Miss Spelled (3 page)

‘Close your eyes,’ Aiden says. ‘It will help them to adjust quicker.’

I do as he says and can feel the sway of the building in the wind underneath my feet. My thigh muscles tighten in readiness to turn and run. As the fear starts to consume me again, Aiden stands behind me and wraps his arms around my shaking body. With his guidance, we walk the three metres to the far wall of the cube, where my fingers automatically clutch the railing in front of me. Eyes still closed, my grip is such that my knuckles feel like they are about to pop out of the skin.

Aiden puts his hands over mine and intertwines our fingers. Even though it means I have less of a grip on the railing, their warmth and strength is welcome, and my heart rate slows a fraction.

My body shudders slightly as he steps closer, his hips now pressing firmly against the small of my back, his thighs resting against the back of my legs. There is no gap between our bodies. He has become my blanket, my warmth.

‘Now, open your eyes,’ Aiden whispers. His warm breath wafts past my ear and I can feel the pressure of his chest against my back. The fine wool of his suit feels cool and soft against my bare skin, but does little to conceal the contours of Aiden’s lean, muscled chest beneath it.

Not wanting to lose this moment of oneness, my eyes slowly open to be greeted by a magical land of lights that stretch out forever around me, on all sides. The usually mundane street, traffic and building lights take on the appearance of an enchanted wonderland, and the cloudless sky twinkles with a million stars as though Heaven is reaching down towards us. If it weren’t for the pane of glass between the us and the sky, I may be able to reach out and brush a star with my fingertips.

A feeling of peace washes over me like a cleansing waterfall, as I allow myself to be lost in the beauty and magic of everything around me. Floating amongst the stars is beautiful with the feel of Aiden’s body against mine, his heart beating at my back, his breath against my skin. If this moment never ended, if it lasted for eternity, it wouldn’t be long enough.

‘Oh Aiden! It’s so…so…incredibly beautiful. Look at it. Who would think that a smelly old city could be transformed into this…magical kingdom.’

‘Over there,’ he points to the left, our fingers still intertwined, ‘is your house, and a bit further over is your parent’s house.’ My eyes followed his fingers. ‘Down there is my office, and just over there is your school.’

As beautiful as the view is, I can only see Aiden’s long fingers wrapped around my own. My hands moisten in his as my heart rate speeds up, but not out of fear this time.

His voice is low, barely above a whisper. I tilt my head to the side slightly so that his breath touches skin of my neck. It tickles in a very pleasurable way and even though our fingers are still intertwined, mine are tingling with the need to touch him, to feel the warmth of his body underneath them.

A small groan escapes me as a delicious shiver works its way up my spine.

‘And down there is my apartment where I intend to take you after this, so I can feel every part of your naked body pressed against mine,’ he says as his lips touch my exposed neck and shoulders.

I inhale deeply, taking in the mixture of Aiden’s woody aftershave and his own scent. It’s intoxicating and leaves me feeling lightheaded. He smells delicious, and my desire to have him now is too overpowering to deny any longer. I spin around to face him.

‘Why wait until we get home?’ I say, and then reach up to take his lips with mine. It’s as though I could devour him on the spot, not caring whether or not people can see us.

He lifts me up onto the railing as my hands work quickly to release him from his trousers and wrap my thighs around his hips. The heat between us has risen to the point that the cube has now fogged up, leaving only the promise of the lit wonderland on the outside as a dull reminder that other humans exist.

Lost in time and in the world of Aiden’s body, of the pleasure of having him inside me reaffirms, without a doubt, that he is the only man I ever want to make love to again. No one else will ever lay a hand on my body. No one but him, ever.

We continue to fog up the glass to the point the moisture is running down the length of each pane. Eventually, I groan and Aiden follows as his movements slow to a gradual stop. A long kiss, fuelled with the remains of needy passion, ends with my giggling.

‘Well, that’s one way to overcome your fear of heights,’ Aiden says with a quiet laugh.

‘You don’t think anyone saw us, do you?’

He cups my face in his hands. ‘Who cares if they did?’ he says.

Aiden helps me off the railing, then fixes his trousers and belt, while I readjust my dress, so it doesn’t look as though we just shagged in a glass box suspended three hundred metres above the ground.

‘Thank you for all of this…the flowers, dinner, the Edge, the shag.’ I laugh. ‘Tonight was perfect. Happy anniversary, my gorgeous man.’

Even though there was the self-inflicted anticipation of a proposal tonight, I am left in no doubt about Aiden’s feelings for me. A twinge of disappointment is offset by an overload of happiness and adoration for this amazing man who always treats me with such love and respect.

‘I am so lucky to have you, Aiden St. James.’

Aiden straightens up to his full six foot two. His gentle smile shows in the light that struggles to get through the fogged glass. He approaches me and takes my hand is his again.

‘You know, I didn’t bring you up here for sex,’ he says.

‘Really? Because it worked. This cube would have to be the greatest aphrodisiac ever.’

Holy crap, he’s getting down on one knee. Oh my God! I think he’s about to…

‘Lou Mercer, you fill my days with fun, my nights with warmth and my heart with a kind of love I’ve never felt before. You are different to anyone I’ve ever known, a beautiful breath of fresh air. This has been the best year of my life and I don’t want it to ever end. I want to be with you forever.’

I gasp as my body again feels weightless amongst the stars. My heart is beating as though it has morphed into butterfly wings.

‘I want you to be my wife, mother of my children, the woman I grow old and grey with.’

My butterfly heart takes flight.

‘My beautiful Lou, will you marry me?’

Happy tears blur my vision of the man of my dreams and the ring he is holding in his fingers. Even though I had daydreamed about this moment for months, had practiced what my answer would be over and over again, there is shock and surprise at my own immediate lack of reaction. I am, for the first time in living memory, speechless.

‘Lou?’

‘Oh! Yes! Oh, Aiden! ‘ I stammer as my hands flap around in front of me. Happy tears run over my lashes and streak down my face as my butterfly heart multiplies into hundreds of tiny, fluttering wings.

Aiden smiles, the most beautiful, happy smile I’ve ever seen on his gorgeous face. My Tinkerbelle-sized hand trembles inside his, as he lifts it up and slides the ring onto my finger. ‘Oh Aiden! It’s so beautiful, it’s…’

My brain can’t access the right words.

‘You like it then?’ Aiden asks.

The diamond catches a glimmer of light as I hold it out in front of my face. More happy tears blur my vision. It’s a small Princess Cut with two smaller diamonds nestled beside it on a white gold band.

‘It’s so beautiful, Aiden. I love it. I love you,’ I say, suctioning onto his lips again, tears rolling down my face. ‘I love you so much. I am going to make you the happiest husband in the world, every day, every night.’

Aiden stands up, touches my face and kisses away my tears.

‘We’re going to have the best life together, Lou.’

‘I know,’ I say, as my voice raises an octave in the excitement. ‘I know.’

The next morning, Aiden rings Dad to ask for my hand in marriage and all that can be heard is Mum squealing in the background. She takes the phone off Dad and squeals so loudly that Aiden has to hold his mobile an entire arm’s length away from his ear. Bravely, he puts it back to his ear and laughs and smiles at Mum’s raptures. Once she has calmed down a couple of decibels, he hands the phone over to me and she starts all over again.

After that I ring Mel, my best friend and colleague. Her squeals are almost as loud as Mum’s, which really touches my heart because she has just suffered terrible heartbreak at the hands of yet another unsuitable but irresistible bad boy. She is currently residing at my house until she can clear her sexually transmitted debt and get back on her feet again.

My twin brother, Ben, who is completing a two-year work exchange at Boston University in the astrophysics department, is not answering his phone at the moment. I leave a message on his mobile instead. He’s probably busy stargazing or whatever it is he does. It’s a bit beyond me, but clearly Dr Ben (PhD), the geeky, skinny, nerdy kid from school, who grew into a geeky, skinny, nerdy adult has a good grasp on the subject. We’re all very proud of his achievements, although I’m sure Mum and Dad can’t quite figure out how they created a genius between them.

Aiden is yet to inform his parents, but we both know their reaction isn’t going to rival that of my family, so he puts it off until Sunday night, when we are due to go there for dinner. It’s the only glitch in an otherwise perfect weekend.

We spend the entire weekend celebrating in the bedroom, only crawling out of bed to eat occasionally. I put my famous mango chicken in the oven to reheat 30 minutes ago and should probably go and check on it, but whatever was bothering Aiden on Friday night is still bothering him now and it would be good for him to talk about it.

‘In all the excitement and the sex, I forgot to ask what was troubling you on Friday night,’ I say.

‘Oh, that. Mmmm, Friday was—’

‘Was what?’

‘…was not overly interesting, except for the announcement of a cocktail party on Monday night. Will you be able to come? I’d love to show off my fiancée.’

‘A cocktail party? What’s that in aid of?’ I ask.

‘The merger, we’ve got a…’ his eyebrows did that furrow thing again ‘…a colleague from London visiting us. He’s come to do the restructure, so they’re giving everyone a drink and hors d’oeuvres to butter people up before they hand out the retrenchments the following week.’

‘Why don’t you take one? Go to Uni and study teaching? It’s not up to your parents to choose your occupation.’

Damn it! I shouldn’t have said that. He has enough to cope with without a pushy fiancée as well.

‘I wish it was that simple,’ he says.

There’s no point going on about it. We’ve discussed it before. Maybe one day he’ll tell his family to get stuffed and follow his own path.

‘Will the retrenchments be bad?’

‘Originally, I’d hoped not, but I—literally—ran into the guy in charge of it.’ Aiden purses his lips and inhales deeply.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Ahh, this guy’s an arsehole,’ Aiden says, rubbing his eyes. ‘Gets off on humiliating people, causing trouble. He’s perfectly suited to the job really, but…’

‘You’ve worked with him before?’

‘Worse. We went to boarding school together. It was a long eight years with him.’

‘What happened?’

Aiden exhales a long, loud sigh. ‘Imagine the epitome of the schoolyard bully. In a boarding school, there’s no escape. He was a stereotype: towered over everyone else except me, built like a rugby player and belonged to an obscenely rich family.’

‘Did he bully you?’

‘He tried. He bullied a lot of others though, especially those who weren’t suited to the boarding school environment.’

‘How so?’ I ask.

‘Boarding school’s not for everyone. For some of the kids it was tough being away from home, you know, they just didn’t want to be there. They’d have been better off day-boarding or just going to a different school, but for whatever reason, their parents sent them there. This guy made their lives even more miserable, and for no reason. It just gave him a kick, a laugh. I thought it was wrong, so we clashed— regularly.’

I smile, knowing Aiden would have rescued everyone this bully picked on. ‘How did I know that you’d be the one to defend others?’

‘I can honestly say that there’s not another person for whom I have less time. Really, I have absolutely no respect for this guy, either as a colleague or a human being.’

‘He must be really horrid for you to say that.’

Aiden has never spoken ill of anyone—not even his mother, Cressida, and she’s a real piece of work. Aiden was in his fifth year at school when he was first sent to boarding school. Initially he wondered if he’d done something wrong to make his mother send him away, mainly because boarding school felt like 24-hour-a-day punishment. He would learn later that his mother believed surrounding him with society’s wealthiest people was a surefire way to secure his future—or rather, the future she wanted for him.

‘Yep, and now we have to work together on this restructure,’ he sighed. ‘But that’s not until Monday, so let’s just focus on the here and now.’

He raises his eyebrows suggestively and drags me over to him on the bed. The smile that has invaded my face is bound to be permanent, because Aiden’s gorgeous body is going to be next to me for the rest of our lives, every day, every night. In time, perhaps we will move to my cottage and raise a family, grow old, baggy and saggy together, and still be madly in love. It’s food for thought. Speaking of food…

‘What’s that smell?’ he asks. ‘It’s like…burning fruit.’

‘Shit!’ I cry, leaping out of bed and running naked into the kitchen.

I can feel my bum and thighs wobble with my running attempt; unfortunately, my breasts aren’t big enough to create much movement. It seems that the majority of my fat deposits were spent on my thighs, hips and tummy and didn’t quite make it to my chest. I must have been built from the ground up. Mum always said I have a body built for child rearing. It didn’t give me any comfort during my teen years or in my early twenties, but Aiden embraces my fuller figure. He says that all the malnourished, Botoxed, siliconed girls his Mum pushed onto him are not his idea of a healthy, sexy body.