The day for her to take a break from her studies, and the stress of her final university year, had finally dawned. Her mother couldn't collect her and the man in both their lives and in so many ways, had insisted that she was not to catch the bus back to Bristol, her home city. He would collect her.
Flynn rang to say that he had arrived and was parked out in the street only a few car lengths away from her red-brick Victorian apartment house. The day was bright, but breezy, with the clouds scudding and billowing across the sky in unseasonal weather for the time of the year.
Now he stood on the step of the front door, common to all in the house, and she saw his outline through the frosted glass set within it. She tugged open the door.
"At last!" Anwen called out and fell into his arms, unashamedly. Flynn eased her hold on him.
"Your carriage awaits," he teased on taking in her appearance and Anwen's undoubted loveliness that she had inherited from her mother. "And you look like a princess."
He was being kind and understanding, she thought and blurted out the first thing she could say in reply to that. "Make me feel like one again, then."
She gave him a wobbly smile and reached out to take his hand. Flynn looked so darned cool in his tan suit and a navy blue cotton shirt that was open at the neck. The man never let his standards slip, and she could understand what had drawn her mother to him some years ago. Their affair had endured. He still had his neatly trimmed stubble beard, only his wavy hair that was brushed back from his forehead had gone a little greyer than before.
"Come on, let's get going and get you home."
There was nothing but concern for her to be seen in his eyes and the set of his lips. She'd made an effort to put on washed-out grey denim jeans that hugged her hips, the button fastening to be seen whenever she moved and her white tank top rode up, a grey summer cardi a finishing touch. She'd forsaken all jewellery save for a thin beaded band on one wrist and her hair was braided in a way that she knew that he liked to see.
"I'm glad that you're here with me, really glad." She kissed his cheek and clung to him for a moment, breathed in his familiar, musky, body scent that was so ragingly different from Gaven, the young guy whom she felt had defiled her and taken away what had been the order in her life. "I'm all packed with what I need, so we can go. I don't want to be here a moment longer than I have to."
"Come on then, the car's only a house or two away. I was lucky to find a slot so close to your place. It's all locked up is it?"
"Yes, it is. I seem to do nothing else but check that it is," she sighed, her words soon resonating with him. She met his considerate look and tender smile and knew that he would help her get through to a better place again.
'Leave it all behind you, for a while. I'll help you with that."
"I know you will, and don't keep looking at that place, please?" she asked in a trembling voice and clutched his arm in an attempt to pull him away as he looked up at her bedroom window.
"Sorry, but your mother will only ask me what I saw while I was here to collect you."
"Let's just go home, please?" she implored, her voice insistent as she tugged on his jacket's sleeve.
She clung to his arm possessively, even for the few steps it took to reach his gleaming, yellow, Jaguar F-type. He was ragingly successful in the companies he ran, and yet he had made the time to collect her. She wondered how it would look, a young woman getting into a handsome, and rich, man's car as he was seen putting her bags in the trunk as if she was setting off for a weekend with her older lover. Perhaps that was just what she needed, caring love and attention of a very different kind.
"Come on, let's get home and have lunch. We can talk as we go or do you want to wait until we get back?"
"We wait. I just want the time to talk to you about anything and everything."
She knew that her voice held uncertainty and that her emotions were there for him to hear and see, but she just wanted to be with a man who showed her respect and concern, just as he had always done, along with the loving affection that he was unashamed to show her mother, even when she was present. She wanted some of that back; in fact, all that had been taken from her in that room he had been seen gazing at.
"I wonder how I'll ever go back there," she whispered as she took one last look as they passed the house.
"If you do, it will only be for a short while. I have a plan and your mother will have to agree to it."
She touched his hand and then gripped it, unashamedly. Her mother's man seemed to have time and concern for her too, and not just empty words and she loved him for it.
"Thank you. That's what I wanted to hear."
♥
They all had tense moments as she recalled everything that had happened, down to the smallest details, her mother, Catrin, shuddering from the images of what Anwen's words conjured up. Flynn was visibly angry and held out a hand to her that she gripped fiercely as they sat at the kitchen table and talked. Catrin was relieved that she had him by her side to help her through the ordeal of hearing her daughter speak of her sordid adventure. Even at such a moment, in the calm of their home, she could not believe what had happened.
And then, in the days that followed Flynn revealed that he was already intent on buying her a small apartment, with a secure entrance lobby and a secure, camera-monitored front door.
"I've already put a name down for a two-bedroom place...so that you could have a trusted friend to live with you. Some rent could be charged to them to help with running the place. When you're through, and graduate, we sell up and we go from there."
"You've done all that and for me?" Anwen cried out and embraced him unashamedly in front of Catrin.
"Yes, you're precious to your mother, and it's for the best. Too many reminders will keep you from studying."
"And I'm precious to you or you wouldn't have done it!"
"Anwen, darling...really!" Catrin laughed in some dismay at her girl's forthright ways of prompting him to agree with what she had said.
