Her Gentle Gangster by Carolyn Faulkner
Chapter Eleven
Cara
When I arriveat school the following day, I hand the checks over to the school principal on my way to my classroom.
“You sold some cake!” Mrs. Walker says, examining the checks.
“I sold some of them twice,” I say, adding, “never mind,” when she throws me a curious look.
“Why are these checks both from a Michael Brennan?”
I explain to her how it all played out, and she looks bewildered but waves me off. “Whatever gets the job done. Thank you.”
I head to my sensory play classroom early and fire up my laptop as I sit at a kid-sized table surrounded by bean-bag chairs, soothing lights, and play tunnels. I don’t mind not having a desk or an office; this classroom is my happy place. Well, now it’s maybe your second-happiest place, I think, setting aside the fact that I might be the only person in my relationship with Michael letting the husband/wife play get into her head. Then the horrifying thought occurs to me: what if there’s more than one? The man is experienced, has a strong sex drive, and all the time in the world on his hands. What if I’ve just let myself become one of several women at his beck and call? What if…
As I recall, he’d said, “You’d be surprised at how many women hate it.” But that doesn’t necessarily mean…
Stop it. Stop it, and get on with your day. Later, you can grow a spine and come right out and ask. And then, you can deal with the fallout later. If he breaks your heart, consider yourself lucky that you have four sisters to run to with your problems.
Taking several deep breaths, I get on with my work. The leading teaching team and the other assistants will be here soon, and I want to tackle my weekend email beforehand. When I finish with that, I log in to the shared spreadsheet on all the upcoming pre-K fundraisers for the school year.
“That’s odd,” I mutter out loud to myself.
Every date is blank. The cookie dough sale, the wrapping paper sale, the silent auction, even the book fair. Thinking I must have logged into the wrong file, I check again. But no, this is the one.
I shoot an email to the lead teacher, apologizing that something must have corrupted the file but that I’ll put it back together today.
Just as I hit “send,” there’s a knock on the open classroom door. I look up, and there’s an enormous delivery of yellow daisies—so massive I can’t even see the face of the delivery person. “Cara Williams?”
“Yes?”
She comes in and sets the glass vase of flowers on the tiny table in front of me and has me sign for the delivery. “I’m sorry, I don’t have anything on me to tip you with.”
The delivery driver waves me off. “Don’t worry about it, honey. That man of yours already tipped me enough to cancel my credit card debt. I don’t know what the flowers are for, but I suggest you hang on to this one.” She practically skips out of the room, and I snatch the card buried inside the bouquet.
“These reminded me of you,” is all it says.
I blush and smile, remembering how many ways Michael violated my yellow daisy sundress.
Then something the delivery driver said gets my attention. He canceled her credit card debt? Based on his actions on Saturday, I believe it. But does that mean…
I look back at the blank fundraiser spreadsheet, and at that moment, I receive a call from the lead teacher, who is on her way in. “Got your email. All the fundraisers have been canceled as of this morning. An anonymous benefactor has set up a trust fund for the entire Exceptional Pre-K department. I’m running late because Walker just got emergency approval from the super to post three new teacher positions for us, and she wanted my input.”
I have to pick my jaw up off the floor when we end the phone call, and I immediately call up Michael.
“Good morning, baby girl.” He sounds like he’s still in bed, and my aching muscles would like to crawl back under the sheets with him right now.
“You’ve been busy,” I say.
He laughs. “Nah. My accountants have been busy. Now you’re exceedingly not busy, and you never have to head up another fundraiser again. Nobody in your department will. And apart from teaching, I get you all to myself.”
In the background, I hear knocking on his door.
It could be another one of his pets.
I bite my lip. “You gotta go?”
“Yeah, more HOA bullshit, probably. But Cara?”
“Yes?”
“I…I miss you.”
It feels like he means it. It doesn’t sound like someone with a corral full of women. There was real emotion there. Almost like he wanted to say more.
“I miss you too.”
“Come see me as soon as you’re off work.”
Every muscle below my waist tightens at the promise behind that command. I bite down on my lip to control the whimper of need. My heart knows we need to have a serious talk. The rest of me wants another night of mind-blowing orgasms before approaching that subject.
“I wantyou to stop taking the pill.”
I blink up at Michael in astonishment. I’ve done exactly as he said: appeared at his door just minutes after getting off work, with a stop on the way here for groceries, both because he needs them and because I’m getting into the wife character. And because you love him, silly girl.
“That’s a fun game. Adding Russian roulette to the game, are we?”
I smile and brush past him and head to the kitchen to stock his pantry.
“Cara. I don’t want to roleplay anymore.”
I whirl around, hurt but also confused. “You want me to go because I questioned your birth control suggestion?”
Now Michael looks confused. “What? No. I meant what I said.”
There’s a slight lump in my throat that’s beginning to bubble up. “Okay, sweetheart. I’ll ‘stop taking birth control’ for you, my husband.”
Both of us are thoroughly confused now.
“We’re not doing this anymore,” he says.
Do not cry in front of this man, Cara.Bravely, I nod and say, “I’m sure one of your other female friends does a better job at pretending and not falling in love with the idea of the real thing.”
Michael scrapes his fingers through his hair, then grabs me under my arm and marches me through the house and into the backyard. Outside, by the pool, he takes a knee and pulls out a tiny red box.
“This is some elaborate roleplay.”
“Cara, I did this all wrong. I don’t want to pretend anymore because I want you for real. There’s nobody else in my life. Nobody has ever broken through to my real heart. You’re it for me. I want you as my wife. And I want babies with you. As soon as possible.”
That lump in my throat grows bigger by the second.
“I need you to back up a minute because I need to catch my breath.”
“Marry me. I love you, Cara, and I want you to marry me. This isn’t your pretend husband asking. This is me, Michael, your dad’s best friend, asking you to marry me.”
He opens the small red box, but I’m suddenly feeling faint because I’m hyperventilating.
“Is this real or the matrix? I can’t decide,” I breathe.
Sensing my weakened state, Michael stands and catches me quickly, wrapping me up in his strong arms, caging me in from the world.
“Dammit, woman. I should never have suggested role playing. I should have just asked you to marry me the second I realized it was you in that daisy-yellow dress because I knew I would never think of anyone else in the same way as you. You’re in my head and in my heart, little one.”
I let him kiss me, and I kiss him back.
“You know what we have to do now,” I say.
He nods solemnly. “Right. You stay here. I’ll speak to your parents. They arrived back from vacation this morning.”
I shake my head. “No, sir. This is all part of being a grown-ass woman. Facing the music with my real-life husband.”