Sophia...

I know, I know...I shouldn't have antagonised Cade's mother. But I couldn't help it. She had looked at me like I was shit on the sole of her designer shoes, it annoyed the hell out of me. I'd just had an amazing orgasm with her very sexy son, so I felt overly cocky when I saw her just outside of Cade's office.

So, I reacted.

Right or wrong, I reacted.

I reacted because everything I now know about her, made it hard for me to not react to her.

From everything that Cade has told me about his mother, she seems incapable of being proud of him, and even more incapable of being happy for him when things are going right in his life. I'd even go as far to say that she's now incapable of anything to do with Cade.

For reasons only known to herself, she thinks that to hand an affluent lifestyle to him on a plate, is enough. That bestowing wealth and status, means that she has fulfilled her role as his mother.

But she hasn't fulfilled anything. She has been nothing but remote and spiteful throughout his whole life. Her cold and cruel treatment of him, really does get to me. The more I am feeling for Cade, the more protective I am feeling towards him. Which is why I gave her that smug and condescending smirk. Margaret Lapley deserved it, and she deserves so many more smug and condescending smirks. I know it's not my fight to take up with her, but I can't help the deep dislike I now feel growing inside of me.

She treated Cade awfully. I can't forget all the things that he has told me. I'll never be able to erase his painful memories from my mind. The calculated and controlling ways that she had used, in order to hurt him when he was just a child, are too callous to ever forget. Cade was an unloved and unwanted little boy. Neglected and mistreated, but his mother kept it hidden behind all of her fortune and prominence.

That, makes me angry.

That, makes her actions unforgivable.

But I'm here now. I am now a part of Cade's life, whether his twisted and rich mother likes it or not.

I think I piss her off.

She certainly pisses me off.

On that, we are exactly on the same page.

"Right, are you sure you don't want me to stick around a little longer?" Mum asks, lifting her coat and handbag off the hook with her brows thoughtfully pulled.

"I'm good, Mum...you get yourself home." Smiling in her very sweet and thoughtful direction, I am busily removing all the perished plants and sorting the flowers and foliage that shall go into the Bargain Bouquet Bucket for tomorrow. Lifting out a bunch of purple Alstroemerias, I hand them to my lovely mum. "Take these home with you, too."

Happily taking them, she smiles. "Will your father and I see you later for tea?" Grinning back at me, she knows full well that she won't be seeing me later for tea.

"Cade is celebrating tonight. He won a big fraud case today, so he's cooking us both a nice meal." I excitedly tell mum.

With her smile now spanning her face, she winks in my direction. "Okay, have fun, darling." Then she moves in for a motherly hug. "You're both still coming on Saturday, right?"

I gasp, remembering that I had completely forgotten to tell mum that Cade has now asked me to join him for a posh dinner in Bath this Saturday. I kind of felt bad when he had asked me, because I already knew that mum and dad wanted him to come for dinner at theirs, but was too excited about being invited to Bath, to tell him about it. I just figured he could come for dinner another time with my parents. And with my head permanently in happy Cade clouds, I seem to have now forgotten to tell my dear mum all about my exciting change of weekend plans. Bloody hell! I curse silently at myself before profusely apologising. "Oh Mum! I'm so sorry! I forgot to ask Cade, and now he's asked to take me out in Bath this Saturday." I am feeling guiltier by the second. Mum has been helping me so much in the shop, especially with Hannah about to go on maternity leave and with Christmas not far around the corner. "What about the following Saturday, instead?" I cheerily offer her a sweetly coated compromise.

Giving me a kiss on the cheek, and an 'it's okay' pat to my arm, she knowingly grins. "The following Saturday is fine, Sophia." Her affectionate grin doesn't fade as she slowly walks away from me.

Watching my mum opening up the shop door, with the bell tinkling high above her, I suddenly call out. "I love you, Mum." Realising just how lucky I am to have such an understanding and supportive mum as she is, I urgently just needed to tell her that. "Thank you for everything you do for me." I also needed to tell her that as well.

Mum wears nothing but an expression of the warmest kind of love. "And I love you." With one small and final wave back at me, my precious mum is soon disappearing into the chilly and dark November early evening.

Now gone, the warmth of my mother's love still lingers all around me. I treasure feeling this way, because I now know what it feels like for Cade to have a mother who is nothing like my own. I am truly blessed to have my mum, doubly blessed to also have my dad.

Cade didn't have either.

Yes, his father was around, but he was also guarded and distant. He wasn't cruel like Margaret Lapley, but Lewis Lapley behaved just as irresponsibly towards Cade as his wife had. Parents are supposed to nurture and encourage. They are supposed to care and guide. Protect and praise. Cade never received any of that from either one of his parents. I don't think he has ever been shown love. He has never felt how it feels to be loved. But I intend on changing that. I want to show him it, and I want him to know how it feels to be loved. I also want this Christmas, to be his best Christmas ever. He doesn't strike me as a man who celebrates it. But this year, it will be different. With that in mind, I turn on the stereo, letting the haunting electronica sound of London Grammar accompany me as I finish up for the evening. As the dreamy vocals and ambient beats start calming my excited heart, I busily go about the shop—putting the dead plants in a black bag, tidying the window display, assure all saleable flowers have enough water, sweep the floor, ensure my trimmers, shapers, wire, pins, foam and floral tape are neatly back under the counter—basically, just setting myself up nicely for the next working day. Just as I am tying up the half-full black bag, the shop bell tinkles for my attention. As soon as I look up, my excited heart drops like a lead ball in my chest. "Mrs Lapley, how can I help you?" Leaving the bag on the floor, I straighten up slowly, now cautiously smiling across at her.

"It's not what you can do for me, it's what I can do for you." She stoically states.

Studying her from a safe distance, my eyes roam over her impeccable appearance, knowing that her immaculate shell masks such an unfeeling and glacial soul. "And what might that be?" I confidently ask, feeling cramped and confined in her pristine presence.

Her kohl-pencilled blue eyes, intimidatingly fall on me. "I'm here to give you a friendly warning about my son." She doesn't blink. She just stares. Not engagingly at me, more through me. To Margaret Lapley, I am nothing. I am just a nobody to her.

My voice is now far less confident. "A friendly warning?"

She finally blinks, blinking with a bitter half-smile. "Stay away from him." Her eyes instantly become hostile, melanic with obvious and dark disdain for me.

My own blinks stutter a little, as does my reply. "St...stay away from him?"

Running her long fingers vainly through her short dark hair, Margaret Lapley nods. "That's right. No good shall ever come from you being with him. Ticks like you are only after Cade for one thing only—money." She poshly states, every wrong and blistering word.

"Excuse me?" I'm reeling a little, reeling from her audacity to call this a friendly warning? "I can assure you, I am not after Cade for his money. We happen to really care about each other."

Margaret bitterly laughs, her face now taut with suppressed sarcasm. "Oh, dear foolish girl...you honestly don't believe that my son cares about you, do you?" Her question is shrouded in such bitterness, in such acidity.

"He does." I wanted my answer to sound far more bolder and positive than it actually does, but it's being totally quashed by this woman's menacing manner.

Stepping closer, uncomfortably too close, Margaret narrows her icy eyes on me. "He does not. Not now. Not ever."

With a rebellious gleam in my eye, I somehow find the strength to argue back. "He does." Eye to stubborn eye, we glare at one another. My inner rebellion is ready for war with this cruel cow. It's armed and absolutely ready. "Cade has told me everything about you. I know how you treated him. You should be ashamed of yourself." Although my heart is thumping loudly in my ears, my resolve is quiet and mulish.

For just a second, I think I may have hit a nerve, but then Margaret snidely remarks. "You really are a deluded little tick, aren't you?" She doesn't even give me a chance to respond to her insult. "Cade is no more capable of caring, than I am. He will hurt you. He will quickly tire of you, just as soon as his head is turned by another beautiful tick...and believe me, there have been a lot of beautiful ticks."

That's when my cheeks turn just as crimson as my temper. "Firstly, stop calling me a bloody tick. Secondly, I am fully aware of Cade's colourful past, thank you very much. He has told me everything!"

Margaret Lapley remains completely calm. "Everything?"

"Everything." I snap, glaring hard at her now.

"So you know that he's seeing a therapist?"

I blink back my obvious unawareness, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of my not knowing. "That is something that only Cade should be telling me, I think it's absolutely wrong that you are. Now if you don't mind, I've heard enough from you...I think it's time that you left." In anger, I pick up the black bag from off the floor and turn my back on the very vile Margaret Lapley.

Before I disappear out to the back room, Cade's mother has to have her last and cruel moment. "He will never love you. He doesn't know how to."

Throwing her one last unimpressed look, I determinedly retort. "We'll see about that, won't we?" The war line has now been drawn. It's a battle over whether Cade will ever be able to love me. As I open the back door, throwing the contents of the bin bag into the outside garden waste bin, my anger intensifies. I know Margaret has left the shop, but her coldness hasn't.

Who the hell does she think she is?

How can she talk so cruelly about her own son?

Why is she such a ferocious bitch?

My enraged thoughts actually burn the membranes of my flabbergasted mind. Slamming the bin lid down, I try to exhale all of the anger inside of me; exhaling it all away. That's when I hear the bell tinkling again. Shit! She's come back for Round 2! I start warning myself, hot footing it back inside. "I politely just asked you to leave, I won't be so polite this time." Fighting talk flies from my mouth, but the face I am met with, stops me completely in my battle tracks. "Paul?"

Nervously stuffing his hands in his front pockets of his jeans, Paul stiffly smiles back at me. "Hey, Sophia." Jerking his shoulders, he then warily asks. "Have I come at a bad time?"

I actually want to tell him that anytime is a bad time for him to just show up like this, but compared to Margaret Lapley, I am strangely relieved to see him standing where she just was. "No, I'm just shocked to see you here, that's all." To disperse the awkwardness between us, I walk towards the broom and start sweeping the floor again. First Cade's mother, now Paul...this evening is honestly turning into my very own waking nightmare.

"Do you need a hand with anything?" Paul asks from somewhere behind me. He would sometimes come and help me when we were together, if he had a day off from work and had nothing else better to do. But now, his offer of help is misplaced and unwelcome.

Holding the top of the broom handle, I exhaustingly rest against it. "Why are you even here, Paul?" I hit him right with it. Why is he here?

"I wanted to talk to you. I need to apologise to you."

"There's nothing for us to discuss... and I'm busy."

"Don't be like that, Sophia. It's taken me this long to grow a pair of balls, just so I could come and see you." Edging just a little closer, he awkwardly grimaces my way.

But I don't back down. I'm tired. I've just had an awful run in with Margaret Lapley. I just can't deal with Paul and his too-late apology, right now. "I don't care, Paul." I tell him the truth. I don't care. That ship has sailed for me and him. "Now if you don't mind, I am tired and I want to shut the shop." With the broom back in both my hands, I hastily start sweeping again. Sweeping away the daily dust and plant cuttings, and sweeping away Paul's unasked-for presence.

"Sophia?" Paul wants me to engage with him again, but I ignore him. "Sophia? Look at me?" He firmly takes hold of the broom, preventing me from doing any more of my over eager sweeping. "Just stop for a second. Please?"

That's when I really look at him properly for the first time. He looks the same—same dirty blond hair, same hazel eyes, same sun-kissed skin—but his demeanour towards me has changed. It seems that he is really looking back at me. He's really being attentive. That's when he steps even closer, unexpectedly closer. "I'm sorry it's taken me so long to come and see you. Every time you ignored my calls and texts, the less confident I became about seeing you in person. But I'm here now, Sophia. I'm here because I care. I miss being with you."

Hearing too, too much, I try to stop Paul from spilling out anything more from his mouth. "Paul?...please???..."

But he cuts me off, refusing to allow me to speak until he has purged himself of all that's so heavily inside of him. "Just let me finish. I need to finish." Gazing back at me, he takes a much-needed moment. Then with a weary half-smile, he continues. "I know that I was a really shit boyfriend, I know that. I also know that what I said to you on the night that we broke up, was immature and wrong. But I'm sorry. I was scared of settling down, so I stupidly pushed you away. I was wrong, Sophia. I have been miserable without you. Miserable without us. I'm here, because I want to make this work. I'll do whatever you want to make this right. I want you back. I want us to get back together."

I can't hear no more. Not a single word more. "It's too late, Paul." I step back, not wanting to be as close to him as we just were. "You're too late."

"Don't say that, Sophia." Again, Paul tries to bridge the emotional gap between us. This time, he reaches for my cheek, touching it with desperate affection. "I'm sorry that I took us for granted. I'll never do that again to you. I'll never hurt you again." As late as he is, I do believe Paul. What he is saying, is coming sincerely from his heart. Yet still, he's too late.

Pulling my cheek away from his touch, I solemnly tell him the truth. "I'm sorry, Paul. You really are too late. I'm with someone else, now."

The truth momentarily stuns him. So much so, he laughs it off. "Okaaaay. Is it serious?"

Softly nodding, I speak with much less sombreness. "Yes."

Paul now looks slightly torn, a little defeated. "Is there really no going back for us?"

With sad apology in my eyes, I determinedly shake my head. "There's no going back."

With an ever sadder sigh, Paul steps right in front of me. Cupping the whole of my cheeks with his desperate hands, he then places a short but gentle goodbye kiss onto my surprised lips. Drawing back sharply, I then completely step away from him. "You need to go now." Overwhelmed by his being here, and even more overwhelmed by his farewell kiss, I just need to finalise our lingering and uncomfortable goodbye. "Please, Paul...just go." I need to get rid of him. I need to get rid of that kiss. His being here. That kiss. It just feels all so very wrong. "I mean it, please go!"

With his heavy shoulders now hung really low, he nods ever so slowly as he stares down at the shop floor. Lifting up his head to look back at me, Paul looks so despondent and subdued. Stuffing his hands back into the pocket of his jeans, he offers me one last sad smile. "I'm so sorry about everything, I really am. I can't believe that I have lost you for good." Forlornly swaying his head from side to side, he then turns and leaves.

With Paul now gone, it's just me and the tinkling bell that still remain in the shop. Even the bell, is soon silenced. With that silence, I am able to inhale and exhale, with normal ease. As the air flows in and out of my body, so too, do my thoughts.

Finally, I have closure with Paul.

His touch. That kiss. Made me feel nothing.

Yet for Cade, I feel everything.

Feeling emotionally spent, I am now just looking forward to cuddling up with my wonderful man, telling him all about his mother and Paul. I'll even tell him about the kiss, because I don't want to keep anything from him. If I were to not tell Cade, and keep it only to myself, that would make it feel like I am keeping some sordid little secret. Which it most certainly is not. It was just a goodbye kiss. One that I pulled right away from, because it didn't feel right.

My lips, now belong to Cade.

My feelings, they belong to him, too.

All of me, now belongs to him.