Page 15 of You've Got The Love
I grab a flannel shirt and pull it on over my while t-shirt. It's not cold, but we are definitely the other side of summer now. As I walk down the long hallway toward the kitchen, I can’t help but see Marieke’s smiling face out of the corner of my eye, and I immediately scold myself for thinking about messing around with another woman. If Amber stays here for a while, I’m going to have to get myself checked out. I’m all over the fucking place.
“Here, it’ll be big, but keep you warm,” I tell her as I hand over the hoodie. She looks so at home here, like she’s been here forever.
“Thank you,” she says as she pulls it on, and I’m thankful she does. She’s wearing a pair of blue jeans that do spectacular things for her arse, and a white, cropped t-shirt that shows off that fucking bellybutton piercing that’s haunted me since I saw it last night in my truck. How that was only last night, I do not know. It feels like a lifetime ago.
I laugh as she zips up my hoodie. It swamps her. She looks like a child wearing her dad's clothes. I help her roll up the sleeves a few times so that at least her hands are free, and we just smile at each other. That weird frozen moment feeling floods my senses again like it did yesterday, but this time I want to drown in it. I watch as her pupils dilate, and I can feel my heartbeat hammering in my chest.Fuck I want her.
Her phone rings, breaking whatever spell we were under, and she grabs it off the kitchen island.
“Hello?” She says, quietly, almost subdued.
I watch her. I really need to keep my distance somehow; I don’t want to give her false hope. I could easily take things there with her, but as much as I want to—fuck do I want to—I just can’t, I don’t have anything left to offer her, I’m emotionally empty.
“Yes, I’m okay, Dad,” Amber says, looking at me and rolling her eyes, which makes me shake my head at her.
“Of course, I am. No. Absolutely not,” she tells him in no uncertain terms.
“No. I’m a grown woman, Dad,” she informs him as she turns away from me.
“No.”
She’s breathing deeply as she listens to whatever he’s asking of her. I can see her other hand has balled into a fist at her side.
“Fine. Hang on,” she grits through her teeth at him as she spins on the spot and looks at me. Fuck she’s mad. Could breathe fire mad.
“Dad wants to talk to you; he can’t seem to get it into his thick skull that I’m a fully grown adult. You can absolutely say no.”
“It’s fine, no problem,” I say, but fuck, I’ve got to talk to her dad. Can this week get any crazier? She hands me the phone with the cutest angry face I’ve ever seen.
“Hello?”
“Right, I don’t know you, you don’t know me, but I need you to convince me you are capable of keepin’ my daughter—my only daughter—safe. Do you have weapons close by?” Jack, or I’m fairly certain I’m talking to‘Chains’, VP of the London chapter of theKings of Chaos MC,right now, asks.
“No. No weapons.”
Amber flaps her arms at her side as much to say,‘what the fuck’. Her father just laughs down the phone without any humour whatsoever.
“These cunts from the other MC don’t fuck about, they won’t think twice about shootin’ you in the head point blank. So, I ask again. What weapons do you have?”
“Jack, I don’t have any weapons, here in the Netherlands they are illegal…”
“I don’t give a flying fuck if they are illegal. If you need to stab someone with a fucking steak knife to keep mydaughter alive, you’ll fuckin’ do it. Do ya hear me?” He demands.
“We’ll just hope it doesn’t come to that, but if it does, I can promise you I’d put myself in front of a bullet for her,” I tell him straight as I look into Amber’s watery eyes.
“Get a weapon,” is the last he says before he hangs up.
“He hung up,” I tell her, looking at the phone in my hand to confirm he actually hung up.
Amber barrels into me and wraps her arms around my waist before nestling her face into my chest.
“Thank you, Bastiaan,” she whispers so quietly I almost don’t hear it. Her using my full name does something to my insides. I want to hear her say it over and over again.
“I’ve told you, no need for ‘thank yous’, okay,” I say into the top of her head as I hold her to me tightly. “Come on, Bell, let’s go for a walk.”
“Yes.” She lets go, smiles softly up at me and walks in the direction of the mudroom, and all I can do is follow in her wake.
“Wow, this place is spectacular, Bas. I love my flat above the shop and having the beach on my doorstep, but I’ve never been more envious of someone’s home. You live ina freaking windmill! It’s just so cool. It makes me happy knowing you and Abel get to come home to all of this,” she tells me as she looks across the lake to the windmill, the light breeze blowing at her loose curls that have fallen out of her trademark messy bun. In this light, it makes her blonde hair look like strands of spun gold.
