she frantically thought.
‘I meant water.’
‘Oh, I think I’ve got some somewhere.’ She grinned and turned on the tap. ‘Oh, yes, here it is.’ Was that a reluctant smile on the edge of his lips? ‘Here you go.’ She handed him the glass as his phone rang, and because of his job he had no choice but to check it. Bridgette’s smile was a wry one as ‘Arabella’ flashed up on the screen.
‘She’s hitting the bottle early tonight.’
He laughed. ‘It’s my birthday.’
‘Oh!’ It was all she could think of to say and then her brain sort of slid back into functioning. ‘Happy birthday,’ she said. ‘I’ve got candles but no cake.’
Then the phone rang again and they stood there.
And she was annoyed at his ex, annoyed that he was standing there in her kitchen, and her eyes told him so. ‘You really did break her heart, didn’t you?’
‘Long story,’ he said. He didn’t want to talk about it, hadn’t ever spoken about it, and really he’d rather not now.
‘Short version?’
‘Come on,’ he said, ‘the table’s booked.’
‘You know what?’ Bridgette said. ‘I’m not very hungry.’
‘You just said you were starving.’
‘Not enough to sit through five hundred phone calls from your ex.’
‘Okay, okay.’ He offered a major concession. ‘I’ll turn it off.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m not doing it any more, putting up with crap.’ She was talking about Paul, but she was talking about him too, or rather she was talking about herself—she would not put herself through it again. ‘Even if you turn it off, I’ll know she’s ringing. What’s that saying? If a tree falls in a forest, does it make a noise?’
‘What?’ He was irritated, annoyed, but certainly not with her. ‘I’ve said I’ll turn it off, Bridgette. She doesn’t usually ring—I never thought when I asked you to come out that it was my birthday. I don’t get sentimental, I don’t sit remembering last year, blah blah blah.’
‘Blah blah blah…’ Bridgette said, her voice rising, irritated and annoyed, and certainly it was with him. ‘That’s all she was, blah blah blah.’ The night was over before it had even started. She really should have left it at one night with him. ‘What is it with men?’ She stormed past him, completely ready to show him the door, and it was almost a shout that halted her.
‘She didn’t want my brother and his friends at our engagement party.’
They both stood, in a sort of stunned silence, he for saying it, she that he had.
‘He’s got Down’s,’ Dominic said, and she was glad that she knew already. ‘He lives in sheltered housing. When I’m there I go over every week and sometimes she came with me. She was great…or I thought she was, then when we were planning the engagement, my dad suggested it might be better if Chris didn’t come, Chris and his friends, that we have a separate party for them, and she agreed. “It might be a bit awkward.”’ He put on a very plummy voice. ‘“You know, for the other guests. You know how he loves to dance.”’
And Bridgette stood there and didn’t know what to say.
‘I couldn’t get past it,’ Dominic said, and he’d never discussed this with another person, but now that he’d started, it was as if he couldn’t stop. Months of seething anger and hurt for his brother all tumbling out. ‘My dad wanted nothing to do with him when he was born, he has nothing to do with him now, and it turned out Arabella didn’t want him around either—well, not in the way I thought she would.’
‘I’m sorry.’ It was all she could say and she could hear the bitterness in his response.
‘She keeps saying sorry too—that she didn’t mean it and if we can just go back of course he can come to our party. She claims that she said what she did because she was just trying to get on with my dad, except I heard it and I know that it was meant.’ He shook his head. ‘You think you know someone…’
And when the phone rang again she decided that she did know what to say, after all.
‘Give it to me,’ she said, and she answered it and gave him a wink and a smile as she spoke. ‘Sorry, Dominic’s in bed…’ She looked at him, saw him groan out a laugh as she answered Arabella’s question. ‘So what if it’s early? I never said that he was asleep.’ And she put down the phone but didn’t turn it off. Instead she put her hand to her mouth and started kissing it, making breathy noises. Then she jumped up onto the bench, her bottom knocking over a glass.
‘Dominic!’ she shrieked.
‘Bridgette!’ He was folded over laughing as he turned off the phone. ‘You’re wicked.’
‘I can be,’ she said.
And he looked at her sitting on the bench all dishevelled and sexy, and thought of the noises she had made and what she had done, and just how far they had come since that night. Her words were like a red rag to a bull—he sort of charged her, right there in the kitchen.
Ferocious was his kiss as he pushed her further up the bench, and frantic was her response as she dragged herself back.
His hands were everywhere, but she was just as bad—tearing at his shirt till the buttons tore, pulling out his belt, and she was delighted that they weren’t going to make it to the bedroom again, delighted by her own condom-carrying medico. Except Dominic had other ideas.
‘Bed.’ He pulled her from the bench. ‘This time bed.’
‘No.’ She pulled at his zipper. ‘No, no, no.’
‘Yes.’ He didn’t want the floor again. He was leading her to her room, dragging her more like as she dug her heels in.
‘You can’t go in there!’
‘Why?’ He grinned, except he’d already pushed the door open. ‘Have you got more babies stashed away that you haven’t told…?’ He just stopped. She doubted anyone as glamorous as he had seen a really messy bedroom, like a really messy one. He looked at the chaos and then at the beauty that had somehow emerged out of it.
‘I told you not to go in there!’ She thought she’d killed the moment. Honestly, she really thought she had, but something else shifted, something even more breathtaking than before.
‘In here now, young lady.’ His voice was stern as he pointed, and she licked her lips, she could hardly breathe for the excitement, as she headed to her bedroom. ‘You can hardly see the bed,’ he scolded as he led her to it. ‘I’ve a good mind…’
Yes, they were bad. He did put her over his knee, but she nearly fell off laughing and they wanted each other too much to play games. It was the quickest sex ever, the best sex ever.
Again.
Again, she thought as he speared
