my suite of rooms.
When I was alone my happiness returned at once. I flopped down on the bed, which was still disarrayed from our night together, and looked up at the ceiling, a smile of amazement on my face.
I still couldn’t quite believe it.
Memories of the night before played through my mind; a fantastic reel of noises, feelings and imagery that I would store there indefinitely.
I sat up and looked at myself in the mirror, staring at my reflection with a kind of amazement and disbelief.
The reflection looked back at me; the same face as I had seen there yesterday, as looked out at me every day. Except this morning it was different. My eyes shone and I was flushed with a new light, as if a candle flame burned within me.
Beckett, I thought. He had brought me this intense happiness, this feeling of wonder, as if the sun was always shining and the birds sang madrigals in the trees outside.
But I had also learned so much about him. I had learned he was vulnerable. That he had made mistakes in his youth. And I had learned how badly those mistakes had risen up and recurred on him.
I wanted to be able to help him.
But what could I do?
All that could be done, I reminded myself, I was doing. I was standing in has his excuse, the explanation for where the money was going. Because I had no doubt that it was still going; probably to an account that everyone supposed was mine. Perhaps it was even in my name. I was sure he could have made that happen.
All I wanted at that moment was to help him. To be able to make those people who hovered on the edge of his life disappear. Take them out of the shadows of his past and make sure they could never come back; never hurt him or his loved ones again.
The intensity of my response surprised me. I looked at myself in the mirror and smiled at myself.
“You really are in love with this guy, aren’t you?” I asked myself.
I said nothing, but the funny smile that quirked my lips—a half-shy, half-proud expression—told me everything. I sighed and reached for my makeup brush, settling down to put on a proper face. I really had fallen for this man, and fallen hard.
It was, all things considered, not the smartest thing I could have done; if I could have stopped it happening at all, that was, which wasn’t really possible. I had absolutely no idea what I would do if anything changed: if he suddenly decided the drug traffickers were no longer a threat to him, and changed our relationship, ended the playacting for good. The only consolation I had at that time was that at this moment he didn’t know what he’d do either.