Page 7 of Kingpin's Baby
I repress a smile. She’s funny when she runs her mouth.
“Something that sounded important, but I could just continue with my current role,” she adds.
“If that’s what you prefer. How about, ‘wife’?”
She gapes.
“Or do you think ‘Mrs Booth’ sounds better?”
I don’t care which, or any name. The ball and chain. Her at home. Trouble and strife. My missus. I’ll call her anything that means she doesn’t leave my sight. The very thought is soothing my soul in a way I hadn’t imagined possible. She’s the key to my peace. For the last year, seeing her every morning and watching her has kept me going. Fed a growing obsession and need.
“You don’t think they’d believe I was in a necessary employment?” she says, a bit forlorn, which I don’t understand. As ever, she keeps talking, shifting from foot to foot nervously. “I know I’m just a cleaner, and nothing important, and you’re kidding, about the wife thing, aren’t you?”
There is so much wrong in that statement, it’s a challenge to identify where to begin.
“I’m not joking, and those bastards are not getting donuts or a hundred thousand pounds. They’re getting death.” There’s shock in her face but I ignore it. She knows my business. I’ve told her day after day about the choices a mafia boss makes. “In the meantime, you need to not be deported. A contract of employment can be argued with. A marriage certificate can’t.”
“Yes, but?—”
“Good, that’s settled.”
She blinks. “Marrying to give me citizenship?”
“Yes.”
“Just… An in-name-only thing, right? A marriage of convenience.” Ren scuffs the carpet with the toe of her sneaker. “No falling in love.”
“Correct,” I say, with honesty, even as my heart shrivels to a crisp. I’m not going to fall in love with her, I already have, the first moment she stepped into my office like a beeswax candle, small and warm and sweet-scented. I can’t fall in love with her again.
I harboured secret, stupid hopes that this girl who is too good for me might grow to love me. But no.
She’s as likely to want me as to spontaneously combust.
“Just temporary, I suppose, until this blows over. Were you thinking like, six months?”
“That’s right.” I force the words out. Half a year is more than I thought I’d ever get to possess Ren for. I should be grateful, not greedily wondering how I can have longer with her.
“And we wouldn’t consummate the marriage,” she checks, worry tugging at her eyebrows.
That’s more difficult, because there’s breathing, and there’s breeding this girl, and I’m not sure which I’d choose if I had the opportunity. I can see the long-term advantages of oxygen, but if I could be inside her? See her pregnant by me? Hold our child in one arm and embrace her with the other?
Just once?
Worth it.
“I won’t touch you. I promise.”
Her nod is quick, and for the slightest split-second before she smiles, I kid myself there’s sadness in her expression. “You’d really marry me so I can get citizenship? Why would you help me like that?”
Darling girl. She thinks I’m altruistic, when I’m being supremely selfish. She’s given me an opportunity to own her,and keep her with me. Even without her skin on mine, being inside her, watching her come, or having her love, I’m as covetous as a dragon. I’ll take ownership of her on paper if that’s all I’ll ever have.
If she was by my side, perhaps I’d be able to sleep?
See. Selfish.
My insomnia has become worse since we met. I’m restless when she’s not here, impatient for her arrival. Plus, the temptation to look at the CCTV of her kitchen and check she’s not awake is strong. I drew the line at surveillance in her bedroom, but if she was here in my house, as my wife…
I could watch her sleep.
