Page 143 of The Betrothal

“Giving you space,” Sophie replied. “Downstairs, or outside, or wherever else their property goes.” She shrugged.

I frowned at them giving me space. “Sophie, what are you doing in Kent? Why are we in Kent? Does Liz know where you are?”

Sophie laughed. “Of course she does, she’d be here already if she wasn’t caught up with the kids. She’s thrilled and furious, in equal Liz measures.”

I felt a smile forming. Of course she was.

The lightest tap at the door had Sophie rising to open it. Whichever of them was out there spoke so quietly that I couldn’t make them out.

Sophie cocked a brow at me and I nodded. The fact they weren’t with me had my skin crawling.

“Hey, Sugar, sorry, Isabelle.” Ben edged his way past Sophie. His shoulders visibly eased when he could see me, but he looked unsure.

“Benji.” I borrowed Seb’s nickname for him – the quickest way I could think of to offer reassurance.

“May I?” He indicated to the bed.

I couldn’t stand his uncertainty. I threw the covers from my body and scrambled over the bed to intercept him, flinging myself off it to wrap my body around his.

He oomph-ed at the impact, then his body vibrated with a chuckle.

“Ben,” I gasped.

“Sugar.” His fingers tangled into my hair, locking in the nest of curls and pins that remained. He drew my head into his neck, wrapping his arms around me like a vice.

“And I’m out.” Sophie’s voice carried back in from the hallway.

“They left you here to come get me?” If he’d felt any part of my desperation since we’d been apart I had no doubts over how he would have struggled. The same way I would have were I not medicated.

“They were gone for all of eight hours, Sugar.” Ben clambered onto the bed, resting against the headboard with me plastered across his lap.

I breathed him in.

It hadn’t mattered how desperately I’d tried to commit him to memory; nothing came close to the real thing.

“You smell good,” I whispered into his skin. “Oh.” I wriggled in his hold. “I’ll smell awful, all perfumes and sprays and…”

“Aftershave,” Ben continued, his voice a little tight but his arms around me not relenting. “You smell of someone’s aftershave.”

I grumbled against him. It would be Teddy’s. “You can let me go, Ben, I’ll shower it off. Please don’t make yourself uncomfortable.”

“Stop, Izzy. I’m going to smother you with my smell so you’ll smell like mine.”

I choked at his possessiveness. The effect on me completely different to when Teddy had spoken the same words.

“I don’t care, Alex! Get out of my way!”

Ben groaned beneath me. “Seb’s not been feeling very patient.”

Seb swept into the room, Alex hot on his heels. “If she’s mad at us, then she can tell us so, and then she can punish us, and then we can make up, and then we can get on with our lives!” he blustered.

Alex scrubbed his stubble in exhaustion, shrugging.

“Why am I cross with you?” I craned my neck from where I still nestled into Ben.

“Because we married you to Alex,” Seb announced.

My mind flickered to raised voices in the church.