Love Is A Battlefield [2] (T. Shelby/OC) BWWM✅

Chapter 3 - The Performance

"How was business in Manchester?" Anna asks her husband as she lifts her eyes from reading the files about her business, Anna's, the jazz club that she owned when he makes his way into her study.

"Business was fine" he replies vaguely, "how was business while I was away?" he asks her as he went to go pour himself a glass of whiskey in order to avoid meeting her gaze.

At least he has the decency to look away in shame at the fact that he was having an affair. Although Anna considers herself a bit of a hypocrite considering she'd slept with Tommy a month before she married Charles.

Maybe the difference between them was that Anna never cheated on Charles after their marriage but that's all he ever seemed to do.

"Lively as always" Anna replies as she watched him pour himself a glass of whiskey. "Has Nancy seen you?"

"Not yet" he admits, "I wanted to surprise her" he adds as he turns to face her with a smile. Conversation about their daughter was usually the only thing that they both equally loved talking about.

"She'll be ecstatic" Anna says as he nods at this as he takes a sip of his whiskey, "I'm performing tonight. You do remember that, right?" Anna asks him.

"Yes, how could I ever forget" he says simply.

When Anna came back to London from Birmingham she and Charles had gotten along quite well. Her grandfather suggested a marriage of convenience for their families when he saw how well they liked each other and within a few weeks they were engaged.

At best they were like acquaintances and at worst they were like strangers.

Charles' mother was a stuffy, social climbing woman and even though she wasn't happy about the idea of her son marrying a black woman she kept her opinions to herself at the realization of the connections that her family could make if her son married Anna and especially when she saw the money that Anna's grandfather was offering to Charles and Anna until they started businesses of their own or something of the sort, which they had done.

⚜️Love Is A Battlefield⚜️

Anna makes her way into the jazz club and her manager, a man by the name of Mr. Jackson Solomons makes his way toward her.

Anna knows that he was related to one of London's biggest criminal underlords but that didn't mean anything to her because Jackson didn't want anything to do with the criminal aspect of his family and she respected that.

As long as they didn't bring trouble to her club then she didn't care about them either.

"Mornin' Anna" he greets her with a tilt of the head as his dark curls fall into his warm brown eyes. He was carrying a file in his hands, "the reports you asked for" he says as he extends them to her.

"Thank you Jack" she says, "did anything interesting happen while I was gone?" she asks him amusedly as he flushes at this as Anna laughs at the memory of when she caught him and his lover in the storage room.