ALEX was glad the sun was finally lowering itself behind the trees and rhododendrons, changing the neat lawn’s wide stripes a dirty gold colour. Garden parties were, by definition, a daytime pursuit, and he’d soon be able to legitimately say his goodbyes. Inside his jacket pocket, his fingers traced the flat buttons of his mobile phone. He imagined sliding it open and dialling the number of the local cab company he’d programmed in earlier.
When his senior partner, Edward, had suggested this event to thank the staff and schmooze their most important contacts, Alex hadn’t been slow in voicing his objections. The beginning of September wasn’t really the perfect time for an outdoor event, was it? But Edward wasn’t cutting his annual sailing trip in Barbados short for anyone, so September it had been.
Luckily, the fickle English summer had only got into her stride around mid-August and had decided to linger awhile yet. The day had dawned bright and sunny and all afternoon a warm breeze had rippled the petals of the late roses in Edward’s borders. But then Edward was an annoyingly lucky man.
Alex sighed and sipped his cold beer. He supposed it had been a good party. To be honest, he’d coasted through it, moving his mouth when he’d had to, smiling if he really must, but he hadn’t retained a single fact about anyone he’d talked to. He couldn’t even remember what he’d filled his plate with at the buffet table. Unless it was connected with work, it seemed details were beyond him these days.
He found a lone wicker chair in the corner of the lawn and waited for the crowds milling in and out of the vast conservatory, or under the rose-twined pergola, to thin. It would look bad if he was the first to disappear, but once others had started to drift off he could follow their lead. The last thing he wanted to do was stand out in this crowd. That would mean they would expect him to be brilliant and eloquent, dazzle them with stories of trials lost and won. And, while he had stories aplenty, he knew that the greyness inside him would invade the telling. So, while he kept his distance, he let them whisper about his aloofness, his distance. Better that than let them find out the brilliance, the eloquence, only happened when he set foot inside the Old Bailey.
He’d got used to this—sitting at the sidelines, watching everyone else have fun—and he knew it should bother him, but he couldn’t muster the energy. He wasn’t unhappy. And at least he knew what to expect from life. No drama. No nasty surprises. He’d had his fill of those. He knew some of his junior colleagues joked that, if attached to a heart monitor, he’d produce a monotonous line instead of peaks and valleys, but he didn’t care about that either. They were young. They didn’t understand that peaks were often overrated and valleys could sink below the threshold of what you could bear. Let them laugh.
The sky grew bluer and bluer, from peacock through to sapphire, but still the guests didn’t diminish. If anything, there seemed to be more of them. When someone turned a switch somewhere, and the paths, shrubbery and whole pergola lit up with a million little white lights, everyone cheered. Blues music started to play, and people under the pergola started to dance. Alex just frowned.
Great. Trust Edward to have a garden party that turned into an all-night rave.
‘Should have guessed I’d find you sulking out here on your own.’
He turned to see Edward’s wife, Charity, smiling down at him. She’d been a trophy wife fifteen years ago, but Edward had certainly struck gold. Far from being a blonde airhead, Charity was an astute businesswoman herself now, and there was no one more elegant and poised. She was the sort of wife men in their position should have.
Mocking laughter filled the inside of his head. He silenced it by standing and giving Charity a soft kiss on the cheek.
‘I’m not sulking.’
Charity just smiled. ‘Edward’s been asking for you. Some bigwig he wants you to impress. He’s out on the terrace.’ She pointed to a huddle of dark suits at the other edge of the garden.
Alex sighed and gave his partner’s wife a little salute but, before he managed to set off in Edward’s direction, she tugged at his sleeve.
‘It’s about time you let her go, Alex.’
She didn’t need to mention a name.
He looked at Charity, her face soft with compassion, and it made a nameless part inside him even colder. ‘I don’t seem to remember having any say in whether she came or went,’ he said without expression.
‘You know what I mean,’ she replied, a glint of her inner strength appearing behind that softness. ‘It’s been almost four years. You’ve got to forgive her and move on.’
Forgive her? Even if he knew how, he wasn’t sure he wanted to.
He shrugged one shoulder and nodded, hoping that would be enough of an answer, and set off in the direction of the group of suits. At least he wouldn’t have to talk about this kind of stuff with them.
Talking to the suits wasn’t hard, either. They didn’t want small talk; they wanted legal facts and arguments. Even so, when he’d done his bit, he extricated himself from the group as soon as possible and wandered away from the house, down the lit path to the patio under the large pergola. He kept going, weaving through the other guests, until he reached the far edge, leaned against a post and let his gaze follow the way the grass changed from artificial green to inky blue as the glow from the fairy lights diminished.
He stayed that way for minutes, until something happened behind him. He was never able afterwards to quantify exactly what it had been—whether the noise level and laughter had increased, or the lights had flickered brighter. He’d half-thought he’d sensed a soft warm breeze, like the memory of the afternoon’s sunshine, but whatever it was, he’d turned round.
His eyes locked instantly on the woman in front of him. A jumble of images rolled over him, each in shocking high definition. Pale blonde hair, the colour of sand on a Highland beach. The graceful flick of a hand as she illustrated a story she was telling. A smile that just seemed to grow and grow and grow. The fairy lights above his head seemed to buzz louder in response to her presence.
Everywhere around her there was colour, life. And not just around her—it seemed to be coming from inside of her. That wasn’t possible, was it? But he just had to look around him to see that something had happened. Suddenly, people were laughing more, dancing with more abandon.
She swayed along to a song as she laughed briefly with someone who’d been trying hard to catch her attention, then moved on. And then he realised she was moving towards him, and he was standing as stiff as one of his golf clubs with his mouth slightly open. He tried to blink and failed.
She looked straight at him, and her smile lifted at one side. ‘What’s this?’ she said, her voice soft and slightly husky. ‘Someone not enjoying the party?’
Alex didn’t know how it had happened, but suddenly he was inside the bubble of noise and colour that seemed to follow her everywhere. He felt different. Lighter. Stronger. As if he wanted to laugh, shout and sing all at once. And the electricity! Had he stepped on a loose wire? Because that was the only possible explanation for the warm buzzing feeling travelling all over him. At once he stopped resting on the post and stood up. And then he smiled back. Not the fake pulling of lips over teeth his colleagues normally saw him do. This one just crept over his mouth and expanded all on its own.
‘Who told you that?’ he said, then smiled even harder as he sensed a slight irregularity in the rhythm of her breathing. How he’d sensed it, he didn’t know. He just had. He wasn’t alone in this. She felt it, too.
Her smile was warm and sassy. Inviting. It made her pale pink lips practically irresistible. So Alex bent forward and tasted them. She didn’t start or pull away. She just closed her eyes and met him.
A while later he began to hear things again, feel something other than her softness under his fingertips. He realised she had her arms wound around his neck and he had one hand pressing against her back and the other at the base of her throat. They were both slightly breathless, and it helped his sense of equilibrium to see she was just as dazed as he was.
They stayed like that for a few seconds, forehead to forehead. ‘And to think someone told me you didn’t like parties,’ she said between breaths.
Alex just pulled her close and laughed, actually felt it rumbling through him like a sound wave. ‘Hearsay,’ he said and kissed her quickly, dragging his lips away before he got lost again. ‘This is the best party I’ve ever been to.’
But she had other plans. She used the anchor of her hands to pull him close again, until he could feel her breath on his parted lips. And then it was all gone again. The lights, the roses, the whole flipping garden.
People began to stop dancing and began to whisper. Nudge each other in the sides and give each other knowing looks. But Alex didn’t notice the lull in conversation or even sense the pairs of eyes turned his way. No more monotone lines for him. His pulse was drowning it all out with a steady and emphatic bump. Alex’s hand closed around Jennie’s and he tugged at the plastic key tag, yet she couldn’t seem to let it go. She was totally terrified, and it was pathetic.
Terrified of the look of disgust in his eyes, terrified of what he was about to say—of what he might not say. Terrified she still loved him as much as ever, that the all consuming chemistry they generated together would overwhelm her. That she’d turn around and give in. But she couldn’t do that. She needed to take a stand and let him know that she was worth more than being second place in his affections. Taking the wide path that led to destruction was not an option this time. Pity, because she’d been down that road so many times she knew all the motels by name.
He was so close. Just the graze of his jacket cuff against her bare arm was enough to make her hyperventilate. She was tempted to close her eyes, wish the events of the last month away, pull him into the suite and continue the honeymoon that had been so rudely interrupted.
By him, remember. Don’t give in. Look where it got you last time—a ring on your finger, yes, but your heart in pieces.
She let him ease the key from her clenched fingers and stepped sideways, out of proximity.
His fingers weren’t shaking. He didn’t seem to have any problems functioning normally, damn him. She let out a silent sigh. She’d always known, right from that first night, that Alex was a man who knew how to be steady, who knew how to keep control, but she’d never realised he could be this cold. But, then again, why would she have done? She’d been too busy basking in the heat of a passionate whirlwind romance. Who gave thought to winter when the sun shone?
Her father had always scolded her for jumping into things with both feet, and she’d steadily ignored his criticism, believing her nothing ventured, nothing gained philosophy got her where she wanted to go. She’d been dumbstruck when she’d realised the truth—that the flip side of her approach was everything ventured, everything lost. This was what happened when you made a mess so big nobody could sweep it under the rug for you.
Alex pushed the door open and, with an economical hand gesture, indicated she should enter ahead of him.
For a moment she just stared at the scene in front of her. She and Alice and Coreen had got ready in the suite this morning, and the evidence of the chaos was still in place. A hanging rail with empty garment bags stood off to one side and there were pots of makeup and a pair of abandoned hair straighteners on the coffee table, spoiling the romantic impact this room should have had. Thankfully.
She walked into the centre of the suite’s living room and stood there, waiting for the click of the door. Dreading it. When it came, she flinched.
All she had to do now was turn around and face him. Yet she didn’t move, suddenly couldn’t take her eyes off the champagne bucket in the corner of the room. An unopened bottle remained there, surrounded with melted ice.
She heard him take a step—just one—towards her, and then there was silence.
What was wrong with the man? Did he think he’d be contaminated if he got any closer? She spun around to find him studying her closely, almost analytically.
‘The last time I saw you in that dress, you were promising to stay by my side for ever.’
She crossed her arms across her middle, uncrossed them again. ‘Believe me, if I could have worn anything else today, I would have. It wasn’t my choice. Frankly, I can’t wait to get out of it.’
And toss it out of the window, she silently added. Or burn it. It would make a very elegant bonfire.
Alex’s eyebrows rose slightly and his mouth tilted into a sarcastic smile. ‘Don’t let me stop you.’
There was literally no breath left in her body to answer him with. She tried anyway. ‘You… You’re.’
‘Insufferable? Judgemental? High-handed?’ The smile twisted his face further, and he walked towards her. ‘Heard it all before. I can keep going with adjectives until I come up with something more fitting, if you like.’
‘I… You…’
His eyes narrowed. ‘How about this for a description? The man you deserted before the ink was dry on the marriage certificate? I promise you, that’s a brand new one for me.’
Jennie wanted to laugh, but it came out as a cough. What parallel dimension was this guy living in? She felt like punching him on the nose, and she bet that’d be a brand new experience for Mr Alex Dangerfield as well.
‘I deserted you? That’s rich!’ She closed the rest of the distance between them, looked him right in the eye. ‘Who was it exactly who sat on their own in a hotel room for almost a week after her new husband had vanished into thin air? Not you, that’s for sure!’
‘You’re being ridiculous. I didn’t vanish, as you call it. You knew where I was going and why. I phoned while I was away. And I distinctly remember apologizing and promising I’d be back. What more could I have said?’
The fact that he sounded all calm and reasonable had her consider throwing that punch. Unfortunately, just as her fury reached boiling point, it evaporated, condensing into moisture that stung the backs of her eyes.
It was all the things he hadn’t said that had been the problem. For a few wonderful months, she’d been the sole recipient of all Alex’s love, devotion and attention. And, with a man as intense as Alex, that was a heady cocktail. She’d felt lit up by him. When he looked at her, it was as if she was in the beam of a scorching bright searchlight but, instead of withering under its bleaching stare, she’d come alive, sparkled all the brighter. It was where she’d thought she was supposed to be. She hadn’t cared if anyone else had paid her attention or not. All she had wanted to do was live her life in the warmth of Alex’s spotlight.
Maybe she’d been out of her mind, drunk on that feeling, but all she knew now was that when that phone call had come, his light had swung away and focused somewhere else, and she’d been left shivering in the shadows, feeling lost and hungover.
In those short, hurried phone calls, often on car journeys between appointments, he’d given her information, but never reassurance. And then a trip that had only been supposed to last a day or two had dragged on and on.
‘You never did properly explain what kept you back in England for so long.’
He opened his mouth to answer her, but she cut him off.
‘I know that Becky was injured in a car crash. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have gone, but I don’t understand why it had to be you standing at her bedside. She divorced you. Where were her family? Couldn’t they have visited her and fluffed up her pillows?’
‘I would have explained if you’d given me a chance, but it’s kind of hard to have a meaningful conversation with a dial tone!’ He looked really angry. Jennie started to get scared, but then he breathed air out through his nose and looked at her more intently. ‘She was my wife once, too, Jennie. And there are things you don’t know. About my first marriage… About what I discovered when I got to the hospital…’
He straightened even further. ‘When we split up, there was a lot that was left unsaid. When that phone call came and I knew her injuries were serious, that she’d asked for me, I had to give Becky the chance to say what she needed to say before it was too late. Surely, you can understand that?’
Jennie nodded, but it was a hollow gesture. She knew she should understand, but she didn’t. How could she when Alex had mentioned an ex-wife, but had hardly said more than that? She’d thought his lack of communication on that matter had been because it was all done and dusted, in the past. Alex was like that. Once he closed the lid, walked away from something, he never went back to it. But, sitting in that hotel suite on her own, she’d started to come up with other reasons.
What if he’d never truly got over his ex-wife? What if he still loved her deep down? What if he’d realised, when he’d learned about the car accident, and he’d thought that his first wife was teetering on the edge of life, that everything he’d had with Jennie was just fluff and sparkle, that he had to drop everything to be with the first Mrs Dangerfield?
And, in those terse calls, Alex had done nothing to dispel those fears.
She looked at Alex now. Really looked at him. There was anger and frustration furrowed into his brow and his shoulders were bunched, but deep in his eyes there was something else. A weariness she’d never seen before. Hopelessness. Loss. While she feared what all that might mean, a part of her reached out to him, wanted to soothe him and make it all better.
Why hadn’t she seen that the first moment he’d stood in front of her in the party? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t memorised every contour and plane of his face, the exact shade of the ring around his irises, the sharp line of his cheekbones and the tiny betraying lines at the corners of his eyes.
She’d been too focused on herself, on what she wanted, what she felt. Hadn’t she been guilty of everything she’d just accused him of? She’d spent all that time in the hotel worrying about her feelings of abandonment, not worrying about Alex and all that he must have been going through. How selfish she’d been. Despite all her attempts to grow up and be a better person, she was just as shallow as ever.
She turned her ankle in on itself and rubbed the carpet with the toe of her shoe. Sudden and unusual insight hit her straight in the stomach. ‘There’s more to all of this than you told me, isn’t there?’ And she knew she wasn’t talking about feelings for his ex-wife. It was bigger than that.
Alex looked slightly taken aback, though he hid it well, but Jennie had seen the unmistakable flash of surprise in those pale blue eyes. He nodded.
‘Becky died.’
All the air left Jennie’s mouth, leaving her incapable of forming words. She’d died? Becky Dangerfield had died? She looked at Alex. He was watching her reaction, a hollow look in his eyes.
‘Why didn’t you tell me things had got that serious? She was making progress, you said…’
He looked away. Jennie hoped fervently it wasn’t because he was too disgusted to look at her, but she couldn’t blame him if he had.
‘She was. But she took a sudden turn for the worse. There wasn’t anything the doctors could do.’
‘But…’
‘I tried to tell you—’ he said, flashing a look back in her direction. Yep. Disgust was clearly evident. Jennie felt sick. ‘—but you hung up on me and turned your phone off.’
She hung her head. Her quick temper was always getting her into trouble. But she’d been so cross! He’d been missing from their honeymoon for four days when he’d finally had the inclination to call her and talk to her for more than sixty seconds. She’d been looking forward to hearing his soft, sexy voice telling her she was all he could think about, that he couldn’t spend a moment more away from her side. Fat chance. Alex had sounded all calm and matter-of-fact when he’d announced he wouldn’t be coming back to Paris, that she needed to get herself on a train and be there at his side. He needed her. He had things to tell her.
It had been the last straw, confirming all her doubts about what sort of priority the first Mrs Dangerfield had in his life. At least, she’d thought it had confirmed all her doubts. The fact she’d been so wide of the mark made her feel even more queasy.
She’d packed her bags and left the hotel within the hour.
Oh, she felt so ashamed of herself. Her father was right. Her fling-herself-in-at-the-deep-end approach was nothing but foolishness. She’d hurt Alex horribly. She looked up at him. He wore a guarded expression and his lips were taut. Her stomach bottomed out further.
‘That’s not all, is it?’ she asked, her voice wavering.
Alex shook his head again. ‘I found out… something else…just before I called you that last time, but I didn’t know how to—’ He broke off and looked away. ‘It was all so complicated. And I wasn’t sure what was truth and what was fiction. Besides…it wasn’t the sort of thing I could have told you over the phone.’
Big red alarm bells went off inside Jennie’s head. ‘Why?’
He looked away again, and his tiny admission of guilt hit her just as hard as the right hook she’d been contemplating landing on him a few moments earlier.
‘You didn’t trust me,’ she said quietly, answering her own question.
Nobody ever trusted her with anything important. She was madcap Jennie—impulsive and wild, but tons of fun. And, even though she’d tried to shake that reputation in recent years, she’d gone and mucked it up by dropping everything, including her business commitments, and flitting off to Vegas to marry a man she’d only known for a few months.
‘No,’ Alex said, all hint of smiles, sarcastic or otherwise, gone. ‘Don’t you dare accuse me of that. It was you who didn’t trust me. You didn’t believe me when I told you that I’d get back as soon as I could.’ By the time he’d finished talking, his voice had gone from low to almost shouting.
Jennie matched his volume. ‘It was our honeymoon, Alex! Funnily enough, I expected you to actually be there!’
His jaw clenched and the next words came out with difficulty. ‘I did get there.’
She sat down suddenly, landing in a large armchair. ‘You did?’
He’d come for her? Come after her?
Her stomach rolled and she cupped a hand over her mouth. How could that be true? She would have known. A week after their Las Vegas quickie wedding they’d flown to Paris, but the following night that phone call had come, and early next morning Alex had boarded Eurostar and travelled back to London, assuring her he’d be back within twenty-four hours. And then it had started—the pacing round the hotel suite, the staring at the phone on the bedside table.
In those few short days inside the hotel room, everything had become magnified—the sense of loss, the fear he’d never come back again, the creeping feeling that things would never be the same. Thinking back now, that time had a similar…flavour…to the weeks after her mother had died. The sense of confusion had been the same. And, just as her father had been after her mother’s funeral, Alex had seemed hidden behind a brick wall that she hadn’t been able to scale.
Leaving the hotel in Paris had been a desperate act, not a logical decision. At that moment she’d truly believed her marriage to be crumbling. If only she’d been patient—grown-up—about Alex’s absence. If only she hadn’t let panic make her decisions for her. She’d been so stupid.
She had come back to England, just as Alex had asked, but she hadn’t remained in London. Well, only long enough to delete all of Alex’s puzzled messages from her answer phone with one furious press of a button, then pack a small case.
She hadn’t even told her family she was back—they had still been under the impression she was sunning herself in Mexico. That had suited her just fine. She’d needed time to lick her wounds before she was ready to face anyone—especially Alex—again, so she’d hidden out for more than a week in a little cottage on the Norfolk coast that a friend owned. After that she’d gone back to her flat. But her answer phone had been silent that time. And the voicemails had stopped arriving on her mobile in the middle of her week away. Even though she hadn’t known where Alex was at that point, his apathy had radiated in waves across London. So, too ashamed to admit her most spectacular ‘scrape’ yet to her family, she’d kept quiet, hopped back into her life with a smile on her face as if nothing had happened and had tried to work out what to do next.
Her conscience had prickled her, telling her to call him instead, but she’d been too hurt, and hurt had quickly hardened into pig-headedness. She hadn’t wanted to be the bigger person. In her mind, it had been up to Alex to make the first move, to prove with his actions that he still wanted her, because if she hadn’t been first place in his life, what was the point of continuing with their marriage?
She’d wanted to believe that Alex had intended to return to her in Paris. She wanted to believe him now, but he was wrong: she had trusted him, but she didn’t want his pity or false assurances now. And she wasn’t ready to let him humiliate her a second time. So, instead of falling into his arms, she crossed her legs, stretched her arms across the back of the chair and gave him a tight smile.
‘You finally deigned to show up? That was big of you.’
Alex ignored her childish comment, which just made her want to goad him all the more.
‘When I finally arrived at the hotel,’ he said, ‘they told me my bride had checked out two days earlier.’
Jennie didn’t react. What did he expect? They’d been married for just over a week when he’d disappeared. A week! What woman wouldn’t have taken that as a major hint? Oh, no, there was no way she was letting him play the part of ‘victim’ in this scenario. That job was hers and she was going to milk it for everything it was worth, make him pay for discarding her so easily.
‘Okay, Alex. Put your money where your mouth is.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘If you actually do trust me, if I’m the one who’s totally in the wrong, tell me now. What really happened between you leaving me in Paris and coming back to find me? What else do you need to tell me?’
Alex inhaled quickly and exhaled slowly. Carefully, deliberately, he cleared the coffee table of make-up and other wedding preparation debris and then sat on the edge, facing her, elbows propped on knees, hands clasped together.
‘I know I need to explain. That’s part of why I’m here now.’ He paused and his knuckles paled. ‘But I’m not sure you’re going to like what I’ve got to say, and I’m not sure you’ll want to stay married to me when you know the truth. It’ll change everything for us—all our plans, how we pictured our lives together.’
Jennie swallowed. He sounded so serious she was halfway to regretting her flounce back across the Channel in a fit of pique. But it was obvious he didn’t understand her at all. She always flung herself into her adventures with everything she had, and she’d meant to approach her marriage the same way—one hundred per cent commitment, one hundred per cent loyalty. It had smarted when she’d believed that devotion hadn’t been returned.
She rolled her lips in on themselves, moistening them. ‘Do you. Do you even want to stay married to me?’
Alex didn’t move, but his eyes suddenly grew hollow with despair, changing his whole expression. Jennie’s heart did an irregular little beat.
‘When I make promises, I keep them,’ he said.