by Jewel, Bella
“On paper yes, but I filed a month ago, I’m just waiting on the signed paperwork to be returned.”
My heart. My heart. It skipped the gallop, threw its rider, bucked off the saddle, broke free from its reins, and bolted. The pain this pace caused in my chest took my breath away.
Married.
He is married.
And I’m just like her.
Chapter 12
“You’re married? You have a wife?”
She was taking deep breaths as she tried to lift herself up and out of my lap. I gripped her hips and kept her in place.
“No. Let me go.” She struggled as I held on to her.
“Sit still, lemme explain, Sarah.”
I wasn’t letting her go. Not now. Not ever. Her shoulders slumped, and she stopped struggling. I kept my palms splayed over each of her hips, brushing my thumbs gently over her soft skin. I did it to calm myself, as well as her.
“We separated two years ago, but our businesses were merged. My family owns a development company, hers owns land. Hers own mines that need engineers, we have a recruitment agency.”
I watched her wide eyes search my face and her chest rise and fall with the deep breaths she was taking.
“It was business. The business side of things will make a divorce complicated, and I put it off. It was wrong.”
I spoke quickly, trying to explain. Trying to get my point across but knowing all the while that I’d fucked things up. I should’ve been upfront. I should’ve told her sooner. I definitely shouldn’t have told her straight after making her orgasm for the second time.
“She’s not my wife, Sarah.”
She shook her head again.
“Did you marry her?”
“Yes, I married her.”
She nodded her head this time.
“Did you divorce her?” A sob escaping as she spoke. Her face crumbled as she waited for my answer. I fucking hated myself for doing that to her. I should’ve just been honest, or better still, I should’ve stayed the fuck away. But still, I pled my case anyway.
“I’m divorcing her now. I’ve filed. She’s not my wife.”
“You should’ve told me, Liam. You have a wife. You should’ve told me.” She cried as she spoke.
I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her tightly against me. Her arms hung limp at her sides and she cried like she did on our first date.
“I should’ve told you. You’re right. I should’ve told you sooner, but it’s over Sarah. It’s been over for two years, before then even. She’s had the divorce papers for almost five weeks. I’m waiting to hear from her lawyers any day now.”
Her shoulders shook. I thought she was still crying, but she pulled back and looked at me while drawing in deep breaths.
I’d fucked up and totally underestimated her reaction to my news. I needed to make it clear to her that Olivia and I were done, our marriage over. I needed to reassure Sarah that everything that had happened between me and her was real. My head and my chest both felt like they would explode from the panic caused at the thought of losing her over this.
“You won’t go back to her?”
“No. No. It was wrong, I was wrong to marry her in the first place. I never loved her.” That made me sound like a complete arsehole.
“I don’t mean I never loved her, I mean . . .”
Fuck. Everything was coming out wrong.
“Lemme explain.”
“What’s her name?”
“What?”
“Your wife, what’s her name?”
I let out a long breath. I’d spiralled from cloud nine to the deepest depths of the darkest ocean in a matter of minutes.
“Sarah, please.”
“What?”
“Don’t call her that.”
“Don’t call her your wife? What should I call her then Liam? That woman you married? They both mean exactly the same in my book.” Her voice rose with every word.
Okay, she wanted to know. I’d tell her. I’d tell her all of it and let her see me for the arsehole that I was. At least then she’d know the type of person she was getting involved with.
“Olivia. Her name’s Olivia. Our fathers are best friends but were competitors when it came to business. Her dad had no sons, my dad had me. Our lives were planned from the time we were kids. I loved her like a sister at first, but they wanted us married. Hormones came into play when we were teenagers and emotions got involved once we had sex. I was her first.”
She closed her eyes and tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Was she yours?” I closed my eyes and tilted my face to the ceiling. Why the fuck did she ask that? Why did she do that to herself? She let out a little whimper even before I answered.
“Yes, we were each other’s firsts. I was her one and only for a long time, but I didn’t commit to her the way she deserved, the way she thought I would. Her family are strict Italian Catholics. She wasn’t really allowed out much during high school. My parents divorced when I was six, I lived mainly with my mum, but because I had two older sisters and was a boy, my mum was a little more relaxed with me.
“I was a boy. Just a normal teenage boy. My only interests were sports, sex, and food. I grew up in a beach town where there were parties every weekend. I was allowed to go to them. Olivia wasn’t.” I puffed out my cheeks and blew out air while considering how to word what I was gonna say next without sounding like a total prick.
“I was young. I was a dick. I was fucking Olivia and anything else female that had a pulse and was willing. She just accepted it so I just kept doing it. I had no intention of marrying her, but then my dad had his first heart attack and wanted to slow down. He wanted to start making plans to hand the business over to me once I’d finished uni. I wanted to travel. By that point, he’d remarried and had two more boys, they were much younger than me at this stage, so he threatened to leave the businesses in trust for them if I didn’t marry Olivia. So we made a deal. I would marry her, but I still wanted to travel for a while. All I wanted to do was make him happy. I didn’t want him to stress about the future of the business he’d spent so much of his life building up. It’d cost him two marriages; I didn’t want it to cost him his life too. But I also needed time to be me, so this worked for both of us.”
We sat silently for a few long moments. Sarah tilted her head down, resting it on my shoulder, her arms still resting at her sides. I brushed my fingertips from the tops of her thighs to her knee and back up her again, acutely aware of the fact that she was naked underneath the T-shirt of mine she was wearing.
“I spent two years overseas, and when I got back he turned the business over to me, and I married Olivia.”
I let out a long breath as I remembered the heated arguments I’d had on the phone with my dad about me coming back home. In the end, I just stopped calling.
“I was twenty-four when I got back, I managed to put the wedding off for another year, but my dad had another heart attack, and I knew it was time to step up and fulfil my part of the bargain. We stayed married and together for just under two years, we’ve now been separated for two years. We’ve actually been apart for longer than we were together.”
I’d watched her the whole time I was talking, trying to gauge her reaction as I spoke.
“How’s your dad now?”
See, that was why I was in so much trouble. That was why it was going to be so easy to fall in love with this girl. I’d just confessed to being married, and her first concern was for my dad.
“Dad’s doing okay. He had to have a bypass, which gave him a new lease of life and enough energy to move on to wife number three.”
Her eyebrows shot up at that piece of information. Maybe I should’ve left it out, the last thing I wanted was her thinking I was anything like my old man.
“And he’s not pushing you to stay married?”
“No. We talked after I caught Olivia in bed with Seb Markham. I admitted that neither of us had been faithful during our marriage, that it wasn’t working, an
d that there was no way I would ever consider having children with Olivia.”
She nodded her head but kept her eyes fixed on something just over my shoulder. I was blown away by how calm she was being about all that I was admitting to her.
“And you think it’s gonna get complicated? Will you have to go back? For the divorce I mean.”
She finally looked up and made eye contact as she spoke, hope bloomed in my belly that she would accept my explanation and excuses regarding my marriage.
“I hope not,” I told her honestly. “I hope the lawyers can deal with it all in my absence.”
I watched as she raked her teeth over her bottom lip while thinking about my reply.
“I’d like to go back one day and take you with me if that’s something you’d like to do?”
She stilled for a moment, her blue eyes widening.
“To Australia?”
“Nah, to New South Austria. Yeah Australia. Would you fancy that?”
She smiled, not enough to flash her dimple but a smile nonetheless.
“I’d love to go there,” she said quietly. “But please don’t lie to me again. If you had just told me about your wife in the beginning . . .”
“What? If I’d told you in the beginning that I was separated, waiting on a divorce, what? Would you have still gone out with me?”
She tilted her head to the side, considering my question.
“No, probably not.”
“Well that’s exactly my point. I wanted to see you again, I wanted to take you out and get to know you.”
“But you should’ve told me sooner, maybe not straight away, but it’s been a month since we started seeing each, Liam. You should’ve been honest and given me the choice as to whether I wanted to see you again.”
“I know. I fucked up, and I’m sorry. What can I do, how do I make this better?”
“Just be honest with me. And don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Sounds simple enough, but will you answer a few questions for me just so I have things clear in my head?”
“Go for it.”
“You and Luke . . .”
Her eyebrows shot up, I think I’d surprised her with the direction I’d taken the conversation.
“Do you have the same dad?”
She licked her lips and nodded her head very slightly.
“Yeah.” She pushed out a slow breath, her eyelids fluttered closed for a long second before she spoke again. “My mum got pregnant with Luke when she was really young, just sixteen in fact. Vinnie, our dad, was eighteen. He moved in with my grandparents, and they tried to make a go of things, but Vinnie didn’t wanna stop doing the things that eighteen-year-old boys do and was rarely home.”
She was quiet for a while, and I watched her chew on the inside of her lip.
“From what I’ve been told, they loved each other passionately but were toxic together. He’d stay out all night, they’d fight for hours when he eventually came home, and then they’d spend three days in bed making up. They eventually moved out from my grandparents’ and into their own place, but they just couldn’t make things work. They separated, he met someone else and married her really quickly. At some later stage, he and my mother started an affair, which went on for years.”
She looked down between us. I watched as tears splashed onto her T-shirt . . . My T-shirt. I lifted her chin, forcing her to meet my gaze.
“It went on for years, but he still had two more children with his wife, all the while he promised my mum that he would leave and move back in with her. He didn’t, and when she eventually told him she was pregnant with me, he left for good.” Her bottom lip quivered, and she looked so young and broken that I couldn’t hold back from pulling her in tight against me.
“Not just us. He didn’t just leave Luke and me, he left his wife and their children too. He never even stayed around to meet me, Liam. I’ve never met my own father.” She cried into my chest. I stroked up and down her spine, understanding a little better her reaction to my telling her about Olivia. I felt like a complete arsehole. Again.
She swiped the back of her hands over each eye, but tears still hung from her lashes as she looked back up at me.
“My mum spiralled down into depression after that, becoming even worse after I was born. Social workers were involved, but she fought for us, got on medication, promised to do better. We were her last and only connection to him, she was never gonna give that up. My nan says that my mum was convinced he would return after I was born, but he never did. Her depression worsened, Luke pretty much looked after me the first three years of my life, then the car accident happened, and we finally went to live with our grandparents.”
I had no clue what to say. I had absolutely no concept of what she and Luke had gone through. My parents were divorced, but it was drama free, at least in front of us three kids, and we’d all come out of it relatively unscathed.
“So,” she gave a small smile, which didn’t reach her watery eyes, “now you know why I’m so fucked up.”
I hated that she thought that about herself. Hated that she thought that I thought that about her.
“You’re not fucked up, pretty girl. You just need to learn to trust and understand that not everyone is like your dad.”
“I’m more worried about being like my mum,” she said quietly.
“You’re not like your mum, you’re stronger.”
“I don’t think I am.”
“Would you spend the next few years waiting for me to divorce Olivia? Would you have me back if I went back to her?”
“No.” There wasn’t an ounce of hesitation in that single word.
“Exactly. That’s because you’re stronger than your mother was. You’re not like her, bub. You’ll never be like her. You’ll never have to be like her because I would never do that to you.”
“Promise?”
“Sarah . . .” I said her name on an exhale. “I’ve known Olivia since she was born. I’ve known you for a month. Just four weeks and I’m falling fast, you’ve gotta know this.”
She shrugged as her cheeks turned pink.
“This move wasn’t supposed to be permanent.” Her brows drew down into a frown, and her mouth dropped open, but I don’t give her chance to speak.
“But you’ve changed that for me. In an instant, you changed all of that. Right now, I’m exactly where I wanna be, wherever you are, is where I wanna be, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.” I drew in a deep breath. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner that I wasn’t divorced yet, I really am, but now you know, and I just wanna move forward. We need to come clean to your brother and go public. I want the world to know that we’re together, Sarah. We might have to put up with a bit of shit from Luke at first, I get that. You’re his little sister, there’s an eight-year age difference between us, and he knows that I’ve not divorced Olivia yet, so yeah, he’s not gonna be too pleased with me, but so what?” My eyes searched her face as I tried to convey the honesty in my words.
“I’ll cop it on the chin because I think we’re worth it. What we’ve got is worth dealing with a pissed off Luke for.”
She smiled, and I finally got to see her dimple.
“Please don’t let me down, Liam.”
Jesus, her request felt like my chest had been cracked wide open and layers flayed from my heart.
I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her as tightly to me as I could. No space between us.
“I’d never do that, pretty girl.”
“You won’t leave me and go back to her?”
“Never.”
“You promise?”
“I promise, Sarah.”
I kissed her neck and her jaw. Then I found her lips, and I kissed them too. I pulled my T-shirt off over her head and moved us so that she was underneath me and naked.
“I want you again, but I don’t wanna make you sore.”
“I’m good,” she replied.
“You su
re?”
“Positive.”
“I think I need to investigate.”
“I do too.”
I kissed my way down her beautiful little body.
“Oh. I. Liam?” I looked up from between her legs and met her gaze.
“You doing okay, bub?
“I’ve never . . .” She pushed herself up on her elbows and looked down her body at me. “No one’s ever done that to me . . . for me, before.”
Her cheeks, neck, and chest were pink, I gently bit down on the inside of her thigh, before swiping my tongue over her clit. She groaned and I swear I felt the vibration travel through the bed and straight to my balls.
“Done what, this?”
I swiped my tongue from her clit to her arse and back again.
“Oh. No, yes, yes. That. That right there. Yes.”
Her fingernails dug into my scalp, her heels into my shoulders. I had one hand splayed on her belly to hold her still, and the other was slid under her arse cheek, slightly lifting her at an angle.
“You seemed to like it in the shower when I had a little taste. You still like it now?”
I repeated the swipe of my tongue, only this time I flicked it over her clit a few times. She nearly left the bed and hit the ceiling. I struggled to keep the smile from my face, and in the end, just went with it. I had my face buried between Sarah Carter's legs, my tongue was licking her pussy, my lips were on her clit, why the fuck wouldn’t I smile?
“Yes. Yes. Oh my G yes. I still definitely, ah, like it now.”
I looked up the bed to where she now lay flat on her back, one arm bent and covering her face.
“Good. I’m glad you like it. Hold tight, baby, I’m about to blow your mind.”
I slid my hand out from under her arse cheek and pushed three fingers inside her. I alternated the pressure on her clit from my thumb with licks, sucks, and bites from my mouth. She was wet, so fucking wet that when I slid my little finger into her arse, I knew that all she’d feel would be absolute pleasure.
Her muscles contracted around my fingers in the most delicious way. Her whole body trembled and twitched. I fucking loved the way she orgasmed. It was a total body experience, every part of her responded to what I was doing to her, and it turned me on to the point of madness.
