And Lily wanted no part in that.
It was closing time and usually Lily was happy to go home to Tash and Fazire on a Saturday when they’d get fish and chips and stroll the seafront or pop in a DVD. Tash liked Pixar, Fazire liked Westerns, Lily didn’t care what they watched.
Instead, she locked the doors, saw, very slowly, to the business of tidying the store, locking away the register drawer and seeing to the most minute task that would hold her back. Then she went to Tesco and instead of whipping around the store in her normal, busy-mother-on-a-mission frenzy, she checked product labels, assessed quantities and spent vast periods of time contemplating the inventories of the larder at her home before she decided on a purchase.
She packed the car, carefully placing every bag safely in the boot as if she’d be graded on its arrangement. It was strange, having time on her hands. It was an alien feeling she hadn’t had in so long, she couldn’t remember the last time she had it.
Yes, she could, when she lived in London with Nate.
Then she wandered back to the cart store to return her trolley, humming to herself idly as if she had all the time in the world.
Then, against her will for the first time in her life, she went home.
A gleaming, sleek, sporty car was parked at the front of her house, dashing all hope that Nate had already left and Fazire had just forgotten to phone.
She expertly, from years of practice, parallel parked the Peugeot into the spot behind the Aston Martin (Nate, she saw, had not changed his predilection for fast cars), mentally preparing for what was to come. She went over her excuses, deciding which was best – an emergency trip to the mall because her hair dryer was broken, which it was not but everyone knew a woman could not live a single day without her hair dryer.
Taking as many bags as possible from the boot, she struggled, arms laden, to the house.
She was barely halfway up the walk when the door was thrown open.
“Mummy!” Natasha flew out with her usual spiritedness, followed urgently by Fazire who had a look on his face that could only be described as “stormy”. “You would not be… lieve!” Natasha cried excitedly.
Nate followed Fazire and Lily fought back her reaction at seeing him casually strolling from her house. She couldn’t count how many times she’d dreamed of that very vision coming real.
She found it immensely annoying that he was
more
charismatic,
more
attractive,
more
handsome than eight years ago. He wore jeans and a long-sleeved chambray shirt, the sleeves rolled up partially at his forearms and he looked immensely masculine.
“Believe what?” Lily asked, trying to smile at her happy daughter at the same time ignoring Nate and finding both difficult.
She decided that, too, annoyed her.
Fazire walked by her, flashing her a glance filled with barely contained ire.
He muttered as he passed her, “Tash
confiscated
my mobile thingie-whatsit and would not
allow
me to use the house line.”
Then, on that strange announcement, he stomped to the boot to get the rest of the groceries.
“Daddy has been busy today. Busy, busy, busy,” Natasha told her with delight. “Fazire wanted to call you but I wouldn’t let him because it was a surprise!”
Nate walked straight to her.
“Lily,” he greeted.
She spared him the briefest glance and started to look back at Tash to ask about this “surprise” when Nate leaned into her. She had stopped to talk to Tash but now she reared back to avoid Nate.
He simply reached in and took all of her carrier bags of which there were five and
he
spared her a glance, his, again, annoyingly knowing. Then calmly, as if he had carried groceries into their house every day for the past eight years, he turned and walked into the house.
She glared at his back and decided she found that annoying as well.
“Come look, come on, come on, come on!” Natasha urged excitedly.
Tash grabbed her hand and tugged Lily forward. Lily threw a look over her shoulder at Fazire who was carrying the last three bags into the house. His lips were thin and his face was set.
Fazire, Lily knew, took Nate’s defection personally. He had, he thought, been the one to bring Nate into Lily’s life through her wish. Even though Lily tried to talk him out of it, Fazire felt personally responsible for all that happened to Lily. She knew it weighed on him heavily and he was determined to chastise himself and had even gone so far as to vow early retirement from Genie-hood considering the enormity of his blunder.
“Mummy, come on!” Tash demanded and Lily allowed herself to be pulled into the house, up the stairs and to her bedroom.
Then she saw her “surprise”.
In the doorway to her room, she came to a dead halt. Her eyes widened. Her mouth dropped open. And she stared.
“You can’t go in because the floors are drying. They’ll be back tomorrow to put in the new furniture. Isn’t it great? It’s just like Changing Rooms, except not done yet.” Tash’s excitement was barely contained, she was practically dancing in glee.
Lily’s room had been transformed. All of her furniture was gone, not even a trace of it in the hallway. The walls were smooth and had been painted in the palest blue. The woodwork was gleaming with a new coat of white gloss. An enormous ceiling rose had been affixed to the middle where also an intricate elegant light fixture dangled glamorously. The cornices had also been replaced, looking beautiful, classic and clean. The floors had been sanded and re-varnished.
Lily looked down at her watch. She left that morning at eight. It was now six thirty.
She could not believe it had all been done in that time. It took her six months just to paint the hall.
“There were, like, seven men here. I couldn’t believe they could get all of them in your room but they did. They even hoovered and dusted when they left so it would be tidy when you came home,” Tash explained and then breathed in awe, “Isn’t it lush?”
“It’s lovely,” Lily murmured, now way beyond annoyed. So far beyond annoyed, it wasn’t funny.
She was ready to do battle.
“Do me a favour, baby doll, and help Fazire with the groceries.” Tash was so thrilled at what she thought was her father’s grand gesture, she didn’t notice her mother’s glittering blue eyes. “And, ask
your father
to come up here. I’d like a word with him.”
“Okay,” Tash agreed readily, blind to Lily’s mounting fury, and raced headlong down the stairs. Her natural ebullience ratcheted up twelve notches to immeasurable at all the good fortune that she thought had befallen them upon the arrival of her father.
While she waited, Lily paced the landing. Every time she turned back and caught a glimpse of her room, her temper flared even further out of control.
When she caught a glimpse of Nate’s dark head sedately ascending the staircase, without a word, she broke out of her pacing and alighted the stairs that took them to the next floor. She wasn’t going to confront Nate on the landing, she needed privacy for what she had to say.
She walked angrily to the living room and stood, hand on the door while Nate silently followed her and entered the room. When he did, she slammed the door loudly and whirled on him.
“How
dare
you!” she shouted, letting her rage loose.
“Lily.” This was all he said. He had crossed his arms on his chest and was watching her closely. She knew he didn’t miss a thing. He
never
missed a thing.
Not that she was exactly trying to hide her fury.
His gorgeous face, she noted, her anger hitting the stratosphere, was carefully controlled. She decided his control annoyed her most of all.
“Where’s my furniture?” she snapped.
“Gone,” he said shortly.
“Bring it back,” she demanded.
“It’s gone,” he stated implacably as if he had every right to toss out her belongings without a word to her.
He walked toward her and she, unfortunately, was standing in front of the door she herself had closed. She had no retreat and realised her error immediately.
Instead of moving back and being pinned by his body and the door, which she knew, in recent experience, he’d do, she stood her ground and he came up to her and stopped.
He was close to her,
very
close. So close she could smell his tangy, earthy cologne. So close she could feel the heat from his body. Her belly threatened a gymnastics lesson and she resolutely ignored her reaction to his proximity. Letting herself go once was allowed, even expected. She had been, of course, pining for him for years.
To do it again would be a catastrophic mistake.
“I want it back,” she clipped, barely controlling her careening emotions.
“It’s not coming back. It’s gone. New furniture will be delivered tomorrow.”
“On a
Sunday?
” she hissed in disbelief. Hardly anyone did anything on a Sunday in England, except eat a Sunday roast and, perhaps, do a touch of gardening.
Nate shrugged.
Of course, the omnipotent Nate McAllister with his seven million pounds could get anyone to do anything he wanted.
She lost control of her careening emotions and what’s more, she didn’t care.
“I want you out of my house,” she ordered, her eyes blazing, her body rigid with fury.
“We’re going to dinner,” Nate stated matter-of-factly as if she’d just stop, deflate, give in and say, “Oh, okay, whatever you wish.”
At this she lost her mind.
“We are
not
going to dinner.
You
may take Tash to dinner but
we
are not doing
anything,
” she yelled.
“I already told Natasha we’re all going to dinner. She’s looking forward to it.”
If she wasn’t mistaken, he’d moved in the barest inch. She remained exactly where she is.
“Well, then, I guess you’re going to learn the painful lesson of telling your daughter she can’t have something she desperately wants because I’m not going to dinner with you.”
His eyes flashed at her words, reading correctly that Lily had, over the years, been forced to learn the excruciating lesson of disappointing their daughter.
His hand reached up and she stared in shock at it until it moved out of her eyesight. It then traced her hair at her temple, pushed its heavy weight back and tucked it behind her ear.
His eyes watched the progress of his hand then they moved to hers. He spoke gently, reacting to what her words had meant but obviously he was still not to be denied.
“Yes, you are.”
“No, I’m not.”
He leaned in again, his hand dropping to her shoulder, this time his movement could not be missed or mistaken.
“Yes, Lily, you are.”
It was then,
she
moved in, going up on her toes to put her face so close to his so that it was barely an inch away.
“If you think you can stroll into our lives and turn them upside down with your money and power and… whatever, and… and…” She couldn’t find the words. She was too angry to speak.
“And what?”
“I don’t know!” she shouted in his face.
“I’ll not have you sleeping in that room the way it was,” he declared.
Again, her mouth dropped open at his nerve and sheer arrogance.
“It isn’t
your
choice!” she raged.
His hand moved to cup her jaw.
“I’ve never seen you this angry.” His voice was soft, contemplative. He was watching her with a warmth in his dark eyes that very nearly, but not quite, stole her breath.
“We barely knew one another,” she snapped. “You’ve never seen me a lot of things.”
Then he remarked quietly, “You’re incredibly beautiful when you’re angry.”
Again, she gawped at him, so stunned at his unexpected compliment, she was unable to react when he stepped forward, forcing her back the step it took to pin her against the door. His warm body came up against hers and his hand tightened at her jaw, his other hand settled on the door beside her head.
“You’re incredibly beautiful always, but angry, you’re magnificent,” he murmured softly, his eyes had dropped to her mouth. The mood had shifted and she was most definitely not prepared for it.
“Get away from me,” she breathed, half-frightened at what
she
would do, half-angry at what
he
was doing.
“Come to dinner with me,” he coaxed, his deep voice like velvet.
“No,” she denied stubbornly, refusing to give into that voice and tried to jerk her head away but in her current position, it was impossible.
“Come to dinner with me,” he repeated, as if the exchange of words they’d just shared hadn’t happened at all.
“I… said… no!” She didn’t wait for him to ask again, she rushed on. “You need to step away right now. You may take Natasha to dinner and bring her home. Then your solicitors need to agree with Alistair a schedule for you to see Tash. I don’t want to see you again. I don’t want you in this house. I don’t want –”