Just You (17 page)

Robin nodded and Dillon scrambled out of his seat, looking up at me.

“You alright, kid? Jake’s gonna be okay.”

“He nodded grinning at me.” I caught him in a loose headlock and rubbed his head with my sore knuckles before letting him go. He was laughing when he slipped away and ran off ahead of Robin.

I turned back to Portia.

“You’re so good with them,” she said.

“You’ve been pretty good with them too. Thank you. You being around made this easier.” Now I knew I had to say something, but the words were sticking in my throat. Pride. But I had common sense too.

“Sit down, Portia, and finish your coffee.” My voice came out more serious than I intended, callous probably, but it was due to my inner battle, not her.
Common sense.

The pleasure in her expression collapsed. She did sit down though.

I rubbed a hand over my face; feeling the pressure, worry and exhaustion of the last forty-eight hours hit me. My hand fell to the table and she gripped it.

“Do you want me to get you a coffee?”

I shook my head. “No the cops got me one.” I turned my hand in hers, so our palms touched, that was where our colors collided. Then I looked up at her blue eyes. She was not the girl I’d thought she was months ago, she was all things good.

“I want to accept your offer of the flat to rent. I’m sorry I got so angry over it. It’s a good idea. Sensible. No way can we go back to the Bronx. Mom is going to have to accept it. Your help is a God send. Thank you.” She knew how much it cut me to say it. I could see the understanding in her eyes–and thank God she didn’t gloat.

“Okay. Everything’s still going through, I didn’t call it off. I’d have bought it anyway.”

“Well it’s not going to be easy convincing Mom. But you were right. As this morning proved, those guys are going to keep looking for Jake, and us. All of us. We need to start again somewhere, and your help means we can.”

I looked down out our hands, then up again. “I feel shit about it…”

She smiled gently. “I know.”

“And if anything happens between us…”

“We’ll deal with it then, Justin, but right now, we can’t know the future, but I do know that all I want is you in it. Just you…” Her fingers curled around my hand.

Yeah. “That’s how I feel too.”

Chapter Fourteen

Portia laughed throwing my coat at me. “We’re late. If Mr. Rees is in, we’re gonna be in a whole pile of shit.”

“Well you shouldn’t look so sexy when you wake up and I wouldn’t want to do you.”

“Do me… Romantic.”

I smiled at her as I pulled on my coat. “I’ll romance you anytime, baby.”

She grimaced at me over her shoulder as she opened the door. “For that, you can cook tonight.”

“For that, I will, but I’ll blindfold you when you eat it.”

“Fuck off with all your kinky shit … ”

“You love kinky…”

She gave me an evil eye as she grabbed an umbrella and walked out. Rain was hammering down on the skylight above.

I laughed.

We’d been living together for two months. I’d stayed with Mom and the others for a month after Jake got out of hospital, making sure they settled. But Mom had changed her shifts now, she only worked when Dillon and Jake were at school, and she walked to and from school with them. They were in new schools; on the far side of Queens, well away from any of the rough areas in the Bronx. It hadn’t really been a decision to move in with Portia; it had just happened. I’d started staying over, and then I’d just never left and moved more and more of my clothes across.

I’d never lived with a girl before but now that we were a couple, I was with her 24-7. Still, I kept shaking things up with a bit of kinky stuff and silly dates to make sure we didn’t get boring. Portia hadn’t got with me because I was boring and I didn’t want to lose her.

When we got down to the street, we hit the rain. It was pouring down, hard and fast. She opened the umbrella before stepping out and raised it. She was in in-office, clothing. The in-office personality was getting left behind more and more, but she still looked different at work than she did at home.

“Come under,” she said, as I flicked up my hood.
Couple-y.

“I’m alright.”

“You’re getting wet.”

“I can cope with wet.”

She rolled her eyes at me, but then a gust of wind blew the rain sideways right up under her umbrella, catching the thing and trying to pull it from her hand. She squealed. I gripped the handle, my hand over hers and my other hand caught the brim to hold it steady. See, now I was cowering under an umbrella with her. But the look I got for it was worth it. The prim perfect Portia was still at her core, the one that had to have everything right because she’d been shouted at too many times for getting things wrong as a kid. She’d hate going into work soaked.

I told her every day that she was perfect to me.

She laughed and stopped walking, her gaze tangling up with mine. Her blue eyes made me forget we were in the middle of a busy street getting in people’s way. I let go of the rim of the umbrella as her mouth opened.

“I love you.” She said it like it was a discovery.

My other hand loosened from over hers as they gripped the handle of the umbrella.

“I think I’ve felt it for ages,” she whispered, her eyes shining at me. “But just now, the words leaked out of my heart and they were everywhere. I love you, Justin, seriously. I hope we last… You’re all I want.”

My hands came up with the same tug of emotion she must have felt–it was spewing like a volcano inside me. My palms pressing against her cheek bones, my fingers curved in her hair. “I love you too”, I said, right before I kissed her. Love, longing, need… commitment… swayed around inside me.

The rain hit me. The umbrella was gone. I broke the kiss and looked into her eyes, “You’re all I want too
. Just you, baby
. Nothing is gonna happen to us…” Her parents could do their best to split us up, they’d been trying. They wouldn’t succeed. They only pushed her closer to me, and couple-y wasn’t gonna be boring, when she was the other half of it–of me.

Whatever trance held us broke as another gust of wind blew stinging rain into our faces. “Shit, Justin…” She looked away, and my gaze followed to see the umbrella sailing on the wind down the street, causing cars to slam their brakes on, screeching to a halt. Laughing like idiots we both turned and started chasing the thing.

Chapter Fifteen

My palms were sweating. I wiped them on my pants. I knew for a fact that Portia would not want me to do this. But I had to… I’d been brought up to do things right, and if I was going to do anything right. Then it was going to be this.

Shit. When my hand lifted to knock on the wooden door leading into her dad’s office, all my muscles tensed, gripping and trying to stop me from doing this. I ignored the instinct to run and struck the door hard with a single knock.

Then I rolled my shoulders back and let my hands drop, trying to relax. I wanted to look confident. I was not going to let the guy make me feel small.

“Come!” The firm call came from within.

I glanced over at his personal assistant who sat at a desk behind me. She nodded. Like I was Dillon and needed encouragement.

I thought of Portia who would be in the office back in New York. I’d lied to her. I’d even got Keith, the editor, lying to her. I’d got him to tell me in front of her that he wanted me to go out of town to a photo shoot to make sure they set it up right.

Wrong.

I’d caught a plain to California last night to come see her Dad. At that stage, I’d been full of determination but now… now it was something a little like cowardice which gripped in my belly.

Shit. I took a deep breath just as the PA’s intercom buzzer went. Then Portia’s Dad’s voice blasted through it. “Is he coming in or not?”

Yeah, he was going in…

My hand gripped the door handle and pushed down, opening it.

My back stiffened as I walked in and then closed the door behind me; trying not to look weak or nervous, and not to turn my back on him–the enemy.

I took another subtle deep breath, before turning fully, facing him directly and looking him in the eyes. Portia had got her eye color from him.

“Justin.”

He didn’t stand up. He sat behind his big impressive desk; looking one-hundred percent the domineering billionaire with the world at his feet.

My spine stiffened even more as I pulled up to full height, letting the determination that had brought me out here flood my nerves. “Mr. Hemming.”

He tapped the end of the fountain pen he had gripped in his hand on the edge of the desk impatiently. “So tell me, to what do I owe this honor?”

I’d met Portia’s parents about six or seven times in the months we’d been together. They didn’t like me. Every time it had been awkward. They didn’t think I was good enough for her. Financially and socially–I wasn’t. But none of that mattered because
she
thought I was good enough. We just went. We got on. We laughed together. We connected. She was such a part of my life now that I couldn’t define anymore what was mine, and about me, and what was her. We were one thing. Portia and Justin.

I wanted to wipe my palms again but I didn’t. I stayed standing, kept my shoulders relaxed and met his glare that said I was nothing but dirt from the ghetto who shouldn’t be anywhere within a mile of his daughter. “I am gonna ask Portia to marry me. I’ve come to get your blessing.”

He leaned back suddenly like I’d punched him, his fingers gripping the arms of his chair as his eyes widened. Then he recovered, still sitting back, he tilted one eyebrow at me. “And you seriously think I am likely to give it to you?”

“No…” In answer to the smirk I saw playing on his lips, I moved, leaning forward on to his desk. I kept my voice down, so his Personal Assistant wouldn’t hear, but I wanted to get this straight. “But I’ll marry her anyway. I just wanted to do the right thing…” His blue gaze held mine, hard and fixed. “…and I want you to do the right thing too.”

My palms pressed down on the smooth, dark wood. My fingers splayed wide as I leaned further over the desk, shoving my words in his face. “By her.”

I straightened up again, standing and looking down on him. “It isn’t her fault you mess around. And it isn’t her fault your wife puts up with it. It wasn’t her fault she was brought up by strangers, miles away from you. That’s your fault. She may act like she doesn’t give a shit about you. But that isn’t true, you know. You do know that, right?” I left a pause but he didn’t speak or nod, or anything. “Well anyway, I came all the way here to do the right thing and tell you to do the right thing too. You can keep refusing to accept we are together. That’s fine, it’s your choice….” My hands lifted and gripped the tense muscle at my waste. I’d researched this speech so many times on the way up here, and right now I was hanging on to my nerve with an iron grip.

“If you carry on though, you are gonna lose her completely. She wants me. I know that. I know she’s gonna say yes and eventually she’ll get too pissed off with you sniping and cutting at me to bother seeing you at all. That’s fine by me if that’s what happens. She’ll cope, ‘cause she’s strong. She proved it to you when she walked out and set up a life in New York. But that isn’t what she wants. She wants you to be a Dad. Dependable. Reliable–
not
embarrassing. It’s up to you. Do what you want. But one day, the two of us are gonna get married and have kids. And you can change and give Portia what she deserves from a father, or you can carry on, just as you are, and have nothing to do with our lives and your future grandkids. Up to you”.

“My dad, I’m glad he’s gone, I never want to see him again. If he turned up or I saw him in a street, I’d walk past him and pretend he wasn’t there. Is that what you want Portia to do to you? My dad, he’s a lost cause. Nothing would make him change.

“But you… You’re an intelligent man. When the fuck are you going to grow up and start being a father to her? You are better than this…”. I threw the last words at him with a pointed finger to enhance them as anger rushed into my voice.

That was it. I was done. I’d said my piece. I’d tried. “You can listen to me or not, up to you. I don’t care. Thanks for listening. Bye. Have a nice day.”

With that I turned my back and started walking out. I’d done what I had come here to do, now I could go back to Portia and do what I really wanted to do.

As my hand touched the metal door handle. I heard him move, like he was sitting forward. “Justin!”

My hand still on the door, I glanced back, my gaze clashing with the intense blue-gray of his.

“You have my permission.”

I turned away again before he could see the smug smile that crept over my lips. “Thank you.” I opened the door without looking back and walked out.

~

Justin’s fingers gripped my hand harder, they were wrapped right around it, and the pressure of his grip seemed anxious. He was in a weird mood today. He came over really nervous. Justin was always relaxed but he wasn’t relaxed today. As he held my hand, his arm didn’t hang loosely like it normally would, the tension in his muscles made the grip, and the movement of his arm feel awkward.

We were walking around Central Park. The sun was out. The day wasn’t hot but when you were in the bright spring sunshine, it heated your skin. It was one of those days when one minute you wanted to strip off your coat and then the next, when you hit a shaded avenue of trees, the chill caught you and you wanted to put it back on. I’d left mine on for now, just absorbing the heat of the May sunshine into my bones, after such a freezing, hideously harsh winter. This was so nice.

I glanced up at Justin as we walked around the water where there were loads of kids with their Dad’s playing with model boats. I guess this was a haunt for broken families, for guys who had their kids to spend a few hours of contact with on a Sunday. “Are you okay, Justin. You seem really tense. Is something wrong?”

His brown gaze came down to me as his head turned, and his broad lips twisted a little, in an expression that confirmed his anxiety. But verbally, he denied it. “Fine. Just enjoying the company and the sunshine.”