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She surprised me by emptying her glass as quickly as drinking water. I refilled it and placed my free hand over hers. With an enigmatic smile, she turned her soft, cool palm upward and laced her fingers through mine. Although I loved the submissive way she responded, something in her manner made me wary. She sipped her second glass of champagne before tipping her head back to the sun, eyes closed.
In that quiet moment, I studied her, regretting that it had been so long since we’d made love. Maybe two days. We’d been so busy, there hadn’t been time. I’d correct that situation soon.
I ached to cover her wide mouth with kisses. I wanted her naked below me, her legs open, ready for my mouth, my hand, my cock. I thought of her breasts and how swollen they became when she was aroused. I wanted to fuck her until she touched the sky in ecstasy. But I kept myself in check.
I lifted her hand to my lips. Here was the kindred spirit who would love, honor, and obey me for the rest of our lives.
Sadie shivered and pulled her hand away. When she opened her hazel eyes, they shone with unshed tears. She coughed. When she spoke, her voice was low and serious. “Simon, I love you. I do.”
She pushed her glass away and it screeched as it slid across the table. Something in her manner made me want to order her not to say anymore. I wanted to return to the tranquility of moments before, but she wasn’t looking at me.
She studied her hands that were folded in her lap. After another small cough she finally choked out words I never expected to hear. “I really do love you and I’m sorry I’ve left this so late. I don’t think I can marry you. In fact, I know I shouldn’t. You deserve so much better.”
Sadie
From the moment we met, Simon’s forceful personality had caught me like a riptide and swept me away from everything I’d ever known. Happily, I’d gone wherever it took me.
It’s true that his wealth and position impressed me but, without his sexy, attentive ways, I would have lost interest quickly. I wasn’t looking for love when we met, which was probably why I found it.
He immediately set the terms of our relationship and I bowed to his leadership, loving the way he captained our ship. Being with him was playful and challenging. When he responded to my impudence and sass with everything from a sharp glance to a well-placed hand on my backside, my body reacted with a fierce passion I’d never felt before.
When he proposed, I accepted without a second thought. He was my sun and my moon. My everything.
As we planned our lives together, doubts crept in. I began to wonder if I’d ever truly fit into the privileged universe he commanded. Now it felt like every step closer to the altar was a step away from my family, friends, and life as I’d once known it.
After the party last night, Simon had fallen asleep in seconds. I stared at the ceiling for most of the night because the party had removed my last doubts. The Simon and Sadie fairytale had to end, for his sake.
At some point, I’d fail him in an important way. It was only a matter of time.
On the plus side, I loved the private, sheltered-from-the-world Simon, the man he was when it was just the two of us. I wanted him to go on being that man, the one who didn’t feel a need to share me, or his feelings about me, with anyone. He shouldn’t change for me, though. That would be a disaster, because I wasn’t worth it.
Lying in the dark, my doubts deepened. More troubling questions nagged me. How long would it take his friends to sniff out the fact that I came from a long line of blue-collar workers? How long before the attacks on me started? Surely it was only a matter of time until the whispering voices made him realize the obvious: he was totally out of my league. I was overreaching.
For months, it had been just Simon and me, in a bubble world. Our differences didn’t seem important when it was only us together, but we hadn’t been tested publicly. The party was like my debut in a rarefied society, and I had failed.
All night long, and for most of the following morning, I was surrounded by people who spoke a different language. They spoke the private code of the very wealthy. They mentioned their London tailors, their bankers in Lichtenstein, their homes in the south of France, and apartments in Hong Kong.
Over and over again, I was reminded that I was out of my depth.
In case I’d dare think I was special, Maddy had turned up in that knock-off of my dress. I wasn’t humiliated just because we wore the same design. I was humiliated by the lengths she had taken to mock and embarrass me. Worst of all, I didn’t know why.
Then there’d been my mother’s drastic action toward the end of the party, the details of which hadn’t reached Simon yet. If they had, I was sure he would have said something but either way, he’d find out eventually. Maddy and Michael had left immediately after that, and I just hoped Ronnie Flynn hadn’t seen the incident.
If I wanted to survive at Simon’s side long term, nothing like that could ever happen again which meant I’d have to become someone else. What if I couldn’t rise above my working-class roots? What if I failed to make the grade in his illustrious society? There were land mines everywhere.
What would happen when he realized how badly he’d chosen? Surely he would soon tire of me, of my social awkwardness. Life was hard, and I knew better than to believe in happily-ever-after.
At least that’s what my mother had been hinting at. Since the moment I picked her up at the airport, she’d sensed my worry and added to it. To be fair, she was trying to protect me from what she saw as a hurtful situation.
The entire week of her visit, we barely saw Simon, who was working all hours, so she had my undivided attention. As we visited, shopped, and prepared for the engagement celebration, she dropped hints and asked questions that pointed to the futile nature of our marriage, in case I’d failed to notice the huge disparity in our positions in life.
Then the party started. Guests crowded the dance floor, eclipsing the lights with jewelry that was so valuable it would have repaid the debt of a small nation. The great room was a dizzying kaleidoscope of elegant designer clothing, flawless teeth, and four-hundred-dollar hairdos.
My friends, my tribe before I met Simon, hung at the fringe of the party. Their star-struck faces reflected my own feelings of disorientation.
I held myself together for that evening and through brunch the next day. I waited until it was only the two of us left on the sunny patio and we’d shared a few minutes of peace and quiet. Then I brought out the champagne. I needed to numb myself from the pain of what I was about to do.
I drank the first glass so fast I had to suppress a hiccup. As we held hands, I tilted my head back and closed my eyes, hoping Simon couldn’t read the doubts that churned inside me. When I finally mustered the courage to tell him what was on my mind, tears burned in my eyes.
