Beautiful Illusions Duet Bundle: Eighty-One Nights and Beautiful Ever After

by Georgia Cates

  Lou’s back arches off of the bed and her body quakes. I feel those barely there quivers against my tongue and then the sweet and salty taste of her orgasm hits my tongue. Lou’s sex nectar. I’ve never tasted anything like it.

  Her body relaxes and her breathing slows. I place a final kiss against her slit and crawl up her body. Lying on top of her, I cradle her face with my palms and shower her mouth with kisses. “What do you want now?”

  She bites my bottom lip and tugs on it. “Fuck me.”

  Don’t have to ask me twice.

  I pull away and reach into the drawer of my nightstand for a condom. I bite the corner of the foil square and rip it open. “Talk dirty. Tell me all of the filthy things you want while I put this on.”

  “I want to get on my hands and knees and scream into the pillow while you fuck me hard and fast from behind.”

  It’s like she’s reading my damn mind.

  I grip Lou’s hips and flip her over facedown on the bed. I wrap my arm around her waist and lift, raising her bum into the air. She gasps when I drive into her in one quick motion, burying myself bollocks deep inside of her. I pull back and thrust into her again, harder each time, over and over. I don’t stop even when she screams my name into the pillow.

  Groaning. Trembling. Ecstasy. My body is overtaken by all three when I find my release.

  Lou is good at this. Very good. And I don’t just mean the sex. She makes this—the girlfriend experience—feel real.

  13

  Caitriona Louden

  Hutch collapses beside me on the bed. He pushes his thick, muscular leg beneath mine and forces my thigh to hitch across his legs. He always touches me in one way or another after sex. I’m surprised by how much I like the physical contact. I’m not a touchy-feely kind of person, but it feels different with him. I like it when he touches me.

  “What time is it?” he whispers and lifts his head, looking over at the bedside clock. “Almost ten.”

  Hutch kisses the side of my face and strains to sit up. “As much as I’d love to lie here naked with you for the rest of the night, we need to get up and get dressed. You have someone to meet.”

  This late? And right after he’s just fucked my face into the bed?

  My heart takes off in a gallop and I reach up to smooth my hair. “I need to freshen up, so I don’t look so… freshly fucked.”

  “You look beautiful.”

  He doesn’t understand. I would sooner die than meet a woman from his life and have her know that we just fucked. “I’m sure that I look like I’ve been ridden hard. Give me a minute.”

  I redress and mentally scold myself for allowing Hutch to toss my dress on the floor. I knew that I was meeting someone. I should have taken more care to not wrinkle it.

  I smooth my hair and apply a fresh coat of red lipstick. “Do I look all right?”

  “You look much better than all right, Lou.”

  “I don’t want to embarrass you by looking a mess.”

  “You could never embarrass me. And you’re going to see that all of this fuss is unnecessary.”

  I run my hands down my dress. “All right. I’m as ready as I’m going to be.”

  I follow Hutch out of his bedroom, and he leads me up a staircase. We haven’t visited the floor above, not even when he gave me the house tour. His house is enormous, and in all honesty, I didn’t realize that we had skipped it.

  We stop at a closed door and Hutch turns the knob, opening the door slowly. I’m taken aback when I see a middle-aged woman sitting in a glider chair, reading a book.

  “Mr. Hutcheson?” If I couldn’t make out the surprise on her face, I would hear it in her voice.

  “Good evening, Mrs. McVey.”

  “I would have kept the lassie awake if I had known that you were coming to see her.”

  The lassie?

  It’s in this moment that I take notice of my surroundings: pale pink walls, rose gold and metallic gold froufrou decor, white furniture.

  Baby crib.

  “It’s fine. We won’t be long.”

  “I’ll step out and give you some time alone with her. I’ll just be in my room next door. Let me know if you need anything.”

  I walk over to the crib after the woman is gone and see a sleeping baby girl, her thumb in her mouth. And I don’t know what to make of it.

  Hutch approaches, standing beside me at the crib. “This is Ava Rose.” He pauses a second. “Hutcheson.”

  “You told me that you didn’t have children.” And I believed you. What else have you lied about?

  “Ava Rose isn’t mine. She’s my deceased wife’s daughter.”

  She’s an infant. Not an older child from a previous marriage. This doesn’t make sense to me.

  “When we met, you told me that you wanted to be transparent with me. This doesn’t feel like transparency to me.”

  “That’s a fair point, but please give me a moment before you jump to conclusions. I’ll explain everything.”

  Rachel has told me that I’m judgy and she’s right. That’s what I’m doing right now, but I can’t help it. Trusting people has made me the cynic that I am today.

  I’m judgmental because I’ve been betrayed. I’m suspicious because I’ve been played. I’m emotionally unavailable because I’m afraid. And I’m unapologetic about it. Why shouldn’t I be? No one ever apologized for making me this way.

  “No one knows what I’m about to tell you with the exception of my best mate, Brady. This is a secret that must remain undisclosed.”

  “All right.”

  “Swear to me. Swear that you’ll keep my secret.”

  “I swear.”

  Hutch looks at the sleeping baby. “I’ve never wanted children. I’m missing the gene that drives a man to want to father a child. Mina knew this before we married, and she told me that it was fine. She said that she didn’t need children to be happy with me.”

  I’ve always known that I wanted children. The decision to not have children is something that I don’t understand, but I don’t have to understand it to be able to respect his decision.

  “We were married for a few years when she told me that she wanted to have a baby. For me, nothing had changed. I still didn’t want to be a father, but sometime during the early years of our marriage, she changed her mind. And with Mina being Mina, she thought that her feelings were the only ones that mattered.”

  Mina sounds like so many people in my life who couldn’t care less about who they hurt in the process of getting what they want.

  “A year passed, and she didn’t bring it up again. I thought that it was behind us, and she was over it.” Hutch chuckles but it’s not an amused kind of laughter. “She wasn’t even close to being over it.”

  Hutch pauses and grips the railing of the crib.

  “I don’t know when she stopped taking her birth control pills. I only know that she tried to trick me into getting her pregnant. When it didn’t happen, she went to a doctor who started her on fertility medication.”

  Hutch makes that same bitter chuckle again.

  “I was picking up a prescription at the pharmacy. The man behind the counter told me that Mina had a prescription ready for pickup if I wanted to get it and save my wife a trip. I paid for both but didn’t look at Mina’s until I got into the car. It was a fertility drug.”

  Mina was trying to get pregnant, even taking fertility drugs, and didn’t get pregnant by Hutch. But she did get pregnant by someone else. Does that mean Hutch is sterile? It sounds as though that could be the case. Maybe that’s part of why it’s so ingrained within him to not want children.

  “I was trying my damnedest to get over her deception, but our marriage was crumbling right before my eyes. The trust was gone. I couldn’t even think about having sex with her for fear of being tricked into a baby. That’s when I knew that it was over. I was planning to ask Mina for a divorce, but she got into the car accident before I was able to do it.”

  Mina was killed in that car a
ccident. There are some big missing pieces to this story.

  “Mina was declared brain-dead, but her family couldn’t accept the prognosis. They had it in their heads that she was going to miraculously wake up and be fine. No one could fault them for having hope, and I knew that with time, they would see the reality of the situation. And while I was waiting for them to accept what had to be done, the doctors discovered that Mina was pregnant.”

  Oh my God.

  “Our friends and family didn’t know that Mina and I were on the verge of divorce. They assumed that Ava Rose was my daughter.”

  There’s one twist after another to this story. I can see why Hutch didn’t go into this the night that we met. It’s too much to take in one sitting.

  “What was I to do, Lou? At what point should I have told our grieving friends and family that Mina had betrayed me and the bairn inside of her wasn’t mine?”

  What a winless situation.

  “Everyone was thrilled about the baby, even my own parents and siblings. They all kept calling it a miracle, a piece of Mina that I would always carry with me. I couldn’t bring myself to tell them the truth. It would have broken their hearts.”

  Hutch stayed silent, allowing the people within their lives to have this last bit of happiness, instead of speaking the truth. “That must have been brutal for you.”

  “I’ve never endured a more difficult situation in my entire life.”

  And so here he is. The woman that he was going to divorce is dead, and he’s left to care for a baby that he never wanted. A baby who was fathered by another man.

  “Who is her father?”

  “That may be the worst part of the story. I don’t know.”

  “You don’t have a suspicion?”

  He shakes his head. “She was clever in covering her tracks.”

  All of this must be a kick in the balls for him. “It’s okay to be angry about this. It doesn’t make you a bad person.”

  “Mina’s recklessness has changed my life forever. Angry doesn’t begin to cover it.” Hutch looks at the baby. “I don’t know how to be a father to her.”

  “I think that all new parents need time to adjust.”

  “Time isn’t going to fix what’s wrong with me. I’m not cut out to be a father.” He sinks his hands into the top of his hair and fists it. “Fuck, you must think that I’m horrible.”

  “I don’t think you’re horrible, Hutch. You’re just a man who was thrown into a situation that he wasn’t prepared for and doesn’t know how to deal with it.”

  “I make sure that she’s taken care of. She has four well-trained nannies who give her the best of care.”

  “I’m sure that her nannies are wonderful, but children shouldn’t be raised by staff members.”

  “Maybe I’d feel differently if she were mine.”

  My mother and father made me and look at where that got me. “Biology means nothing. Love means everything. The rest will fall into place.”

  “And what if it doesn’t? She’s already three months old.”

  “She is going to know you as her father, and trust me, she is going to want your love. The way that you treat this little girl will affect her for the rest of her life. It will mold her into the woman she becomes. It’s a very serious responsibility. If you can’t love her, then you should tell everyone the truth and give her to someone who can love her.”

  “I’m going to do better. I have to do better—for her.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “You don’t know how much I needed this talk. I have no one that I can say these things to.”

  “I hope that I’ve been helpful.”

  “You’re making me think about so many things that I’ve not considered. I need you to keep encouraging me, Lou. I need it so badly.”

  I reach down and stroke Ava Rose’s cheek when she stirs. “I’d like to spend time with her if it’s all right.”

  “Aye, spend as much time with her as you like.”

  Maxwell Hutcheson. I don’t know what to make of him.

  This man has many layers. And I look forward to peeling back each one and seeing what’s beneath.

  14

  Maxwell Hutcheson

  If given the choice, I would choose an arse beating over enduring the company of my in-laws. But I must push through until it’s over. And until the next time.

  I’ve tolerated these people for years on account of Mina. And now I must tolerate them further because Lundy and Thomas are Ava Rose’s grandparents. Elsie, Beth, and Blair are her aunts. They are her real family. Her blood. Her clan.

  Not me.

  “Has the pediatrician told you when to introduce solids?”

  Solids? There’s a slight delay in my brain as I consider what Elsie is talking about. And then it clicks.

  “He said that we’d talk about that at the next visit.” Lie.

  “The pediatrician is a she. You said he,” Elsie says.

  “Right.”

  I don’t take Ava Rose to her checkups. I don’t make decisions about her diet. I get a weekly report from Mrs. McVey concerning her health and well-being. As long as her nanny tells me that she’s healthy, I don’t ask questions.

  “Mina was allergic to eggs, so you should be careful when giving those to her.” Elsie rubs her fingers over Ava Rose’s inner wrists. “This looks like a patch of eczema. Have you shown it to the doctor?”

  Eczema. Seems like I remember Mrs. McVey saying that the doctor had diagnosed Ava Rose with a mild case and would be treating her with a cream.

  “Aye, we’re applying a cream on it.”

  “What kind of cream?”

  “I don’t recall the name.”

  “Something over the counter?”

  “Aye.” I have no idea.

  “It doesn’t look as though it’s helping.”

  “We’re going to reevaluate the eczema at her next visit and switch to another cream if the rash hasn’t improved.”

  “You should tell the doctor that you want a prescription steroid. It’s best for eczema.”

  Aye, Elsie. I’m sure that you would tell the doctor how to do her job. You tell everyone what they should be doing. It’s what you do best. You have an opinion on everything.

  “I’ll do that.”

  “You and this wee lassie are lucky to have us.” Elsie adjusts Ava Rose, so they’re face-to-face. “What would you do without us?”

  Oh, I don’t know. Live in peace? Experience tranquility?

  I told myself that I was going to stick it out and stay until nine o’clock, but two hours of judgment and criticism are all that I can tolerate from these bollock busters. I may explode if I have to listen to them for another minute.

  “I’m afraid that Ava Rose and I must be going. I have an early meeting in the morning.” Another lie.

  Blair gets up and takes Ava Rose from Elsie. “You can’t leave yet. We haven’t even cut the cake.”

  I need Thomas’s help on this one. “I’m meeting with Nichols in the morning. I have some things that I need to prepare.”

  “Dad, tell Max that family is more important than business,” Blair says.

  Come on, Thomas. Don’t fail me now. Choose business over family. You always do.

  “Well, I think you can stay long enough for cake. Your preparations will hold a wee bit longer.”

  Fuck. I have worked for this man for ten years, and he has ridden my arse every single one of those days. Always demanding more out of me at the firm. Always forcing me to choose my work over my personal life. He’s never chosen family over business a day in his life and he picks now to be a family man?

  Un-fucking-believable.

  “Blair called you about the party on Saturday. You should have prepared for the meeting before now,” Beth says. And they’re the first words that she’s said to me in months. She has been especially bitter toward me since Mina’s death.

  “Max works hard at the firm. Don’t use that as a weapon against him.” Blair says
.

  The fuck? Blair is defending me?

  “Right. He has plenty of time to work but never time for family. No time to bring Ava Rose to see us.”

  It’s just like Beth to not see that the door swings both ways. “I don’t keep Ava Rose from you. You’re welcome to come and see her anytime you like. You know that.” But you don’t because you are too busy. And the effort to do something for someone other than yourself would kill you.

  “Mina would have brought her to see us.”

  I’m not so sure about that. Mina was always tied up doing Mina things.

  “It’s a terrible tragedy that she isn’t here to bring Ava Rose to visit.”

  “And whose fault is that?” Beth says, her words forced through clenched teeth.

  And here we go again. I killed Mina because I pulled the plug. “Mina wasn’t going to come out of the coma. You know that.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about.”

  “Then what are you talking about?”

  “She wouldn’t have gone away that weekend if you hadn’t been obsessed with work and your own personal success. She’d have been home instead.” Beth glares at me. “You should have been a better husband to her.”

  And Mina should have been a better wife to me. A wife who didn’t try to trick me into a child. A wife who didn’t cheat on me. A wife who didn’t get pregnant by another man.

  There are so many ways that I could respond to Beth’s claim. And I want to. Believe me, I want to. I’d love for these people to know everything that Mina did and finally understand that I’m not the bad guy here.

  Beth’s husband wraps his arm around her shoulder. “This isn’t the time or place.”

  She wipes the tears away from her eyes and cheeks. “You’re right. This is Mum’s birthday party. It should be a happy occasion for her. Shall we sing happy birthday and cut the cake?”

  Blair lowers her voice, “Please stay, Max. Don’t leave on account of Beth’s outburst.”

  “We’ll stay long enough for cake.”

  What should only take fifteen minutes or so turns into another hour. And while I sit there, an idea occurs to me. They want to spend more time with Ava Rose? I’m going to give that to them in a way that doesn’t include me.