Fulfillment (Book 3 in The Temptation Series) (43 page)

He leaned
forward and kissed my nose. “Okay. I’ll let you know.” Then he
unwrapped my arms and headed to the kitchen.

I stood there
and shook my head at him then turned to find Rick staring at me. He
met my gaze, smiled mildly then returned his attention to Charli
who was showing off her new karaoke machine. It dawned on me in
that moment that he had not yet seen Bryce and I physically
affectionate toward each other. It also dawned on me that it must
be hard on him to observe. So I made a mental note to tone it down,
not wanting to ruin anybody’s Christmas, although, he would have to
start to get used it sooner rather than later.

***

Bryce had
offered to cook the Christmas turkey and ham, but I had insisted
that he didn’t, wanting him to have a break and enjoy the day
without any work involved. He’d worked enough as it was lately.
Besides, he had a perfectly good chef downstairs in the hotel’s
kitchen who was more than happy to cook our Christmas lunch for
us.

Chaos
surrounded the dining table as both our families dished up their
lunches. I smiled warmly at the four highchairs lined up next to
each other, hoping one day soon that another one would be added to
the adorable sight before me.

Bryce
approached from behind, having noticed me staring at the babies.
Resting his chin on my shoulder momentarily, he whispered into my
ear. “You wanna sneak off and try to make one of those now?”

I scoffed in
response and tilted my head to touch his. “You’re a sex fiend, you
know that?”

***

We all enjoyed
our Christmas lunch along the extended dining room table, which was
covered in a white damask table cloth and topped with a white bone
china dinner set and silver cutlery. I’d placed Christmas crackers
at every place setting and sprinkled gold and silver glittered
stars all over the table top—stars now being one of my favourite
things.

Charli had
made name place settings out of gold and silver cardstock, having
matched my theme and cut them into star shapes.

I’d sat Rick
next to me, in the hope I’d keep him away from my grudge holding
family, and surprisingly, it had not felt weird sitting in between
him and Bryce.

Bryce was
faced the other way, chatting to Lucy, and I had not yet cracked
open my Christmas cracker, so I turned to Rick—my cracker pointing
directly at him—and offered the challenge.

“Don’t cheat
like you always do.”

“I don’t
cheat,” he said with a wicked grin.

“You do. Look
you’re holding it wrong. That’s cheating.”

“How am I
supposed to hold the bloody thing?”

I shook my
head at him. “You’re such a liar,” I blurted out.

Noticing that
the room had gone a little silent at my choice of words, I quickly
continued our harmless argument to reassure the eavesdroppers that
were our family. “You know exactly how to hold it, Rick. Like
this.” I rearranged his hand into the correct position. “Ready?” I
smiled, “Go.”

We both
wrenched our ends of the cracker, creating a loud snap and tearing
the giant foil lolly-shaped novelty apart. The content’s—the
winner’s prize—went hurling into the air and across the table,
smacking Jake right in the middle of the face. Everyone held their
breath, except for Olivia who pointed at her uncle, saying
‘ouch’.

I bit down on
my lip in order to supress an outburst of hysterics while Rick
raised his hands in surrender.

“Accident,
Mate.”

Jake was still
stone faced, and for once I couldn’t tell if he was about to lose
his shit or laugh at the funny side.

It wasn’t
until Scarlet-Johanna snorted a laugh at him, that everyone else
followed suit, including Jake. Nate picked up the bundled prize
that had rolled in his direction after bouncing off Jake’s nose. He
unfolded the paper hat and fitted it to Jake’s head then read out
the festive joke.

“What do you
call a dog in the dessert?” Nate announced slowly.

Most of us
shrugged our shoulders.

Jake
deadpanned “A hot dog.”

Johanna
snorted.

“No,” Nate
groaned.

Charli
laughed.

And Olivia
threw something and said ‘ouch’ again.

Nate waited
until we were all quiet then happily announced, “Sandy Claws.”

We all
groaned.

***

You know
you’ve had a good Christmas feed when your stomach is full to the
brim with seafood cocktail, roasted turkey, glazed ham, golden
crisp potatoes, pumpkin, and steamed greens. If that wasn’t enough
to satisfy your hunger, you would then indulge in Christmas pudding
and custard, Pavlova and trifle, and every few seconds you’d pop
chocolate-coated nuts and lollies into your mouth. Once you
eventually stopped eating, you’d have that increasing urge to undo
your pants, followed by a developed waddle, and a hand lightly
placed on your bulging gut together with a screwed up look on your
face that said ‘urgh! I won’t ever eat again.’

Most of us
were showing those signs as we all moved back into the lounge area
to exchange our gifts.

“Best
Christmas meal, ever!” Jake exclaimed as he rubbed his gut and let
out a belch. “Excuse me. See what I mean?”

Scarlet-Johanna was the only who found that funny.

“So my
Christmas dinners have been shit, have they?” Mum asked
defensively.

“Na, Mum, not
at all. This one was just better,” Jake winked at her.

“Can we open
presents now”? Charli asked anxiously.

“Yes,” I
sighed in surrender, sending the kids haywire with the ripping and
shredding of Christmas paper.

Jen and Lucy
spent the next few minutes removing bits of that paper from their
babies’ mouths and clenched hands, while everyone else was deep in
discussion of some kind or another.

I sat back and
watched the excitement and rejoicing, and as crazy as it was, the
scene before me was one of the reasons I loved Christmas so much;
everyone just seemed happy. All resentment, bitterness, and dislike
were checked at the door, replaced by contentment, laughter, joy
and cheerfulness—it was bliss.

Bryce had
placed envelopes under the tree for my brother, sister, and mum and
dad. He’d even put one under there for Rick. I was curious as to
their contents, hoping to God it wasn’t money. Instead, he’d
organised Clark Incorporated Hotel Family Cards, so that my family
could stay at any of his hotels around the world on any day, at any
time.
I was completely stunned.

“Mum, there’s
a big present right at the back. It says ‘Hunny’,” Charli struggled
to say while on her knees with her bum in the air and her head deep
in the depths of the Christmas tree reaching for the present.

“Oooh,” I
beamed, finding Bryce’s knowing smile as I quickly got up from the
sofa.

“It’s big,”
she whined as she dragged it out.

Once it was
free from the confines of the tree, the odd shape of the box kind
of gave its’ contents away. My face lit up as I lifted it and
carried it back to the couch, sitting down next to Bryce. I
couldn’t help but happy-dance as I opened it, while letting out my
own high-pitched squeal.

I lifted and
opened the box to find a guitar case, and turning to Bryce with a
smile so bright that the muscles in my face stretched under the
strain, I mouthed thank you.

Running my
hands over the case, I unlatched it and took hold of my guitar,
my
very first guitar. As I lifted it out of the
box, I noticed a pretty design on the front with a bird and some
flowers—it was gorgeous.

“Nice!” Lucy
commended. “Is that a Hummingbird?”

I studied the
bird a little more closely. “Oh, so it is. The bird is a
hummingbird, how sweet.”

Lucy and Bryce
laughed at my discovery, exchanging expressions of a private
joke.

“Yeah,” Bryce
answered, “True Vintage.”

“Of course it
is,” she acknowledged.

“What?” I
asked. “Am I supposed to understand what the two of you are
referring to?”

“Nope,” Bryce
replied and pulled me in for a quick kiss.

“Well, thank
you anyway. I love it, it’s perfect.”

“I’ve got
something for you too,” I said sneakily, then whispering into his
ear I added. “This is a decoy. You’ll get your real present
later.”

He eyed me
suspiciously as I handed him the box.

“No pressure,”
I said as he opened it.

He laughed and
lifted out the motorcycle helmet.

“I couldn’t
see that you had one, so I figured that if you were going to take
the plunge, you’d need a helmet.”

“Thanks, and
you’re right, I don’t have one.” He leaned closer to me. “What
about you? You’ll need a helmet too.”

I raised my
eyebrows. “I’m one step ahead of you.”

***

Later that
night in bed, I asked Bryce why he gave Rick a Hotel Family
Card.

“You didn’t
have to give Rick one, you know. You already gave him five million
dollars.”

He sighed.
“Hunny, can we not talk about my paying Rick? I might not regret
offering him the money and having a hand in forcing the truth out
of him, but I do regret bribing him with something I had a good
idea he could not refuse.”

“No, I don’t
mean it like that. What I mean is, because of you he can afford to
stay anywhere in the world as it is, so why give him a card?”

He stroked my
face gently, “Because it’s a Family Card, and he is your family and
always will be.”

“Yes, he will
be,” I honestly replied.

He would
always be family. We shared two beautiful children and a lifetime
of memories, but we’d both moved on with our lives and in just a
few weeks would be officially divorced.

***

A few days
later, I knocked on the door of my former house, my children behind
me with their suitcases.

“Mum, how long
are you going to be in Italy for?” Nate asked. “I want to
come.”

“Next time,
Sweetheart, I promise. This trip is for work and it’s only for a
few days. I’ll see you both next weekend though.”

Nate slumped
his shoulders.

“I’ll bring
you back a Ferrari?” I offered, enticingly.

“A real
one?”

I thought
about my answer carefully, knowing he meant a full-sized one and I
meant a scaled version.
A toy one is still real if it’s from
Italy, isn’t it?

“Yeah,” I
answered.

“Sick!”

Rick opened
the door and let us in. “You still have your key, Alexis. You can
use it.”

“I know. I’m
still not going to let myself in, though, especially after last
time.”

He gave me a
sarcastic grin.

“What? I
honestly didn’t know she had no shoes,” I defensively answered,
remembering when I’d kicked Claire out of the house due to my crazy
anger.

“Sure,” he
teased.

I followed him
into the kitchen, still feeling a little nostalgic at my
surroundings. “Where are Claire and RJ?”

“RJ had a
friend’s birthday party,” he explained.

“Right.” I
took a seat at the dining table. “Listen, I have the eh...” I
opened my handbag to pull out the Application for Divorce. “...the
divorce papers,” I said nervously.

Rick walked
over casually and pulled out a chair opposite me. “The time has
come, has it?”

“Yeah, Rick,
it has.” I slid them across the table to him.

He grabbed his
reading glasses from the fruit bowl in the middle of the table.

I laughed.
“You still put them there? They don’t belong in the fruit
bowl.”

He looked up
at me over the rim. “I always know where they are, that’s why I put
them there.”

I shook my
head.

He dropped his
gaze back down to the papers in front of him, studying their
content with precision. I took that moment to take him in, noticing
how much he had changed in the past year, not just mentally but
physically. He now wore his dark brown hair a little longer, taking
a few years off his age. His 5 o’clock shadow was clean shaven and
he’d toned up, looking a lot healthier overall.

He looked up
over the reading glasses’ rims again, displaying a mischievous
smirk. “Having second thoughts?”

“What?” I
said, snapping out of my Rick analysis. I lifted an eyebrow and
smiled. “No. I’m not having second thoughts, smartarse. I was just
taking in how good you look, how healthy and happy you seem.”

“You look
good, too.”

I scoffed.
“Separating has done wonders for us, hasn’t it? Maybe we weren’t as
good for each other as we thought we were.”

“Lexi, we were
good for each other.”

I looked down
at my keys which I still had looped over my finger. I found the key
to the house and started removing it from the ring. “Rick, are you
happy...honestly?”

He took his
glasses off his face and placed them on top of the papers. “Yes,
Lexi, I’m happy. Claire is great. She’s matured and she really does
love me. I’m lucky to have her after the way I treated her. And RJ?
Well...he is just awesome, he’s so good and sweet...and...he’s just
perfect. Nate and Charli are happy and healthy and they obviously
really like Bryce. He seems to really like them, too—”

“He loves
them.” I interrupted, correcting him.

“Yeah, I can
see that. I can also see just how much he loves you. I could never
compete with that.”

“Rick, it was
never a competition. I loved you. I loved you very much, but there
was just something missing in our marriage, and I think you can
agree with me in saying that we didn’t realise that until we had no
choice but to realise it.”

“No, you’re
right, I do realise that. I loved you, too. I still do. I always
will. But you deserved a much greater love than what I could give
you, and I truly am happy that Bryce is the one that can give it to
you. Believe it or not, I do respect the fucker.”