Her Best Worst Mistake (20 page)

She glanced up to find her father staring at her, an
arrested expression on his face. It was clear to her that he’d only
just realized she was present. How typical of her stepmother not to
have alerted him. Martin’s hand slid onto her knee beneath the
table.

“
How are you doing?” he said
quietly.

“
I’m fine.”

Surprisingly, she was. Ten years
ago, she’d read her father’s indifference as an indictment of
herself. Now, she knew better. He’d let her down. He’d opted for
peace with his new wife over supporting his daughter when Violet
had needed it the most.
He
was the failure, the disappointment, not
her.

It was an empowering revelation, and it kept her head
high through the rest of the meal. She was aware of Diana shooting
glances at her, but Violet resisted the urge to give her stepmother
a little finger wave or to poke out her tongue. If Diana wanted to
say something to her, she could come over and start a conversation.
Violet refused to invest any more energy in the woman.

Still, by the time their main meal plates were being
taken away she was feeling more than a little exhausted from all
the smiling and not-giving-a toss she’d been doing. A jazz trio
started up in the far corner, the signal, apparently, for people to
start table-hopping. The woman on Martin’s left disappeared to
catch up with an acquaintance, while the President was swamped with
people wanting to press his flesh.

She was considering beating a retreat for the Ladies
when she glanced across and saw her father bearing down on their
table. She tensed, her hands curling into her napkin. Then he
walked straight past her and stopped by the President’s chair,
offering the other man his hand and striking up conversation
without so much as making eye contact with her.

She dropped her gaze to the table cloth as humiliated
heat rushed into her face. The impact of his disregard was painful
and pointed.

She truly meant nothing to him.

Martin turned his body toward her, his arm curving
around the back of her chair as though he could somehow shield her
from her father’s indifference. “Violet—”

“
Always good to see a new face in
the club rooms. I take it you’re well, Violet?”

She lifted her gaze over Martin’s shoulder and met
her father’s eyes. They were the same color as her own. They’d
shared the same hair color, too, before he’d gone grey.

She opened her mouth to say something suitably
innocuous now that he’d deigned to acknowledger her, but suddenly
Martin was on his feet between them, blocking her father with his
back.

“
Come on. Let’s go.” His hand found
her elbow, urging her to her feet.

She shook her head, very aware that his abrupt move
had drawn the President’s attention.

“
What? No, we haven’t had dessert
yet.” She tried to tell him with her eyes that he didn’t need to do
this for her. That she was more than happy to suck it up so he
could get what he wanted.

“
Fuck dessert. You don’t want to be
here, Violet, and neither do I.”

“
Martin
.”

He turned and nailed her father with a cold, hard
look. “You’re an asshole.”

Violet gasped with shock. Heads turned, the volume of
chatter dropping noticeably. Martin propelled her away from the
table, his grip painfully tight on her elbow.

He only slowed when they reached the cloak room, his
grip easing on her arm.

“
Are you okay?”

“
Martin... I so wish you hadn’t done
that.” Tears filled her eyes as she thought about how long he’d
coveted membership to this hallowed, exclusive club.

“
You think I want to belong to a
club that would take a prick like that? You think I want to rub
shoulders with someone who could do that to you?”

She stared at him, at the strong planes of his face
and the angry, determined glint in his eye and she understood that
he was completely, utterly sincere in his sacrifice.

Her chest swelled with emotion.

How had she ever disliked this man? How had she ever
found him stuffy or staid or repressed? He was a modern day
knight—honorable, devoted, passionate—and she was head over
freaking heels in love with him.

Overwhelmed and humbled, she let Martin help her into
her coat and they exited into the night. They’d parked in a
multi-level garage on the next block and they walked in silence for
a few minutes, the only sound the click-click of her heels.

Finally she spoke up.

“
I think that’s the nicest thing
anyone has ever done for me.”

“
I meant every word of it. If he
wasn’t so old I’d have broken his nose for him, too.”

She smiled, loving his outrage, loving that it was
for her.

Loving him.

“
He boxed at Oxford. He might have
broken your nose.”

“
I boxed at Hackney. Trust me, I’d
break more than his nose.”

They turned into the parking garage.

“
You know who’d look good with a
broken nose? Diana,” she said.

He laughed, the sound echoing off the concrete
walls.

“
You think you could take her in a
cage match?”

“
I would eat her for breakfast.
Wouldn’t even break a sweat.”

“
I’d back you. Any time.”

She knew he would, too. He was a good man. A real
man. The kind who honored his commitments and did the right thing
and stood up for what he believed in. He also cooked like a dream
and fucked like a god and he made her feel important and sexy and
special.

A wave of love and lust welled up inside her as he
unlocked the Jag and held her door open for her. She slid inside,
then waited impatiently for him to walk around to the other side of
the car and get into the driver’s seat.

He slid the key into the ignition, but she reached
out and caught his arm before he could start the car. “Don’t.”

He glanced at her, a question in his eyes.

“
Put your seat back,” she
said.

He glanced out the window. It was dark and deserted
in the garage, but there were plenty of other cars around.

“
Put your seat back,” she said
again.

He pulled a lever and his seat dropped backward. She
reached for his belt buckle, sliding it free with impatient hands.
She could feel how hard he was already as she unzipped his fly. He
made a small, inarticulate noise as she lowered her head and took
him into her mouth.

He tasted like heat and clean skin and she took him
all the way to the back of her throat, reveling in how thick and
long he was. His hands slid into her hair as she started to work
him, her tongue tormenting the sensitive head of his cock. She
poured all her want and all her need into the act, doing her
damnedest to tell him with her hands and mouth how important he was
to her, how grateful she was for what he’d done tonight, how much
his sacrifice meant to her. She felt the tension growing in him and
she upped the pace, wanting to give him as much pleasure as she
possibly could. Wanting to rock his world.

“
Violet,” he groaned, his voice
ragged.

She could feel how close he was, could feel his hips
lift off the seat as he gave into the primitive urge to pump into
something. Then he was coming, his body shuddering for long, drawn
out seconds. She waited until he was done before giving the head of
his beautiful cock one last, regretful lick. She lifted her head to
find Martin watching her with heavy-lidded eyes.

“
You didn’t have to do
that.”

“
I wanted to.” So much.

“
You know you’ve ruined me for all
other women, right?”

“
That was the plan.”

He lifted his hand and brushed his knuckles along the
curve of her breast, his expression suddenly very serious. “What
did I do before you, Violet? I can’t remember.”

She caught his hand and turned his palm toward her,
pressing a kiss into it. She could remember her life before he’d
become an essential part of it. She didn’t want to go back
there.

“
What would you do if told you that
I loved you?” she said quietly, her voice barely above a
whisper.

It felt like the bravest thing she’d ever said, but
she needed to know. She was besotted with this man, and she was
reasonably certain the feeling was mutual, but it was so much what
she wanted, so perfect, she couldn’t quite believe in it.

“
I’d say hallelujah, because I’m
crazy ape bonkers for you, Violet Sutcliffe.”

“
I love you.”

His eyes glinted. “Come here.”

She didn’t need further encouragement, scrambling
across the centre console and onto him. She lay her body over his,
chest to chest, hip to hip. His hands came up to frame her face,
his thumbs brushing her cheekbones.

“
I love you, too. I’m obsessed with
you, and I admire you and I adore you. I love you,
Violet.”

No one had ever declared their love so unequivocally,
so sincerely, so convincingly. For a moment her chest seemed to
expand, as though her heart was suddenly too big for her body. This
man—this amazing, driven, smart, capable, loyal, loving, sexy
man—loved her.

“
This feels too good to be true,”
she whispered.

“
It’s true. I’m true. And I’m not
going anywhere. Not unless you come with me.”

She closed her eyes, pressing her cheek into his
touch, overwhelmed by the joy burgeoning inside her. They sat like
that for a long moment, communing silently with one another,
allowing the truth to sink into their bones.

Then a car started up somewhere to their right and
she opened her eyes and made the decision she’d been delaying for
too long.

“
I need to talk to Elizabeth. As
soon as possible.”

“
Okay.”

“
I need to be in the same room as
her, to see her face. I don’t want her to just say the polite,
reasonable thing to smooth things over when she really wants to
scream at me. I want her to scream at me if she has to.”

“
We haven’t done anything wrong,
Violet. Elizabeth has no claim on me.”

Violet nodded, but they both knew it wasn’t as cut
and dried as that. Martin had been Elizabeth’s for six years.

“
It will be okay,
Violet.”

It was the second time he’d said those words to her,
and they still held a lot of power. But even his love and
reassurance couldn’t stop the dart of fear that raced through her
as she contemplated the very real prospect of losing her best
friend.

Chapter Eleven

She booked her ticket that night, sitting in bed
beside Martin, his laptop on her knees as she hit the button to
confirm her purchase. It was done. Three days from now she would
know if she had won the man of her dreams at the expense of her
closet, most beloved friend.

She rang Elizabeth the next morning to announce her
visit. E sounded delighted and surprised and excited by the
prospect of seeing her. Violet felt like a fraud, as though she was
deceiving her friend yet again.

She packed that night, setting her smallest case by
the door. She wanted this over with now, and she regretted not
simply jumping on the first flight out. It simply hadn’t been
practical, however. She’d needed to organize cover for the store—a
student, Andie, who sometimes helped out during busy periods—as
well as take delivery of a major shipment.

It wasn’t until the following day that she remembered
that she needed to add her passport details to her booking. She was
in the shop at the time, and she flipped the closed sign and raced
upstairs to find her passport. Belatedly it occurred to her that it
had been a while since she’d used it—it would be deeply frustrating
if it had expired.

She found her passport in her underwear drawer, her
shoulders dropping with relief when she flipped it open and saw
that it was good for another twelve months. Phew.

She locked up the flat and started down the stairs,
her thoughts racing ahead of her to tomorrow’s flight and what
would happen when she landed in Australia. Elizabeth had insisted
on picking her up from the airport. It was going to take an act of
enormous self control to not simply blurt out her news the moment
she saw Elizabeth’s face.

She wasn’t sure what happened next—if she missed a
step or slipped or something else entirely, but the next thing she
knew she was tumbling down the remaining half a dozen stairs, arms
flailing as she tried and failed to grasp the railing to break her
fall. She landed painfully, her ankle twisting beneath her, her
knee smashing into the edge of a stair tread.

For a moment the pain was so intense she couldn’t
breathe. Then she was gasping, tears springing to her eyes as she
started to shake in reaction. Moving slowly, she used the
balustrade to drag herself into a semi-crouch, balancing on her
uninjured leg. She tried to move her ankle and cried out in
pain.

It took her a moment to recover from the attempt.
Tears rolling down her face, she sank onto a step and pulled her
phone from her skirt pocket.

“
Hello. I was just thinking about
you,” Martin said warmly.

“
I’ve had an accident. Can you come?
I need you.”

“
Are you okay? What happened? Should
I call an ambulance?”

Later, when the world wasn’t quite so filled with
pain, she would take time to appreciate the urgent concern in his
voice.