“Yeah and later I think I’d like to experience your earlier plan for hours of touching and tasting.”
“Consider it a date.”
“You go first,” I suggest, making him frown.
“Really? We’re doing the walk of shame solo?”
“Yes. I need a visit to the bathroom, especially in the absence of underwear and a black dress.” I immediately blush crimson with embarrassment that I have inadvertently just said,I need to go and mop up your semen that is currently trickling out of me and down my inner thigh as I have no pants on to catch it.
“Definitely a date later with sexy as fuck lines like that.” He grins, sliding the trolley out of the way allowing him to pull the door open a little before giving me a wink that says it’s all clear in the corridor. “You go first, bathroom, clean up and I will see you back in there.”
As I pass by, Mase pulls me in for a sweet and gentle kiss to my temple before sending me on my way to the toilet that is next door.
My trip to the bathroom is relatively brief until I catch sight of myself in the mirror with red lips, flushed cheeks and sparkly just shagged eyes looking back at me. I wash my hands again and even check my phone to give my complexion and features a chance to calm down before I return to the wedding reception.
I am just re-entering the room when I notice one of the caterers refilling some platters of snacks that will later be a full buffet, but for now it’s just a selection of snacks for anyone who didn’t enjoy the lunch or who remain unfulfilled by it.
The caterer, a man, is about fifty years old I’d guess and for some reason I feel inexplicably drawn to him, unable to avert my gaze until he snaps his head up and looks my way. Him finding me staring unnerves me somewhat so I turn in search of Mason or Sarah, but his eyes now seem to be fixed on me. I can feel them boring through my back and without turning I know he is approaching me. Bollocks.
I hope he’s not about to make a pass at me, misinterpreting my earlier fixed stare for attraction or romantic interest, not that he’s not attractive I suppose, in an older man, slightly greying with a bit of a middle age spread appearing kind of way, but not to me.
“Wait!” He sounds almost frantic.
Double bollocks.
If Mason finds this bloke hitting on me he will be less polite than he was with Nay, but that might be because he doesn’t know about me and Nay, not that there really was a me and Nay. My mind is drifting like crazy I realise when the caterer man appears behind me and reaches for my arm, pulling on it.
“Olivia,” he says softly. “Is it you, Olivia Carrington?”
“Yes.” I whisper so quietly I am unsure if I really say it out loud but at least I understand why I was so drawn to him.
“I can’t believe it’s you, Livy,” he says, forcing me to blink back long held tears at the sound of the name uttered by the only man to use it until Mason.
Slowly, so, so slowly I turn until I come face to face with him. My eyes fix on his, the same hazel eyes as my own, the green overpowering the brown, allowing the gold flecks to twinkle.
“Dad.” I gasp as if I’ve just breathed my last breath.
“Yes.” He sounds startled that I recognise him or maybe that I’ve called him Dad. “Livy, you’re beautiful and grown up.” I think he might cry before I do when he acknowledges me as an adult.
“Kids have a habit of doing that I guess, even when you’re not there to see it.” My reply is cold as a sudden sense of anger washes over me; anger that he left and never came back, anger that he missed me growing up and most of all that he wasn’t there to protect me when I really needed him to.
“You’ll never know how sorry I am—”
“Not as sorry as me,” I interrupt causing a guilty and confused expression that disappears when we’re joined by a colleague of his, a young woman, maybe my age, but shorter than me, with a fuller figure, very pretty with dark hair and eyes.
“Sorry.” She offers me a warm, polite smile before she turns her attention to him. “Mikey is having a meltdown in the kitchen, about vegetarian options,” she explains, and I think she expects him to leave with her, but he just stares across at me without acknowledging what she’s saying.
“Dad.”
We all stare wildly at that one word hanging in the air between the three of us. I don’t even recognise my own voice saying it and my brain certainly didn’t plan on it and then I realise that the reason I don’t recognise it is because it I didn’t say it. She did, the young woman, his daughter, except she can’t be. I’m his daughter.
Confusion washes over me. I have no idea how I’m still standing. How my legs haven’t buckled beneath me. How am I still standing in the middle of this circus rather than curling up in a ball and crying like a baby?
“Dad!” the other woman repeats. “We need you in the kitchen,” she says more insistently, pissing me off a little now.
“Hey, baby.”
Fucking fantastic timing on Mason’s part as he sidles up to me and with an arm around me immediately sees my distress so stares across at my dad, accusing him with his eyes.
