Stand By Me

By Ruth Barringham

Lola and Daniel love being together and always have great sex. So why is it that he won't leave his wife?

Just what is it that makes him think that his wife needs him more than she does?

Daniel and his wife have no sex life, no money and no children. As far as Lola can tell, they have no reason to stay together. And yet he won

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cheriton House Publishing Pty Ltd
• Release date: Mar 24, 2019
• ISBN: 9780648439530

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Stand By Me

Ruth Barringham

Stand By Me

An Adult Romance Novel

Copyright © 2014 by Ruth Barringham, Author.

Republished with new ISBN 2019

This work is copyright. Apart from any use under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process, nor may any other exclusive right be exercised without the permission of Ruth Barringham.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the author’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that with which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters and situations in this book are entirely fictitious and bear no relation to any real person living or dead or actual events or happenings.

First Published August 2014

Cheriton House Publishing Pty Ltd

Queensland

Australia

http://cheritonhousepublishing.com

All rights reserved.

ISBN:  978-0-6484395-3-0

Also by Ruth Barringham

Playing For Real

Two Weeks In Corfu

Chapter 1

Lola was laid on the bed with Daniel. She raised one leg in the air.

'I’ve always had great legs.'

Beside her, Daniel looked at her raised leg and ran his hand along her thigh.

'I’ve always loved your legs.'

'What about the rest of me?'

He dropped his hand and turned his head to look at her. 'Feeling insecure are we?'

She lowered her leg and looked him straight in the eye. 'Well it’s hard not to when I have to share you with another woman.'

Daniel looked up at the ceiling and let out a heavy sigh. 'Please let’s not get into this again. I’ve told you before. I haven’t had sex with my wife for years.'

'But you still live with her so she sees you a lot more than I do.'

'Lola…don’t.'

Now it was her turn to sigh deeply. 'I know you don’t like it when I bring it up and I know you’ve tried to explain it to me before, but I just don’t get it. I want to. But I don’t.

'Here we are laying naked in bed together in the middle of the afternoon. You could stay and have dinner with me followed by a bottle of wine and more great sex. But instead you want to go home to your wife, who you say you don’t love, yet you’d rather stand by her than stand by me.'

Daniel was silent for a few moments. Then he sat up, swung his legs off the bed and reached down to the floor for his clothes.

'I can’t do this anymore. When I married my wife I made a commitment. How I feel about her isn’t her fault. She’s not a bad person. She needs me and I won’t leave her.'

'I need you too, but you keep leaving me.’ Lola knew she sounded sulky, but she couldn’t help it.

Daniel, now fully dressed, turned to look at her. 'If I was the type of guy who would walk out on someone who needed me just because I’d changed my mind about how I felt, then I wouldn’t be the man you fell in love with. This is me, Lola. It’s who I am. I never promised you more than we have and I’m tired of arguing over this.'

He turned and left the room. Within a few seconds she heard the click of the front door as it closed behind him.

Lola laid there for a few minutes going over it in her mind without having any direct thoughts.

With her mind still preoccupied with her relationship with Daniel, she went to the bathroom to shower, put on her nightshirt and dressing gown, tidied the bed, went into the living room, put on the TV and prepared herself an early dinner.

She thought about how she’d met Daniel two years ago when he’d come into her shop.

Lola owned a new age shop in the city. She’d bought it with the money from her divorce from David.

They'd been married for seven years, during which time they’d both had full-time jobs.

David loved fine living, eating out, their large house and living in luxury.

He was a lawyer when she met him and during their marriage he’d sat his Bar Exams and became a barrister.

He helped prosecute criminals and he was good at it too. But his job entailed working long hours and he’d often work at home at the weekends too.

Lola had worked in retail as a department manager at a large store. She’d loved her work although David sometimes sneered at her low income compared to his large salary.

But money had never been a priority for Lola. She preferred to have more free time and while David pursued his career, she looked after their home including making all her own curtains, blinds and bedspreads and turning their garden into a food paradise with fruit trees and vegetable beds that flourished.

Living in a Brisbane suburb in Australia wasn’t ideal growing conditions and most people struggled to grow anything in the dry, humid climate. But Lola was a keen gardener and a nature person, so she enjoyed spending time outdoors putting her hands to the soil.

But their diverse personalities meant that eventually she and David had nothing in common.

After seven years of marriage the 'itch' to leave their relationship surfaced, so they amicably parted.

And because they lived in a large, expensive house, there was enough equity in it for Lola to buy a small house in the suburbs and open a new age shop in the heart of the city.

She didn’t work there full-time because she had two employees who worked full-time plus a part-time single mum who worked almost every day and brought her daughter to work with her on weekends and school holidays.

The shop also had a resident tarot card reader at the weekends, but she worked freelance and rented a small back room where she did her readings.

So Lola didn’t need to work much herself because she was lucky enough to have staff who were intelligent and able to all work together and keep the place running.

She’d owned the shop for four years and was happily single and unattached when Daniel walked into her life.

He’d come in to buy scented candles. Lola thought that he didn’t seem like the scented candle type so he must have been buying them for someone else.

She had served him herself, helping him pick out some candles and nice holders. When she asked if he’d like them all gift-wrapped, he said yes.

Something about him struck her when he walked into the shop that day. She knew he felt it too because as she stared at him, he stared straight back and smiled at her.

Since leaving David, Lola had decided to stay single and never got romantically involved with anyone ever again. She thought marriage wasn’t all it was cracked up