“How’s the single dad dick?” Haillie demanded.
Abigail threw down her cutlery. “Am I just not allowed to eat any more? Why don’t any of you want me to eat?”
Her friend shrugged. “I just want details. You’ve been quiet ever since Laura talked you through your seduction outfit.”
“She told you?”
“She’s having her own dick problems, so I’m focused on yours.”
Abigail couldn’t help the smile that lifted her face. “It’s going really well.”
Haillie’s eyebrows lifted. “I see. Is demon child aware of how well it’s going?”
“It was demon child’s idea.”
“No way!”
“Yes way.” She felt at ease with Liam in a way she never had in her previous relationships. Their routines fell into place and she never felt like an additional babysitter. He never assumed and always made her feel considered. Leila couldn’t be a sweeter, more amusing girl, and without the fear of losing her only parent, she blossomed into sense and capability and intelligence. With her birthday party at stake, Leila worked hard to raise her grades. She excitedly told Abigail how much her class was looking forward to the party. It gave Abigail a spate of ideas and with her liquor licence in place, Abigail had higher revenue and by the same turn more time to have a hand in looking after Leila. As difficult as her friends and to be honest, Abigail herself believed the girl was, Leila required only a few minutes of argument before she did what she was supposed to do. Once her party ended, Abigail didn’t know what she and Liam would bribe her with. Christmas presents?
“The three of us...”
“The what now?”
Abigail put down her knife and fork. “Yes, the three of us. If I like the man, I should like his child. She’s nothing if not a reflection of her father.”
“A devil?” her friend asked.
Abigail gave up. “Meet him.”
Haillie made a face that combined her doubt with her disgust. “Will he have time? Or is he either going to be too busy disciplining his spawn or disciplining your arse?”
She wrinkled her nose. “After he’s finished with both, we can all go out for a drink.”
“You like him that much, you’d subject him to me and Lau?”
Abigail grinned. Haillie’s shock finally spoke volumes. Abigail was serious about Liam and she really did care what happened to Leila. “I do. I really do. When I met him... All I saw was an insanely sexy man who had more problems than I should even think about messing with.”
“And now the dick is too good to give up,” Haillie finished.
Knowing her friend wouldn’t provide even a second of seriousness, Abigail simply agreed.
Taking out her phone, Haillie tapped in some details. “When and where am I allowed to interrogate Single Dad Dick?”
“Nowhere if you keep calling him that.”
***
Liam had the vaguest idea that Abigail’s friends were less than impressed with him. In the low light and very low seating of the overly priced bar, Liam’s knees were almost touching his chest. Abigail was just as uncomfortable next to him, the hem of her jersey dress creeping up her thighs. He’d have to enjoy that later. Laura, he remembered, was the photo editor. Her face was set into a squint. He supposed staring at photographs all day would do that. Maybe she was feeling suspicious. Haillie, was the interior designer. Almost as tall as Abigail in death-defying heels, her suspicion was more than evident.
Okay, plan B
. He ordered a move to a better area, with a combined order of a magnum of champagne. As they changed into a seated area that accommodated the giants amongst them, Liam felt more comfortable about facing what was coming. An inquisition. The three women stared at the bottle of champagne then at him.
He gazed back at them. “Am I the only alcoholic here?”
“Just no idea what we’re celebrating,” Laura said.
Abigail shot her friend a disapproving look. “Me being happy? You meeting the person responsible?”
He caught her Abigail’s hand and kissed it before handing her a full glass of champagne. Haillie accepted her glass from him and said mutely, “You must be amazing in the sack. She doesn’t introduce us to anyone.”
“I wonder why?” Abigail was boot-faced. Bless her, this was pretty easy going for him.
“I am but a slave to the lady’s demands. The next time you’ll see me, I’ll be on one of those TV adverts, appealing for three pounds a month to save me. Three pounds a month would give me half-hour breaks. Save me from lockjaw. Counsel me through the trauma.”
Laura and Haillie stared at each other for a moment before they burst out laughing. “You are dark,” Laura said with approval. “You don’t seem old enough to have a teenager.”
Liam’s brows lifted slightly. Improvement from the suspicion. “Edging into the 4-0. I’m plenty old enough, but Leila isn’t thirteen yet. Next month.”
Abigail smiled at him. “He just about allowed me to take her to Topshop. It’s Teenage Mecca in there these days.”
“What are you talking about?” Laura protested. “I’m wearing Topshop.”
“And as lovely as it looks on you, it’s full of sparkles and cropped tops girls used to wear when I was Leila’s age. I don’t want my child in there!”
Haillie regarded him with interest. “You sound strict.”
His eyebrows curled in confusion. “Is that your way of asking me if it extends to Abi?”
“Maybe.” Her face was sly, tickling Liam’s funny bone. Now his lovely Abigail’s OCD seemed miniscule in comparison to the unbalanced nature on display.
“Stop it!” Abigail warned them. “We’re not discussing any kink.”
Laura and Haillie sighed in disappointment. Liam took the opportunity to reassure them both that he wasn’t misusing their friend. “I like your friend. More than I’ve liked anyone in a very long time. She’s not going to play Evil Stepmother to my daughter, even if the brat deserves it sometimes, and she’s not a free babysitter. I pay her in kind.” Abigail hit him on the arm. “I hope I’m making her happy. But I know she’d tell me if she wasn’t. Only because I’m getting good at convincing her otherwise.”
“Would you stop?”
“He’s appealing to your deep, dark whoreish nature.” Haillie shrugged. “Is this your first relationship since you, er...found yourself single?”
“Yes. Before Abigail poured bottles of red down my throat and groped me in her café—”
Abigail heaved a sigh. “I’m just going to hurt you later.”
“I hadn’t gone out with anyone in...” He had to think to work it out. Grief. Fifteen years. He and Sarah had been so young when they met and married. Perhaps their age became the dividing difference between them. He grew up and she wanted to retain her “lost” youth. “A while.”
“What’s a while?”
“Older than my daughter, a while,” he answered, pulling himself from his thoughts of Sarah. As angry as he’d been with her, now, with Abigail in his life, he only felt pity for her. Sad, confused, wanting everyone to love her, Sarah. She deserved a little of his kindness, if not for their daughter’s sake.
“So you weren’t like... Cheating in between those older than your daughter years?” Haillie ventured.
Abigail bristled like a hedgehog on defence. “What does that have to do with me?”
“You know. It’s a habit. One that’s hard to break.”
Liam opened his mouth to tell them honestly, and Abigail lost her temper. “Enough!” She glared at him. “Don’t answer that either.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She turned to her friends. “I said reasonable questions. Not this firing squad. Cut it out, or we’re off and we’re taking the champagne with us.”
Laura and Haillie were quiet for a moment. “Does the champagne help with the lockjaw when you’re convincing her about stuff?”
“Consistently,” he said, poker faced, catching Abigail’s hands to avoid being hit again. “Abi, this isn’t as bad as you think it is. I remember once I met up with a girlfriend’s male friends. Next thing I know, I’m in the middle of a field near Nottingham. No phone. No clothes.”
The women all looked horrified. Abigail stopped struggling with him long enough to ask on a disturbed whisper, “What did you do?”
“I didn’t have to do anything at all, considering I got picked up by the police. I pretended I had amnesia about the night before and those mentally unbalanced boys came and got me after I called my girlfriend. Still friends with some of them. As long as I don’t wake up tomorrow after being drugged, I can’t complain.” Liam leaned over and topped up their glasses until the bottle was empty. “Another one?”
“You can indeed bring more Moet,” Laura confirmed.
“Make it pink.” After a glare from Abigail, Haillie added, “Please and thank you. And when you come back, you can tell me about your creation prices. My site could do with an update.”
Liam sent his girlfriend the barest of winks, then lifted his hand to order more drinks. He talked improvements to her website with Haillie. Enough for her to take his card and arrange a meeting in a few days to talk money. With Laura they talked copyright and the price of pictures, and they all four entered into a quite furious argument about privacy which eventually deteriorated into who had the worst projectile vomit story. Two more bottles down and several meat and vegetarian shared platters later, Laura and Haillie were much more amenable.
“All it is, yeah,” Haillie slurred. “I don’t trust single dads. You’re too much grief.”
“Not all of us,” he promised. “Shall we get you a taxi?”
She nodded solidly for several minutes. Abigail had already helped Laura into one and returned looking spritely and rather amused. “I think she’s going to have a better projectile vomit story when she gets home. Hales! Are you ready to go as well?”
Haillie dragged herself to her feet, draping herself over Abigail’s body. “Just keep having good sex. For all of us.”
Liam smothered a laugh. Gathering Abigail’s coat and bag, he helped his girlfriend put her friend into the first available cab. “Good to meet you.”
“I’ll start a fund for you. Like Red Cross,” Haillie promised with an imperious nod. The taxi zoomed off into the distance.
Abigail grimaced. “I should call her. I need to call them both. Sorry about the firing squad. I didn’t know they were going to be that bad.”
He wrapped her back inside her coat. “They weren’t bad. I’ve only been in your life for a few months and I’d happily go nuclear on anyone I felt wasn’t good enough for you. Give me a few years and I’ll be trigger happy.”
She gazed at him and he leaned forward to press his mouth to each eyelid. Without doubt she had to be the most beautiful woman he’d ever been blessed to know. “Few years? That’s generous.”
His arms fit around her waist so easily, convincing him they were as they were meant to be. “I’ve got you, I can afford to be.” Seemed as if he had all the patience in the world now. “Do you want to go home? Make sure your friends haven’t passed out in sick?”
She snuggled against him and yawned. “If you don’t mind. As long as you’re not wishing that on them.”
“Naked in a field, woman. This was a walk in a park.”
“You look happy,” Sheila asserted. Hell, Liam thought. Leila’s been talking. While he was grateful his daughter was firing on all cylinders, he would have preferred she kept quiet about his love life.
“Because I got a haircut?” he asked, pouring her some tea.
“Why do you say such silly things?” she huffed. “I mean because you do look happy. I suppose this is all down to Orna’s Abigail?”
If he said yes, he’d never hear the end of it. “Have you seen Leila’s grades? She’s working really hard.”
“Well she has proper incentive, doesn’t she? A ridiculous party at
The Library
. Are you going to spend that much money on a thirteen-year-old?”
After everything they’d been through? “Absolutely. She’s holding up her end of the bargain. I need to hold up mine.”
“And this has nothing to do with you and Abigail?”
Fuck’s sake. “Look, all right, we’re dating.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means we’re in a serious, committed relationship.”
Sheila’s eyebrows rose delicately. “Didn’t you say you weren’t interested in another relationship?”
“Abi changed my mind,” he replied. And how. He didn’t know how he’d managed without her. If she wasn’t helping out Leila with homework, she was suggesting exhibitions and plays for them all to attend. Most of all, she was easily one of the best friends he’d ever had. He could be honest with her, confide in her, console her, be in silence with her without the need to fill it with pointless conversation. The last thing he wanted to do was to give their mothers credit for the ease and wonder of their relationship.
“Well. How lovely for you.”
“Thank you,” he said reluctantly.
“Whatever for?” His mother feigned ignorance so well, he didn’t know how his father put up with it.
“Playing matchmaker. She’s an incredible woman.”
“She’d have to be to put up with you and your child. Told you Christian girls are good girls.”
“Yes you did. When you’re back in church, maybe pray about the sin of boasting.”
She made an annoyed moue with her mouth. “In any case, I did pop over for a reason, nothing to do with my son insulting me.”
“Go on.”
His mother stared at him for a long time. “I had the oddest phone call from Karen Ellis.”
Would these people let it lie? Why was getting his mother involved going to solve anything?
“What did she say?”
“Well, she brought up Leila’s birthday. She disappointed you haven’t discussed it with her.”
“Why would I need to?”
“You know how they are. Leila’s the last they have of their daughter.
And secondly… Goodness, I’m not even sure how to say it.”
His mother didn’t have reticence. It irritated him intensely how Sarah’s parents weren’t letting this lie. “Tell me.”
“Something about Leila doing a DNA test with you.”
“Why does she want that man to be in Leila’s life? I don’t get it!”
“Is this the same man who was in the car with Sarah?” Liam nodded and his mother glanced down into her tea. “He lives five minutes from them. They’d see more of Leila, and any relationship he has would always pale into insignificance to the dramatic romance he had with Sarah. When in comparison, there’s you. The cuckold who will eventually not only reveal the truth about Sarah to their only grandchild, but be with a woman who highlights Sarah’s failings as a wife and a mother.”
Liam had not a word in response. He hadn’t even known his mother felt that way. She hadn’t said a word against Sarah from the moment Liam brought her home.
“You didn’t need my input in Sarah’s wrongdoings. It wasn’t going to help you and it certainly wasn’t going to help. But if Karen is pushing for something to separate Leila from you, perhaps the truth needs to come to the forefront.”
“She knows already, Mum.” He shook his head. “We had to do that test because the Ellis’ want her to be that man’s child. She’s not. She’s mine. And I had to explain to her why her own mother was so intent on destroying our relationship. If Abigail hadn’t been there to talk Leila through it…” He stopped.
“That’s something to be thankful for. If she was a different woman—”
“She’s not. I’ll call them.”
“Why wouldn’t you tell me?”
“Last thing you needed to worry about. I put a lot on you.”
“Silly boy.” She patted him on the hand. “It’s no trouble. It is really.”
“Don’t know how Dad puts up with it,” he muttered.
***
The Ellis’ home was a half mile from Laura’s new boyfriend’s flat. As much as she wanted Liam there to help roast the poor bloke from here to Mars, he had to work and somehow get Leila to her grandparents for the weekend, as promised. Abigail offered to drop her for him.
“You don’t have to. I’ll have time.”
“To drive there and back? You have a deadline,” she reminded him. If she could give him the space to work, what was a few awkward seconds between her and her boyfriend’s former in-laws? She’d eat her way through some Heston Blumenthal ice cream and she’d be fine in an hour. “No worries whatsoever.”
Leila didn’t seem particularly enthused about her time with her grandparents, even with Liam’s explanation about rebuilding the relationship for her own sake. She was pleased that Abigail was driving her. That way, apparently, she’d have a choice about the radio station they’d listen to. With a wheelie trolley filled with her overnight belongings, on Saturday afternoon Abigail watched Leila get a hug and a kiss from Liam, who then gave
her
a hug and a kiss.
“See you tonight. Baby,” he addressed his daughter as she fixed her seat belt. “Call me. Ten. All right?”
She rolled her eyes. “All right! Bye, Dad.”
“Love you,” he replied and Abigail’s heart skipped a beat.
That wasn’t directed at you
. She fiddled with the steering wheel and made a mess of starting the car, as Leila shouted her love in response. Liam blew Abigail a kiss and waved them away. In a lull in the radio play, chosen with increasing regularity by her charge, Abigail asked her if she was doing okay.
“I don’t know why Dad’s letting me stay,” she huffed, misery etched on her face. “He clearly hates them.”
“Lei,” Abigail groaned, “You have got to stop making such sweeping statements. He doesn’t hate them.” He’d said otherwise, but Leila didn’t need to know. “He’s upset how matters came to this. It doesn’t change the fact that you’re still their grandchild. And they miss you.”
Leila patted Abigail’s hand. “You’ll see.”
The hell was that supposed to mean? It sounded far too ominous, and all her eagerness to roast Tyler, Laura’s boyfriend, on an open fire of ridicule was slowly seeping away. Coming to a halt outside the Ellis’ home, Leila stayed put while Abigail removed her wheelie case from the backseat.
“Lei!” Abigail insisted. The girl huffed and got out of the car, trudging her way to the door and ringing the bell. A short woman with a mass of greying frizz threw open the door and covered Leila in kisses.
“Oh darling!” she said tearfully.
“Hi Nana,” Leila said awkwardly.
Karen Ellis pinched her granddaughter’s cheeks. “You look so lovely! Is this dress new?”
Leila looked down at her tribal print dress. “Um, yeah. Abigail bought it for me.”
Finally, Karen noticed Abigail standing behind them, with Leila’s wheelie case behind her. “Hi there. Lei, here’s your stuff.”
“We were expecting Liam.” Karen looked her up and down warily.
“He’s working,” Abigail explained.
“This is Abigail,” Leila introduced pointedly.
Karen’s face crumpled into a frown. “The café lady.”
“She owns it,” the girl corrected her grandmother on Abigail’s behalf.
“Well,” Karen sniffed. “Your father’s found himself a friend. How nice for him.”
And she was finished with this. “Lei, take your case. I’ll see you soon, okay?”
Leila turned into Abigail and hugged her tightly. “See you. Thanks for driving me.”
“No problem,” she whispered, kissing the top of her head. After a minute, when Leila didn’t let go, Abigail looked up at Karen for help.
“Leila, darling, come inside. Mark’s waiting.”
Both Leila and Abigail froze. “I don’t want to,” Leila protested immediately.
What? Who’s waiting for them? “Mark?” Abigail asked. “Mark Wooldridge?”
Karen didn’t seem to know where to start. “Leila, go inside. Miss... Whoever you are, it’s not your concern.”
“Answer the question,” Abigail snapped. “Is Mark Wooldridge in there?” She thrust a finger toward the house. Karen looked increasingly uncomfortable. How utterly ridiculous, was the woman insane? Shaking her head, Abigail picked up Leila’s suitcase.
“Let’s go, Lei.”
Leila didn’t hesitate, she practically ran back to Abigail’s car, Karen following them in frantic strides.
“You can’t take her! We agreed!”
Leila got into the car and sat down as Abigail put the case back into the boot. “I know what was agreed and
him
in there, that didn’t form part of it. Any part of it.” Anger flared through Abigail at the utter density of the woman’s thought process. Why on earth would she think Liam would agree to letting the man who destroyed his marriage and tried to take his daughter away from him anywhere near his child? “Do you have any idea what you nearly did to them? Leila and Liam? Do you know how close you came to ripping them both apart and you’re still trying?”
Karen went to open the door on Leila’s side, but Abigail locked it. “You don’t understand,” Karen begged. “There was something wrong with the test. Sarah wouldn’t have lied to us.”
“They did a DNA. Liam’s her father. Just drop it.”
“Maybe Mark touched the swabs,” Karen blurted, scrambling for excuses. “We don’t know. Liam didn’t tell us he was even doing it. We should do it again just to make sure!”
“Sarah’s gone,” Abigail said softly. Karen reared up. “Don’t destroy what’s left of her.”
A man came barrelling out of the house, storming toward the car. “Look, don’t,” Abigail said, guessing from his age and his attitude that he was Sarah’s famed saviour from Liam’s “devilish” clutches. Mark. “We’re leaving.”
She got into the car and Karen knocked on Leila’s side of the glass. “Darling, please. Just stay.”
“No! Stop pushing him on me! God’s sake Nana, what’s wrong with you?” Leila burst out, cheeks bright red with anger.
“Seat belt.” Abigail nodded to her charge.
“Leila,” Mark said imperiously. “You need to come out of the car. This instant.”
Leila glanced at Abigail, who started the car. And her brilliant, bright McNamara girl gave Mark Wooldridge a one-finger salute as Abigail sped away from the house. His expression of shock made Abigail giggle uncontrollably.
“Don’t tell Dad I did that,” Leila begged. “He’ll take it out of my allowance.”