He is rarely asleep while I’m awake. Ever since I fell from the bed, writhing in pain, miscarrying my first pregnancy, he wakes at my slightest murmur.
He must be exhausted.
A memory from earlier this morning comes back—my face in the pillow, gasping for air, feeling his thrusts in every inch of my body, in my toes and ears. It rarely happens like that, like I’m a doll, to be taken, but occasionally he needs me to handle his evil. To take what he gives me. To absorb his demons. Onthose days, I know something darker is taking place in his world.
It's not for me; he wants to keep the underbelly of the Mafia away from me. I’m to raise his children, watch Disney, blush for him, believe in the moon, be soft. If I change, if suddenly I become a tough, cold-hearted woman, he won’t like that. The image of Lorna flashes behind my eyes. Sighing, I realise he isn’t better with her. It’s me he needs. We fit together. Push and pull. Soft and hard. Chaos and order need each other. Fun literally fits into fundamentals.
I am very rational today.
Kudos, Fawn.
I place my hand on his warm, broad chest, fingers feeding through his brown and grey hairs, smiling when he inhales a little harder in response to my touch, sensing me somewhere from within his dream world.
A sleeping Clay Butcher—mine.
My gaze travels down his face, chiselled cheeks and a perfectly rectangular jaw, to his mouth. The lower lip is slightly thicker than the top. They are parted, inhaling and exhaling. My eyes roam south, down his naked body to his hand that lies in a strange position on the mattress.
I squint. With the tip of my finger, I stroke along his bruised knuckles and over open wounds.
Were they there yesterday?
I swallow over a lump. No, I don’t think they were. I would have seen them when he held the phone to the mattress by my face, when he was teaching me a lesson about ownership and loyalty and devotion. I would have noticed the sharp edges of those gashes, the raw carvings in his tattoo.
So, last night something happened.
While I was sleeping.
There are hiddencorridors in luxury hotels that most guests never see: bright, elaborate back rooms lined with polished wood cabinets full of alcohol, glass-fronted displays of fancy cigars nestled on velvet pillows, trays of hand-painted chocolates.Andalways empty leather armchairs, waiting. Few people get to experience this secluded fairytale land.
It’s reserved for an elite few.
For Clay Butcher.
But as I stroll beside Clay—his tailored navy suit brushing against me, the stroller’s wheels humming across the travertine floor—I scan the main lobby where everyone else lives and plays, holding steaming takeaway coffees and nattering easily.
To my left, through an opening, I peek into the breakfast buffet, full of bobbing heads, chattering children, and my favourite kind of morning vibes. The bain-maries exhale buttery steam, and I inhale the scents of scrambled eggs, sausages, bacon, and pastries.Mm.
My stomach rumbles.
I stop at the threshold of the buffet restaurant, chewing my lower lip, wanting to join thenormalpeople—just this once. I want Luca and Ash to enjoy life, to have all the things I never did, but I’m afraid they’ll miss out too, doomed to be too precious for playdates, too important for buffets—too much trouble to be friends with. I don’t want that for them. I wanteverythingfor them. I’m an orphan; I missed out on the ‘majority lifestyle’. I’ve gone from second-hand to Gucci, from government housing to mansions. What about the healthy in-between? Can’t my babies experience the healthy in-betweens? The lobsterandthe brisket?
I look up at Sir with enormous, imploring eyes. “Please, Sir?” I don’t explain; he knows.
He stares over the top of my head, scanning the room, his lips flattening with distaste—every unknown face, every messy table, every potential hazard. “We can have breakfast atSapori di Lusso, little deer,” he says, his tone stern. “Not from a damn trough.”
“I’ll sit with my back to the wall?” I promise, giving him my sweetest smile. “Don’t you want the boys to experience normality? It’s more fun this way?”
“Fun?” His brow arches.
That word again.
I look back at HJ, for just a glimpse, and he stares at me as if I’ve asked Clay Butcher to model naked for a room full of budding artists. “Fun,” I repeat.
Before he answers, a waitress appears in front of us. Her dark hair is up, save for a few rogue strands that pour around her nape. She pulls an iPad from her apron pocket, eyes glued to the device. “How many for breakfast?”
When Clay doesn’t answer, she lifts her gaze to meet his intense stare. The silence stretches, thick with unspoken judgment. Finally he relents. “Four.”
I squeak with excitement.
