“We’re off,” the policeman finished.
They did not give Lily a card, ask her to call them if she remembered anything else, they just left.
Before anyone could say anything, a boyishly good-looking, not-as-tall-as-Nathaniel but still tall, brown-haired man walked in.
“What’s this? First the anniversary celebration is off, now the police are at the house. What? Has Nate’s chequered past finally caught up with us?”
Then he stopped dead and stared at Lily for some reason in open-mouthed surprise.
She didn’t think much about this new man’s open-mouthed surprise. She instead found herself thinking she did not at all consider it was surprising that Nathaniel had a chequered past.
“My God,” the man breathed bringing Lily’s thoughts back into the room.
“This,” Victor stated as introduction to Lily, “is my son, Jeffrey.”
Jeffrey came forward, extending his hand and told her. “Everyone but Mum and Dad call me Jeff.”
She lifted her hand to shake his but he turned it, bent at the waist and brought it to his mouth, brushing his lips against her knuckles. Then his eyes came to hers.
“And who are you?” he asked and she thought his tone was flirtatious although she didn’t have a great deal of experience with flirtatious, or at least for the past four years or so she naively hadn’t noticed it relentlessly coming her way.
“I’m Lily Jacobs,” she answered.
“No, you’re not Lily Jacobs. You are an angel sent from heaven,” he surprised her by saying quietly, definitely flirtatiously, finally dropping her hand after holding it longer than necessary.
As he straightened Lily noticed the entire room changed and seemed even to shift at his words. The air became so thick it could be cut with a knife. Victor tensed and his eyes flew to where Nathaniel was still standing at the back of her chair. Laura slowly stood and her eyes slid to Lily, her hand moving to her throat in a strange gesture of imminent peril. And Lily could actually feel something dangerous emanating from behind her.
Lily bravely ignored whatever was happening and her eyes held Laura’s because they seemed the safest.
“What anniversary celebration?” she asked.
Laura started to answer, “It’s nothing, my dear –”
Jeff was moving to the fireplace and he interrupted his mother, “It’s not nothing. I wouldn’t say your thirtieth wedding anniversary is nothing.” He turned and blithely leaned an elbow on the mantel.
Lily gasped and opened her mouth to speak. She couldn’t believe that they’d cancelled their anniversary for her but Jeff wasn’t finished. His eyes moved to Nathaniel and when they did they were calculating.
“By the way, Nate, Georgia called. She’s pretty pissed off about something. Likely best if you put that damned ring on her finger finally. That’ll bring her to heel.”
Lily closed her mouth with a snap.
He had a girlfriend, a girlfriend that sounded very close to being a fiancée.
Of course.
Of course, of course, of course.
She knew it couldn’t be real. He would never have even looked at her anyway, not plain, small town Indiana girl Lily Jacobs. Even with her wish from Fazire, she’d never get a glorious man like Nathaniel McAllister.
Never.
“I hope you didn’t cancel your anniversary for me,” Lily covered her disappointment with words.
Laura’s eyes, which were not so kind at the moment but looked rather nettled, moved away from her son to Lily and immediately softened again.
“We’ve only postponed it until tomorrow.”
“Oh no! You must carry on,” Lily cried.
“It’s all been sorted, Lily. Not to worry,” Victor barged into the short, now dismissed discussion and then started purposefully toward the door saying, “Jeffrey, I’d like a word with you.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, what have I done now?” Jeffrey muttered not-so-under his breath and Laura’s eyes turned back to annoyed. “I see, my dear brother, he doesn’t want a word with
you,
” Jeff said to Nathaniel looking strangely like a bratty little boy.
Nathaniel didn’t utter a word which seemed to anger Jeff more.
But Lily was wondering how Nathaniel was his brother. The brother thing made sense in the way Victor treated Nathaniel and Laura looked at him. But they didn’t share the same last name and they didn’t look a thing alike.
When Nathaniel was obviously not going to be lowered into a useless fight about what appeared to be nothing, Jeff started to slink away but stopped when he reached Lily.
“I don’t know who you are but I hope to see more of you.” He smiled, his boyish good looks and good humour restored and he seemed quite charming again.
She smiled back tentatively but somehow Lily found that he made her uncomfortable. For the first time in Lily’s life she took a near immediate dislike to someone.
After he left the room, Lily turned back to Laura.
“I feel terrible. Your anniversary –” she started.
“Really, Lily, it’s no trouble. I’m actually relieved. We can have a nice quiet night just the two of us. I’d rather that anyway. I’m sure Nathaniel can entertain you while Victor and I go out to a dinner a deux.”
Laura raised hopeful eyes to Nathaniel and even though she didn’t want to Lily turned in her chair to look at him too.
Gone was the suppressed violence in its place was bland unconcern.
“I should see to Georgia.” He’d been leaning his weight on his hand on the back of her chair and with his words, he pushed away.
“I’m sure Georgia would understand. We have a guest in the house,” Laura replied.
Nathaniel approached Laura and Lily watched in fascination as he stopped in front of her and kissed her forehead in a familiar loving way.
“I don’t live here anymore, remember?” His voice was light, even teasing, and Lily felt her insides melt (just a little).
“I suppose Jeffrey will find
something
for he and Lily to do,” Laura said this like a dare and Lily didn’t know what to make of that.
“I’m sure he will,” Nathaniel muttered, turned his dark eyes,
impossibly
dark eyes, to Lily and said in his deep voice, “Lily.”
Even as his voice sounding her name stole over her skin like a soft touch, he strode, just like his father, purposefully from the room.
And Lily could swear she heard Laura say the word, “Damn,” under her breath.
Nate
“I can’t believe I’m doing this.” Georgia’s voice was bitter and angry. “I can’t believe I agreed to attend your parent’s anniversary party with you after you just broke up with me. Tell me again why I’m doing this?”
Nate manoeuvred the Maserati into a parking spot, pulled up the emergency brake and shut down the car. Then he turned to Georgia, resting his forearm on the steering wheel.
“Out of respect for my parents,” he answered what he thought was obviously.
His words were short, his patience was fraying. She’d been carrying on since they left his flat and Nate vowed never again to get entangled with a spoiled-rotten, filthy-rich bitch.
“Well I’ve changed my mind,” she said sharply. “I’m not going to do it.”
He turned from her. “Then I’m sure you’ll find your own way home.”
She gasped in outraged shock as if there weren’t millions of taxis in London that would take her safely home and just like that, Nate was finished with her.
He exited the car and didn’t bother to help her alight as he normally would, a gentlemanly courtesy Laura had taught him years before. Then he walked to his parent’s home. He heard her high heels clicking on the pavement double time to keep up with his long strides. He didn’t knock because he didn’t have to, it was his home even though after all these years he still found that fact difficult to believe, and he strolled into the house.
He heard party sounds immediately, the low murmur of conversation and soft laughter.
Lily, he knew, was there somewhere.
Laura had called Nate to tell him she’d convinced Lily to stay another night and attend the party. His mother explained that Lily had woken stiff and sore and they’d called the physician straight away. Lily, Laura assured him, still had a clean bill of health but needed time to recuperate which Laura, being Laura, was determined to give her. Nate also had the feeling that Laura was instilling a bit of drama into the situation in order to keep Lily there, considering after she told him the story of Lily’s pain and suffering, she announced they were going out shopping.
Nate wondered how Lily and Jeff had spent their evening last night. He very much didn’t like the idea of a “Lily and Jeff” but he felt it was far more appropriate than a “Lily and Nate”.
Nate knew who he was, what he was and where he came from. He had no qualms at taking the cosmopolitan, seen-it-all, done-it-all Georgia to his bed. However the likes of Lily Jacobs, with her sweet low voice, perfect untouchable skin and trusting eyes was not for the likes of Nate.
Nate McAllister didn’t know his father. His mother was a drunk, a drug-addict and, for all intents and purposes, a whore. She’d been murdered by one of her many drug-addled lovers in a grimy dingy flat in a grimy dingy neighbourhood. Nate started stealing before his age hit double digits and his first mode of employment had been working for a gangster who was no longer thus but it didn’t change the fact that Nate had participated in a life of crime before he’d even entered his teens.
Lily Jacobs was too good for him.
Nate knew this straight to his soul.
“Nate!” It was Danielle, his adoptive sister, looking lush in a black dress that, as usual, showed way too much flesh.
She rushed to him and gave him an over-friendly, over-long and not-at-all sisterly hug.
“I hear you played the hero yesterday,” she remarked as leaned away from him, keeping her hands on his shoulders and her eyes, Laura’s eyes but without the warmth, peered closely at him.
He didn’t answer.
“She’s still here, the American,” Danielle informed him and disengaged when he didn’t so much as touch her. “You should see what she’s wearing. She and Mum took off somewhere this afternoon, I think Covent Garden or Notting Hill, who knows? Came back from shopping with loads of bags. It’s embarrassing, Mum shopping in Notting Hill at her age. Oh, hi Georgia.”
Georgia had arrived and stopped beside Nate, her face a mask of anger.
Danielle, ever-assessing, looked closely at Georgia then back at Nate who in turn looked indifferent. Then a sly satisfied smile stole across Danielle’s face making her pretty features a lot less pretty.
“Everything okay?” Danielle asked with feigned concern, knowing the answer. She’d been watching his relationships closely for years, she knew Georgia’s time was at an end.
“Fine,” Georgia answered curtly, knowing for a long time that Danielle considered herself competition for Nate’s affection. “What are you talking about?”
Danielle crossed her arms which forced a goodly amount of cleavage to spill out the top of her strapless dress.
“Well apparently Nate saved some American woman from a purse snatcher. She got tossed around a bit and Mum and Dad are doing the nursemaid thing.”
Then, quickly moving from adversary to ally with Georgia against a new foe as any woman, especially an attractive one and
definitely
a stunning one, was considered a foe by both Danielle and Georgia, Danielle went on.
“You should hear her talk. Half the time I don’t know what she’s saying, she’s got such a country twang. Says she’s from
Indiana
.” Danielle said the word “Indiana’ like it tasted foul. “Definitely a hillbilly. Mum thinks she’s adorable. I personally don’t see it.”
Nate found himself annoyed… no, immensely annoyed at Danielle’s words. Lily definitely had an accent that wasn’t stereotypically American Southern but certainly had an endearing, countrified lilt. Nevertheless it was not difficult in the slightest to understand her and she didn’t carry herself in any way, shape or form like a hillbilly. In fact, the very idea was ludicrous.
“I need a drink,” he announced because suddenly he did and badly.
Danielle actually batted her eyelashes at him. “Me too, be a darling and get me one, will you?”
He clenched his jaw at the sight. She was his sister for God’s sake. The concept of anything else was simply vile.
As he’d learned to do from years of practice, he ignored her and entered the drawing room.
And there he saw Lily immediately.
She was standing by the fireplace next to Jeff, looking up at Nate’s brother slightly, with high heels she was nearly his height and smiling vaguely.
Her dress was not at all embarrassing. It was not couture but it was beautiful and fit her like it was made for her. It was apple green silk and had a low, deep V at the front showing just a hint, but not a vagrant display, of cleavage. It had a thin ruffle along the neckline, the ruffle seemingly being the only thing that held the dress to her graceful shoulders. It skimmed her voluptuous body perfectly to fall in a straight line to just above her knees.