Page 41 of Wanting Mr Black
“I think I’ll go and drown my sorrows and leave you two love birds to it.”
I can’t help but worry about her. This hasn’t exactly been the perfect day she’s dreamt of.
“Lucy, are you going to be okay?”
She wrinkles her nose. “Probably not in the morning because I’m gonna have a terrible headache, but yeah, I will. Stop worrying, Soph. Go and be happy with your man,” she shouts over the din of the music. She takes a mouthful of wine and staggers off through the loved-up couples on the dance floor, swaying to her own beat.
Art wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me to his chest. “Dance with me,” he says.
I curl my arms around his neck, and he kisses me on the lips.
“I want you.”
I press myself against him as we instinctively move together to the music. “You just had me.”
“I want you all the time.”
And I want him all the time too.
He plants a light kiss on the tip of my nose and meets my gaze. “Lucy’s right.”
I frown. “About what?”
“We’ll have very pretty babies.”
My chest tightens as I stare up at him. “What are you saying?”
“Today’s got me thinking about things, and when I saw you walking down the aisle”—he glances about the room before meeting my eyes once more— “I started thinking about the future.”
The future?
“You know, for a kink-loving control freak, you’re quite a romantic at heart,” I tease.
“Only with you.” He brushes his lips against mine. “You make me a good man.”
My heart melts. “You’re already a good man.”
For a moment, a haunted look flashes in his eyes, and then it’s gone. “I haven’t always been, but that’s my past, and you’re my future.” Then, he kisses me. The music falls away, and the other guests disappear into the night. Right in this moment, there’s only me and him. “Let me take you home and make love to you.”
I don’t need him to ask me twice. After checking Lucy’s okay, boogieing down on the dance floor, we do just that.
Twenty
We pull up outside the black wooden gates at the entrance to the drive. After a couple of seconds, I hear a buzzing noise, and they begin to open. I pick at my freshly painted red fingernails and glance across at Art, who’s looking extremely handsome in a black tuxedo, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel as we wait.
I’ve pulled out all the stops tonight. Wearing my new Chanel dress, every inch of me has been preened to perfection, and I’m glad I’ve made the effort.
The house is gated. Which can only mean one thing.
“How big exactlyisyour childhood home?”
He looks ahead through the windscreen and nods. “Take a look for yourself.”
He changes gears, and the car engine roars to life as we pull through the gates and up the meandering gravel driveway that cuts through sprawling grounds. At the end stands a commanding country house tucked away in woodland. The black-and-white mock Tudor frontage gives it a sense of new build trying to be old, but it’s grand nevertheless with semicircular stone steps leading up to a dark wooden-panelled double front door. Lights shine through the leaded windows, casting a warm glow across the tops of the perfectly shaped topiary out front. The gravel crunches beneath the tyres as we park at the end of a row of cars.
I know I’m staring, but I’ve never stepped foot inside a house this size before. It’s not a house; it’s a manor. A modern country manor. I stop myself from chewing my fingernails because I don’t want to ruin the varnish and instead twist my hands in my lap. This isn’t helping my nerves.
“It’s … big.”