When Rafe got to Guildford on Saturday morning, it was to see his aunt's Jaguar already on the driveway. He groaned to himself, knowing that not only would he have to face his wife's ire, but that he'd have to contend with the wrath of Aunt Vee, too, because Aunt Vee was always on the woman's side. Always, because she insisted that women were never wrong (as long as she liked the woman in question, of course; otherwise the woman was "a bitch who could do nothing right"). Indeed, no sooner had he let himself into the house, when his aunt grabbed him by the arm and dragged him into the study.
'I don't want your mother to see this,' she told him, before slapping him across the face. 'There,' she said, taking a deep breath to collect herself. 'How was the drive down?'
'It was fine,' Rafe said, pressing his hand to his cheek. 'Are you aware that you just hit me?' he asked sceptically.
'Yes. You deserved it.'
'Right...'
'What's going on?' Aunt Vee demanded. 'You'll never find a better woman. No one else could tolerate you, Raffey, but everyone has limits and firing Mattie has certainly tested hers.'
'The thing is, Vee,' Rafe said, in a low, rumbling voice, 'the way we are - you and me - we can't always be that way, can we?' referring to their slightly domineering, headstrong natures.
'I'm not always like this. Not with Carl; not when we're alone.'
'I know, and I'm trying not to always be like this with Chris.' Vee grumbled, unimpressed, but understanding.
'Why did you have to make that sweet girl the collateral damage?'
'Because I f*cked up and it couldn't be avoided. Because I've f*cked up so much over the years that it had to be some pretty spectacular collateral damage in order for it to mean anything.'
'I hope Chris is happy!' Vee cried, because she didn't much like the man; too pandering, too fretful, too weak for her liking.
'He's pleased about the changes going forward, but no, he's not happy. Apparently, I've been an arse all week.'
'Even more so than usual?' Vee asked, with a concerned frown. 'Oh dear! I almost feel sorry for the man.' But not quite, it would seem. 'Mattie's in the conservatory with Sebastian. Kip's coming later. He's bringing Evie,' Vee added, with a beaming smile.
'That's nice,' Rafe said, stooping to kiss his aunt in a proper greeting. In return, she soothed the pink tinge to his cheek.
'Go and put things right, and I'm not just talking about forgiveness. I'm talking about making sure your wife is happy.'
'It's my priority, I promise.'
***
'Sweetheart?' Rafe said, standing in the doorway of the orangery, and watching his wife as she entertained their son with a glove puppet.
'Raffey,' she said, glancing up at him. He offered her a pained smile, which told of his own suffering, making it clear she wasn't the only person who had felt awful all week.
'Can I have a cuddle, Sebastian?' Rafe asked, crouching to his aged knees.
'Dada!' the boy screeched, paining his ears, too.
'Darling,' the doting father smiled, before sweeping his son into his arms and lifting him into the air. 'I've missed you,' he said, inhaling the boy's scent. 'And Mummy. I've missed you both so much.'
'We've missed you, too,' Mattie said. 'I missed working with you.'
'Sweetheart,' Rafe sighed. 'Please.'
'What? Please don't express my displeasure?'
'Your absence from home has conveyed it quite succinctly, I assure you.'
'Not as succinctly as my fist up your arse!' Mattie retorted.
'Can I take you on a date?' Rafe asked. 'When we get back to London, I'd like to take you on a date.'
'Sure. I've got a lot of free time on my hands,' Mattie said, determined to nettle him. Each barbed insult or dig was like the flick of a razor blade and he flinched in reply.
'Are you ready to talk?' Rafe asked, settling their son on the floor. 'I'd like to explain; to apologise and try to sort this out.'
'Vicky says you've got an agency temp in,' Mattie mused. 'So, I'm more useless than a gopher? Chris prefers this newbie to me?'
'Hell no. The temp's awful. We never wanted to get a temp. I didn't intend for you to leave immediately.'
'Oh!' she laughed mirthlessly. 'You thought you could fire me and I'd just hang around at your convenience?' She shook her head. 'You're such an arrogant f*cker. I actually feel sorry for you, you're so deluded.' Rafe pinched wearily at the bridge of his nose.
'I realise I handled it all wrong, but I had hoped that you'd let me explain; that you'd understand and not take it so personally.' Which was stupid, really, because firing someone was a personnel matter and therefore, rather "personal".
'And I had hoped that when we started seeing each other it meant you'd decided that I was competent and useful. I had hoped that you realised how much I do for you; at work and at home.'
'I have. I do,' Rafe implored, moving towards his wife with an outstretched hand. 'Please, darling, give me a chance to explain.' With an emotional sniffle, Mattie nodded her assent.
'Upstairs,' she said, because she loved Ramona, but her mother-in-law was affectionate and doting. She didn't want the older woman to overhear their conversation and judge Mattie ill for not immediately relenting.
'Mum,' Rafe called over his shoulder, 'can you watch Sebastian while Mattie and I talk?'
'Of course,' the elegant woman said, appearing silently at the door. 'Seb, darling, come to Grammy. I've got carrot peel. Carrots?' she said, because the boy liked to play with anything that could make a mess.
***
'Do you know how many times I've railroaded Chris into something he didn't want to do? How many times I've made decisions without even consulting him?' Rafe shook his head in acknowledgement of his own poor behaviour. 'I've vetoed his perfectly reasonable suggestions without even discussing them, and he's never done that to me. I've taken my temper out on him on a daily basis. I've...' Rafe shrugged. 'We're friends, and I've taken advantage of him by using that friendship to get my own way at work.
'When I found out about Tobias and Bianca, I cut and run; told him I was moving to the New York office and didn't give him the chance to argue. Not that he ever complained, because he wouldn't do that. When I finally decided to divorce her, I just told him that I was moving back to London. I left the New York office without anyone lined up to replace me. He never asked me to wait it out. He just welcomed me back with open arms.'
'So... Chris is a good friend,' Mattie said. 'What does that have to do with me?'
'Since you and I got together, there have been three of us involved in a lot of our business decisions, and there shouldn't have been. You've offered an opinion and I've listened to it. Sometimes I've disagreed, but other times I've been swayed. Why should Chris have to have a second business partner foisted upon him? He never asked for it. He'd never dream of letting Zoe interfere.'
'I interfere?' Mattie asked archly.
'No,' Rafe consoled, 'but you use your position as my wife to have input no impartial P.A. should have, and I've let you, because I love you, and because I do value your opinion. Chris doesn't love you. He doesn't think as highly of you as I do, but still, I've made him listen. I've made him re-think plans you didn't agree with. I've made him give you projects he didn't think you should have.'
'Like the council bid?' Mattie asked, to which Rafe reluctantly nodded.
'Then there was Vicky. She needed a job so I put pressure on him to take her as Jess's replacement. Of course, Chris didn't want my wife's best friend working for him. You and Vicky would always side with each other, and I often side with you. It'd make it three against one. But he did it; he took Vicky on, because I asked him to for your sake.
'Then Vicky tried to burn Xander's cock off, and Chris wanted to fire her. You wouldn't have it, so I went over Chris's head; used Vee's relationship with Xander to twist his arm, and got Xander to tell Chris not to fire Vicky. How was that fair? How was that not taking advantage of Chris?'
'I guess it kind of was,' Mattie said, but she thought it was excusable. She didn't think it a terrible crime, because it'd been done for Vicky's sake; because Vicky was actually good at her job, as proven by the fact Chris had wanted to promote her.
'Then Xander said we needed a Business Manager and that Vicky would be perfect for it. Chris leapt at the chance. He loves data; any type of analysis - especially cost analysis. You know how anal he is. But he's tight-fisted, too. He was never going to want to have two P.A.'s when we could make do with one; not with the new Business Manager's salary to cover, too.'
'And he refused to have me as his P.A. again?' Mattie asked, because she knew Chris had wanted to get rid of her when she'd worked for him; that the only reason he hadn't let her go was because he felt sorry for her. And that was the problem with Chris. He had opinions. Sometimes very strong opinions. Sometimes unpopular or controversial ones, but he often dismissed them himself, or let others do it for him, because, deep down - beneath whatever his latest crisis was - he was a kind person. A soft person. Someone who didn't want to hurt people; to let them down or disappoint them.
'The new P.A. needs to be full-time. You don't want to be full-time because it doesn't work with Seb, and even if you were full-time, your drawings for Oliver Thompson - which no one wants you to stop doing - take up so much time that you wouldn't get all of your other work done; not if you were working for Chris as well as me.'
'You could have explained it to me; given me the choice, -' Mattie began, before Rafe interrupted.
'No, darling. Chris didn't want you to be his P.A. You didn't get on together when you were his P.A. before. Your styles are too different, and as my wife, it wouldn't be fair. He wouldn't have felt comfortable lecturing you the way he used to. He wants a P.A. who knows their place, and darling,' Rafe smiled, 'that isn't you. The amount of shit you give me?' He shook his head. 'No. It would never work.'
'So, you just fired me?' Mattie asked, not that it was necessary, because she was unemployed.
'Chris wanted to create a new role for you - pad out your drawings by trying to get other clients to commission them, but honestly sweetheart, it isn't a role we need. It would have been given to you out of pity, and it would have cost money we didn't need to spend. Chris would have done it without complaint, but should he have had to?'
'No,' Mattie replied, in a petulant tone of voice.
'He asked me to think about Xander's suggestion of creating the Business Manager role for Vicky. He wanted to do it, but said he'd agree to veto it if I wanted to and I just couldn't, sweetheart. Since we got married I've put you first in everything, and I can't do that at work. I love you and I love working with you, but we do need space from each other. Almost every time we argue it's about work. We don't need that. Chris doesn't need that.'
'I get it,' Mattie sighed. 'I don't like it, but I get it.'
'Can you forgive me, then?' Rafe asked.
'Yes,' she nodded. 'But I'm upset. I don't know what I'm supposed to do now.'
'Well,' Rafe said, taking his wife's hand and rubbing it with his thumb. 'You'll take Sebastian to nursery each day, and you'll have a bit of "me time" whilst we decide what else you might like to do. There's no rush. You don't need to work unless you want to, and you don't need to stay at home with Sebastian, either.' Mattie bit her lip, her jaw trembling as her eyes welled with tears.
'I'm really fired then?' she asked, as though she thought he might have had a change of heart.
'Please, darling,' Rafe urged, in a voice thick with emotion. 'Please understand.'
'I do,' she nodded. 'I just...' She sniffed and her tears started to fall, because she loved working with her husband. She loved feeling useful and watching Rafe when he was in his commanding, brooding, authoritative element. She loved Crisis Chris and Moping Mandy, Fiona with the mullet, Lydia with her grass roofs, Mike, who'd shagged Rafe's ex-wife and thus enabled their divorce, and Lukasz, who was perfect in every possible way.
'You can meet me for lunch?' Rafe offered, pulling his wife into his lap and cradling her in his arms. 'You can meet me every day if you like. I'll always make time for you, I promise.'
'You're only promising because you feel guilty,' Mattie whimpered, as she nestled into her husband's neck. He smelt frustratingly good.
'I'm promising because I love you and I miss you,' Rafe corrected. But also, he did feel quite guilty; best not to admit that, though. 'Let me make love to you,' Rafe whispered. 'You'll feel better. You'll feel so much better.'
'You mean you will,' Mattie told him, whilst simultaneously melting into him.
'We both will,' Rafe agreed. 'We need this, Mattie. We always need this.' She agreed, because sex was an important part of their relationship. Because she'd missed him and because he did always manage to make everything better by getting naked. That, and the fact that he was grotesquely sexy.
It was a good job Ramona had such a big house (big enough to be what Vicky thought of as a "mansion") because stripping off and falling into bed together at ten thirty on a Saturday morning, with your infant son, mother, aunt and uncle downstairs, and your cousin and his six-year-old daughter due to arrive at any moment, would have otherwise been risky business. As it was, Rafe was able to roll his wife beneath him, pull the duvet up over their naked bodies, and gently kiss her into a muddle of unsated need, before making love to her with the gentlest rocking of hips; his fingers laced through hers.
'I love you,' Rafe told her between kisses. 'I've missed you so much. I'd say I'll never call you "annoying" ever again, but we both know it'd be a lie,' he murmured, as his warm breath flooded Mattie's exposed neck with the ghost of a sensual kiss. 'I'd far rather be annoyed by you than be apart from you though,' he promised, rolling his hips lethargically, because after their emotional separation, their bedroom antics were about the act itself, rather than the end result.
'I hate it,' Mattie confessed, in a voice which was half gasping.
'You hate what?' came Rafe's hot reply.
'That you're the person who hurt me, and the only person who can ever make it better.'
'Sweetheart...' Rafe drawled, his hips stilling momentarily.
'I want to hate you,' Mattie told her husband, 'but I need to love you even more.'
'I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere, I promise.' And because Mattie really did need her husband - really did need to feel exactly how much he loved her, and how much they belonged together - she timidly whispered, -
'Can you do that thing?''
'What thing?'
'That thing.'
'That thing we don't ever talk about?' Rafe asked cautiously, because he had an idea what she meant - a very pleasing idea, indeed - but Mattie was so squeamish and, he thought, childish, that they couldn't name that thing or ever acknowledge having done it, despite their mutual enjoyment of said thing.
'Mmmm,' Mattie said, because saying "yes" seemed too forward; too risqué.
'That thing where I have to keep my eyes closed because otherwise you'll never be able to look me in the eye again?' She nodded.
'Are you sure? You're not asking because you think it's what I want?' Rafe clarified, because he didn't deserve any special treatment, and it was usually something Mattie only alluded to on special occasions, like the day Rafe did his Christmas shopping, or after having survived Chris Colville's very melodramatic annual report. Or, perhaps, after a Sunday lunch with Rafe's family, where Tobias had smiled at Mattie a bit too broadly as she handed him the gravy boat.
'I just want...' Mattie said, before breaking off at the slow roll of Rafe's devilish hips. 'To feel you.'
'And you can't feel this?' Rafe asked, appalled, because he'd realised very early on his in sexual career, that there such a thing as "too big" and for some women, sex with Rafe had been touch and go, quite literally.
'But you're meant to be there,' Mattie shushed. 'That's why you fit just right. I want to feel you so much that it's like "Christ! Raffey's inside me!"'
'And that's not how you normally feel?' her husband tsked, before relenting, because he knew what she meant. For her, that thing was an emotional thing; not a sexual one. 'It's a good job this boy scout is so filthy that he keeps lube in the bedside table of his mother's guest suite,' Rafe crooned, as he moved from his wife and reached across the bed. He grabbed another condom, too. Condoms he only had because Mattie worried that if they had regular, unprotected sex in his mother's house, traces of ejaculate might end up on the bed sheets, which Ramona would inevitably find when doing the laundry. Rafe had tried to tell her that his mother didn't do the laundry; that a cleaner called "Julie" did it every Monday and Thursday instead, but Mattie had only looked at him in alarm and said, "Loose lips sink ships."
'Close your eyes!' Mattie ordered, once Rafe had ensured the safety of the bed linens by sheathing himself in a fresh layer of latex (only to then make a mess with the copious, but very necessary, quantities of lube he'd slathered himself in).
'Just push back,' Rafe said in a low, patient voice, as he obediently closed his eyes and let his wife blindly line up their bodies. Because she was so squeamish, he couldn't help her to accommodate him, so instead he stroked her back whilst staring at the inside of his eyelids, and marvelling at his own stamina when he didn't peak the moment he finally slipped inside her body. 'You okay?' Rafe asked, still caressing her shoulders and spine.
'Mmmm,' she nodded; not that he could see.
'Move whenever you want to. I'll just wait,' Rafe said, in a slightly strained voice, because although his body was screaming at him to burn some calories, he was considerate enough to make it a rule to let Mattie take charge during that unmentionable act. 'You're trembling,' Rafe said, lowering his torso so that his chest was resting against her spine; his arms bearing all the weight. 'Is that good trembling or bad trembling?'
'Good,' Mattie said, as her eyes watered in fluttering emotion. It was the combination of emotional proximity and arousal; so intense that despite relishing the sensation, it was something she could seldom indulge in. 'Good trembling,' Mattie groaned in satisfaction, as Rafe's lips mumbled across her neck, resting behind her ear.
'No one can ever replace you, sweetheart,' Rafe said. 'What's good for Chris isn't what's good for me. Even if he raves about whoever we take on, I'll secretly hate them.'
'So will I,' Mattie gasped, as her body was strung taut. 'I'll just "pop in" and scowl at him.'
'Him?' Rafe said, pausing in his kisses.
'There's no way you're replacing me with another woman!' Mattie said, with a surprisingly firm voice, considering she was on the verge of orgasm. 'You'll have to get a man. That way I won't feel so betrayed and Chris won't be able to hire someone just because he likes their arse.'
'Don't you trust me?' Rafe asked; slightly hurt, because after having been repeatedly cheated on by his ex-wife, he took monogamy very seriously.
'You? Yes, I trust you, but I don't trust other women around you. I know what you're like at work; all callous and grouchy. It's a massive turn on. No, you'll have to get a male P.A.'
'Alright,' Rafe agreed; he was rather amenable when he had his penis in his wife's backside.
'Good. Now move gently. I'm close and you know I lose my rhythm when I'm close.'
'I love it when you lose your rhythm,' Rafe whispered, as he closed his eyes once more and straightened his spine, so that he could place his hands on his wife's hips. 'It's proves just how much I Blow. Your. Mind,' he told her, as she gasped; body juddering into the mattress.
'Uncle Raffey? Auntie Mattie?' a voice yelled, as a herd of elephants sounded up the stairs.
'Evie!' they heard Rudy call.
'I'm looking for Uncle Raffey and Auntie Mattie. Grammy Ramona said they were upstairs,' the girl said loudly.
'Just, er...' Rudy replied, his own steps racing up the stairs, as though he knew what danger lie behind their bedroom door. 'They're having a grown-up talk. Let's wait for them to finish. I'm sure they'll be down soon,' he added, in a louder voice, which appeared to emanate from right outside the door, and sounded like an instruction, rather than mere speculation.
'Do you think he knew we were having sex?' Mattie rather naively asked, once the footsteps had retreated downstairs.
'Sweetheart,' Rafe said, his eyes closed as Mattie grabbed some tissues and cleaned him up. 'This is me we're talking about. Of course, they know we were having sex. Mind you,' he added, one eye peaking open, so that he could smirk at his wife in amusement. 'They probably have no idea what we just had ana-'
'Shut up!' Mattie spat, clamping her hand over his mouth. 'We don't talk about it, okay?'
*** Author's Note ***
So... maybe a bit anti-climatic when it comes to "grovelling" (although only metaphorically, because there was literally more than one climax), but this is Rafe Paxton we're dealing with. He was always going to resort to sex, and Mattie was always going to give in quite quickly. What she'll do with all her free time though? We'll have to just wait and see. All we *do* know is that a new P.A. is on the cards.