Impersonating Brianne Ch. 03

Alan's fingers dug into her ass.

"Fuck my pussy, fuck me hard," she chanted, fairly sure that no one outside the door would hear them over the commotion of the restaurant's opening night. She really wanted to scream for Alan, but there is a time and a place for everything and that would come later.

He gave her one final thrust and then held it. Her womb filled with warmth and she knew Alan was cumming inside her.

With a sigh, Alan pulled back and his cock popped out of her. She turned and was on her knees instantly. Taking his deflating member in her mouth, she licked it clean.

Then she pulled his pants up and helped him tuck in his shirt.

She smoothed out the creases in her blouse and skirt, then stepped into Alan's waiting arms.

"You're a hell of a business manager," Alan said with a playful grin. "Don't tell my wife I'm sleeping with you."

"You're a hell of a business partner," Marissa smiled back at him. "Don't tell my husband that I'm addicted to your cock."

Alan pulled her close and they held each other for a long moment. They had been busy for the past couple of week leading up to the opening and hadn't had as much time together as they would have liked.

"I love you, Mrs. Gibson," he whispered in her ear.

"I love you, too, Mr. Gibson," she replied, trying to steal one more kiss. Then she patted him on the backside and sent him back out into the restaurant.

All too soon (or for the guy who had to hand-make more ravioli halfway through the shift, not soon enough), the night was over. It was almost midnight. The last patrons had been served, the bills paid. There had been a few tense moments, but for the most part, it had gone well. Better that Mr. Murphy had wreaked havoc upon them on friends and family night than at the grand opening.

Marissa walked around the restaurant as the last of the staff cleaned up their stations.

A hostess was vacuuming the lobby. Hamada-san and two cooks were making sure the kitchen was spotless for the morning prep shift. Anastasia and John-Marc were strategising ways to streamline the service while a handful of servers were setting up tables for the next day.

Alan was sitting in a chair, sipping on a glass of wine. He had the "thousand-yard stare". He had never worked in a restaurant before. Where he saw chaos, the professional staff saw a carefully choreographed dance. It may have been just a step above absolute bedlam, but there was a method to the madness.

His intentions were good, but Marissa finally told him to not worry about doing everyone else's job. Alan acquiesced, gave up trying to manage everything and simply hung on for the ride. The busboys and hostesses especially were very appreciative to have Alan out of their hair, and they thanked Marissa profusely.

Marissa put her arms around him from behind. He turned and kissed her on the cheek.

"How'd we do?" he asked.

"Two hundred eighty-seven customers on a hundred and five tickets in the main dining room," she whispered in his ear. Of course, this was all computerised and controlled from the office. All she had to do was run a nightly report. "The average check was about seventy bucks. Add in our business from the bar, and we grossed about eighty-five hundred dollars tonight."

Alan smiled. "That's about ten percent better than we thought we'd do."

"Mm-hmm. Oh, and Dr. Emerson from the graduate college wants to have their winter faculty and staff banquet here in December," Marissa replied. She sucked on Alan's ear lobe gently. "Everyone is cleaning up. What doesn't get done tonight can be finished in the morning. Send these folks home and then meet me in the garden."

Then she stood and went back into the office to change.

When they were planning the restaurant, they wanted a bar area, a main dining room with private, romantic seating and a large banquet room. In the original plans Brianne had drawn up, she envisioned an outdoor seating area off the main dining area. But that was anticipating moving into an existing structure.

Since they were building their own facility, Alan and Marissa could do anything they wanted. They had several different designs for an outdoor dining area, but they didn't like any of the initial drawings.

After some out of the box thinking, they designed a square building with the middle cut out and an open-air patio in the center of the restaurant. They retained the bar, split the main dining room into two smaller and more intimate rooms on one side, and had another smaller dining room on the other side along with a large banquet and reception area. The kitchen ran along the entire backside of the restaurant and could service all of the dining areas at once.

That patio was their pride and joy, though. There were tables for dining and a full-service bar near a small garden and some benches. Sliding glass doors opened up into the banquet room and it was accessible from all the other customer areas. In the summer time, it would be comfortable at night and in the spring and fall, they had outdoor heaters set up to keep their patrons warm. If they wanted, they could set up a stage and have some outdoor music under the stars.

The only time it would be unusable was during rain, snow or the dead of winter.

Some of the plants were live, some were fake. There was a fountain in the middle and frescos on the walls. The theme for the restaurant was an Italian villa and the patio was the ultimate expression of that theme.

Above the bar and at each entrance to the patio was a simple sign that read, "Bree's Garden".

Marissa stood at the bar with a bottle of chilled champagne in a bucket next to her.

Alan came out one of the side doors. When he saw her, he drew in a sharp breath.

After they returned from Las Vegas, Marissa never spent another night in her house. She moved into Alan's house because it was bigger and in a better neighbourhood. Alan encouraged her to make his house into their home, even though it meant that she would be replacing some of Brianne's things with her own.

He told her that Brianne was the past; she was the future. While he didn't want to forget his first wife, Alan saw no point in hanging on to everything about her. Marissa and Alan moved some of Brianne's things around. She never threw any of Brianne's things away; if she ran across something and couldn't find a place for it, she boxed it up, but only Alan threw anything out. Alan retained a private study in one of the upstairs bedrooms and that's were most of Brianne's things went, although a fair number of Marissa's ended up there, too.

Alan kept lots of pictures around the house. Some of Brianne. Some of Marissa. Some of him.

Marissa never felt jealous or threatened by Alan's attachment to his late wife because he never acted like he was pining away for her. She recognised that Alan cherished memories. Brianne had been a part of Alan's life for so long, it would have been crazy to expect him to suddenly leave her behind. And Marissa liked that she was making new memories with him, and those were just as dear to him as any from his first marriage.

There was one picture Alan kept in his study that Marissa knew he especially loved. It was next to his desk. Brianne was sitting on a park bench wearing a long blue denim skirt, a white blouse and a woven hat. She was surrounded by flowers and beauty. She was staring lovingly at Alan and whenever Marissa looked at the picture, she knew exactly how the other woman felt.

In the weeks before the restaurant opened, Marissa went into the boxes of Brianne's clothes, found that same outfit and had it fitted to her. She hoped Alan wouldn't mind.

Alan saw her standing there and smiled gently.

He walked over to Marissa and gave her a tender kiss.

She handed a glass of champagne to her husband. They raised their glasses.

"To Brianne," Marissa said softly.

"To us," he replied somberly.

"She would have been very proud of you tonight, Alan."

"You are the one who made this happen," Alan replied, "Not me."

"You'd have gotten this done without me, honey," she said, tilting the brim of the hat up and kissing her husband.

"But not nearly as well," he pointed out. "I appreciate all the work you've put into this. You didn't have to, you know. It wasn't your dream."

"Not at first." Marissa sipped her champagne and then topped them both off. "But her dream became your dream. Then your dream became mine. I guess it's ours now."

"I guess so," he said with a resigned sigh. "I wish she could have seen this."

"She can, Alan." Her hand touched him gently on the arm and she pointed up, out of the garden and to the stars that shone across the sky. "That's why she is so proud of you. Because you made it happen."

Marissa could only imagine how hard it was for him to be there, in the restaurant his first wife had built in her mind from the ground up, but never saw through to fruition.

He looked distracted, and she couldn't blame him.

Next to the champagne was a remote control. Marissa picked it up and flipped a switch. The stereo behind the bar turned on.

A familiar song began to play.

Alan closed his eyes. As he slipped into his reverie, he smiled gently and took Marissa in his arms. The music surrounded them, coming over outdoor speakers hidden throughout the patio.

They danced, cheek to cheek, each lost in their own private thoughts.

Marissa thought back to the first night they had spent together. She reflected back on the past two and a half years and was so grateful to the fates for bringing this man—her best friend, her lover, her partner, her soulmate—into her life.

When the song ended, there were tears in both their eyes.

"Thank you," Alan whispered. "For everything."

Marissa looked into his eyes and although she couldn't see it, she was sure she had the same simple smile that she and Brianne shared. The one that told Alan how much they loved him.

She pressed her lips to Alan's.

Then she pushed him towards one of the tables. When he had almost backed into one of the armless chairs, she stopped and began unbuckling his belt.

"You don't—" he started, but she silenced him with a kiss.

Alan's dress pants fell to the ground and he sat back in the chair.

Marissa lifted the skirt up over her hips, tilted Alan's head back and pressed her lips against her husband's.

His cock was hard and she sat down on it. She was still slick from their earlier encounter and he filled her up easily.

They both let out a satisfied moan.

"Alan," she whispered, pressing her body against him. His arms pulled her close. "I love you. I have loved you since the first day we met. I just didn't know it then. You have no idea how much you changed my life. You loved me, even when I didn't think I deserved it. . . . You saved me."

She paused long enough to kiss him. "I can't possibly repay you for everything you've given me. I know there's one other dream Brianne had. I have the same one. And I know you do, too. I want a baby. Or two. Or three. Or however many we can love together."

Her hand went to her left arm, just above the elbow. There was a fresh bandage there that had been covered all night by the jacket she wore over her blouse. "I had the Norplant taken out today. I probably won't get pregnant tonight, but that doesn't mean we can't start trying now."

Alan buried his face in his wife's chest. They held onto each other desperately.

Under the night sky, with the stars looking down from the heavens, Alan and Marissa made love in Bree's Garden.

A slight breeze blew around them, and the wind seemed to whisper the words.

"I love you."

Epilogue

Marissa cried out. She was covered in sweat. She clutched Alan close to her. There were stars shooting out of the corners of her eyes.

"Give me one more push!" Dr. Callaway said. "We're almost there! One more, Marissa!"

She let loose with a primal grunt.

There was a searing pain. Marissa threw her head back and screamed.

An instant later, she went numb and only vaguely remembered the next several minutes.

Soon enough, though, Alan was holding her in his arms. His soft touch had been a constant. She rested her head on his shoulder.

In her arms was a crying, wrinkled mass of flesh. The little girl was a healthy 8 pounds, 2 ounces, 20½ inches long.

She didn't get pregnant that first night at the restaurant. It took a couple of weeks for her body to adjust to no longer having Norplant to regulate her ovulation. But it wasn't much longer before she had some instinctive maternal revelation that she was pregnant.

Alan was understandably super-protective of his wife and baby. After having lost a spouse and a son in childbirth, he made sure Marissa and the baby had the best care available. At a couple of points, Marissa wanted to strangle him because he was hovering too much, but that may have been the hormones and not just his neurotic paranoia.

Business was booming. After the opening, they got lots of good reviews and word of mouth quickly spread. "A Taste of Italy" became a favourite for people looking to have a romantic evening, and their Valentine's Day reservation list was filled a month in advance. Same thing for the high school prom nights. The banquet room was in use almost every weekend and some people were inquiring about a catering service.

As the one who was handling most of the restaurant's business side, Marissa was wary of growing too big, too fast, but they were making money, paying down their debts and ensuring that their best employees were retained. So when it came time for Marissa to take some time off to have her baby, the business was in good shape, and there were enough competent and loyal staff around so that she and Alan could work from home and come in less often.

Almost a year to the day after the restaurant opened, Alan and Marissa were greeting a party of six when something clicked in Marissa's body.

"Sorry to leave you folks so quickly," she told the customers and handed them off to another hostess. "Alan, your baby's coming and we have got to go!"

So off they rushed, amidst a chorus of well-wishes from the staff and patrons at the restaurant. On the way, they called her parents who got on the next flight into town.

"What are you going to name her?" the nurse asked once the baby had been bathed and Marissa was back in her room.

Alan and Marissa exchanged a knowing glance.

When they found out they were having a girl, there was no doubt whom the baby would be named after, but Alan especially wanted their daughter to have her own name.

"Breana," Alan said, cradling his wife and his child in his arms.

The new life was the most beautiful thing either of them had ever seen.

Marissa nodded wearily, "Breana Marie Gibson."

She kissed Alan and then the top of the baby's head. For someone who had given up on love not that long ago, she held the two most important people in her life close, never wanting to let them go.