She tilts her head rather than nods and I can see I’ve offended her once more. She seems protective of him. She must have pride in their work together. I have no desire to muddy that up.
“He has become a part of our crowd, you know?” I say. “So, I’m allowed to take the piss.”
This seems to have the effect I wanted. She relaxes into a smile and gives me a nod.
“Listen, don’t take this the wrong way, but I really hope I don’t hear from you.”
Now she laughs. “I hope I don’t need to get in touch, either.”
16
Felicity
The bit of independence I found in my two sessions with Amelia have made me realize I need to allow myself more of that. Being housebound with the babies has been both wonderful and difficult. I am a mother, but I also need to take care of myself, and part of that means having some time away.
It’s with this in mind that I tell Conor I need him to watch the babies while Sophie and I go out for a drink and dinner.
“Em, I was going to go back to the studio,” he says.
He had come home unexpectedly again and I suspect he was trying to check up on me. Our visit earlier at the studio hadn’t ended with any clear resolution, leaving us in an uneasy spot. It’s clear he doesn’t want to continue discussing how he thinks I’m pushing him away, but rather, would like to simply bypass it all together. He’d be happy to ignore the whole thing as long as I signal to him that all is well again.
I’d normally dig into the issue to find some resolution, but I’m not ready to right now. I’m more focused on repairing the damage I did to another relationship. I called Sophie when I got home from the studio and suggested that just us girls go out, and she quickly agreed.
Now I’m in the en suite of our bedroom, the door open and Conor watching me as I get ready. I’ve made a big effort to look put together—showering, carefully drying my shoulder-length auburn hair, and dressing in jeans fresh from the wash that cling to me. The peacock-blue silk blouse I’ve got on makes my eyes pop, and the black YSL high heels I wear give me height. I’ve done my makeup for the first time in I don’t know how long, and I feel good.
Glancing over at Conor where he’s seated on the side of the bed, I can tell he likes what he sees, too.
“All this for Sophie, then?” he asks as I join him.
“Just trying to look halfway human for once.”
He stands and eyes me lustfully. “You look much more than that, honey.”
“Oh really?” I ask. I’m fishing for a compliment and curious how he will respond.
“Yes. In fact,” he says and wraps his arm around my waist, pulling me to him, “you look incredibly fuckable.”
That was a very good response. I smile and feel a tingle. My long-dormant desire has suddenly showed itself. I wonder if it’s because of his forceful tone. He’s been so sweet and patient with me that I’ve almost forgotten the way he could take command.
I wrap my arm around his neck and look up at him. “And what would you like to do about that?”
He leans to me and gives me a lingering kiss that brings me to my tiptoes as I yearn for more. But then he pulls away and kisses my neck just below my ear before whispering an answer to my question.
“What I’d like to do is peel those jeans off and eat your pussy until your thighs shake against my face.”
“Oh,” I say, the word escaping as a soft sigh.
I’m ready to take advantage of this moment where we are both—finally—wanting each other at the same time. I’m also aware that connecting physically would go a long way toward improving our relationship. It also just might keep him from drooling too much over Lizzy who is downstairs with the babies.
I run my hand down his abdomen, over the waistband of his jeans, and to his crotch where I find him ready to finish what we started in the shower the other day. He’s hard and thick and hot against my grasp.
“Fuck yes,” he moans.
There’s a quick double tap at our bedroom door but neither of us reacts to it. Until it opens.
Lizzy pokes her head in, sees the intimate way we’re positioned and retreats behind the open door.
“So sorry,” she says. She clears her throat. “Sophie is here for you, Felicity.”
When I hear the click of the door closing, I release the grip I had on Conor and lean my forehead into his chest.
“There’s time,” he says and pulls me into a kiss.
“I should—”
“Fee, we can still—”
I shake my head with a weak smile. “When I get back? The anticipation will be worth it,” I say.
“I’ve had months of anticipation. We can make this quick. Please.”
I’m mortified. I’ve made Conor Quinn beg for sex. I can see in his face that he’s not happy about it either. Before I can think of how to make this situation better, he turns away. He’s found his limit.
“Go ahead,” he says. “Sophie’s waiting.”
“Conor—”
“Is Lizzy staying for a bit? I’ll need to call Gav and the guys to say I can’t make it.”
“Em, yes, she said she can stay to help get you settled with the little ones but has plans later.”
He nods. I watch as he rubs his bottom lip and gets lost in thought.
“Sweetheart, I . . .”
I’m at a loss for how to make this better and he doesn’t step in to help me.
“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” I continue, changing the topic, “but call me if you need to and I’ll cut things short with Sophie.”
Conjuring up one of his confident smiles, he winks at me. “I’ll be grand. You go ahead and have a good time.”
17
“So, Lizzy’s back?” Sophie asks.
She’s waited to say anything until we are seated at a table in the back corner of a lively shared-plates style restaurant, each of us with a gin-based specialty cocktail as a starter.
“Yes. We thought having her come back would give us a little more flexibility. You know, to do things like this,” I say and raise my glass in the gesture of a toast.
Sophie smiles and raises her glass in return and we both take a sip. I sense her hesitating to say more and I scramble to think what I’ve told her before about Lizzy. What I may have told her about my mixed feelings over the young woman who has clearly caught Conor’s eye. Have I told her before that it makes me uneasy to allow this beautiful young woman access to my sex-starved husband? And now I worry that I’ve just set up the worst-case scenario, having left those two together after I worked him up into unresolved desire. I’ve left him with the hot nanny. It’s actually quite funny, the thought of that scenario. Such a cliché.
“He won’t do anything.”
Blinking, I focus on Sophie. She’s looking at me with compassion, urging me to believe what she’s said. And I realize I said out loud the last part of what I thought was only racing through my mind. What happened to the clarity I was feeling after seeing Amelia just this morning?
“And if you’re really concerned, I can help you find another au pair,” she continues. “Someone older, maybe?”
“Oh, em, no, I know he wouldn’t,” I say.
“Right. We both know Conor is one of the good ones.”
“Right.” I take a long sip of my juniper and mint-infused cocktail, savoring the bright flavor. This is the first alcohol I’ve had since before I became pregnant. I’ll have to pump and dump later, but I’ve taken a cue from Amelia’s unabashed indulgence at the donut shop and decided this is another bit of freedom I should give myself.
“This tastes amazing, doesn’t it?”
I look up to find Sophie grinning at me. I smile back, and we share a moment of silent connection. Us sharing in this simple thing reminds me why we are such good friends. She’s been there for me ever since I returned to Dublin, and especially during my pregnancy and these early days of motherhood, even as she’s expanded her own family.
“Thanks f
or coming out tonight,” I tell her.
“I’m glad you called. It was well-timed. The kids were especially exhausting today.”
“Really?”
She laughs at my unmasked incredulity. “I don’t know why you think it’s all so easy for me, Felicity. It gets to me just as much as it does you. I’m only human.”
I start to disagree with that but stop short and try for praise instead. “Well, you certainly make it look just the opposite.”
Sipping her cocktail, she watches me for a moment. “Have you ever considered that I’ve spent a good number of years creating that impression?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, my life with Gavin has been so scrutinized by the media that I’ve had to learn to project a certain image. There have been many times when I was literally falling apart but I had to pretend I was just fine because there were likely cameras watching my every move in public.”
I know that Sophie and Gavin have received a ridiculous amount of attention over the years, but this still sounds like a bit much. My expression must telegraph my skepticism because she proves her point in the next second.
“There are at least two people either photographing or recording us right now,” she says. “Look there—the bartender at the far corner and the man sitting alone over on the opposite side. If they don’t work for the tabloids, they’ll either sell what they get tonight or sell the tip that we’re here and we’ll soon see a real paparazzi show up.”
I see that both the female bartender and the solo diner have their mobile phones pointed in our direction. I wave dumbly before catching myself and slumping back into my chair. I’ve never been good at this. It’s a cruel irony given that I run the media strategy for the band and yet I can never spot these things when they’re focused on me. Of course, if I wasn’t with Sophie McManus, world-famous supermodel and wife of the notorious Gavin McManus, I probably wouldn’t have rated a second glance. I only ever get this kind of attention when I’m with Conor. But even then, it’s always Conor who spots the spies and points them out just as Sophie has done.
“So, em,” I mumble, struggling to get back to our conversation, “you’re saying that you put on a front? That your perfect demeanor is all pretend?”
“I don’t know if I’d put it like that, exactly. I’m just saying appearances don’t always tell the whole story.”
For some reason, this strikes me as ominous and I jump to conclusions. “Is everything okay with you and Gavin?”
She pushes aside her glass and leans forward over the table. I brace myself for some terrible news. For her to tell me that she and her husband are splitting up again, this time for good. And if Sophie and Gavin—the couple everyone, even me, describes as destined for each other—can’t make it, then what hope do I have?
“Gavin and I are,” she says in a hush, her green eyes gleaming in the low light, “better than ever.”
I should be reassured, but I had prepared for the opposite and am left oddly disappointed. “Is there something more you’re not telling me?”
“Well, Gavin and I have been talking and we made some decisions about the future.”
“Go on?”
“After this tour, which they’ll push to be no more than a year, I’m going to go back to school.”
I can’t comprehend what she’s talking about. Firstly, I’ve never heard of Rogue doing a tour as short as a year. The worldwide demand they face calls for tour dates that will stretch to at least eighteen months. And secondly, Sophie is a married mother of two. Married to a rockstar, no less. Why would she go back to school?
Once more, all this must be clear on my face because she answers my questions before I can ask them.
“It’s something he and the guys have been kicking around—the shorter tour. Everyone’s on board. It seems like we all have so much to want to be home for. There’s us, of course, with our kids. Then Marty and Lainey are really getting serious. And Shay’s committed to Jessica out in San Francisco. So, it makes sense to do this tour, then take a bit of a longer break. An unofficial hiatus. Just to actually live life.”
The fact that Conor hasn’t talked to me about this is something I’ll have to take up with him. And I have no desire to make it clear to Sophie that I’ve been completely in the dark. Instead, I focus on the other thing she had mentioned.
“And you’ll go back to school?”
She nods with a beaming smile. I can see it gives her pleasure, the very idea of it.
“You went to Trinity for a time, right?” It was so long ago now that I’m not sure if I even remember what she studied, so I don’t try to guess it.
“Yes, I studied art history. But I took a break after Gavin and I got married so I could go on tour with him. And then I got scouted for modeling, and my whole world changed. I said at the time that I could always go back to school, no matter how old I was. Now, I’m finally going to prove that’s true.”
“That’s, em, fantastic,” I say. “What does Gavin plan to do with himself during this time?”
She shrugs like it’s the least of her concerns. “Be at home with the kids,” she says with a laugh. “Maybe he’ll write a book or a hundred songs or a play. Who knows? I’m just so excited that he suggested this to begin with. He says he wants me to have the time and space to focus on what I love. It’s—” She stops herself as tears rush to her eyes. Smiling, she takes a deep breath and blinks away the emotion. “It’s taken a long time to get here. But everything finally feels so right. Balanced, you know?”
I nod but stay mute about how once again she appears to have everything lined up perfectly. All is well in Sophie-land, despite what she tried to tell me earlier. Here she is with two gorgeous children and a husband so supportive he’s willing to halt the momentum of his band and career so that she can return to the studies she casually abandoned a decade beforehand. By contract, I’m just hanging on from moment to moment, desperate to keep from driving my husband away but also unable to keep from pushing him from me for fear that I can’t possibly be enough for him.
“That’s such good news,” I force myself to say.
“It’ll be good for all of us, I think. You know, give you and Conor real time together as a couple and as a family? You’ve had such a disjointed sort of road, so far, haven’t you? I mean, he went on tour almost as soon as you got together. And then he’s been living in the studio for so long now. Imagine having a real period where you can just be together. It’ll be a lovely thing.”
That kind of simple, stable life was all I once wanted. And then I fell for Conor and had to reset my expectations. I had to settle for taking what I could get from him, including snatching a few days spent with him here and there, either when I met him on tour or when he made a mad dash home to see me. My previous penchant for early, cozy nights in was replaced with tagging along with him to parties that lasted until dawn. I soon found my routine changing from rising early in the morning for a brisk swim to desperate for a coffee with an espresso chaser just to get moving. It’s a completely different lifestyle, one that I never expected to have. But it’s the cost of being with the man I love, and I’ve accepted it as the new norm.
The prospect of being able to create a different kind of life together, one that might more closely match what I have long craved, is both thrilling and terrifying. Terrifying because I fear it isn’t who he is. What if we live the life of regular folks and this is the thing that finally makes my rockstar husband realizes it’s not enough? That I’m not enough?
“It will be lovely, sure you’re right,” I force myself to say.
18
Conor
Coming downstairs to find myself alone with Lizzy is not exactly the ideal scenario. Not after my wife has left me with a serious case of blue balls while she’s off with Sophie for a girls’ night. I had lingered in our bedroom making a few phone calls for long enough that it seems the children are already down for the night. It’s half-eight, meaning if I’m lucky it wi
ll be four hours before Ella wakes wanting to nurse—or a bottle if Felicity is out that late. Romeo has his schedule down to closer to six hours, which is great progress, though Felicity can never seem to get enough rest in between.
I’m lost in wondering at Felicity’s shift from messily sobbing at my feet one day to looking gorgeous and going out for drinks without me the next when Lizzy waves her hand to get my attention. She’s looking sporty today with her hair in a high ponytail, wearing tight jeans and trainers along with a Shamrock Rovers tee shirt she’s pulled taut in a knot at her slim waist.
“You off, then?” I ask.
“If you’re all right?”
“Yeah, I’m good. Thanks, Lizzy. Big plans tonight? Rovers playing?”
She eyes me for a beat before nodding.
“You’ll have missed the start. Go on, then.”
“I just want to be sure you’re set. You seem . . . distracted.”
“Ah, I’m fine. Tell me, you have a favorite player?”
I’m talking about her football team, the Shamrock Rovers, but she seems to deliberately misinterpret me.
“You, of course,” she says with a sly smile. “You’ve always been my favorite of the band.”
I smile reflexively. Lord knows, it’s good to be a guitar player and have the adoration of beautiful girls.
“I used to have your posters up on my bedroom wall,” she continues, color coming to her cheeks.
“Don’t break my heart and tell me you’ve taken them down.”
The instinct to flirt is so ingrained that I rarely notice when I’m doing it. It’s usually only when Felicity gives me her bemused smile that I realize I’d better watch myself. I’ve never been addicted to anything other than the rush brought on by the little spark that happens with flirting. It’s hard to give up, not that Felicity has ever tried to curb it. The only thing she’s ever been threatened by is my history with Sophie. Other women throwing themselves at me or me flirting with them has never raised her jealousy. I take it as a mark of the confidence she has in me, in us. But what would she think of this scenario if she were here? Likely, I’d get one of her trademark smirks and eyerolls.
Felicity Found (Rogue Series Book 6) Page 9
