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Today has been a lot already and hearing this now after all these years of me believing that their time together was all sunshine and rainbows, it’s the catalyst to release all the emotion I’ve been holding for so long. I can feel tears wanting to break through. I can’t let them. Strong men don’t cry, but this is the closest I have ever gotten.
“She’s young, Mum, just discovering her life. What can an old emotionally stunted man offer her? She deserves more.” I quickly pull myself together as I hear a noise behind me. “Anyway, enough of this. Are you doing okay?” I say, trying to change the topic before Victoria enters the room.
My mum laughs at me, knowing what’s going on.
“Oh, we aren’t finished with this, that’s for sure. We will continue it later.” And the way Mum’s eyes open wide and look like they are about to pop out of her head, I know Victoria is standing behind me.
“Nicholas?” All the anger and feistiness from upstairs is gone in her gentle whisper.
“Oh, dear girl, come closer and say hello. Let me look at you.” Mum moves the camera closer to her face like it will help her see more. Which breaks the silence because you can’t help but laugh at older people with the way they cope with technology at times.
“Mum, behave.” I try to rein her in before she gets out of control.
I turn to see Victoria looking as beautiful as ever, her hair hardly dried and pulled up onto the top of her head in a messy bun, with those few loose curly strands falling down around her face. Her cheeks are a slight shade of pink at meeting my mother like this. She’s still in the same yellow flower-patterned sundress that she had on for dinner, that just softly flows over her body. My mother’s words are now racing through my head.
Reaching out to her with my arm, she steps forward and into my side as I pull her against my body tightly. I try to show her without saying a word how much I want her here, although she is doubting it so much right now.
“Victoria, this is my nosy mother, Sally. Ignore anything she says about me, it will be all lies,” I say, trying to lighten the moment, but I needn’t have bothered because Mum is surely going to do that all on her own as her excitement takes over.
“Hi, Sally.” Victoria lifts her hand to wave.
“Oh, my Lord, you are so beautiful, I don’t know what you are doing with my Nic.”
“A question I’m asking myself too.” She tries to laugh it off, but I know she is serious. “To be honest, he kidnapped me and brought me here. So, I didn’t have much choice.” Now she turns to look at me, waiting for a bite.
“You are both ridiculous.” I won’t take the bait from either of them. I’m slowly running my hand up and down her side, and the perfume she wears is already sending my senses into overdrive.
“I brought Victoria here for a few days to escape the paparazzi. We are going to be working here for the rest of the week.”
“Work, what a waste. Enjoy yourselves. You have never taken a girlfriend to the estate before, Nic, don’t spend time sitting in front of a computer. Take her riding, or walk the fields like you love, cook her some magical meals. Come to think of it, you’ve never had a girlfriend at all… so strike work off the list.”
“What? You’ve truly never had a girlfriend before?” Victoria looks down at me, shocked, but I can see things clicking into place in her head. Yes, gorgeous, I’m so fucked up that I haven’t gone there with anyone. Until you. And although it started out fake, we are past that now and in no-man’s land.
Not wanting to give too much away, I shrug it off. “There have been other women.” I say it so offhandedly that both women look at each other and start laughing.
Mum shakes her head. “Yes, women that you have no doubt fucked, but nothing serious!” Victoria is still laughing as my mouth hangs open at my mum’s comments.
“Mum! Seriously, I will hang up on you.” I can feel Victoria relax in my arm the more she laughs at my mother.
“Well, it’s true. You are almost forty and I’ve never been introduced to a woman while they are with you, and the only woman you have taken to the estate is me, your old-fart mother. So, tell me I’m wrong that Victoria is special.” I could kill her right now. She knows exactly what she is doing.
“Oh, she’s special all right,” I say, earning me a playful slap on my shoulder at trying to make a joke of it.
“Nic…” Damn you, Mum, stop pushing me to a place I don’t know how to handle yet.
Looking up into those eyes that get me every time, I can’t help but admit, “She’s more than special… Victoria is everything.” And the truth is out there. Pulling her down onto my lap, I kiss her softly on the lips until she melts into my body.
I almost forget Mum is still there until I hear her. “Awww… finally.” It’s not much more than a whisper, and for Mum that is saying something.
Feeling Victoria’s hand running softly up and down my arm is comforting in a time where I feel so out of control.
“I think it’s time I came to London for a visit.”
“Yes!” Victoria replies excitedly as I yell at the same time, “No!”
The last thing I need is my mother here making things ten times harder, pushing in where I don’t need her, and things are too uncertain here at the moment.
“Someone needs to be there to make sure you don’t mess this up,” she says. I can already see she is planning it in her head.
