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“Dinner will be ready in five minutes,” Chantelle informed him as she handed him a bottle of beer moments later. “We’re having Peas & Rice and Jerk Chicken. Hope it won’t be too hot for you.”


“I’m used to spicy food,” he responded, immediately thinking that he had to take her as soon as possible to his favorite Cajun restaurant for a spicy seafood gumbo, or whatever else she preferred. The chef there was excellent. He took delight in warming the palette with a liberal addition of peppers.


“Charmine’s only six, so I haven’t made the Jerk too spicy.” Chantelle placed a drumstick on her youngest sister’s plate and then paused with the food tongs over the other pieces of chicken on the platter. “Which piece do you prefer, Dominic—breast or thigh?”


Both definitely, if you’re offering.


Dominic forcibly pulled his wayward thoughts from where they were headed and back to matters at hand. His butler would expire in a fit of vapors if he knew that he had been offered a piece of chicken that hadn’t been first de-boned. Heaven forbid if said chicken wasn’t also both free range and organic. “Breast please…,” he began and noticed the quick frown that crossed Shawn’s face before the young man schooled his features into indifference, “…or thigh. Any piece will do really.”


“Are you sure?” Chantelle cast him a grateful look when he nodded. She gripped a portion of thigh and placed it on his plate beside the small mound of rice he’d served himself from the serving bowl moments before. “Sorry, I’m so used to cooking on a budget…I didn’t think to get portions rather than a whole chicken.”


“It’s fine.”


She placed a large piece of breast on each of her other siblings’ plates and took the other piece of thigh for herself.


Dominic couldn’t help wondering if she too had preferred the breast piece, but had settled for the thigh instead. She was twenty-two—he knew that from her application form—but acted like she was their mother. He wondered what other sacrifices she made for them.


“So what college do you go to, Shawn?” he asked her brother after they had said grace and each had a few mouthfuls of food.


“Leyton Sixth Form.”


“He’s hoping to get into Oxford next year.” Chantelle looked at her brother, pride shining in her eyes.


“I’m impressed.” The young man smiled and Dominic felt a slight thawing of the air between them. “Four of my brothers and two sisters went there. I went to Imperial.”


“Didn’t get the marks for Oxford, then?” Shawn inquired with a smirk.


“I didn’t even apply. I wanted to stay in London close to my parents.”


He had started helping his father restore and sell on properties from the age of sixteen. By eighteen he had successfully sold on two properties and hadn’t seen the benefits of an Oxbridge education when he’d planned to be his own boss. He’d gone to Imperial only because his father had insisted he needed a fallback plan.


“Mama’s bowy.” Shawn smirked again.


“I love my mother to bits. I guess that makes me a mama’s boy,” Dominic admitted. Shawn laughed outright and his younger sisters giggled. “My nine brothers and sisters all accuse me of being one. In my defense, I’m the baby of the family and there’s a ten year gap between me and my sister Rosalind.”


Chantelle smiled, reached across the table and patted his hand, “Good for you, Dominic. I think there’s nothing wrong with a mama’s boy.”


But he could see that she was fighting to keep her smile from widening into a grin.


“I think I’ll get a T-shirt made that says, ‘Youngest of Ten & Proud Mama’s Boy’.”


Chantelle’s smile turned into a grin.


“Yuh da man!” Shawn acknowledged, shaking his head in defeat as his second attempt to belittle Dominic fell flat. He sliced a big chunk of chicken breast and popped it into his mouth.


Chantelle smiled as she bent her head over her plate. Dominic had handled that well. Shawn had been the man about the house since he was seven—he wouldn’t easily give up that position. Instead of challenging him, Dominic had made himself an object of ridicule and it had won Shawn over.


Mama’s boy, indeed! She would love to meet the ‘mama’ who could call Dominic her ‘boy’!


***


“Who’s this, darling?” Chantelle cringed at the sound of the slurred voice.


Her sisters had helped her clear the table and wash the dishes before going up to bed. Shawn had kept Dominic’ entertained, discussing the merits of the latest Bond movie. Her brother had finally gone up to his room a few minutes ago, leaving them alone for the first time that evening. Dominic had refused her offer of a hot drink and she had just settled on the sofa next to him to have a heart-to-heart talk.


She’d hoped he would have been long gone before her mother got up to do her night’s prowling and continue drinking where she’d left off early that morning.


*****


Chapter Five


“Mum, this is my boss, Dominic O’Brien.” Chantelle turned to explain.


Her mother was a mess. Her face was puffy and sleep lined, her eyes bloodshot. The pink cotton dress she had fallen asleep wearing was creased and stained with a blob of what looked suspiciously like last night’s Curried Goat.


“Pretty mixed-race bowy.” Her mother placed her hands on her hips and perused Dominic from head to toe and Chantelle cringed as her sexually aggressive manner. “Just like the one who stole my man from me. Are you sure he’s not a batty bowy, too?”


Oh fuck!


Praying that he didn’t understand that her mother had just asked if he was gay, Chantelle jumped up and grabbed her bag from the top of the cabinet which had once contained and displayed her mother’s best glassware, and reached for Dominic’s hand. “Mum, I’ll be back soon. I’m going to give him a lift home.”


“There’s no need to…” Dominic began, then realized that Chantelle was desperate to leave. He let her pull him towards the door, but turned when he got there to say, “Bye Mrs. Payne. It was a pleasure meeting you.”


“When you come again we will discuss your intention with—”


Even more mortified, Chantelle quickly pulled the door closed on the rest of her mother’s sentence.


“I’ll call my driver.”


As Dominic pulled out his phone, Chantelle hastily placed her hand over it to prevent him from dialing the number. “I want to talk to you.”


“Is there somewhere…a pub…nearby where we can talk?”


“No. Well, there’s one, but I don’t want to go there.” Even casually dressed, Dominic would stand out like a sore thumb among the locals who frequented the place. “I need to drive to clear my head.”


“Okay.” Dominic wasn’t totally comfortable taking her away, leaving her siblings with her intoxicated mother in charge. But Shawn at seventeen seemed sensible and responsible enough.


“Is this your car?” he asked in alarm when she crossed the road and stopped beside a 2002 model Ford Escort.


“Yes,” she responded, quickly opening the door and getting into the driver’s seat. “It may not look like much, but it’s very reliable.”


“I hope so!” Dominic opened the front door on the passenger side and slid onto the seat, grateful to see at a quick glance that the car was at least spotless inside. “I should really call my driver. I don’t think this will get us to Knightsbridge.”


“Trust me, this little baby would get us safely to Land’s End and back.” Chantelle patted the steering wheel affectionately before she started the engine and pulled off smoothly.


The car’s engine sounded good, Dominic acknowledged, but there was no way he was going to let her keep driving around in the rust bucket.


“I’m sorry…about my mum.” Chantelle’s voice was husky as she continued, “She used to be a beautiful, vibrant woman—Charmine looks like her—but she’s been this way since my father left her for the son of a family friend ten years ago.”


“Son?” Dominic stared at her in surprise. “I thought that I’d misunderstood what she was saying.”


“My father’s gay.” Chantelle laughed at his stunned expression. “My mother’s friend Pauline said that everyone in the neighborhood where they grew up in Jamaica thought Dad was gay…except Mum, of course. She was a nurse and when she got the chance to come here due to a shortage of nursing staff, she asked Dad to marry her and brought him with her. Dad told me, when he finally called for the first time after leaving on my eighteenth birthday, that he couldn’t have turned down the chance to come to the UK, although he’d known then that he liked men.”

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