Anita
I am still managing to avoid Liv, despite her calling and texting every day in the week or so since she walked in on me and Christian. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to do as she and Dec speak most days about the extension of the Dazzler chain.
Tonight is date night, so I know I can evade her for at least one more day, but beyond that I am on borrowed time because Dec has already asked me if I’ve had a fight with her and that she keeps asking him if I am okay.
“Hey, where’s my sexy lady?” Dec’s voice is getting louder meaning he is moving closer to the bedroom.
I am slipping on heeled shoes as the finishing touch to the red stretchy dress I’m not convinced isn’t too short as I tug on the hem that sits on my thighs, just.
“Going out on date night is optional, right?”
I laugh as Dec appears behind me and I watch our reflections in the mirror as an arm snakes around my middle.
“I think the use of the wordoutmight mean it’snotoptional.”
“Shame,” he whispers against my ear, the feel of his breath causing goosebumps to rise across my skin.
“Yeah, but the plus side of date night out is the unwritten but clearly obvious rule that when we get home, you get lucky.”
I laugh as I watch Dec’s face morph into a happy, expectant and slightly horny expression.
“Well, in that case, let’s get this date on the road.”
With a single spank to my behind, Dec is already taking my hand in his and pulling me to the door.
As far as I knew, tonight was a regular date night; dinner and a few glasses of wine, then back home where sex would be on the agenda. Arriving at the restaurant blows that thought out of the water.
The restaurant is high end. Somewhere I have been once before when Liv first came into our family. Mase took us all out, brought us here for dinner. The food is to die for but is so expensive they don’t put prices on the menu. Dec really is pulling out all the stops tonight, but why?
We’re shown through to the back of the restaurant and that’s when I see them, already sitting at the table with two empty seats. My family including Liv, Mase and Scott, plus Dec’s parents and his stepdad.
We take our seats and to say I am confused is an understatement.
“Am I missing something?” I ask Dec in a hushed tone, leaning closer to him.
“All will be revealed, Cupcake.”
Everyone looks as confused as me, well, almost everyone, Mase seems to know exactly what’s going on here. The penny drops. This is clearly an announcement about the expansion of the business. I wonder why Liv looks perplexed, but reason that she was helping to scope out locations and that is where her role ended, so maybe she doesn’t know what’s happening with the new place going forward.
Talk begins and my thoughts on the night disappear, I should just enjoy the company, the food and amazing cocktail menu I’d like to work my way through.
The main courses are just being finished off when my dad begins to look between me and Liv. “You’re both quiet tonight.”
I was hoping the remaining tension between us had gone unnoticed. No such luck. I try to nip this line of conversation in the bud and avoid offering anything inflammatory. “You should be thankful for that rather than complaining…you usually tell us we talk too much.” I laugh and hope everyone joins in with me, most do. Not Liv.
My father’s attention falls to her. “Livy?”
Mase bristles next to his wife at Dad calling her Livy.
“What?” she asks. “It just seems that we have little to say to each other tonight.”
I feel as though I stop breathing for a second as I expect everyone to jump on her suggestion that we have nothing to say to each other.
The waiter returns and clears the table, interrupting things. I turn to say something to my mum but before I say more than a couple of words, I notice her startled expression as she looks just beyond me.
I turn back and nothing could have prepared me for the sight that greets me. Initially, I wonder why I can’t see Dec, and then I realise he is no longer in his seat but kneeling on the floor. What the hell! Has he fallen or dropped something? He makes no attempt to move and for a few, very long seconds, I have no idea what to make of it.
“Anita.” Dec says my name and my eyes fix on his.
