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Damn these men and their inability to nurture the future correctly.
My keys jangle as I open the door, and wind whips my skirt up, undoubtedly flashing the gardeners. I couldn’t care less, as I walk into the hall and close the door behind me. This body is no longer designed to give a fuck what people think of it. It’s built to take what it wants with little appreciation to considering others’ opinions. I am, have become, someone who plays with other people for fun, interested in their responses to that fun for one reason only – power over them.
I’ve been taught well.
My heels clip along the hall’s Minton floor, smiling at the authenticity of Briticisms, and I drop my keys on the table to the right. Same place, every time. No one else’s are there, which means I’m home alone. The chauffer come security Alex has on staff should be about somewhere, though. I halt and listen up the stairs, nothing. Maybe he’s out. Mike Jenkins is his name. Some ex SAS chap. Alex has forbidden me from playing with him, which is sad really. He’s cute, in a bulky kind of way, and I do like a clueless one to foray about with every now and then. These clever ones are hard work, and I like to be able to not think sometimes. Get to the meaty art of fucking without the need to analyse the shit out of …
“Come home for safety, have you?”
My head swings back towards the kitchen, Alex’s voice throwing me of my little internal dialogue. He was in New York, wasn’t he? “I wasn’t aware I wasn’t safe,” I reply, moving along the hall and turning the corners.
He grunts, unamused. Seems he’s snarky about something. And I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s alcohol in his hand when I reach him. I get to the huge doorway leading into the stark modern kitchen, glancing towards the place he always sits, and find nothing. Hmm. I flick my gaze around, leaning on the door frame.
“Are you hiding from me?” I ask. “You should, to be honest. You’re being a cock.”
Nothing comes back at me, so I carry on, eventually noting the patio doors are wide open into the garden. Oh, okay. Perhaps we’re going to fight in the garden. How exciting.
I stand for a while in the open frame, looking out into the gardens and wondering what we’re about to discuss, or maybe he doesn’t want to discuss anything at all. Tough. That’s what I’m here for in this quartet. I’m his sounding board, the one he uses to get the facts out with little intricacy involving care to the others. He’s a damn brutal bastard with those words too, and becoming more so with time and age. We’re simple together, though. I don’t get offended. It’s his way, a way I’m coming to understand with acute accuracy.
“Why are you being a cock?” I shout in the direction of no one, because I can’t see him. My feet move me down the steps at his lacking answer. “I mean, you have everything you want and you’re behaving like a child. It’s not on, Alex.” I gaze out, trying to see over the terraces of trimmed bushes, which would look quite pretty if they didn’t belong to such a dick. He’s not there, still. Where the fuck is he?
A few strides worth of me getting riled up enough to hit him if necessary, and I’m crossing though the main lawn heading towards the back end of the garden. There’s a bench in the distance, and low and behold a man sitting on it. Alex. I peer at him, noting the shrunken shoulders of a man who should look nothing like he’s currently appearing, and stop. What the fuck is that look? He seems … small. I narrow my gaze, both annoyed at the image and concerned. Alexander White is not small. In any way. He is larger than life. And scary. With hands that want to kill things, not tremble or some such other crap that I’m not interested in noting or discussing.
“What the fuck is that?” I shout, crossing my arms around me. He doesn’t move. It’s worrying, and infuriating. I stride on, contempt for the situation making me angrier than I probably should be. He’s not allowed to be like this. He’s the top of us. The one who makes it all happen, keeps us feeling a sentiment that would be unacceptable in any other relationship of sorts.
I reach him, ready to knock some sense into a thick skull that appears to be having some kind of strange mid-life crisis, and then notice the dropped head. “Alex?” I move around the side of him, eyes searching his tear filled ones. “What‘s the matter?” He shakes his head and turns his face from me, but not quick enough that I’ve grabbed it and yanked it back to look at me again. “What?” I ask, sliding my arse onto the bench with him. No response, nothing but a sniff, as two loan tears fall from each eye. ”What’s happened? What? Is it Beth?”
His head sags in my hand, the weight of it beginning to lean into me for support, until eventually he clings onto my arm and sobs into me.
What the hell is going on?
Chapter 8
Alexander
Dead. Another unborn child dead again before it got a chance at life.
He gripped onto the body beside him. Held it like he was about to crush it for daring to be alive. This was all his fault. He should have protected her, made sure she was at home and catered for. Fuck, he should have been the one doing everything. Instead he’d been anywhere but near her, more bothered about his own reaction to fatherhood, and desperate not to hurt her. And this now, this was the fucking result of his actions.
Lilah wheezed against his hold, her hand gentle in his hair as if trying to soothe. He didn’t deserve soothing. He deserved death for this. She should get a fucking knife and slice his throat, remind him of the monster he was rather than thinking about all the things she thought she knew.
“What Alex?” she asked again, still running her fingers through his hair.
He scrunched in tighter, still able to hear the call from Rachel. No heartbeat. Elizabeth was stable and in recovery. She’d be ready to leave later tonight. Did he want to come down? No. No, he didn’t want to come down. He’d told her he was flying home from New York as soon as he could, and that he’d be there soon. When, in actuality, he’d already been here. Sense had come at some point, making him fly through last night to get back to her and prove he was ready to be a father. That he loved her. That they would be okay through this, they’d find a way to make it all work. He’d been in the air when the call came, and a designer was meeting him at the house when he landed to get the baby’s room sorted as a surprise for Elizabeth.
He’d called the designer and cancelled her.
And then drank himself into an oblivion he deserved.
“She’s lost the baby, hasn’t she?” Lilah asked, quietly.
He growled at the words out loud, tightening his grip on her arm. She didn’t flinch at the contact, nor did she make a sound. She just kept on stroking his hair, a slight hum coming with the movement now. “It’s not your fault, Alex.”
It fucking was. She knew it as well as he did.
He shoved at her, releasing his grip, and stormed off back towards the house for more alcohol. What else was there now? Fuck everything. Including the Pascal she prized so highly. He snarled to himself, legs covering the ground to get to the bar he needed. Alcohol. Alcohol would numb the fucking pain, make it bearable somehow.
“How is she?” What? His head swung back to Lilah, another snarl forming because of the question. How was she? Fucking distraught he would imagine. Not that he fucking knew because he hadn’t got the balls to go and find out. “You have been to see her, haven’t you?” He crossed through the kitchen, eyes focused on the lounge and nothing more. “Alex?”
