“She’s fine, she’s breathing.” Mom nudged him out of the way and handed me a tall glass of water.
The drink I took helped. When I was finished hacking, I gasped, “Oh my god. I could have died. I could have choked to death and died. On my birthday.” My eyes filled with tears as I looked up at Neil and bleated, “And I’m thirty.”
“Oh, honey,” my mom said.
Neil struggled to hold back a smile. That was wise of him.
“Sophie, you’re making Rebecca and me feel very old,” he said, petting my hair back from my forehead.
“I’m sorry!” I wailed. “How unfair of me to be freaked out about my mortality on a milestone birthday that has been nothing but one disaster after another when I haven’t even been awake for a full hour yet!”
“Sophie…” Neil began. Then with a heavy sigh, he asked, “Would a present make the morning any better?”
I sniffled. “I think it would.”
“Of course it would,” Mom said with a shake of her head. She’d dealt with my materialistic self for a lot longer than Neil had.
He offered me his hand and pulled me to my feet. “Come along. Rebecca, could you excuse us a moment?”
I followed Neil out of the kitchen. “So, it’s something you can’t give me in front of my mother?”
He rolled his eyes. “No, it’s just in my study.”
Our house is huge, so it took us a few rooms and a couple of hallways to reach his study. Though the former occupants had used the space as a second formal dining room, it was too far away from the kitchen to be practical, and the built-in bookshelves, all painted white, made more sense in a library. The gauzy drapes over the tall windows brushed the wood parquet floor. His desk stood in the center of the room, with a comfortable armchair and chaise, both of which Neil insisted were for long afternoons of reading, at the far end of the room. I’d only ever seen him nap or play on his phone on those, though. Today, a signature forest green Harrods box rested on the soft gray leather.
I hopped up on my toes to kiss him on the cheek. “You had help.”
“I did,” he admitted. “I called your personal shopper in London. She said this was a little out of season but that you’d love it, anyway.”
I hurried over to the box and wiggled the lid off. Multi-colored sequins sparkled through the paper.
“Is this…” I gasped, lifting the dress from the box. “It is!”
Jenny Packham’s amazing sheer white gown spattered with a rainbow of multi-colored sequins of different sizes and shapes that drifted down the nearly transparent skirt like confetti.
“I thought you might wear it for New Year’s Eve,” Neil suggested. “Though it’s a long way off.”
I held the gown awkwardly against my chest and twirled as much as I dared without stepping on it. “Do we have plans I don’t know about?”
“Not yet. But I’d like to make some soon. Some...grown-up plans. Maybe leave Olivia behind this time?” He sounded almost guilty.
“It’s perfectly fine to leave your kid—grandkid—at home on New Year’s Eve. That’s an adult holiday. But do you think you’d be okay to…” I didn’t want to finish the sentence. I didn’t like tiptoeing around his addiction issues, but he didn’t want me to treat him like a child, either. We’d rung in the past few New Year’s quietly at home.
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” he said with a wave of his hand. “I’ve been sober so long that I’ve honestly forgotten.”
“Liar,” I said with a sad smile.
“All right, perhaps I haven’t quite forgotten,” he admitted. “But I’m not going to lose control of myself. And I would have you and hopefully El-Mudad as a support system.”
I had an idea so good, I dropped my birthday present. I scrambled to pick it up. “Sorry. I just had a thought. What if we spent New Year’s...in Venice.”
“Oh.” Neil blinked.
“I’ve never been there,” I reminded him. “And how long has it been since you’ve even visited it? You’ve got an apartment in Venice, and you’ve been there, like, what? Twice?”
“Once. My honeymoon with Elizabeth,” he said, clearing his throat reflexively at the mention of his ex-wife.
“Then let’s make it like a new honeymoon!” We hadn’t had one with El-Mudad, yet, but there was no reason we couldn’t, just because we weren’t all officially married. Moving in together was pretty much the same when there wasn’t any way we could make our union official. “Wouldn’t it be amazing to go back there? The three of us together?”
“New Year’s tends to be very popular there,” Neil mused. “And I know El-Mudad is fond of the city.”
“Good. That’s settled.” I sighed happily. “He said he sent you a present for me?”
“He did,” Neil confirmed with his half-smile. “But I’m not to give it to you until this evening.”
I clucked my tongue. “Is it a sex thing? It’s a sex thing, isn’t it?”
“Not strictly. But he knows how you are about presents and told me to make you wait as long as I possibly could.” Neil gestured for me to come to him, and I obliged, leaving the dress on the longue. He wrapped his arms around me and leaned down for a kiss. A small moan mewling from my throat as his tongue traced the curve of my lower lip. He grabbed my butt and boosted me up, and I wrapped my legs around his waist. I was just considering telling him to close and lock the door when I heard the slap of bare feet in the hallway. Neil heard it, too, and put me down just as Olivia burst into the room.
“Come on, Sophie! Cake!” She ran to me and grabbed my hand, pulling me toward the door.
“You’re not really going to hide in here from my mom, are you?” I asked Neil as Olivia dragged me along.
“Cake, Afi! Cake!” Olivia urged him, with a passion for sweets that only a toddler could summon. “Let’s go!”
He sighed. “All right. I’ll go. But Rebecca has to be nice to me.”
I turned and glanced down. “Maybe...go put on some real pants.”
* * * *
Because my birthday fell on a weekday—and because I so was not into the idea of an opulent celebration to remind me of my fading youth—the only plans we’d made had been for a quiet dinner at home with some of my friends.
“We can’t make it.”
I frowned at the phone on the counter and almost burned myself unwinding my hair from the curling rod. “Why not?”
“Teething.” My best friend Holli and her partner, Deja, had welcomed a gorgeous baby back in April, but that gorgeous baby always seemed to be a shrieking hellspawn of snot and fevers these days. Occasionally, I wondered if they used Piett—so named for the admiral, due to Deja’s total Star Wars nerdery as much as for gender neutrality—as an excuse to not see me. It had been weeks.
Of course, just thinking that made me feel guilty. We had a full-time nanny, but we usually took care of Olivia when she was miserably ill. I’d canceled plans because of her more than once as a result.
“That sucks.” I was so glad we were past that nonsense with Olivia. “I’ll miss you guys. You know you’re always welcome to bring zir.”
“And dump zir on your nanny?” Holli said dryly.
“We’re not monsters. We’d call the agency and get another sitter.”
Holli sighed. “Thanks, but zie’s so miserable. It just wouldn’t feel fair. And it’s such a long car ride.”
I would have offered the helicopter, but I didn’t want to be too pushy. “I’ll miss you. But take care of that baby.”
“Nah, I thought I’d leave zir on the side of the road.” Holli sighed. “I really am sorry.”
“Don’t be!” I forced some cheer into my tone. “It’s not a big deal.”
“It’s your thirtieth birthday,” she protested. Just when I’d thought we’d had enough arguments over my lack of party, she launched into another. “I can’t believe we aren’t doing anything to celebrate it.”
“I am doing something. I’m having a perfectly lovely dinn
er with my family.” And my husband’s best friend. So...basically, we were having a regular old dinner with one of our occasional, ordinary guests.
I glanced at the clock. Yeah, five-thirty on the day of was the wrong time to decide I wanted to overhaul my plans and have some epic birthday blowout.
“Anyway,” I continued, “Aren’t you happier that you’re not missing out on an awesome rager?”
She scoffed. “Please, we haven’t had a real rager in years. Unless we count your bachelorette party. And even that was tame, by Vegas standards.”
“And Neil’s fiftieth doesn’t really count, does it? It was a little too…” I hated to say the word. “Posh?”
“Yeah, no, I’m talking the old days. I’m talking pushing furniture off the fire escape,” she said wistfully. “And I wasn’t at your husband’s fiftieth. The Dark Time, remember?”
My stomach clenched. Holli and I had been best friends since our second year of college, but a few years ago, we’d had a nearly friendship-ending fight over her wife’s involvement with the competition for one of Neil’s publications. Things had gotten considerably better, though, especially since Neil had retired, and work didn’t take up ninety percent of his life.
“Well, you didn’t really miss anything,” I lied.
“Prince Harry was there,” she responded dryly. “I could be the Duchess of Sussex right now.”
“But you’re the princess of my heart,” I consoled her.
I could hear her eye roll.
“Seriously, though, I’m sorry I’m missing your birthday. I’ll make it up to you by taking you out for dinner somewhere fancy that you pay for,” she said.
I laughed. “I love you. Kiss the baby.”
“Will do.”
We hung up, and I gave myself a second to feel bad before I went to the kitchen, where Neil was already working on dinner. I’d requested my favorite dish that he made, a standing rib roast with a béarnaise sauce that was like something out of a fancy renaissance painting. Even though we had a housekeeper, Neil preferred to cook most of our dinners. It gave him something to do, which was necessary for a guy who’d taken early retirement but still desperately needed to have something stressful going on. He’d always been a good cook, but now that it was a serious hobby, he’d really leveled up.
He pushed some buttons on the oven as I entered. “Now it just needs to rest for two hours…” He checked his watch. “Aha! Timed it just right.”
My mouth watered at the savory aroma coming from the slightly-open oven door. “That smells so good. Are you a witch?”
“No sorcery involved.” He glanced over at me and grinned.
“Holli and Deja aren’t going to make it,” I said with a sigh, joining him at the island. “Teething.”
Neil grimaced in sympathy.
“Yeah.” I leaned over the counter. “So, it looks like tonight is going to be just—”
“You, me, Rudy, Tony, and your mum,” Neil finished, looking up to the ceiling and blowing out a long breath. “Oh, Sophie. I’m so sorry your birthday is turning out this way.”
I traced spirals on the countertop. “It’s okay. Really, I didn’t want to make this a big thing.”
“Thirty is a milestone,” he protested. “It should be a ‘big thing.’ But joyfully. You’re ready to climb into a coffin and pull the dirt on top of yourself.”
“That’s kind of dramatic.” I was getting a little sick of being told how to feel about my own damn birthday. “Besides, it’s just not that important to me to celebrate.”
“It’s important to me. It’s the day you were born. I want to celebrate it because even though I didn’t know it at the time, it was one of the most important days of my life.” He reached for my hand and stroked his thumb along my knuckles. “I know you don’t want anyone to make a fuss over you because you view things differently. But I hope you understand that this day is better than Christmas and Le Mans to me.”
I dipped my head, my cheeks flooding with heat. “You know, it’s really unfair that you can come up with such romantic stuff. I’m totally defenseless.”
He lifted my hand and gave it a kiss, then released me to turn his back to take something from a utensil drawer. I watched him in silence, thinking about the first night we’d spent in this very kitchen, sitting on the hardwood floor and eating supermarket baguette. Neil was terrific at big, romantic gestures, but his ability to turn mundane moments into something wonderful often shocked me most of all.
He faced me again, bracing his hands wide on the edge of the counter and leaning slightly forward. One of his palms pinned a long-handled wooden spoon against the brown marble. He regarded me with a glint of amusement in his eyes for a long moment, the lights above us casting shadows on his face and gilding the silver edges of his hair.
I squeezed my thighs together.
“Come over here.”
My knees trembled a little as I obeyed.
“Bend over the counter.”
I glanced around, an uncertain sound sticking my throat. What if Olivia’s piano lesson wrapped up early and Mariposa brought her to the kitchen for a snack? What if my mom just busted into the house again? What if Julia had forgotten her purse and—
“Sophie, don’t make me ask you twice.” He kept his slow-blinking eyes on me.
I faced the island and leaned down, pressing the side of my face against the cold marble. “I thought I wasn’t going to get my birthday spankings until later.”
“Which is why I will not be giving you the full thirty right now.” He and El-Mudad had apparently been planning my birthday sex for weeks. It had been the only bright spot to look forward to. Neil gave the seat of my jeans a little pat. “Pull them down.”
I reached between the counter and my body and unfastened my fly, then wriggled the pants down my legs. I hoped he hadn’t been expecting something devastatingly sexy beneath; I wouldn’t be wearing anything special until I changed after dinner.
He ran his fingers along the seam where the black cotton brief cupped my bottom. “These, too.”
I complied with a giggle. “Anything else you’d like me to do?”
“I’d like you to keep that smart mouth shut,” he said, and the spoon hit my ass with a loud slap.
I stifled my purr of pleasure and arched my back. He jerked the shoulder of my scoop-neck t-shirt down and palmed my breast, grinding against me briefly before giving me another solid smack with the spoon. He cupped me from behind, two fingers gliding effortlessly into my wet, anticipating cunt. I moaned and rocked against his hand.
“That’s the enthusiasm I want to hear tonight,” he whispered in my ear, his body trapping me against the countertop.
Then he released me, leaving me unsatisfied, on shaking legs with my pants around my knees.
I straightened and fixed my clothes. “Well, I’ll have to change my panties, now.”
He shrugged. “Or, you could skip them all together.”
“Tempting.” Except it wasn’t. The last place I wanted to do sexy, no-underwear things was at a family dinner with my mom.
“Our date tonight is at ten o’clock sharp. We need to be sure to be there on time,” he warned.
“Be there? Are we leaving the property?” I’d thought we’d be spending the night in our secluded recreation Pavillon Français, a ridiculous folly built by the previous owners and refurbished into a tiny palace of depravity by my husband. We never used the space for anything but our games of domination and submission; just stepping through the doors could instantly arouse me.
“No, but we have specific plans.” He kissed me on the nose. “Don’t bother dressing to impress tonight. We’re just going to ruin it.”
My birthday was looking way up.
Chapter Two
When the last of our guests had gone, I quickly changed out of my jeans and sweater and into something a lot less comfortable. Neil had purchased an extravagant corset for me on a trip to Paris, and I hadn’t worn it in a long time.
So long, in fact, that I was a bit concerned about how it would fit. My boobs were definitely more significant than they’d been a few years ago. They strained precariously above the top of the corset, no matter how I fiddled with the lacing. I tried to shimmy them in more securely, then gave up; they’d be out before the end of the night, anyway.
I took a moment to admire myself in the tri-fold mirror in our dressing room. The iridescent peacock feathers embroidered on the brocade shimmered from purple to blue to green. I paired the corset with matching green velvet panties and pulled my dark hair up in a high ponytail so perfect it would have made Ariana Grande expire with jealousy.
“Sophie,” Neil called. “We really do need to go.”
“It isn’t that far of a drive,” I reminded him, stepping into a simple, iridescent black organdy gown with full, gathered straps.
Neil waited for me in the bedroom, still disappointingly in his jeans and button down white shirt with the sleeves rolled back. It wasn’t that didn’t I appreciate his forearms—oh, did I ever appreciate his forearms—but I’d hoped that he would get a little more spiffed up for my birthday.
“You look fantastic,” he said, giving me a slow, appreciative survey from the top of my head to my forest green velvet Manolo pumps.
At least, he’d gotten us a spiffed-up ride. I was rarely impressed with Neil’s supercars, but the Aston Martin Vanquish that waited for us beneath the porte-cochere took my breath away. I hardly ever remembered the names of the particular models, so that spoke very highly of the gleaming silver and sleek lines. It was the automobile equivalent of a gray silk nightgown, and very sexy.
Neil held the passenger-side door for me while I demurely folded my legs in. “I take it you’re concealing a surprise?”
“Not a surprise, no.” I waited for him to get into the driver’s seat to add, “I mean, it’s my birthday. You’re supposed to be surprising me.”
The Boyfriend Page 2
