AllFreeNovel
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“No doing it on a budget.”
“Christ on a cracker, you are relentless.”
“Mikayla,” he said warningly.
She sighed. “Okay. No budget. So I’m going to get married on the beach in a Versace gown, heavily encrusted with diamonds. I’ll have a ruby tiara, thank you very much. You can buy me the ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz to go with it. I want a pod of dolphins swimming just offshore, doing back flips when we say I do.” She sipped her tea. “Mm, what else? Oh, only the rarest flowers for my bouquet, of course. And no less than a thousand guests.”
“You don’t know a thousand people.”
“No, but you do. I’ll have the Hemsworths, thank you. And Beyonce. I’d invite Miley but that could get awkward. Adele to sing our wedding song, of course. She might let you play the guitar for her.”
“You can shut up now.”
“Not sure I can, actually. I want to have the reception on a super yacht. Oh yes, the dolphins can form a guard of honor as we move from the beach to the yacht. Perfect! We’ll dine on…”
“Some really expensive shit. I get it.”
She laughed at him. “Just jokes.” Her face turned serious again. Shifting over so she was sitting next to him, she threw her arm around his shoulder and kissed his cheek. “Thank you, Callum,” she said, resting her head on his shoulder.
“You’re welcome,” he said quietly, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
???
Callum rocked onto the back legs of Leah’s dining room chair, strumming idly on his guitar. He absently picked at the strings as he looked out at the ocean. It was a dark gray today, reflecting the brooding storm clouds rolling in. The air felt cool and heavy, pushed in by the brewing storm.
“I like this song,” Leah said quietly.
Callum glanced at her. She was sitting cross legged on the floor in her lounge room, Bluebell stretched out next to her. She bent forward as she painted a careful pattern on her new cupboard doors. She wore a slim fitting dress in a vibrant raspberry. It was cut very low in the back, exposing an expanse of alabaster skin begging to be kissed. He swore she was getting more beautiful every day. “We danced to it at Juniper and William’s wedding.”
She looked at him, her head tilted to one side as she listened. “Yeah, I remember.”
He hummed along a little. “There’s a line about swimming naked in the water. It goes like this.” He sang the line, playing the accompanying chords. “I was thinking about swimming naked with you the whole time we were dancing.”
Leah smiled. “You sure did play the long game, hey.”
“It was worth the wait.”
“Cute.” She went back to painting. Callum went back to watching her. “I want to know something.”
“What’s that?”
“When we had our first date, you told me how you were resting and I asked you if there was more to it.”
“Yeah.” He felt a tightening in his guts. An immediate rejection of what he knew she was going to say next.
“Tell me.”
When he didn’t answer immediately, Leah gave him a long, clear-eyed stare and he knew she wasn’t going to let him brush her off. “It’s not that big a deal.” He let the chair fall back to the floor and put his guitar aside, leaning it against the wall. He crossed his arms and stretched his legs out. He didn’t quite know where to start, so he started at the very beginning. “When I first made it big, things got crazy fast. Everyone wanted a piece of me.”
She flicked him a look, an unreadable expression in her eyes.
“What is it?”
“Nothing. Go on.”
She went back to painting while he talked. It made it easier for him to say what he wanted to say. “I’ve always loved women —" She might have flinched, he wasn’t sure. He looked at her for a long moment, but she kept her face averted, so he couldn’t read her. “Does it upset you?”
“Does what upset me?” She didn’t look at him.
