Breaking Joseph by Lucy V. Morgan

Author:Lucy V. Morgan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: womens fiction, erotic romance, bdsm, contemporary romance, dark romance

Chapter 11

At the train station, Dad greeted me with a warm hug.

It was a gorgeous Saturday, better weather than we’d seen in weeks. Sun cut through the smog of the station and painted everything in liquid gold, including me. The debt was settled, I was no longer selling myself to pay for it and my parents had no worries left in the world. Charlotte’s step had more than a spring–it had the buoyant bob of a victory march.

“Finally got your contract, then.” Dad smiled proudly.

“Yep. Still need to finish going through it but I’ll start in a few weeks, all going well.” It was hot in the car and I fiddled with the air-conditioning, waiting for him to scold me. It didn’t come.

“What will you be doing?”

“I’m staying on the corporate team. Dealing with acquisitions, tax issues, that kind of thing. I know it sounds boring but it’s not–”

“You don’t have to justify it to me, Leila. I’m just glad you’re happy.”

“You think it’s boring, Dad.” I laughed.

“I’m sure it’s riveting. It’s not wine making and it’s not an indigenous fern, but there you go…”

I elbowed him and he laughed heartily.

At home, Mum had actually cooked. Of course, she’d ruined the chicken–nothing had looked quite so dead before–so we took sandwiches out to the garden instead.

I arranged a blanket under my favourite tree and picked handfuls of lilacs to sit in a pint glass. Dad cracked open a bottle of his elderflower wine, Mum passed around plates of bread and cheese and we enjoyed the sunshine together, just the three of us.

“I’m so pleased New York went well for you,” Mum said. “We were worried after the trouble with that boy.”

I shrugged, swallowing a mouthful of Brie. “It’s okay, seriously. We’re talking again. We’re friends…sort of.”

Mum eyed me suspiciously. “Sort of?”

“Not like that.”

“I’m sure she knows what she’s doing, Bridge,” Dad said. “Anyway, we’re celebrating. Here’s to Leila. After all her hard work, things are coming together.”

“Here here,” Mum called.

We clinked glasses and drank deeply. I watched the pair of them as they snuck secret, delighted little smiles. For so long, I’d tortured myself about whether they knew how I’d earned the money, but it didn’t matter anymore. Any of it.

Not that I thought, in a million years, that they knew the truth. It was bad enough that they were aware of Charlie.

We sat and talked until late in the afternoon, until their holiday cottages beckoned and there was work to be done. I helped Mum with all the laundry and after an hour of folding crisp, white bed sheets, my thoughts inevitably turned to Joseph and the linen we’d spoiled two nights before. I wondered what my parents would make of him; I wondered whether I’d get as far as introducing him at all.

Perhaps I might.

In the evening, I slipped back out to the garden to sit beneath the tree. I pulled the glass of wilting lilacs into my lap, closed my eyes and let the scent invade everything, and fell back on my hands just for the stinging stretch along my back.

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