Just a One Night Stand

Chapter 16

(A/N): So this chapter is also on Saucy Scenes if you want to read the saucy scene! See you at the bottom of whichever version you decide to read!

Chapter 16

Madeleine was, in one word, stressed.

Fortunately, on account of his first grandchildren being born, Mr Nicholson had given her the day off so she was able to lounge in bed, snoozing peacefully, until 1PM. But today was Friday. Today was the day she picked up Brandon from school – hence, today was the day she had to break the news to him that his mother was "back from her holiday". She absolutely hated lying to her sweet, baby-faced nephew, and always sought to tell him the truth. But, thanks to the unexpected return of Melanie, she was going to have to tell him one more lie.

She knew she didn't have time to think about Drew. But yet, as she sprawled across her bed, his words from last night echoed in her mind.

It's not really a friendship because what more do we have other than sex?

She'd considered him a friend and, even if they did have sex, she thought he was someone she could confide in, talk to and enjoy the presence of.

Growing up, she had very few friends. From a very young age, her father had drilled into her head the importance of school and how little friends mattered. Therefore, when she began school, she did not possess the skills required to make friends. Sure, at 4 years old, she was considered academically gifted but that only made the other children resent her. As children, when Melanie had started school, she brought home a parade of new friends and/or tales of what her friends and her had done at récréation. Meanwhile, the only tales Madeleine had to tell were that of her classes and how her teacher had miscalculated a simple maths problem so Madeleine had needed to correct her.

The benefit of her studiousness meant that she was able to finish her education a year earlier at 20, graduating her University with a first class honours in Law. She intended on using this to go on to become a barrister but then came Brandon and Melanie. She couldn't abandon her baby sister in her time of need and she couldn't, in good conscience, abandon the sweetest little baby she'd ever known either. So, she didn't. She looked after that baby boy, all the while putting her dreams of being called to the bar to one side. She had to take on odd jobs to support the both of them but those jobs helped her to meet her four best friends. First, she was a cleaner at a rather lovely hotel and that was when she met her first friend, Christiana (or just Christie). She was the sister of the owner of the rather lovely hotel. Somehow Madeleine had managed to win her over (to this day, Madeleine was confused with how she had become friends with someone like Christie by being herself). Christie introduced Madeleine to her brother, the admittedly handsome hotelier who thought that her talents were wasted as a cleaner and asked her to step in, as his secretary while his own secretary was sick. This was how she met her second friend, Tal. In one of the meetings she had attended as his secretary, Chrystal (Tal) had been there. She was the CEO of a very large and very successful food distributing company. They distributed fresh and organic foods from sources (that empowered those down on their luck) to a number of hotels, restaurants and schools. Again, for some odd reason, she'd taken a liking to Madeleine and after the meeting; she'd requested a meeting with Joseph (Christie brother) to ask both of them whether Madeleine could come and work for her when Joseph's secretary returned.

To cut a long story short, through a series of lucky flukes and shots, she managed to make friends with the most important girls to her – Bethany-Anne (Beth), Chrystal (Tal), Christie and Lee.

When she met Drew, all she had wanted to do was to act like her friends and have a fling without it meaning anything but due to, yet another lucky fluke, he ended up in her life. She'd consulted her friends and they'd told her she should just live and let it run. She knew she shouldn't have listened to them because here she was now. She now had two options – 1) cut Drew out of her life completely and focus on her and Brandon again or 2) Carry on with Drew using him solely for his body, not talking to him and purely just... fucking. Even in her thoughts, that word sounded crass. Neither option was great but the second was certainly more favourable than the first. Somewhere along the line, she'd developed a little – not so little – crush on Drew and if they were still... fucking, he'd still be in her life, which was what she wanted.