Chapter Thirty-Six

Mel was all over the place. She’d arrived back from France to find her house was a mess. True, it had been a mess when she’d left it, but now she’d added more chaos by dumping her unpacking – over a week’s worth of washing and other assorted travel essentials – onto her living room floor.

All that had little to do with her current state of mental turmoil though. It was the call from Sally a few moments ago that had triggered it.

‘Expect Aiden round in the next hour,’ she’d baldly announced only moments after Mel had opened up her case and turned it upside down.

As Mel had stuttered a few unintelligible words, Sally had continued in her no-nonsense fashion. ‘The guy’s been out of his mind with worry, wondering where you were. I couldn’t bear to listen to the agony in his voice any longer so I told him you were back. Suck it up, my friend. The least you owe him is an explanation.’

It didn’t help knowing Sally was right. What she’d done to Aiden had been unforgivable. To run off on the greatest weekend of his life – how could she? Which was why she was now sitting numbly on the floor, surrounded by crumpled, dirty clothes, and feeling like the biggest bitch to have ever lived. And she still didn’t know what she was going to do. The few days in France had only made her more confused. What she’d longed for was her parents to talk her muddled emotions through with, but she didn’t have them. As kind as her grandparents had been, and as lovely as Nancy and Frank were to her, she now knew it was up to her to work out what she wanted in life. And if she was brave enough to go for it.

Half-heartedly she grabbed at some clothes, pushing them back into the case. How could she imagine herself being brave after the cowardly way she’d run out on Aiden?

The deep rumble of a car engine outside catapulted her heart into her throat. Oh God, he was here already. Helplessly she stuffed a few bras into the case but within moments the doorbell was ringing, its incessant tone telling her the man who was pressing it was mightily pissed off. With a despairing sigh she kicked at the remaining clothes, trying to hide them underneath the table. Why did he have to be here now, when it wasn’t just her place that was rumpled and dishevelled. It was her, too.

As the bell mercilessly continued to ring Mel zipped into the downstairs cloakroom and studied her face. Thank God for the hint of a tan which hid some of the dark circles, reminders of nights spent staring at the ceiling, not wanting to close her eyes because every time she had, she’d see Aiden’s face. After pushing a few stray strands of hair into her ponytail she took a deep breath and walked to the door.

Her fingers trembled as she fumbled with the lock, prolonging the agony.

She heard Aiden’s impatient voice on the other side. ‘Mel, will you hurry up and open the blasted door?’

Finally the lock clicked and the door swung open. They stared at each other for several long, long moments and all Mel’s worries about her own appearance dissolved at the sight of his. If she looked tired, he looked ravaged. She’d never seen him look so drawn. All the vitality had drained out of him, leaving a handsome but empty shell.

‘Aiden.’ His name came from deep within her heart and she flung her arms around his neck, holding him, savouring him. God, what had she done to this wonderful man?

His body remained stiff beneath hers, his arms held rigidly by his side. Slowly she pulled away.

‘You left me.’ His tone accused yet his eyes were bleak. A deserted moor on a cold, grey morning.

‘I know. I’m so, so sorry.’ She could hardly breathe her chest felt so tight. Suddenly she didn’t need her parents to tell her what to do. She knew. Aiden was nothing like his father, nothing like Carlos. Though every inch a man on the outside, inside a large slice of him was still a boy who simply needed someone to love him.

‘Why, Mel? In God’s name, why did you run away?’

She reached for his tightly clenched hand and drew him into the house. ‘Come in, sit down. I’ll make us a drink and we’ll talk.’

It was only when he came to an abrupt halt in her living room, blinking several times, that Mel remembered the mess.

‘Did they take much?’

She stared back, puzzled.

‘The guys who ransacked your house.’

The small smile that accompanied his attempt at humour was so tight tears welled in her eyes. How much damage had she done to them both?

‘They didn’t take anything,’ she told him, stepping over a toiletry bag. ‘Probably couldn’t find anything valuable amongst all this clutter.’

His lips twitched but it was all too fleeting. The next moment he was sitting on her sofa, looking grim and distant. So very, very distant.

Fear seeped chillingly through her bones as she went through the motions of making the drinks. Now she’d finally woken up to what she wanted, was it too late? Had her careless treatment of him done irreversible damage?

He took the proffered mug without speaking. A clear signal; it was her turn to talk.

Clutching at her coffee she sat down next to him on the sofa and tried to work out where to begin. ‘I got scared, Aiden. I guess the fear had always been there, right from the start. You knew that.’

‘I knew that for some crazy reason you assumed I was going to get bored with you and go off and sleep with any, hell, maybe all the women who gave me their phone numbers.’ He rubbed at his forehead, as if this whole conversation was giving him a headache. ‘But I thought you’d come to your senses.’

‘I told myself to stop being a coward, yes.’ She reached up to touch his face. ‘I fell in love with you, Aiden. I couldn’t keep away.’

Aiden stared into Mel’s gorgeous hazel eyes and nearly lost himself. She loved him? Or was that in the past tense. I fell in love, she’d said. Not I am in love. ‘You had no trouble keeping away last week,’ he reminded her roughly. ‘In fact if I recall correctly, you ran away.’ God that had hurt. More than anything else that had ever happened to him.

Tears spilt onto her cheeks and she reached for his hands, gripping them tightly with her dainty pair. ‘I shouldn’t have done that. It was so wrong, but it had been building up inside me. The doubts and fears that I wasn’t …’ she trailed off as her voice started to break. ‘I’d started to not feel important,’ she began again after taking a drink. ‘You couldn’t take me driving – I know, not your fault,’ she added quickly, ‘but it had been such a milestone for me. Then you told me you didn’t want me to stay with you in Brazil.’

‘Oh, Mel.’ He shook his head. ‘This is where I need to apologise. I should never have done that. God knows, I’d have slept one heck of a lot better if you had stayed. But when Frank told me I wasn’t focused, I knew he was right. That’s when I came up with the not so clever idea of keeping you out of sight for a bit. You know, out of sight, out of mind. Of course it didn’t work that way because you were always in my head.’

He squeezed gently at her fingers and she gave him a weak smile.

‘That’s good to know and anyway I understood, sort of. It hurt, but I could see the reasoning. Then the night of your victory party you didn’t even make it back to my room.’

He switched their hands around so he was clutching hers. ‘I told you, it wasn’t through choice. I crashed out in the toilets, for crying out loud. You think I wanted to be on Frank’s sofa rather than in bed with you?’

‘No, I don’t, but you have to see how it felt to me. Like you didn’t need me.’

He groaned and did what he’d wanted to do ever since he’d seen her gorgeous, tanned face in the doorway. He put his arms around her, hugging her to him. ‘I’ll always need you, Mel,’ he told her hoarsely. ‘Always.’

‘I hope so.’ She dipped her head and snuggled into his chest, which felt blissfully good. ‘The worst part was the conversation with your mother the night you won.’

‘Ahh. Yes, she told me about that. But heck, Mel, you of all people should know I’m nothing like my bloody father.’

Her arms wrapped round his waist. ‘I do know. It’s just that when you were standing there next to your gleaming trophy, wearing your gleaming smile, not to mention your gleaming good looks, and surrounded by all that adulation, I forgot for a little while.’

He let out a snort of laughter, but quickly sobered up when he worked out what she was trying to say. ‘You do know none of that is important, don’t you? In a few years time I’ll retire and the only people who’ll be interested in me will be my wife, hopefully, and my children, hopefully again.’

Her body stilled beside him. ‘So you plan on getting married then?’

Now or never. He plunged in. ‘Yes. I’ve even got a ring. One I bought in San Paulo.’

Her head shot up. ‘You bought one in San Paulo?’

‘Yes.’ His voice wasn’t steady enough for his liking so he swallowed and started again. ‘I was planning on using it to bribe a lady to marry me, but then she ran away.’

It felt as if his whole body was on a knife-edge. A nudge in one direction, ecstasy. A nudge the other way, grief and despair. Basically a lifetime of what he’d experienced last week.

‘What … what if she’s decided not to run any more?’ Mel asked huskily.

Bang went his heart. ‘Then I’d drop down on one knee.’ Gently he eased her away so he could kneel on the floor. He had to push a bra, crumpled T-shirt and pair of pants out of the way to do it, but even that made his heart sing. ‘After that I’d tell her I love her. I’d stress to her that she is the most important thing ever to happen to me. That if I had to choose between her and winning the World Championship, I’d choose her every time. Then I’d ask her if she’d do me the honour of becoming my wife.’

Mel tried to blink back her tears but they were flowing too fast so she gave up. ‘If it wasn’t for the fact that you’re kneeling amongst all my dirty clothes, I’d say that was the most romantic proposal I’d ever heard, and that the lady in question would be an absolute fool if she didn’t throw her arms around you and kiss you till you fell over.’ She moved forward, then stopped and grinned. ‘After she’d said yes, of course.’

Then they were hugging and kissing and crying. Well, Mel was crying, she wasn’t sure whether the wet on Aiden’s cheeks was her tears or his but it didn’t matter. He wanted to marry her.

‘So let me get this straight,’ she asked when they had to break away to breathe. ‘Even when you were telling me I couldn’t stay with you because you had to focus on winning, you were planning on proposing?’

‘Yes. It’s why I blew you out on our meeting. I thought I’d be able to dash out, buy a ring and come back in time, but choosing the flaming thing was harder than I thought.’

Her heart was going to explode, she thought dreamily. She’d been thinking the worst, that he was pulling away, but actually he’d been on a mission to bring them closer together. ‘Do I get to see the item that caused you so much angst?’

Suddenly he was pulling her onto her feet. ‘Have you got any clean clothes left?’

‘I, umm, I don’t know. Why?’

‘Never mind. For what I’ve got in mind, you won’t need any.’

With that he lifted her into his arms and started to stride towards the front door. ‘Hey, wait up, where are you taking me?’

‘To see the ring. I didn’t bring it with me because … well, I think you can guess.’ He hadn’t been sure of his reception. Her heart lurched and she clutched him tighter. ‘So in order for you to see it, you’ll have to come to my place.’

Within minutes they were zooming down the motorway. The only time Aiden let go of her hand was to phone Tom. ‘Buddy, tell Mum I’m on my way back. I’ve got Mel with me. She wants to see her ring.’

Over the speaker Mel heard a loud whoop.

A second later she received a text from Tom. Does this make you my big sister?

Mel clutched the phone to her, laughing and crying at the same time. It seemed that overnight she’d found herself a new family.

‘What’s so funny?’ Aiden demanded.

‘I’ve never had a baby brother to torment before. I’m just thinking about all the things I can get up to.’

‘You can forget about him for a while. I want you focusing on all the things you can get up to with me. At least for the first few decades.’

They shared a smile. And Aiden put his foot down hard on the accelerator.