I head into the changing room to slip into it and as soon as it settles over my hips, I know this is the dress. It fits like a glove and it shows all my assets perfectly, while hiding all the bits of me I don’t like.
With a wobbly smile at Davina, I pull back the curtain and step out to show the girls who are talking among themselves.
“Holy shit, B,” Sofia mutters, breaking through the chatter. “That’s gorgeous.”
Mackenzie stands, clapping her hands together, her eyes suspiciously wet. Fuck, if she starts crying, I’m a goner.
“It’s perfect,” she signs.
I twirl slightly, liking the fact the skirt is just wide enough to move as I do. “You think so?”
She nods vigorously. “Logan’s going to shit a kitten when he sees you.”
I laugh at the analogy.
“Oh, darling,” Mary says, “you really do look beautiful. Do you think this dress is the one?”
“I think so, yes. It’s not too over the top and I think it’ll fit with whatever Lo wears. I don’t want to be tripping over trains and skirts all night.”
Plus, I really love the lace. It’ll also look wicked with my property kutte.
Mary turns to Davina. “We’ll have this one then. On to the bridesmaids!”
I stare at myself in the mirror, taking in my dark brown hair against the pale white of my dress. I’m really doing this; I’m really marrying Logan.
Holy shit, I’m marrying Logan.
In a few weeks’ time I’m going to be Mrs Bethany Marie Harlow.
Holy.
Fuck.
I grin.
Chapter Thirteen
Monday morning comes around far too fast. After such a busy weekend, I’m feeling it. Between the baby shower and dress shopping, I’m dead on my feet when Logan follows me to work this morning. I park up and walk back to his bike to kiss him. I drove myself today. I need to go to Grandad’s after work, so I need the car; plus, the guys are starting to relax their hold a little. Logan told me Derek and Ghost got back into town yesterday while I was at the bridal shop. He didn’t say much, only that they’d been down there, cementing relations with some London MC chapters.
We’re friendly with the Devil’s—in particular the Manchester lot; we’ve known some of the patches for years, in fact—Logan and Axel have been friends since they were kids—but London is the mother chapter. I don’t pretend to understand the politics of these things, but I know the Devil’s are a lot more structured than the Saxons are and I know Manchester, while under its own rule, does have to fall in line when London comes calling. At least, this is what I’ve managed to discern from what Logan says.
This is why, I think, Derek took the time to go down to London and speak to their president. Hurley is both head of the London chapter, but also national president. If I didn’t know better, I’d guess Derek is preparing, and whatever he’s preparing for, he’s making sure our allies are still our allies. This thought does not exactly fill me with happiness. With Tap dead and Dylan in the wind, I was kind of hoping all this shit was over with—at least once the guys find Dylan.
When I put this to Logan, he assured me Derek is just taking precautions, but it sounds more like he’s planning for war. Especially when Logan lets slip that Derek didn’t just visit the Devil’s while he was down there, but a few other motorcycle clubs, including the Vipers, the Hells Rangers and the Untamed Sons. I’m not feeling good at all about any of this stuff.
“Have a good day,” Logan says when I pull back from his kiss.
“I will,” I assure him. Dread I can’t explain swirls in my belly as I stare at him. Something is coming, something big, and Logan is going to be in the centre of it. I can’t bear it. “Please be careful.”
“Always.”
“I mean it, Logan.”
He rubs his thumb over the apple of my cheek. “I will be. Come on; let’s get you inside, darlin’.”
I give him one last kiss and I don’t know why, but I kiss him like my life depends on it. Together we head over to the office door. He does his usual routine of going inside first and scoping out the place. Then he presses me against the wall of the hallway and cops a feel before leaving me needy and wanting more before he heads back out to his bike.
Bastard.
It takes me too long to settle into work this morning (and far too many cups of coffee), but I have some documentation back from my new client who contacted me yesterday before I went for my dress fitting. He wants to meet in person to go through some things, which isn’t unusual. A lot of the businesses in Kingsley are old school, run by men my dad’s age who like to see what they’re paying for. I toy with the idea of setting up a meeting later in the week. Mainly because I don’t want to seem as if I’m not busy. It may put him off. But I decide against keeping him waiting. After all, I am a new business, which he knows. I send a message back saying I have slots this afternoon and tomorrow and he’s welcome to pop in at either time.
While I wait for his reply, I work on some flyers for Lace. Paige, who took over the day-to-day running of the strip club while Wade was hospitalised, asked for some more Happy Hour discounts. She’s doing really well over there. Wade was glad to get her off the stage and he wasn’t exactly quiet about letting her know that. Reading between the lines, though, I think Paige was, too. I have no idea how she got up there and did it in the first place. I’m confident about my body, but I’m not that confident.
I’m half way through designing the flyer when my email pings telling me my new client, William Brosen, will come in this afternoon for a brief chat about what he needs. Holy shit! A client! He’s not my first, but I’m still at the stage where it’s new enough that every client feels like a major win, so a thrill races through me.
I push up from my desk and do a jig. I’m glad no one is here to see me do it because I probably look like an idiot. It’s still not a guaranteed job, but it’s a step closer. All I have to do is pitch it well, which I’ve done a gazillion times over the years when I was working in London for Jan, and I’ll have it in the bag.
Finishing the flyers for Paige, a huge grin on my face, I then gather together the information packs I created for new business. I can show Mr Brosen exactly what I can offer his company and what tailor-made solutions I can bring to his firm to ensure the best outcomes.
I smooth down my skirt as a tendril of anxiety mixed with excitement works through me.
I can do this.
What if I can’t do this?
Hell’s bells.
No time for doubts, Beth.
I head down the stairs to unlock the bottom door. I don’t want clients to think I’m unapproachable or paranoid—or rather that I have an overprotective, paranoid fiancé. Then I head back up to the office.
I prepare the small meeting room with two coffee mugs and some biscuits—corporate, yet friendly. I’m just firing off a text to Logan to tell him things are looking up with the new client when I hear the outside door go, and my heart flutters.
Game face on.
I slip my mobile next to my monitor and move around the end of the desk to greet my potential new client. I don’t think I’ve ever been this nervous, not even when I met big-names when I was down in London.
I smooth my skirt down again, check my blouse is tucked in and that I look smart. I’ve done this so many times over the years, so I have no idea why I’m nervous.
Because this is my business, my reputation…
I adopt a warm smile as I hear heavy footfalls on the steps.
When the door at the top of the stairs opens, the man who fills the doorway is not who I imagined from our email correspondence. Not that I have a clue what my client looks like; I’ve never met him in the flesh, so have no idea who is going to come up the stairs, but I’m expecting a middle-aged man with greying hair, maybe in a suit, with a briefcase. Okay, I realise I’m being Little Miss Stereotype, but in my experience, this is what most Kingsley business owners look like. What I�
�m not expecting is the man in his thirties with great hair and a designer three-piece. He’s attractive for sure, but he’s not my type at all. The lack of tattoos and denim turns me off right away.
He reminds me a little too much of Alistair’s friends—all show and no substance.
I put on a polite smile and hold out a hand to him, which he takes, shaking it firmly.
“Mr Brosen?”
“Please, call me Will. Mr Brosen makes me feel old.”
His smile is warm, but it puts me on edge for some reason. Even so, I return it.
Paying client, paying client, paying client.
“I’m Beth. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Would you like a coffee?”
I get him settled in my new meeting room and start to go over the details of what I can offer. As we talk, he asks questions that relate to my services, but he steers the conversation in a way that isn’t entirely related to the topic. I notice he throws in little personal questions here and there, innocuous queries that on the surface seem innocent enough, but on a second thought actually skirt the edge of inappropriate.
Midway through our meeting, I’m starting to feel more than a little uncomfortable, but not out of my comfort zone. He’s not unlike a lot of clients I’ve dealt with in the past who want to make sure their money is going into the hands of someone reputable, but I’m not used to dealing with this kind of thing alone, so it does knock me off kilter a little.
He also wants to meet again tomorrow to go over some website designs, which I agree to, although I wish I didn’t have to meet with him so soon. The man is obnoxious behind the smiles.
After work, I head over to Grandad’s with Charlie following me. He tells me he needs to run an errand but he’ll be back in an hour and that I’m not to leave without him, which I agree to. At least he tells me, unlike Lucas who just vanished that day.
I use my key to get inside the house and call out to Grandad to let him know I’m here. I’m hoping he’s going to play nicely tonight. I feel exhausted after my verbal sparring with Brosen. Jan, my old boss, would tell me to handle him, so that is what I need to work out—how to handle him. Likely the man is used to being king of his castle. It happens often with small business owners. They get used to running their own tiny empires and can become mini-dictators. It’s problematic when they take this attitude out into the ‘real-world’. Brosen wasn’t exactly rude to me, but he was… I’m not even sure. There was just something about him that unsettled me. My spidey-senses are tingling, and I’ve come to trust them over the years.
As I enter the living room, I find it empty and shitty clients go out of my head. Where in the heck is my grandfather? He’s not in his usual place in the armchair in the window. Weird. Maybe he’s in the bathroom. I head to the kitchen to put the kettle on and start to make a brew, but as I reach for the cups something feels wrong.
Placing the mugs on the counter, I move through the ground floor to the downstairs bathroom and see the door is open. My heart starts to pound heavily in my chest as my eyes slide to the closed door at the end of the hallway—his bedroom. It was once the dining room many moons ago. Now, it’s a makeshift bedroom because he can’t get up the stairs any longer with his damaged lungs.
I move over to the door and rap my knuckles against the wood.
“Grandad?”
No answer.
I knock again.
“Are you in there?”
Still no answer.
If he’s sleeping, I’m going to get an ear bashing for entering his bedroom, but if he’s not…
I throw caution to the wind and push the handle down. When I step into the room, the curtains are open and the bed is made, indicating the carers have been in this morning to get him up, but it’s the body lying on the floor that my attention goes to.
I let out a wail, rushing to him, and drop straight to my knees at his side. Grandad’s lying awkwardly, his legs tucked up under him as if they just gave out where he was standing. His skin is pale and waxy, but his chest is rising and falling with shallow breaths that makes the clamp around my own heart loosen a little.
“Grandad? Can you hear me?”
I shake his shoulders slightly, but he doesn’t open his eyes or respond.
Fuck, shit, bollocks.
Heart racing, I rush back into the hallway and grab my bag where I dropped it when I came into the house. I dig out my mobile phone and dial nine-nine-nine with shaking fingers, even as I run back to the room.
I’m hoping for some kind of miracle when I return, but he still hasn’t moved. I have no idea what the hell to do. It’s been a long time since I did first aid.
The operator suddenly starts talking in my ear and I try to convey what I need while taking instructions, but my brain is in turmoil, because as I look at the man on the floor, all I can think is please don’t die. His chest is no longer moving and when I feel for a pulse under the direction of the operator, I can’t find one, which makes my stomach turn itself inside out.
The operator orders me to start compressions, and within minutes my arms are on fire. Grandad’s face is paler by the second, and my stomach is tearing itself inside out as it churns. Ice settles around my own heart as it tries and fails to squeeze a beat one moment then rapidly pounds ten pulses the next. My life is coming undone, everything I am, everything that shaped me, is about to end on the floor in front of me. Jimmy Goddard is my grandfather, but he’s so much more than that. He’s my second parent. He’s the man who raised me as closely as my dad—at times more so.
I push my interlocked hands against his bare chest, desperation a tidal wave rolling through me as my sweaty hair drips into my eyes. I don’t even remember pushing his tee up to his neck, but I must have. The feeling of his ribs depressing beneath the force of my weight has bile racing up my gullet and I have to swallow it down. It’s so wrong to see someone’s torso cave in, to feel their bones shift beneath your fists like this. He’s an old man and while I know I need to do this to help him, I feel like I’m hurting him, and that goes against every instinct in me.
My vision wobbles and I blink rapidly to clear the tears filling my eyes. I let them fall unchecked as I squeeze Grandad’s nose shut and blow air into my grandfather’s lungs before continuing with the compressions. I can hear the nine-nine-nine operator talking to me through the loudspeaker on my phone at the side of his body, but I can barely compute her words. All I’m focused on is thirty compressions, two breaths. Rinse, repeat.
Jimmy Goddard is not dying on me. Not now.
Head spinning, guts roiling, lungs burning, arms throbbing, I don’t stop. I’m not letting him die. He wouldn’t let me die. He would fight for me until he could no longer fight. I don’t care that I’m exhausted. I don’t care that I can barely feel my body or that I can no longer tell where the sweat and tears start and end. I won’t give in.
The paramedics seem to take an age to get here, and they have to pull me off him to get near him. I sit on my heels, a shaking, trembling mess as they take over with their machines and medicine. I should feel relief at this, but all I have is numb emptiness as I watch them work.
They fire questions at me about his age, his medication, and I answer between tearful breaths as they load him into the ambulance.
I quickly grab my bag, lock up the house and climb into the ambulance with him. I feel like I’m in a dream, floating, as we blue light it to the hospital.
I watch wide-eyed as the paramedic works on Grandad, my stomach twisting with each passing moment. Unconscious still, he remains blissfully unaware of the trouble he’s causing, his breath fogging up the oxygen mask covering his face. I watch those puffs of air hit the plastic, unable to look away, fearing if I do they’ll stop.
He’s breathing. He’s alive.
I got him breathing again…
That he is, is the only thing keeping me sane right now. My world, which had been filled with sunshine and light this morning, is grey and dark now. Clients and business deals are no lon
ger important. All I care about is the man lying on the narrow trolley next to me and whether he’s going to survive. He has to. There’s no other option here.
I grip his free hand, clinging to it fiercely. He’s cool, but not cold. I don’t know if that is a positive or not, but I hate that he’s not warm. Warm implies life, and given how close he came to death, I need him to be boiling. It’s only the fact the old man hates being too hot that stops me freaking out—that and the reassuring looks the paramedic keeps shooting me.
As soon as we reach the hospital, we’re wheeled through the ambulance entrance and the doctors swarm us, taking over. Quick fired instructions are barked out, and I try to listen, to hear what is happening, but my mind can’t focus enough. A nurse stops me from following, her pale pink scrubs too cheery, too fucking happy for the gloom settling around us, seemingly in the very foundations of the building.
“Honey, you can’t go with him. I’m sorry.”
“But I don’t want him to be alone,” I protest, staring after him as he disappears through a set of double doors.
My heart feels like its rending in two. I can’t leave him, not like this. He doesn’t know these people. He knows me. He needs me.
The nurse wraps an arm around my shoulders and says kindly, “The doctors will take good care of him.”
A shaky breath rips from my throat. Fuck the doctors. He needs me, and I’ll use whatever means I have to in order to be with him.
“Is Clara working? Clara Thomas?”
She’s a trauma nurse in the Accident and Emergency Department here. I have no idea what her schedule is, but if she can pull strings…
Her eyes flare at the name, recognition clear. “Not today, honey. Are you friends?”
“She’s family.” Not by blood, but she’s Club, which is the same thing.
The nurse’s arm, which is still wrapped around my shoulders, gives me a push back out towards the waiting area. “I’m so sorry. You should call around your family and friends, let them know what’s happening.”
“And what is happening?” I demand, completely on the verge of hysterics.
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