Keith wore a façade, Mel believed. She wasn’t sure if he knew that she’d seen through the covering, but she had. He was no “Warrior of Steel,” no “Champion of Glory.” He was a diligent and industrious man, a physically strong man, a man who ate challenges for breakfast and altered lives with a few numerical changes on a ledger. But, she sensed, he was also a lonely man. She also knew that Keith himself had no idea of this.
He’d sought her advice on a business deal on Tuesday (floor-day.) And she’d given him that advice. Did he take it? She didn’t know. He’d asked her opinion on Wednesday about several of his company’s websites. On Thursday, he’d wanted her opinion of paint colors for an office he was opening up in Paris (“Les rats de bibliothèque.”)
Keith, Melissa was starting to understand, needed someone to talk to. Someone he could trust.
She could see she’d become that person.
But she could also see that Keith had not realized this himself yet.
He had grown on her. She’d come to expect his rapping on the door at around ten each morning, the warmth of his skin against hers. She’d come to long for his own advice in return. He’d told her that he should teach Jacob how to fight. It had made her aghast! But “every little boy needs to know how to fight” Keith had said to her. He’d advised her on how best to invest her money, how she could cut down on her rent and possibly even move into a larger apartment, simply by knowing the loopholes to look for in a lease agreement.
They’d come to need each other.
She knew this.
He didn’t.
And therein lay the problem...
-3-
A man who doesn’t know he needs a woman is the biggest risk of all. He’ll be endless heartache, endless trouble. If a man doesn’t need a woman, fine. But if he comes to depend on one, and doesn’t realize he’s doing it, she is at risk.
This was Mel’s new philosophy now.
Keith either needed to admit that he did need her, and that they were officially moving into “relationship” phase, or they needed to call a spade a spade, pat themselves on the back for some great (unbelievable!) sex, and move on!
She was falling more and more for him, daily. It was still early. It wouldn’t sting so much now if he left. Yes, it would sting more than, say, a week ago, but not as badly as in a month, two months... A year?
She’d cry, sure. She’d maybe cry for, what, a week, two? That was OK. A good cry every now and then is OK. Heck, she hadn’t cried for a man in so long that it might even be cathartic! But that’s all it would be if they split up now—a good, healthy cry. Later? It would be heart-wrenching. It would kill her. She’d spend weeks, months, mourning his loss if she waited for him to grow even more on her!
She wasn’t willing to do that.
On her bed now (we’re still in Friday) she straddled him, rode him again, pressed her breasts together and moved lower to kiss him. He hardened quickly, and she put him inside him. They’d learned enough about each other’s pasts (and discussed all the unromantic details of them) to know they were both clean and could have sex without a condom.
Ever since reading Fifty Shades, Mel had gotten on the pill. Her hormones had simply...gone a little wild then...and she’d taken immediate precautions!
Keith’s climax now was stunning. She relished it because, like a praying mantis, she knew this might be the last time she’d see it. She watched him writhe, felt herself contort and twist as he fired his life into her. In the end, relaxed, she rode him again slowly, kissed his forehead once. Then got off him.
And went to take a shower.
Keith, watching her go, watching the curvaceous derriere he’d come to dream of and yearn for each night, felt that something was wrong. But said nothing.
Why do you keep seeing me? she’d asked him.
He knew why, but he was afraid to admit it openly.
Fear had never had a place in Keith’s heart. Now, it was there like a black festering wound, growing, building, suppurating.
He had no explanation for it. If he could simply place the fear, name it as a target, he could attack it. But he couldn’t. It was simply...a “feeling” he had, a tightening of his chest when he saw her, every time he smelled her.
It was intoxicating. That word was correct. That he could name. Because, like a drug, like too much alcohol, it made him delirious, made him think ridiculous things like “leave it all behind and spend a day with her” or “fuck the bloody business and take a week off with her and the boy and do nothing!”
Absolutely ludicrous! What inane thoughts he was having!? He’d never had such a thought in his life! If he wasn’t careful, he’d lose everything he’d worked for! And, for what? For a day in the sun? A drive in the country?
He got up, went to the bathroom door. He heard the shower inside. When he turned the knob, he saw the door was locked. “Mel? Everything OK?”
“Everything’s fine, honey. I’ll be out in a second.”
Honey. That was another bloody thing. Why did she have to call him Honey? Every time he heard it, it...stabbed him. It...made that damned fearful feeling in his heart grow ten times worse!
Honey. The word was a dagger. He both loved and hated it. He loved the look in her clear eyes as she’d caressed his cheek earlier and said, “Honey, you amaze me.” And he hated the emotion—instantly afterwards!—that it had brought about in him. It made his arms weak, and his fingers tremble.
It made him—there was that word again!—intoxicated.
He waited outside the bathroom, unsure of what to do for a second. Unsure, uncertain—these were the new themes of his life since he’d met Melissa Daniels.
He wanted to spend every night with her, every day, every hour!
She wouldn’t let him meet her son, insisted on Keith being out the door hours before young Jacob got home each day.
Keith understood why, sure. And therein lay the truth of it. That was the thing which caused the penny to drop slowly for him now...
He moved from the bathroom door to the couch in the living room, sat back, still naked, and waited for Melissa to finish.
The penny was this: She meant something to him. He knew this because he did want to meet Jacob, did want to spend time with him. It scared Keith to think this, because he knew that, the moment he did that, this “thing” she and he were engaged in would become quite official indeed. By Keith insisting on seeing the boy, he was admitting to himself, subconsciously perhaps, how much he truly liked—nay, adored—Melissa Daniels.
The reasons for that have already been enumerated. And everything Keith had imagined at first to be true about the woman, had indeed turned out to be so: Confident, self-assured, experienced. And then there was more he’d since learned: Assertive, magnificently good at...you know; helpful, sincere...
Oh, brother. Keith was in deep. He sat forward, rubbed a hand on his head, and he faced what he needed to do. He decided to “officialize” what they were doing right now. And, for the first time in his life, Keith was worried that a “girl” might turn his offer down.
She stepped out of the bathroom, towel around her body, hair sticking to her skin and licking it like erotic tendrils. She pulled it, squeezed it, let some water fall onto the carpet. She looked at him with her clear eyes.
Keith felt that surge again in his heart—that scary surge. He swallowed, opened his mouth to speak.
But she spoke first.
And the words from her mouth were bayonets to his heart.
-4-
“It’s been good, Keith,” she said, “but we need to end it now before it gets...complicated.”
He’d been too slow. Keith had never been slow! He stood up in shock, tried to protest, but she waved him down. “Keith, I’m sorry, I just—”
“I’ve been a fool.”
She paused. He looked different, she noted. Weaker. Vulnerable. “Go on,” she encouraged.
He moved closer, hands out. “I’ve been an absolute fool. Mel—” He tried
to hold her, but she pushed him away. He understood why: He’d need to man up if she was going to let him touch her again. He’d need to talk fast and talk convincingly.
It was hard to admit fear. It was downright impossible to do it!
But he must. So he turned from her, gritted his teeth, and said it: “I’ve been...afraid...Melissa.”
She heard the quaver in his voice. It broke her heart, but she stood firm nonetheless.
Facing the window, his back to hers, he continued. “I’m...still afraid. I’d like it if I didn’t have to say more about this. It is a very demeaning position for me to admit this to someone, especially to...a woman. I hope you don’t take offense at that—”
“I don’t.”
“Thank you.”
She understood him. She understood his fear. She understood that a man might have the world under his control but not his emotions, not his heart.
Nonetheless, and as much as she...loved...him, she could not be the guinea pig in his efforts to challenge and defeat the emotional ghosts of his mind and his soul. If she’d been younger, if she’d been single... If she wasn’t a mother, raising a boy who wouldn’t have to deal with these ghosts himself as a man one day...
“Keith...” She could not tell him she loved him, even though she knew it now. “Keith, you need to vanquish this fear yourself. I’d love to help you but—”
“Jacob,” he completed.
And her eyes watered at how well he knew her already. When had a man ever known her so well? “Yes, Jacob. I cannot risk it with him.”
Keith lifted his head, looked at the Laundromat outside Melissa’s apartment. He’d faced worse things. He could do this.
He turned, looked at her. Her eyes were red, and it broke him in half to see that in her. When had he ever felt pain on behalf of a woman before?
He wanted to convince Mel, wanted to to go all in, raise the stakes, bet the car and the house on the hand he was holding. It was no bluff. He had a good hand. Deep down inside him, he believed Mel was worth betting everything on. And he knew he’d win with her. Even if he lost everything, he’d still bet on her!
Oh, my, when had be become such a soppy romantic!
But, alas, life is neither romantic nor easy. There were other factors at play, he considered now. And as much as he wanted it to be just her and him, he had...another problem. There would be one more barrier to face, one that had nothing to do with his or Melissa’s feelings. A barrier that had to do with a battle-axe, the one person who could tear his and her relationship to shreds with only a whisper. A barrier that might make weaker men tremble at the knees and quiver at the hands:
Keith had to face his mother.
-5-
It’s not that Josephine Devonshire, Keith’s dignified mother, had any particular sway over which women Keith dated or slept with. On the contrary, it had been the bane of her existence: Her son running off with whatever girl or woman he pleased for the week! There’d also been that most embarrassing incident of a female Professor at Oxford...
But Keith had learned one thing: Whereas his mother had no direct say in who spent the night in his bed, her attitude, her demeanor, and her absolute cruelty, could shatter the dreams of any potential prospect he’d ever brought home.
There’d been Elizabeth Francis—a girl of superior upbringing (and, Keith confessed, certain superior...abilities in the boudoir)—that he’d brought over for dinner some many years ago when he was already wealthy but still making the bulk of his fortune. Elizabeth had not been a prospect particularly in his eyes; they hadn’t discussed their relationship earnestly. They were just “having fun” as the saying goes.
After that dinner, the fun ended. Elizabeth, on being left alone in the parlor with his mother for only a few minutes, turned pale, stormed out in tears, slapped Keith once on her exit, and never saw him again.
To this day he doesn’t know what words were exchanged between his mother and her. All he remembers is walking into the parlor, hand to his stinging cheek, his mother sitting drinking tea—straight-backed and stiff-lipped—and Josephine Devonshire finally saying to him, as if nothing had occurred, “Tea, dear?”
There were others, more tenacious others. There’d been Deborah, Candice—and Maxine! Every one of them had turned from him on meeting his mother. He’d tried to hold onto Maxine for a while longer, just to see what happened, but Maxine had told him, eventually, that “your mother is making my life a living misery. Rumors have spread about me in the neighborhood. People I thought were friends have shunned me! Keith, I’m sorry, but I just can’t do it.”
And so she left as well.
It had not meant that much to Keith. He’d not wanted to be with Maxine either. But he’d held on as an experiment. And he’d learned: If he ever planned on settling with a woman, Josephine Devonshire would have to give her blessing. (Or be told where to shove it!)
Keith decided he would take either route if necessary. He liked Melissa. He might even love her. Whether they made it together or not was not so much his concern now as was the fact that Melissa’s life might be made a living hell by the incumbent Devonshire matriarch. Keith would not stand for that. He would introduce Mel to the family at the nearest possible opportunity. He would stand proud with her—all his mother’s ideas of “upbringing” and “society” be damned!
So, in Mel’s apartment, staring at her luscious figure enwrapped in a towel, he now asked her: “Melissa, spend Easter Sunday with me. Please. And...bring Jacob along. I beg of you.”
Melissa melted. For a man of his pride, his stature, to beseech her in such a way, humbled her.
She smiled. And she said yes.
She had no idea, yet, that she was headed for the lion’s den.
But Keith knew. And he’d bring his lion-hunting guns with him. Bodies would fly if necessary on Sunday. And it sure as hell wasn’t going to be his or Melissa’s!
-6-
On his way home, he called mummy dearest on the car phone.
“Young man?”
“Mother.”
“Are you prepared for next weekend?”
“It’s why I’m calling. I’m bringing a date.”
His mother’s response was cold. “I see. Is she—”
“Don’t start, mother. She is my date...and...she is important to me. I want you to be on your best behavior.”
“Young man, don’t take that tone—”
“Mother! Please! I mean no disrespect. Please tell this...Delilah Princess Ramsey...you’ve invited, that she is not to expect any attention from me. I am bringing a date and that is final.”
“We shall see about that!”
Keith’s skin went cold. After a long silence, Josephine said, “Well, if that is all you had to say to me, I shall be going.”
His mother waited. When he said nothing, she huffed, “Unheard of. What insolence!” and she put the phone off.
Keith felt his legs tremble as he worked the car’s pedals, burning engine revving in his ears.
He was wrong to think he’d never feared anything.
His mother had always been terrifying.
EIGHT
THE HUSSY
-1-
Mel did not see Keith for almost a week after that. The way he’d refused to let her end things on Friday had brought up her confidence. He seemed serious about her, seemed serious about wanting to continue seeing her. She’d confessed, silently to herself, that perhaps the person who was truly afraid had not been him, but her.
And then he’d sprung the grenade on her: He’d told her about Josephine Devonshire. He’d told her about an ex girlfriend called Elizabeth Francis (slap!) and, finally, another called Maxine—who, according to him, probably lost all benevolent social standing in all of Sussex. Last he heard she lived in Scotland now.
He’d invited Mel to Easter Sunday. And explained why. He’d explained how, if they had any chance of weathering storms together in the future, the first player to put down was his meddling moth
er. Josephine Devonshire would need to understand that Keith was serious about Melissa Daniels, and then back down. The best way to do that would be to walk in proud and officially announce to the world, simply by their presence, that they were an item, and all naysayers be damned.
Mel agreed, but had told Keith they’d need to spend some time apart until then. She wanted to see him! Wanted to see him every day! Which is exactly why she shouldn’t. Mel was a mother first. If she had to sacrifice her heart because of the meddling attitude of a matriarchal cow, she wouldn’t let her son suffer because of it. Children pick up on these things, and it can affect their future happiness. (She’d read that in Mother & Baby.) And if Josephine Devonshire was set on making any future with Keith impossible for Melissa Daniels, Mel didn’t need yet an additional week of loving Keith more and more, just so that that her heart would veritably snap in two when the inevitable end came.
Play it safe for now, she decided.
But then came the second problem, the one Mel actually started to feel dread for: Delilah Ramsey.
Mel only found out about her six days later—Thursday to be exact, the day before Good Friday. She’d been putting away some shopping, secretly hiding her sundaes and Magnum Ice Creams so Jacob wouldn’t see them, when her phone rang. Keith explained the most recent blow-up he’d had with his mother. He explained how she was insisting on bringing this supposed match-up for him, and how this match-up would likely do her best to make Mel feel small and unwelcome. “I understand if you don’t want to come because of it,” he said.
“Do you want me to come?”
“I do. I so do.” His answer came instantly. “Melissa, I’ve taken my mother’s bollocks for years. I know how to deal with it. But I don’t want you to be disrespected by these people. They can be...so shallow.”
Easter Sundae (Hot Holidays Series Book Two) Page 7
