The Devil In Her Heart (Beatles Fan Fiction)

Chapter 29

November 3rd 1965

Grace kissed George's neck as she lay behind him. George shrugged her off with a grunt, not moving from under the covers. Winter was well underway and it was freezing outside, but that was not the main reason George was reluctant to get out of bed today.

Grace tried again, kissing him, snaking her arm around his stomach. George removed it for her.

"Georgie," she cooed in his ear.

"I'm tired," George said, gruffly.

"I'm not surprised, the hour you came home," Grace replied sulkily, sitting up in bed. "Where do you go til three in the morning?"

"Nowhere. Recording, I told you."

"No you weren't."

"I was at the studio," George insisted, with his back to her.

It was half true. He had been there until he couldn't stand Paul's painful and pitiful looks or John's sideways comments or Ringo's attempts to cheer them all along, for one moment longer. The band was falling apart. George knew it. They knew it. It was just the rest of the world who hadn't quite latched on to the fact yet – despite rumors in the papers. Always the polished act, whenever The Beatles appeared together in public they were the foppish, lovable fools the public and the fans all adored. Little did they know, as they had posed for the cameras and the press last week, holding up the MBE medals, how they could hardly stand to be in the same room together.

"No, you weren't," Grace said calmly. "I rang them."

"At what time?"

"Eleven."

"Well, I'd gone by then, hadn't I?" George said, as if it was obvious.

"Where did you go?"

George sat up suddenly. "I can't live like this Grace," he barked and then immediately wished he hadn't. He studied her for signs she might suddenly flip again, but she looked calm. It had been two months since that night and George still didn't know what to make of it. What had pushed her over the edge like that, and more worryingly, what might again?

Grace had clicked back into her normal self as quickly as she had lost it. And since then, apart from nagging and whining about seemingly everything, all had been well. As well as things ever were these days.

"I mean, you have to learn to trust me," George said, more quietly.

"I do trust you, George," Grace said, manoeuvring herself in front of him to kiss him. "It's the rest of those tarts I don't."

George sighed.

"I've seen the way they throw themselves at you. They're even brazen enough to do it when I'm there, so I dread to think what they do when I'm not!"

George put his hand up and stroked her hair. "Even if they do 'throw themselves at me', it doesn't mean I'm going to do anything, does it?" he said. It was the right answer – for once – and Grace smiled. She jumped off the bed and slipped out of the room.

George lay down in the bed again. It was a well–practiced lie. So much so, he nearly believed it himself. He'd said it to Pattie once, maybe twice, but the guilt he'd felt when he'd lied to Pattie was strangely absent when he repeated it to Grace. Still, it had never been more than perhaps a quick kiss and fumble when he was with Pattie – and not all that often either. Grace was a different story.

There had been a girl only last night. Some Beatle fan – or did she say she was trying to make it as a model? George could hardly remember what she looked like, never mind her name. Perhaps he had never asked? He was playing with fire, he knew it.