“Babe,” she resists, blinking nervously. She knows me well enough to know when I won’t back down.
I take a step forward. “I’ll call Patrick to take you to a hotel tonight.” Our family lawyer, Patrick, is well known to Melanie. “Tomorrow you’ll find accommodations for yourself. You will not speak to Hazel, you will not show up on our doorstep, and any future communication will go through Patrick.”
She twists her mouth, furrowing her brow. Frustration is etched all over her face. “You could have had it all and now you’re going to throw it away?”
I take another step forward, dwarfing her with my full height. “Could have had what?” I ask menacingly. “You and your daughter? She’s not yours to sell, Melanie.”
“I’ll use it against you,” she threatens. “I’ll destroy you!”
“I don’t care what you do. You think you can send any storm my way that I can’t weather? Do your worst. But don’t you dare try to use Hazel as a pawn.”
She steps back. “You’ll have to pay me more alimony to shut me up!”
“The alimony offer is off the table,” I say quickly, turning my back to her as I walk towards the stairs. “I want you out of here before we’re home tonight.”
“Fuck you, Xavier!” she spits out behind me.
I look up and see Hazel standing on the mezzanine, wide-eyed and mute. “Into your room, sweetie,” I say when I reach the top of the stairs, placing a hand against the small of her back. “Grab your dress and pack an overnight bag.”
#
Hazel
#
the wedding is two and a half hours away in Nanaimo, but still I’m surprised when Xavier loads my bags into the trunk and tells me we’re going to stay the night in a hotel.
I only heard enough of his argument with Melanie to understand that he finally kicked her out. By the time we left, she was in his room and I didn’t bother to say goodbye. Why would I? She’s barely spoken four words to me since she arrived.
In the car, Xavier calls his lawyer, shooting me sideways glances as they talk over speakerphone. “Give her until nine o’clock,” he says. “And then make sure she’s out.” He calls his assistant and says, “Book me two rooms in Nanaimo.”
His jaw is tight and he’s unusually silent-which is really saying something, considering that Xavier is usually silent. But today I can practically see the wheels turning in his head.
We’re on the ferry when Xavier’s assistant calls again, and he holds the phone to his ear. I can only hear snippets of what he’s saying. “I’m not staying over there just to be an hour away from the venue…Fine, but make sure it’s got two beds.”
While he talks, I lean over the railing, watching the water rip into two slices as it’s cleaved apart by the boat. The boat is loud, engines whirring and wind roaring, but the scenery is stubbornly calm, stoically resistant to the churning chaos of the boat and the wind. I look up and take a deep inhale of the cool lake air, scanning the hills that seem to crowd the shoreline on every side.
When Xavier hangs up the phone, he joins me, wrapping an arm around me and kissing the top of my head. “I’m sorry for all of this, sweetheart.”
“It’s okay.”
He runs his eyes over my face, along my hairline, a smile playing on his lips that somehow emphasizes the cleft in his chin. I love seeing him look at me this way. As if he’s captivated by me. As if I’m something magical or sacred.
“You look good on a boat.” He smoothes the hair back from my forehead, where it’s no doubt tightening into curls in the humid air. “It suits you.”
My heart could melt looking at him. Big hand gripping the railing, big bicep pulling the fabric of his jacket taut, big man hovering over me with well over a foot on me.
Big in every way, I remember, with heat rising to my cheeks. The same yearning I’ve been living with for weeks pulses to life inside of me. I want all of Xavier’s love. I want his loving, gentle protection, his mouth, his hands, and the orgasms he’s given me. And I want that final consummation, his cock inside of me. Xavier losing all control because of how it feels to be that close to me. I want it more than I even have words for, and I don’t know if he’ll ever do that. It leaves me feeling raw and needy.
I imagine him pushing me back against the railing, his strong hands ripping off my shorts and spreading my legs. I would be so small underneath him. His big cock, which I can barely fit in my mouth, pushing into me until he’s thrusting hard and deep, grunting like an animal while he clutches me to him, my stepdaddy giving me everything he has, loving me so completely.
I must be giving him some kind of look because his face darkens and he looks away, out over the water.
“We have a reservation right near the venue,” he tells me. “But they were almost fully booked. We have to share a room.”