Off Limits

I smile as I walk away, swinging my butt, knowing that not only is he here with me tonight because he cares for me, but that soon we’re going to be making love and I cannot wait.

‘Things are making a little more sense now,’ Grandma murmurs, her eyes trained on Jack’s profile.

He’s locked in conversation with the man—Adam—his expression instantly businesslike. My heart thumps.

‘What do you mean?’ I reach down and sip her champagne, taking the seat beside her.

Grandma taps my knee. ‘It isn’t just a job.’

I contemplate denial, but it’s Grandma. She’ll see through it.

‘Meaning?’ I say instead, cautious. Waiting.

‘You’re seeing him?’

Trust Grandma. I bite down on my lip. ‘Not really. Kind of.’

‘You love him?’

My heart throbs. I look at her and shake my head, but my smile tells a different story.

‘I see.’ She tilts her head, her eyes pinned to Jack as though she’s pulling him apart, piece by piece. ‘Interesting...’

‘Not really.’ I shake my head. ‘And it’s very...early. New.’

‘Secret?’ she supplies, her eyes flitting to mine and sparkling with the hint of mystery I’ve evoked. I sigh. There’ll be no stopping her now.

‘Yes, secret,’ I say after a beat.

‘Fine. I can do secret.’ She winks at me and taps my knee once more.

It’s more than an hour before I get near Jack again, and by then I am desperate to touch him. To kiss him. To be alone with him. I’m almost there—just a few people to navigate—when my parents take to the stage and the music goes

silent. The guests follow suit.

My mother is a natural-born performer. She speaks easily to the crowd, playing the part of happy wife perfectly. My father toasts her and then they introduce me. Their heir.

Ugh.

I paste a smile on my face, sashaying close enough to Jack on my way to the stage that his hands brush my hip and my body charges with electricity.

I’ll do the damned tribute speech and then we’ll go. Him and me. Alone time with him is the talisman on the periphery of my mind.

There are a heap of people looking back at me, but I see only Jack. His eyes seem to caress me, even from this distance. A pulse throbs between my legs. Desire is a tangible force, wrapping me in its determined grip.

‘I’ve been thinking about love and marriage a lot lately. About the leap of faith required to take that step. We can enter into a relationship with the best of intentions and find that it doesn’t work out. That our love alone isn’t enough—that it doesn’t go the distance. Or perhaps we lose the person we love most on earth, and feel robbed of our soul mate. Our love.’

My eyes hold Jack’s and I blink, my heart twisting.

‘Or perhaps we fall in love and marry and everything is perfect. A true happily-ever-after.’

I turn and smile at my parents, hoping that these vague descriptions of love will somehow mean something to them. It’s hard to tell. Botox has rendered my mother’s range of visible reactions down to single digits. There’s disapproval, impatience, wry amusement and boredom. I don’t know which of these she’s feeling, so I turn back to the assembled guests.

‘My grandma talks about meeting my grandpa almost as if the moment was divined by fate. There was an inevitability to their life and love—one she couldn’t have fought even if she’d wanted to.’

I smile at Grandma and the tears in her eyes make me proud, because she understands that I know. I know what she felt.

‘I think marriage is a remarkable thing, and I congratulate my parents on thirty years of it. To Mum and Dad.’