Divoon Daddy

Excerpt

LONDON--2009:
SCALINI'S RESTAURANT, CHELSEA:

Toby smiled adoringly at Tallulah. "Happy darling?" he asked.

"Blissfully happy, Toby darling," smiled the sparkling-eyed young girl. "Utterly, wonderfully, magically, blissfully happy!"

"Aw shucks," drawled Toby, putting on his best (and appalling!) James Cagney accent. "Is that all?"

"Idiot!" laughed Tallulah. "Gorgeous, glorious idiot." She looked down at the small engagement ring on her finger. "Now comes the difficult part," she said, looking back at Toby, her blue eyes wide. "Teenage love and all that." Reaching for his hand across the restaurant table, she said softly, "How are your parents going to take it? Their only son and heir meets a wayward stray while taking an interior design course and in his first term! More shock, horror! Not only does son and heir fall in love with wayward stray--and very much vice versa!--but son and heir and wayward stray become engaged!" Tallulah gave a soft giggle, tossing back her long, blonde hair, a mischievous smile playing on her pretty face. "I bet you a hundred to one the first thing they'll ask will be 'is she pregnant?'"

"And what does that mean?" grinned Toby with feigned innocence.

"It means have you and little me done naughties with our you-know-whats and made a baby!"

"Oh, you mean that boring old routine known as fucking?" said Toby with an exaggerated sigh.

"Shh Tobes!" giggled Tallulah, glancing around at the neighbouring diners in the busy restaurant.

His grin broadening, Toby gave the delighted girl a lewd wink before saying in a baby-like voice, "Yes, Mummy and Daddy Lloyd-Lander, of course your little boy and little Tally Wally have been busy fucking! Make that lots and lots of lovely fucking!" Giving a gleeful, child-like gurgle, he couldn't resist adding in a sing-song voice, "But then clever Tobesy Wobesy always, but always, uses a funny plastic thingy called a condom on his perky willy and clever Tally Wally regularly swallows a special, clever little 'oh no you don't' pill!"

Tally, her shoulders shaking as she tried to stifle her laughter, simply had to lean across the small table and give Toby a light kiss on the nose. "Idiot!" she giggled, sitting back in her chair, "divine idiot. Oh my God, Tobes," she squeaked, "I was only joking! I'm not pregnant so they'll have no alternative to accept it as true, true love."

"Quite right!" came a soft voice from the adjoining table. "Oh, do forgive me," said the beautifully groomed woman, "but I simply couldn't help overhearing part of your conversation." She gave Tallulah and Toby a gracious nod. "May I simply say many, many congratulations?" "Why, thank you," smiled Tallulah, "that is so sweet." Turning back she grinned at Toby, who sat looking at her with a proud smile. "What?" she asked, a mischievous glint in her blue eyes.

"You, that's what," smiled Toby. "Jesus, imagine if I hadn't decided to go into interior design?"

"I still would have found you, so let's get back to your parents, what will they say?"

"Honestly Tally, I just don't know." Toby gave Tallulah an anxious glance. "You haven't met a set of parents quite like Mr and Mrs Lloyd-Lander, given Dad nearly blew his stack when I said I wanted to take up interior design. Thank Christ that Chris--he's my elder brother--decided to go into Dad's company in the City."

"And your mother?"

"A bored, rich neurotic whose life is spent either playing bridge or socialising."

"I love them already!"

"I always knew you were much kinkier than you've already let on! How many more mysterious and wicked little ideas of dubious and delicious depravities are hidden away in that pretty little head of yours?"

"What can I say? Apart from adding that that was quite a mouthful of the most amazing and completely undiluted, adoring poetic crap I have ever been privileged to hear, my darling Tobias Lloyd-Lander, my super, super hung stud divine. Almost as big a mouthful as my divine, super stud husband-to-be gave me this morning."

There was a crash as another eavesdropping diner dropped her wine glass.

"Oh my sweet, innocent bride-to-be," giggled Toby, ignoring the frantic efforts of a waiter attempting to mop up the nearby table, while the maitre d' dealt with the outraged diner, "how I love it when you stage whisper such sweet endearments!"

"Are they really that grim, your parents?" asked Tallulah, determinedly ignoring the activity taking place alongside their table.

Toby leant back in his chair before letting out a sad sigh. "I think choosing the word 'grim' is you, my darling Tally, at your most generous. They're two of your worst nightmares; Dad still lives in Victorian times and Mum in a totally selfish world of her own. To put it quite bluntly, they're ghastly!" Giving a shrug of his broad shoulders, the handsome teenager added with an impish grin, "How they ever managed to produce a heavenly offspring such as I is simply beyond comprehension!"

"Perhaps you were adopted?" giggled Tallulah, smiling up at the beaming wine waiter as he refilled her glass. "I mean, someone as unique as yourself simply couldn't have come from such a mundane coupling!" She took a quick sip of her wine. "Once we're married, we can always say you were adopted, your real father being some remote mid-European aristocrat who got a local girl up the spout!"

"Charming! So now I'm not only a seducer of young, innocent virgins but a bastard to boot?"

"But my beautiful bastard!" Tallulah reached out to take Toby by the hand. "I love you so much Toby, bastard or not."

"And I love you too, Tally. But enough about my lot and about me; I need to know everything about you!" Toby gave a disbelieving laugh. "Do you realise Tally, my precious, this is the first time we've ever got round to discussing our parents?"

Tallulah looked at him in bewilderment. "You're absolutely right!" She gave a light, slightly embarrassed laugh. "How very remiss of us. It just goes to show what two besotted souls are capable--or not capable--of."

"I've shown you mine, now show me yours!" said Toby with a grin. "Tell me about your parents, your dad and your mum."

"I don't have a mother," said Tallulah, her fingers playing nervously with the stem of her wine glass.

"Oh," said Toby. He gave her tiny hand another gentle squeeze. "I'm sorry."

"But I have a daddy, two daddies to be exact!"

"Two fathers? I mean, two daddies?"

"Yes, Toby dearest, two daddies," giggled Tallulah, breaking into one of the loveliest smiles Toby had ever seen, "Daddy Dear and Divoon Daddy." The young girl gave a sudden start. "Good heavens! Unless I'm mistaken--which I doubt I could ever possibly be--Divoon Daddy has just walked into the restaurant!"

"He has?" cried Toby, trying to focus on a small group standing by the entrance, talking to the manager.

"That will teach you to suggest such an extravagant restaurant, even if you were planning to propose," laughed Tallulah. "I should have remembered Scalini's is a favourite of his!"

"But... but...." began Toby, turning back to Tallulah, a look of puzzlement on his handsome young face.

"But, but Tobes?" laughed Tallulah. "You'll have to do better than that because Divoon Daddy has just spotted his little girl and is coming right over to our table."

She jumped up with a squeal of delight. "Divoon Daddy!" She was immediately offered a subtle kiss on the cheek by the most strikingly tall, elegant, and exquisitely coiffed redheaded woman Toby had ever seen.