Daisy Haites: The Great Undoing: Book 4 (Magnolia Parks Universe)

Bit embarrassing how I got the other night.

I don’t know what got into me.

Just, freaked myself out a bit, I guess.

Magnolia Parks on a table, her hand on my chest to calm me down — it was a good feeling, though I can’t wrap the words around why.

Actually, if I’m honest, I didn’t really like those couple of days when she wasn’t around.

And I know what that means — she’s climbed over the wall and into my fucking heart somehow, but it’s fine. Because I know what I am to her.

I’m the buoy she’s clinging onto while she waits for the ship she fell off to come back and get her.

Happy to be clung to, I s’pose.

She’s out tonight, with all her friends for Ballentine’s birthday. I wasn’t invited — not a huge surprise. I’m a bit too aware of her absence though, so I do my best to get through a pile of work I’ve been ignoring to feel her up.

I make a tiny bit of headway but then my office door swings open.

Declan looks up from the corner of the room where he’s watching football.

Magnolia’s standing in my doorway — I can tell instantly she’s been crying.

“Hey—” I frown, standing up. “Thought you’d be at the birthday.”

She walks around my desk quickly, stands toe-to-toe with me.

“He didn’t invite me.”

She’s crushed.

“Fuck.”

I feel probably an irrational wave of anger over that, like someone’s done her a great injustice — I’d hit him if he were here. Kill him, maybe.

Tilt my head.

“Are you okay?” I ask her, and do you know what she does?

Silently lifts her arms in the air, waiting for me to take her clothes off. I swallow heavy.

“Decks—” I call to him without looking over. “Leave. Now.”

Declan sniffs, a bit dirty he’s got to leave the game, like I don’t have fourteen other TV’s about the place, and closes the door behind him. As soon as he does, I have her off the floor, moving her backwards and into the wall.

Reach behind her and unzip her and her dress falls off her body. Slide my hand up her back and into her hair, and she’s at the buttons of my jeans now, so up she goes on my waist, pulling my jumper up over my head. I walk her backwards into a priceless artefact that crashes on to the floor. My mouth’s up against hers as I grimace.

She peers down at the ground. “Should we pick that up?”

I don’t look down at it, just at her. It’s bronze. Survived nearly two thousand years, it can survive another bump or two.

I kiss her again, feel her smile against my mouth.

“Wasn’t that a Chinese Ritual Wine Vessel from the Fanghu Han Dynasty?”

I pull back, surprised.

“Look at you — yep.” Shift her on my waist so I can get a better look at her. “From when?”

Her little shoulders go square.

“Approximately 200AD.” She gives me a proud smile.

Holy shit. Probably the sexiest thing anyone’s ever said to me. I grab her face and kiss her harder than I ever have before.

I press her up against a cabinet where then — unfortunately — my 1919 jade green vase from René Lalique smashes onto the floor and I start laughing and swearing at the same time.

She’s grinning at me, pulls away a bit, looking down at it ruefully.

“That’s all rather expensive, is it not?”

I shrug a bit. “£100,000 for the pair, give or take—”

“Oh no—” She pulls a sorry face.

I shake my head and kiss her more, make my way up to her ear and whisper, “Expensive fucks, yeah?” She shifts her face into my neck, smiling, and I knock her chin up with my finger. “I’d pay that twice to be here with you.”

I carry her backwards and pop her down on my desk.

Pull my shirt off over my head, and she stares at me curious, like she always does.

Reaches out and touches the one on my stomach, the one I nearly died from. The one Daisy saved me from.

“How?”

I don’t want to tell her the truth, so I lie.

“Cage fighting—” I say, hoping it might impress her.

She looks annoyed. “Why?”

“It’s fun.”

“To get hurt?”

I give her a look. “Tiges, I don’t get hurt.” I push some hair from her face. God, it’s a fucking good face. “Sorry he didn’t invite you.”

“I don’t want to talk about him.” She shakes her head and I poke her in the ribs. “You always want to talk about him.”

“Julian—” She takes my face in both her hands. “Do you think I’m lying here, half-naked on your desk, to talk to you about BJ? Shut up—” She shakes her head at me, annoyed. “And have sex with me.”

Don’t need to tell me twice.

I lay her out on my desk, arms up over her head — I like her when she’s all stretched out. Like when a cat trusts you and it shows you its stomach.

“What are you smiling at?” she asks, sounding amused.

Didn’t realise I was smiling, honestly. I am, but drop it quick as I can and turn it into a squint.

“Don’t you go soft on me…” she tells me playfully and I give her a look, pin her down at her wrists and then it’s happening. Fire behind us. “Wait for Me,” Kings of Leon. Most beautiful girl in the world under me.

I love doing this with her, she so blindly trusts me, her body just seems to go with mine, move her where I want her, how I want her — off my desk and onto my lap. Slide my hands down her body, kiss her neck til her back arches.

Her breathing’s getting faster, and I know what it sounds like with her now, I know her tells and her cues — push some hair from her face. She touches my face with her hand and it’s fucked, I know it is. Because I say her name, and she’s looking at me, thinking about someone else.

Do you know what’s more fucked? I don’t even care.

After, we’re on the floor behind my desk — she’s got her head resting on my chest, rug over us and I’m playing with her hair, thinking more than I want to.

“You think of him when you’re with me,” I tell her. It’s not a question. I already know it’s true.

“Just sometimes.” She peers up at me, looking embarrassed. “I try not to.”

I give her a small shrug. “I can tell when you do.”

“Oh.” Her eyes sort of go glassy, and I don’t know why. “Sorry—”

I say nothing — don’t know what to say. She clears her throat.

“Who do you think of?” she asks as I stretch out a bit, arms behind my head.

“I try to stay in the moment these days—”

She looks chuffed. “You think of me?”

I nod.

“All the time?” She blinks, surprised.

I sniff a laugh, side-stepping the question even though the answer is yes. All the time.

“Have you ever been in love?” she asks and fuck you, no I do not count her blinks.

“Can’t—” I give her a tiny shrug. “It’s why you’re here. I’m no strings.”

Her face pulls like she doesn’t like that, and I feel confused about her for the billionth time today. She’s not even thinking about it as she runs her mouth back and forth over my cheek. Not kissing me, just touching me because.

She bites down playfully on my mouth. “There are some strings.”

I sniff, give her a tiny smile as I push her hair behind her ears.

“In another life I reckon I could have loved you,” I tell her.

She gives me a little smile back.

“In another life I would have let you—”

Never you mind that I already love her in this one.

I sit up, lean back against my desk, pull her with me and into my lap.

“What’s it like loving someone how you two love each other?” I ask her, a bit because I genuinely don’t know and a bit because I can’t tell her how I feel, and talking around it might be the closest I can get.

She flashes me a sad smile. “Bad.”

“Bad?” I frown. “Really?”

“I think so—” She shrugs. “I don’t really belong to myself anymore.”

“How?” I frown.

“I mean he’s in everything… I’m always thinking about him, all the time. I want to know what he thinks, I want to know what he wants. I worry about how he feels and whether he’s safe and what he’s doing.” She picks at the skin around her nail all nervous. “With BJ, I wonder about all the hands that have been on his body that aren’t mine— who’s were they, where did they go, what did they touch—”

“Fuck.” I swallow back a wave of nausea as I think about anyone who’s touched her before me.

“He’s not my every second thought — he’s my every thought.” Her voice cracks a bit, and I might throw up. “He infiltrates all of them. All my decisions, all my feelings—”

I shake my head, mostly just to get her to stop talking. I can’t handle it.

“I would hate that, you’re right,” I tell her like I don’t know firsthand.

“Yes.” She flicks me a look. “You would. Don’t ever fall in love.”

I kiss the top of her head.

“Deal.”