I’m at work when it all happens. It’s like one of those movies where everything is eerily quiet, then the phone suddenly rings, the person staring at it like it’s something to be afraid of.
That is me. The phone rings. I stare at it. When I pick it up, I wish I hadn’t.
“Can I … speak … with Devon Jackson, please?” a woman sobs into the phone. I frown, immediately wondering who this is.
“May I ask whose calling?”
“It’s Beth Townsend.”
I’ve certainly never heard that name before. I tell her to hold while I put her through. Devon, knowing it’s me, answers with a sultry hello.
“I have a lady on the phone. She sounds really upset.”
“Who is it?” he asks without hesitation.
“Someone named Beth Townsend.”
Deathly silence. Then he says, “Put her through.”
I desperately want to ask who she is, but I put her through, knowing I can be nosey once he’s finished. I know I’ve certainly not heard her name before, so she’s not been in the office.
I sit in my chair, staring at the clock as the hand goes around one minute, then two, then three. After another three minutes, Devon suddenly appears, keys in hand as he places his jacket on.
“I’ll be back in an hour.”
Before I have a chance to ask him what this is all about, he strides out the door. Stunned, I sit there, biting my lip for a moment. I know his sudden departure has everything to do with the phone call. I’m not normally one to get suspicious, but something isn’t sitting right with me. I know the normal protocol is to have me here whenever Devon isn’t, but I can’t sit and wait on this.
Without another thought, I grab my bag and head out the door. I have a feeling Devon’s taking his car because he had the keys in his hands, so I will have to use a taxi to track him down. It shouldn’t be too hard, considering he has a bright red Ferrari with the license plate WRLDWD1 on it. I hate doing this because it makes me feel like a stalker girlfriend, but I can’t just sit around hoping he’ll give me answers upon his return.
Immediately seeing his car pull out of the garage, I hail a taxi and hastily get in, saying the famous words, “Follow that car.” The cab driver gives me a hesitant look, but when I hold up a fifty pound note, he quickly pulls away from the curb. It’s amazing how much money talks at times.
As I sit on the edge of the seat, I keep an eye on his car. We make our way down Oxford Street, then into Park Lane. As we come out at Hyde Park, Devon parks and quickly gets out. I ask the driver to stop, hand him the money, and quickly follow on foot, keeping my distance. He seems to be in a rush, his body tense as he marches through the park and toward a café. I notice him stop, look through the window for a moment, and then rush in.
Carefully, I walk toward the café. I only need to see enough to figure out who he’s gone to meet. As the glass panels of the café come into view, I see Devon sitting at a table with a blonde woman who’s dressed smartly in a skirt suit. Whoever she is, she’s completely different from the women he would normally go for. The women he used to entertain were model types, but this one is refined, beautiful. She’s also crying. As Devon sits beside her, he offers her an arm. She accepts it, tugging at his shirt so she can bury her head into his chest. It looks like a man offering comfort to his girlfriend or wife. They look so natural together. So close. So enamoured. For a moment, I want to pull away and block out what I’m seeing, but a part of me says I’m being silly. This could just be an old friend who’s in trouble and needs his comfort. I see her pull away. He tenderly wipes a tear from her face, then she pulls him toward her lips.
Gut-wrenching pain hits my stomach, forcing me to turn away. I may have been compelled to watch at first, but not anymore.
I’ve seen more than enough.
I rush through the park and hail another cab, but I don’t go back to the office. I don’t go home, either. When the taxi driver asks where I want to go, I speak before thinking.
Over thirty minutes later, I arrive at Richmond Cemetery. The place where my mother’s buried. I normally come here every other Sunday, but I feel I need to be close to her right now.
I pay the driver, walk to my mother’s grave, and kneel beside it. With my finger, I gently trace the grooves of the name, then smooth out the flowers my dad must have brought recently.
As I smile, a lone tear drops down my face. “Hi, Mum,” I say. “I know I normally come here on Sundays, but I just felt like I needed my mum. God, I wish you were here now so I could talk to you. You would know exactly what to say.” As I wipe my tears, I shake my head. “I feel so silly. You’ve probably figured out it’s about a guy. When is it not?” I chuckle a little, then close my eyes as a welcome breeze blows. I inhale, smelling a hint of fresh lilies, roses, and grass. The smell of freshly cut grass has always been my favourite. I smile again, loving the aroma, then I remember why I’m here.
I open my eyes, hearing my phone ringing in my pocket. I take it out and see it’s Devon, so I decline the call. Immediately, it starts ringing again. Again, I decline. When he rings back again, I silence it. That’s when I see a text from him.
Don’t move. I’m coming to get you.
I shake my head and put it back in my pocket. How does he know where I am?
Not wanting to think about it, I turn my attention back to my mother. “I don’t know what to do, Mum. I’ve fallen in love, but now I feel like my heart’s been crushed.” I look at her headstone again. She was only fifty when she left us. Way too young to be taken away from her family. “I wonder if you had any cause to distrust Dad when you were younger. I suppose he was one hundred percent devoted. Dad has always been that way with you. I wish I had that in my life now. I know I’m only twenty-six, but I’ve grown up being completely obsessed with Devon. I was only six when I met him, but I remember him well. I was fifteen when my hormones started to kick in.” I chuckle again. “That’s when I really noticed him. He had been gone a while—shipped off somewhere for the RAF. When he came back, he was in his twenties, ripped, and taller than anyone I’ve ever met. I remember jokingly telling you that I fancied him, but I also think you knew it wasn’t a joke. You knew how far my infatuation with him went. You were the only one who could see it.”
Closing my eyes again, I sigh. I look around to see I’m alone. There’s a couple in the distance, but that’s it.
I look back at my mum’s headstone. “I know you’re not here to answer, but I need you to know that when I come here to speak with you, I always leave feeling so much better. I have you to thank for that.” I smooth my hand over her headstone with a smile.
“Andi?”
I look up to see Devon standing on the other side, looking both frantic and confused. He’s not the only one. “How did you know I was—”
He holds up his phone. “GPS tracking.”
I stand up. “And here I thought I was the stalker.”
He frowns. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I fix him with a glare. “It means I saw you, Devon. I saw you with that woman in the café. The one who was crying on the phone. The one you just up and left for without a word to me about where you were going.” He’s about to answer when I put my hand up. “I’m not getting into this with you here.” Placing a kiss on my hand, I lay it on my mother’s headstone. “See you soon, Mum.” I walk away.
Once we’ve gotten some distance away, Devon pulls me over to a bench. I’m hesitant, but he’s so strong, he manages to force me down.
“What did you see?” I start laughing sarcastically. “Andi, what did you see?”
I take a deep breath. “I saw you and the lady at the café. She was crying and you were offering her support. She grabbed you, started crying into your chest. When she pulled away, you wiped a tear from her eye. That’s when she kissed you.”
“Andi …” He tries to take my hand, but I pull back. “Did you stick around long enough to see what happened?”
I look away. I already know the answer to that. I also think he knows it, too, and that’s why he’s asking. “No,” I simply state.
“Well, if you had, you would have seen the point where I pulled her arms off me. You would have seen me say something to her, then you would have seen me leave. I immediately tried to call you at the office. When I couldn’t reach you, I asked Mandy to go check your office. She said you weren’t there, so I started trying to call your cell. When you wouldn’t answer, I tracked down where you were.”
“Who is she?” I need to know. I’ve needed to know since she rang a couple hours ago.
He sighs, looking away. “My ex-wife.”
When I gasp, he looks back at me. “Your ex-wife? Isn’t this something you should have told me when we got together? All these years I’ve known you, you’ve never once mentioned a wife. Why?”
He grits his teeth. “It’s complicated.”
I settle back into the bench. “I’m all ears, Devon.”
When he sees I’m not moving, he sighs, shaking his head. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
I raise my eyebrows. “Would you?”
He smirks. “Point taken.” When I look away in anger, he takes my hand. “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about her. She’s my sore spot—”
“Did you love her?” I ask.
“I thought I did.” I can tell by his face that he seems to be telling the truth. “It was a whirlwind romance. I met her when I was out in Italy. She was a holiday rep there, so I bumped into her a lot when I went out for drinks with the lads. We got to talking and hit it off. Within a couple months, we were married. A month after that, she became pregnant.” When I snap my head to him, he holds up a hand. “Let me finish.” He shifts a little in his seat, obviously uncomfortable. “We had a son. James. He was stillborn.”
I throw my hand over my mouth. “Oh, my god, Devon. I’m so sorry.”
Placing another hand over mine, he smiles. “You don’t have to apologise. It was one of those things. It was shitty, but I suppose it just wasn’t meant to be. Things were never right between us after that, though. The marriage quickly dissolved.”
“But you kept in touch?”
He shakes his head. “No, oddly enough, we haven’t.”
“So her ringing today was totally out of the blue?” I ask, a little confused.
He nods. “Yes. I feel as surprised as you look right now.”
“What did she want?” Considering she tried to stick her tongue down his throat, I feel compelled to ask.
“She recently miscarried again and is completely distraught. She wanted to meet me because she felt I could somehow be the one to offer her the comfort she needed, considering we went through a similar loss together.”
I frown. “But what about her current boyfriend or husband?”
He grits his teeth. “It’s an old friend of mine. They were together even before we’d split. The bastard would go out for drinks with me when he was screwing around with my wife the whole time. Well, it looks like old habits die hard.”
“So she cheated on you with him, but now that he’s cheating on her with someone else, she’s trying to get back at him by getting back with the person she cheated on in the first place.”
“A bit of a mess, but that sounds like it in a nutshell.”
I shake my head. “I hope you told her where to go.”
He looks at me with a smirk. “Yes,” he says, leaning closer. “And I told her that I was with someone who has my heart.”
“Yeah, so no taking your body.”
He laughs. “Yes. You totally have that, too.”
I pull away a little. “I’m still mad at you, though. You never told me anything about her. I thought you trusted me.”
He looks guilty. “With all the shit you know about me so far, I didn’t want to add something else. I keep thinking I’m going to fuck it all up and lose the one and only good thing I have in my life.”
“Damn you, Devon,” I say, taking his hand. He has the most confused, boyish expression on his face. “I’m trying so hard to be angry with you, but then you go and say something like that.” I see his smirk and nudge him. “This isn’t funny.”
His playful expression soon disappears. “I know.”
“For someone so strong, so independent, and so confident, you sure know how to be insecure when it comes to me. There’s no need to be. I’m still here. I just wish you gave me a little more credit. I’m a big girl now,” I smirk. “I can handle what you throw at me. All I ask is that you don’t break my heart.”
Devon sighs before gripping my hands, locking me with those beautiful blue eyes of his. “I’m so sorry I never told you. She’s been out of my life for so long …”
“That you didn’t feel the need to tell me.” He nods, a contrite look on his face. “I don’t need to know the ins and outs of everything, Devon Jackson, but when I hear you were married before and had a kid who died, I think this is something that needs to be discussed, don’t you? Finding out like this isn’t fun for me.” I sigh, making Devon wince a little.
“I don’t like knowing that you’re mad at me.”
I let out a tired exhale. “I’m not mad. I’m disappointed.”
He snorts. “That’s even worse.”
“Relationships aren’t always black and white. But you should already know this, considering you were married before.”
Looking down at our hands a moment, he squeezes them a little before looking back up. “That relationship was fourteen years ago. I was young and stupid. We both were. What we have together far outweighs anything I had with Beth. You have to believe me when I say this. You are everything to me. I can’t lose that.”
I lean forward pulling my hand away to stroke his chin. I watch him close his eyes. “Stop being so afraid.”
He opens his eyes and looks into mine. He grabs my hand from his face and nods. “Okay, I’ll try. I’m not saying I’m perfect, but I’ll try.” He smiles. “Can you settle for an imperfect man?”
I smile back. “What we have is perfectly imperfect.”
He laughs. “I don’t know if I like that or not.”
“You should. Not everything is perfect. We both have our flaws. It’s how we decide to live and deal with them that counts.”
He grabs the back of my head and pulls me toward him until our foreheads touch. “Does this mean you forgive me?” he asks. This seems to be a running theme with Devon.
I kiss him lightly before pulling away begrudgingly. His mouth is so intoxicating, it’s always hard to resist. “There’s nothing to forgive,” I add with a sigh. “I just ask that you give me a little credit in the future. Stop shutting me out of important things.”
He nods. “I’m not used to baring everything, but I’ll try. All I ask is that you give me time.”
I grab his hand before kissing it. “That’s all I need to know.”
Devon smiles before looking toward the exit of the cemetery. “Are you ready to get back to work? I have to leave in a couple hours.”
I groan, knowing he’s going to Brussels for a few days. “Okay, let’s get you back.”
As we both stand, Devon suddenly swoops me into his arms, giving me a spellbinding kiss. “I’m going to miss you, Andi Pandy.”
I groan again. “Not you, too.”
He smirks. “I think it’s cute.”
“It was cute when I was six, not twenty-six.”
He sweeps his nose across mine. “You beguile me, Miss Bellingham.”
I bite my lip in an attempt to hide my smile. “Keep talking like that and you may get lucky once you’re back from Brussels.”
He digs his groin into mine, showing me that he’s already hard. “I was counting on it being a little sooner.”
I raise my eyebrow. “Really? And how do you propose that?”
He kisses me lightly. “I was kind of hoping for another ‘board meeting.’” He waggles his eyebrows, making me laugh.
“I’ll have to check my schedule. My boss can be a right hard-arse at times. I may not be able to squeeze you in.”
He pushes his groin into me again. “Oh, I’m pretty certain you can squeeze me in. You’ve done pretty well in the past before.”
I fake tut, shaking my head. “Oh, Mr Devon Jackson. What am I going to do with you?”
Running his tongue against my bottom lip, he bites it, waking my loins up. “I’m sure you can think of something.”