CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED-FIVE

VIOLET POV

“A pretty young girl like you would have plenty of people offering to give you a ride, Violet. Maybe you just don’t see it.”

   “I don’t.” I laugh. “I’ve never seen it. Maggie Connor is the popular one.”

      “Maggie Connor is reckless,” he says. “Reckless and foolish, and selfish on top. You’re too good for her, Violet. I’d prefer it if you didn’t let her drag you into any more situations.”

      I nod. “I’m not planning on it.”

      “Good girl,” he says.

 I meet his eyes, risk a smile. “Is that it? The ground rules? That I don’t take rides in strange people’s cars and don’t hang out in clubs with Maggie Connor?”

 “No,” he tells me. “It’s much wider than that.”

    That tickle again. It’s something in his tone. Something so… strong.

      “I want to take care of you,” he says, and I can’t stop that feeling between my legs. It makes my thighs clench together. “I want to look after you. I don’t think anyone’s ever looked after you, Violet. I want to be the first.”

      The first.

      I want him to be my first. In every way.

      “I can, um… take care of myself…” I offer. “You don’t need to…”

“I want to,” he says. “It gives me great pleasure.”

      And I don’t know what this is. I don’t know what we are, and I don’t want to ask, and I do want to ask.

      I do ask, but it comes out messy.

      “You mean, like, a um. You mean like a… a guardian… or something like that?”

      His eyes burn me and I can’t look away. “Say it, Violet. Say what you mean.”

      My cheeks burn. “Like a, um. Like a dad?”

      “Is that what you want?”

      Yes.

      I know that’s what I want.

      But I’m all icky again. All screwed up inside at the thought of wanting him like that. Wanting him the way that makes me all tickly between my legs.

      “What?” he asks. “Tell me what you want.”

      I take a sip of juice and it’s hard to swallow.

 “You can tell me, Violet. You can tell me anything. We talk about everything. That’s another of the ground rules.”

      I nod, force down another sip of juice.

      “This is a strange situation,” he says. “For both of us. I was driving, just driving, and there you were, lost in the rain, needing someone. Just like I needed someone.” He drinks some tea but his eyes are still on me. “Sometimes I think life has this way of putting people together in the most unlikely of circumstances.”

      “Like fate?”

      He smiles. “I like to think of it as synchronicity.”

      “I believe in fate,” I tell him. “I believe in horoscopes, too. I read mine every day.”

      “Maybe you should read mine,” he says, and there’s humour in it. “I’d love to know what fate has in store for us, Violet. I think it's a good thing.”

      “Me too,” I say, and I mean it.

      “So,” he prompts. “What is it that you want?”

      I shrug, gesture around me, to the beautiful room in his beautiful house. “This,” I tell him. “This is everything. It’s… it’s like a fairytale.”

      “Beauty and the beast?” He laughs.

      “No!” I laugh with him. “Cinderella! I’m the scrubby servant girl and you’re Prince Charming come to save me.”

His eyes glitter. “I’m not all that charming,” he says. “Not when you get to know me.”

 But I don’t believe him. I tell him so and he laughs again.

“Maybe this could be a fairytale, Violet,” he says. “If we want it badly enough. Life is full of magic, I think, you just have to trust in it.”

“I believe in magic,” I say. “I haven’t seen much of it, not until now, but I know it’s out there.”

      “Maybe it’s right here.”

 My heart daren’t even hope. I feel it lurch, and it scares me how much I want this. It scares me how hard I’m falling, falling right into him, falling right into his life.

      “I hope so.” My voice is a whisper.

      He holds out a hand and I take it across the table, and his fingers grip mine so tightly.

      “Let me care for you, Violet. Will you do that?”

      I nod. “I’d like that. Very much.”

      “And you’ll stick to the ground rules? Let me keep you safe?”

      “I’ll stick to the ground rules,” I say.

      “Good girl.” His smile gives me tingles, and my heart races.

      I take a breath, stare at my hand in his. “And that’s what you want? You want to take care of me? Like I’m…”

      “Like you’re my little girl?”

My cheeks must be like beetroot. I close my eyes as I nod.

      “And what else do you want, Violet? What did you want on the landing last night? What did you want in bed last night as you wriggled and squirmed?”

      I can’t open my eyes. I just can’t.

      “You,” I whisper. “I wanted you.”

      “Is that still what you want? Not out of gratitude, or because you think you should. None of that is necessary, Violet, I promise you.”

 I shake my head. “No… not because of that…” My heart is in my throat. “Just because… because I want it… because I like you…”

  I hold my breath as I wait for him to answer, but his response shocks me enough to open my eyes.

“I need to tell you about, West,” he says.

      “About West?”

      “My rules can get… intense. I need you to understand why.”

      I nod, and my eyes are wide and focused. I’m pleased that he doesn’t let go of my hand.

      “West was my little girl,” he says.

      Was.  

“I was young when I met her mother. Clara was lost, just like you were. I found her sheltering under an awning during an autumn thunderstorm, upset because she’d argued with her piece of shit boyfriend. west was just a baby, fast asleep in her pushchair, none the wiser for her mother’s predicament, thank God.”

      “So she wasn’t…”

 “Mine?” he says. “Not biologically, no. But she was mine in every way that matters. I was the man she called daddy. I was the man who read her bedtime stories and tucked her up in bed at night.”

      My eyes urge him to continue.

 “I was young myself, relatively. Still climbing up the corporate ladder, coping with my father’s death. This was our family home, I inherited it naturally, and it was lonely here before Clara came, just as it was before you came.”

      “Did you bring her home, too?”

 He smiles. “I did, yes. I brought her and little West home with me, and made Clara cocoa while she dried off. I listened to her stories about her loser boyfriend and her sad life, and how she was so scared for tiny little West.”

      “You rescued her. You rescued both of them.”

“Yes. Yes, I did. But she rescued me right back. Saved me from a life full of nothing but work and loneliness.”

      I take a breath. “She didn’t grow up here, did she? West, I mean.”

“She didn’t grow up, Violet.” He takes a breath. “She died when she was four. A car accident. Her and her mother alongside that sorry sack of shit I took her from.” I see his eyes darken. “She left me a note before she went. He wanted to talk, she said, needed some help, she said. She didn’t want him, but for some crazy reason that day she took our little girl and climbed into his car. Maybe she didn’t realise he’d been drinking.”

  I feel the blood leave my face. “I’m so sorry.”

      “I should’ve been here,” he says. “I was working late. Stupid client meeting.”

      “But you couldn’t have known…”

      “I didn’t keep them safe,” he tells me, and I feel the pain from him. I see it in his eyes, in the hunch of his shoulders, in the tightness in his voice. In his everything.

      I squeeze his hand right back, as hard as I can. “I’ll follow the ground rules,” I tell him. “I’ll stay safe, I promise.” I feel so sad. So sad for that little girl with the pretty pink room. So sad for Spencer, too. The whole thing feels so sad I can hardly draw breath.   

“I just need you to be safe, Violet. I really need you to follow the rules.”

      I nod. “I will. Cross my heart.”

      He smiles such a sad smile. “I’ll love you, Violet, if you’ll let me. Hell knows, everyone needs someone to love them.”

      My heart hurts.

      My heart knows that feeling.

      I feel my eyes well up, and the tears spill, letting the sadness in my heart tip all the way over. “I’ll love you, too, Spencer. I’m so sorry about your little girl.”

He runs his thumb over my knuckles and for that moment I’m sure I see his eyes are watery too.

 And then he moves, takes a breath and gets to his feet, and he’s in-control Spencer again.

 “Chicken for dinner,” he tells me. “I hope you like chicken.”

      I tell him chicken sounds really good.