The Trophy Wife by Evie Baxter
Thirty
Iwould have thought inserting someone new into mine and Isla’s routine would have been chaotic, but Bastian slid into our lives like he belonged there. He set up his computer in the dining room, we seldom ate in there anyway, and spent a good deal of his day online or on his phone. I went about my daily tasks enjoying the rumble of his voice in the background.
He stepped away from work to walk Isla to school with me, and to pick her up at the end of the day. I could see tongues wagging in the playground when we arrived, hand in hand. I smiled to myself, gripping Bastian all the harder, because I had the best looking man around and there were some mums who were going to be more than a little jealous of his chiselled cheekbones and abs.
Isla took to running out at the end of the day and leaping into Bastian’s arms instead of mine. I had momentary moments of angst because I missed being the centre of her life, but the joy with which she embraced Bastian’s presence in our lives overruled any envy on my part.
She wanted him to do everything for her. Tie her shoes, give her her bath, read to her at bedtime. She radiated hero worship and glowed when she was around him. She bossed us about so that we sat on either side of her at dinner, insisted we both held her hands when we were out with her, and she snuggled between us when we watched telly with her.
Life had never been so good. Except David couldn’t figure out where his father was. His housekeeper hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him in a couple of weeks. His cars remained parked in his garage. He had no job to report in to. He wasn’t answering his phone, and when David searched his bedroom he found the phone, the battery long since dead, on his bedside table.
I was jumpy, seeing shadows around every corner. Bastian wouldn’t let me leave the house alone, not even for the short walk to school. I would say he was being overprotective, but everyone else I was close to was of the same opinion.
I was so happy with Bastian, but only in my own space. Robert managed to taint my new relationship without even being there.
“It’s Isla’s birthday in a week and a half,” I told Bastian on our walk back from the school one morning.
“I’ve heard rumours,” He smiled. “Along the lines of ‘Bastian, my birthday is coming very soon’ and the like. She’s not subtle, your daughter.”
“That she’s not,” I laughed. “It falls on a Saturday so the usual group will all be coming over for a party. Plus a few more children have been invited for a couple of hours in the afternoon. It’s going to be manic. Are you up for that?” I kept expecting Bastian to grow tired of the instant family thing, and every time he embraced it, he broke down my walls a little bit more.
“Have a cold beer on standby and I’ll do my best.” He wasn’t fazed in the least.
“My father, David, Peter, Robert and Jacob will be there. Cold beer will be essential. It doesn’t matter if they have kids or not, they will all be huddled in the corner together keeping a watchful but distant eye on everything. You can hang out with them.”
“What are we getting her for a present?” I looked at him startled. He really did think of us as a family already. There was no you and me separation here. He viewed us as a unit.
“I love you!” I blurted out, stumbling to a halt on the sidewalk outside my house.
Bastian turned to look at me, a slow burn smile lighting him up from the inside out. He reached out and dragged me into his embrace. “Yeah? You sure?” He was still giving me an out, just in case.
“I love you, Bastian Locke. You are the best thing to ever happen to me, besides Isla.” I was in, totally. I would be a fool to ignore the joy Bastian had brought to our lives.
His head descended and he took my lips with a reverence that stalled my heart it was so beautiful. “Get inside,” he said when he finally put a couple of inches between us. “I need you. Now!”
I grabbed his hand and we raced up to my front door, giggling madly, falling in the door and barely getting it closed before he was pulling my sundress up over my head and sinking to his knees to press his lips between my legs.
He grasped my knickers and yanked them down my legs, no finesse, all eagerness. I fell back to sit on the steps, legs spread wide, Bastian’s head buried between them.
We were both startled when there was a loud knock on the door, just a few feet away. Then Lisa shouted out, “Tori, are you there? Want to have a cuppa?”
I rolled my eyes then bellowed back, “No, I’m busy!”
“Busy? Or… Ooooh… Busy busy! I’ll let you get on with it. Have fun you two.” And we heard her laughing all the way up my front path.
That was okay because the two of us were laughing just as hard inside. Then we went upstairs to bed to continue what we had started before we had been so rudely interrupted. We stayed in bed all morning. Bliss.
It wasthe night before Isla’s birthday. She was sleeping over with the twins on the excuse that Claudia wanted to cook her birthday breakfast. What was really happening was all the men in my life were busy assembling a massive oval trampoline which was mine and Bastian’s gift for Isla.
My dad manned the barbeque while Bastian, Peter and David laid all the pieces out and formed a plan of construction while sipping on bottles of beer. Mum, Sarah and I sat back and let them get on with it, because we could. Sarah had whipped up some frozen strawberry margaritas in the blender and we were quite happy sitting back and relaxing while everything got done.
The birthday cake was made and would just need decorating in morning. The usual kids party food was all there – hot dogs, hamburgers, crisps, raw veggies, and halloumi burgers for the two vegetarian kids in the group.
The adult food for later on was another group catering effort. I had chicken thighs marinading and kebabs already assembled. All my energies the following day could be spent making sure that Isla had the best time ever.
“He’s a keeper.” Mum nodded towards Bastian.
“I know, Mum. I think he might actually stay. I’m not sure what happens when we are certain that there is no danger from Robert. If Bastian will be spending his weekdays in London again. But I’m really happy with him.”
“I reckon Robert has left the country,” Sarah said. “No one has seen him for weeks and weeks. No one has tried to run Bastian off the road again. Do you still feel like you’re being watched?”
I sighed. “Only some days. It’s weird. I have absolutely nothing I could go to the police with. But when I was grocery shopping yesterday, I swear to god, he was somewhere nearby. I just got creeped out suddenly, like I could sense him even if I couldn’t see him. It freaks me out. I don’t know what I’d do without Bastian right now.”
“Well, you have Bastian and you have us, darling.” My mum patted my knee. “Nothing is going to happen to you.”
“I know. But I won’t feel better until we know where Robert is. Hopefully on the other side of the world.”
We left the subject of Robert aside and amused ourselves heckling our men as they attempted to get the trampoline together.
The next morningdawned sunny and Bastian and I were up early putting up bunting and balloons outside. We had a small pile of presents for Isla to open inside, before we led her out back and surprised her with the trampoline. Just little things like books, colouring pencils and a pretty new dress.
Claudia and the twins dropped her off mid-morning, promising to return for the party in a couple of hours. Isla was bouncing off walls, she was so excited.
We gave her birthday hugs and listened to her as she related everything that had happened on the sleepover in infinite detail, and how Claudia’s pancakes were the best thing ever. Then we led her into the dining room, because it didn’t have a window overlooking the back garden, and let her open her small gifts.
She was Isla, so the excitement level didn’t lessen just because the gift was a colouring book. Not at all, because it was the best colouring book ever. She treasured everything she was given.
Then we each took one of her small hands and led her out back, and the whole village got to hear her screams of joy because she was that damn loud. Safe to say, she loved the trampoline, and it was the best present ever.
The rest of the morning was spent on the trampoline. Bastian and I took turns to be on there with her, handing off to each other when we needed a break. Isla was a bundle of energy, and it looked like was she wasn’t planning on slowing down for the remainder of the day.
Thank goodness for the arrival of her friends who shared her ability to keep going like the Energiser bunny.
Almost everyone had arrived, and various parents were supervising the trampoline and the paddling pool. The doorbell rang again and, before I could go answer the front door, Isla went tearing past me, bellowing, “I’ve got it! It will be for me!”
She wasn’t wrong. It was her birthday, and this was her party. I waited a moment, and she didn’t reappear. I looked over at Bastian, but he was down at the bottom of the garden kicking a football with two of Isla’s friends. Sticking my head in the kitchen door I called out, “Isla, who was at the door?” I got only silence in return.
My heart skipped a beat, and then stopped completely when the sound of my daughter screaming my name in terror rent the air.
I had barely crossed the kitchen towards my front door when Bastian went tearing past me, David and Peter on his heels.
“Mummy!” Isla’s voice was clearer when they wrenched the door open and started up the path. Just in time to see Robert shove Isla in the back seat of a blue four by four, a different vehicle than he had used to ram Bastian off the road, and slam the door shut. Isla’s tear stained face was pressed up against the glass and she was screaming but her cries were muted by the glass between us.
Robert already had the car in motion when Bastian barged back inside and grabbed his car keys from the hall table. “Call the police. Now!” he shouted to the adults quickly gathering behind us.
“I’m going after her, Tori. I’ll get her back.” All these words were yelled over his shoulder as he barrelled out to the hire car he had been driving.
“I’m coming with you!” There was no way my baby was going to be out there in danger and not have me chasing after her.
“Me too!” David declared.
Bastian was already behind the wheel of the car when I threw myself into the back seat, David riding shotgun. I pulled at the seatbelt as Bastian accelerated down our road, David telling him to turn left at the junction as he had spotted his father head that way.
Tears streamed down my face, my breath harsh, as I looked frantically through the windscreen, trying to spot the older blue vehicle Robert had been in.