The Girl is Not For Christmas - Emma V Leech Page 0,78
underscore it to reassure him. It was just for now, just for Christmas, and then… and then it would be over, and they would go their separate ways and that would be an end to it. The idea made her lip tremble, and her eyes burn, but she swallowed down the foolish emotions that threatened to undo her. She was a practical woman, and it was better to have half a loaf than none. It was.
So her decision was made.
King stared up at the ceiling, his arms behind his head. He’d left the curtains open to admire the great expanse of sky, velvet black and jostling with stars. Moonlight filtered in, casting odd shadows which would have had him gibbering and screaming about goblins and demons not so very long ago. The thought brought a wash of shame that he had sunk so low, that he had almost fallen off the edge, the point of no return. Even now his hands trembled at the idea he might fail, that he might be offered a drink the moment he returned to London, and he’d not be able to say no. Well, it was bound to happen. All his cronies had been a hard drinking lot, well, except Charlie, but then they’d never been friends. Acquaintances perhaps, King being someone Charlie felt he owed a debt to.
King wasn’t sure he had friends. He had people he’d go out carousing with, those who were the best, most amusing company, and those who were inoffensive enough not to make him want to throttle them when he was hungover. Friends though…
A friend would understand he could never allow himself to fall so far again, a friend would help him, support him. The only man he might have named friend had been ruined by King’s father and no longer wished to know him. King could hardly blame him for it. He tried to think of anyone among his circle who would understand when he told them he would not drink anymore, that he could not, if he wanted to live. Try as he might, King could not think of a single person who wouldn’t just laugh and make a joke of it. They’d put a drink in his hand and tell him not to be such a crashing bore. Though he had known it in the back of his mind, it was only now that he allowed himself to accept the truth of it. If he returned to his rooms in London, to his friends and their endless parties and gambling and drinking, he would be drawn back in. He could not go back. His life must change.
The idea was frightening. It was as frightening as the thought he might give in the first time someone offered him a drink, or if he was alone and free to help himself. He would have to go back to Wynford. The castle was enormous and would swallow him whole and even thinking about it gave him such a sense of loneliness and abandonment he did not know how he would bear it. His dog was there at least, Argos, a big, loyal fellow who did not deserve to be abandoned with such regularity as he was. He felt an pang of longing for the creature, wishing he could keep him in London but it was no place for such a big, energetic dog. It would be selfish of him.
Though he knew it was a dangerous game to play, for a moment he allowed himself to imagine doing what Walsh had suggested, the impossible notion that he might marry Livvy. He allowed himself to glimpse the image of Livvy at his home. Livvy and the children, filling the endless empty rooms, their chaos and laughter chasing away the silence that had always been a part of his life, unless he was drunk and raising hell. He closed his eyes and forced the image away, unnerved by the swell of emotion that rose in his chest, the force of longing. Closing his eyes did not help though, for now he remembered the feel of her in his arms, the sweetness of her lips and the warmth and softness of her body. His skin ached with wanting her, his body growing hard and hot, a flush that burned over his skin with such intensity he flung the covers back, unable to stand them against his naked flesh. He groaned and covered his face with his hands.