CHAPTER NINE
AFTERWARDS she would pretend to read while Lex worked, but what Romy liked best was when he sat at the piano and forgot that she was there at all. During the day, he held himself rigid and guarded, shutting out the rest of the world, but at a piano his whole body seemed to relax and he swayed instinctively with the music while his fingers drew magic from the keys.
Her book would fall unheeded into her lap, and she would tip her head back and close her eyes. Romy had never had much of a feeling for music before, but when Lex played it felt as if he were strumming a chord deep inside her, and an intense feeling swelled in her chest and closed her throat.
‘You should play professionally,’ she said to him one night when he paused.
‘I don’t want to,’ said Lex. ‘And I don’t have time. In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve got a company to run.’
On the sofa, Romy tipped her head right back on the cushions until she could see him behind her. ‘You could let Phin run the company.’
‘Phin?’ He gave a bark of laughter. ‘Phin would give away all our assets and spend all our profits on staff development!’ He was only half joking. ‘Gibson & Grieve would never recover!’
‘He’s not as irresponsible as you think he is,’ said Romy, leaping to the defence of her old friend. She and Phin had been close long before she had thought of Lex as anything more than Phin’s intimidating older brother. ‘Everyone I know thinks very highly of him.’
‘Of course they do. Everyone likes Phin.’ Resentment he hadn’t even known he felt splintered Lex’s voice. ‘He’s one of the most successful people I know. He goes his own sweet way, and because he makes people laugh, he gets away with it.
‘Our father wanted him to join Gibson & Grieve when he left university, but you didn’t catch Phin knuckling down and doing what he was supposed to do. Oh, no, Phin was off, drifting around the world, doing exactly what he wanted to do! He never cared about responsibility or the family or putting something back into the company that had paid for everything he had.’
Romy twisted right round so that she could look at him over the back of the sofa. ‘Is that what you’ve been doing all these years?’
‘Someone had to.’ Lex closed the piano lid. ‘I was the eldest. I suppose it was inevitable that I was expected to be the sensible one. Phin just clapped me on the shoulder, told me not to let it get me down, and took off.’ His mouth twisted in a humourless smile at the memory. ‘My parents were beside themselves, but Phin didn’t care.’
‘He came back when your father had a stroke.’
‘Yes, he did. He’s the golden boy now that he’s married Summer and settled down. Talk about the prodigal son!’
‘You sound like you resent him,’ said Romy carefully.
‘I do, don’t I?’ Lex got to his feet and prowled over to the long, glass wall. He could see the lights along the Embankment and the dull gleam of the river.
‘I think I envy him more than resent him,’ he said at length. Everything seems to come easily to Phin. He’s never cared half as much about our father’s opinion as I do, but he’s got his approval by doing exactly what he wanted.’
He turned back to face Romy. ‘And I’ll admit, he hasn’t been quite such a disaster as a director as I feared he would be. Mind you, I think that’s mostly down to Summer. Marrying her was the most sensible thing Phin ever did. But he hasn’t got the dedication to run Gibson & Grieve, even if he wanted to.’
‘There must be other directors who could take over as Chief Executive,’ Romy pointed out. ‘It’s not as if you need the money.’
‘It’s not about money,’ he said curtly.
‘Then what is it about?’
Lex hunched a shoulder, wishing Romy would stop asking awkward questions. ‘It’s about my career. It’s what I do. What I’ve always done. What I am. If you think I’ve spent my life wishing I could have been a musician instead of going into the family firm, forget it. Music is just…an escape.’
Romy looked up at him with her great dark eyes. ‘Escape from what?’ she asked softly.
Lex didn’t answer immediately. He went back to the piano, laid his hand on the smooth mahogany. Even silent, he could feeling the piano’s power strumming through the wood, calling to something inside him.
‘We all make choices,’ he said finally. ‘I made mine, and I don’t regret it. Do you regret any of the choices you’ve made?’
Romy thought about hot wind soughing through palm trees. About desert skies and coral reefs and drinking beer at a roadside warung while the tropical rain thundered down. And then she thought about Freya and the friends she had made at Gibson & Grieve and this crazy pretence she and Lex were engaged in. She had chosen them all.
‘No,’ she said in low voice. ‘The only choices I regret are the ones that were made for me. I wasn’t allowed to choose whether my father stayed or not, and nor was my mother. We just had to live with the consequences of a choice he had made.’
She looked at Lex, still smoothing his hand absently over the piano. ‘I learnt from that,’ she said. ‘I learnt to never give anyone else the power to make a choice for me, and I never will.’
Freya was crying again. Lex squinted at the digital display on the clock by his bed. Three seventeen.
She had been restless the night before as well. Teething, Romy had said. This was the fifth time he had heard Romy get up tonight, and Lex couldn’t stand it any more. Pulling on a pair of trousers, he went to see if he could help.
Romy was walking Freya around the living room, just as he had done the night she had gone out to celebrate with the acquisitions team. She was barefoot, and wearing a paisley-patterned silk dressing gown that she had bought from a charity shop. The merest glimpse of it was usually enough to make Lex’s body tighten with anticipation, imagining the slippery silk against her skin, but tonight it was a mark of how exhausted Romy looked that his first thought was not what it would be like to pull at the belt and let the dressing gown slither from her shoulders, but to wonder how best he could help her.
He rubbed a tired hand over his face. ‘Is there anything I can do?’
Romy felt as if there were lead weights attached to her eyelids. The effort of putting one foot in front of another was like wading through treacle. And yet it seemed there were enough hormones still alert enough to stir at the sight of Lex’s lean, muscled body. His hair was rumpled, his jaw prickled with stubble, and the pale eyes shadowed with concern. She must look even worse than she felt, Romy realised. And that was saying something.
‘I’m sorry—’ she started but Lex interrupted her.
‘Don’t be sorry,’ he said. ‘Just tell me how I can help.’ He moved closer, craning his neck to try and see Freya’s face. ‘What’s the matter? Are you sure she’s not sickening for anything?’
‘No, she’s just miserable with this tooth coming through. And I’m just miserable because I’ve got to go to Windsor for a meeting tomorrow with Tim,’ she added wryly. ‘Although I’m not sure how much use I’ll be. I’ll be lucky if I can string two words together.’
A frown touched Lex’s eyes. ‘In that case, why don’t you let me take her while you try and get some sleep?’
Romy’s body was craving sleep. The need to lie down and close her eyes was so strong that, instead of insisting that she could manage on her own as she would normally have done, she said only, ‘But what about you?’
‘I haven’t got anything urgent on tomorrow—or today, I should say.’ Lex jerked his head in the direction of her room. ‘Go on, go back to bed. You won’t be any good to Gibson & Grieve otherwise,’ he said gruffly. ‘If I can’t manage, I’ll wake you, I promise.’
To Romy’s surprise, Freya allowed herself to be handed over to Lex without a murmur. She subsided, sniffling, into his bare shoulder, and for one appalling moment Romy actually found herself thinking, Lucky Freya. She must be more tired than she thought she was.
She managed four hours’ sleep and felt almost human when she woke. Freya was quieter than normal, but she seemed better, so in the end Romy decided to leave her in the crèche and headed off to Windsor with Tim. They were due back by four. Freya ought to be OK until then, she tried to reassure herself.
‘But ring me if there’s a problem,’ she told the girls in the crèche, who promised they would. They were used to anxious mothers.
Up in the chief executive’s office, Lex was also feeling the results of a broken night. His eyes were gritty and there seemed to be a tight band snapped around his skull. He was distracted all morning.
‘What?’ he snapped at Summer when he caught her watching him narrowly.
‘I was just wondering if you were feeling all right,’ said Summer, who wasn’t in the least frightened of him. ‘You’re not yourself today.’
‘I’m fine,’ he said shortly. ‘I didn’t get much sleep last night, that’s all.’
When she had gone back to her office, Lex took off his glasses and sat rubbing the bridge of his nose. He was thinking about Freya. She had barely slept all night. Romy seemed sure teething was the problem, but what if it was something else? What if she needed a doctor? The crèche presumably had lots of children to deal with. Would anyone notice if she wasn’t well?
He glanced at his watch. Romy would still be in Windsor.
On an impulse, he leant forward and buzzed Summer. ‘Where’s this crèche we provide?’
‘On the mezzanine.’ Summer didn’t even seem surprised by the question.
‘I’m just going to have a look,’ Lex said on his way out, and then wondered why he was making excuses to his PA.
He would just go and check that Freya was all right, he decided. And then perhaps he could get on with some work.
The crèche manager, flustered by the unannounced arrival of the chief executive, showed him round. The room was full of small children and babies, and the noise was indescribable. Amongst all the tiny tables and chairs, Lex felt like a clumsy giant who had stumbled into a world on quite a different scale. He picked his way carefully across the room, terrified of treading on something.
Freya was being comforted by one of the staff in a quiet corner and looking very woebegone. She had clearly been grizzling but offered a wobbly smile when she saw Lex and held out her arms to him. The girl exchanged looks with the manager as the chief executive took the baby and let her clutch his hair.
‘She doesn’t seem very happy,’ he said severely.
‘We’ve just rung her mother to say that Freya’s a little poorly today. She’s on her way back.’
Lex frowned. ‘It might take her some time to get back from Windsor.’
‘Yes, she said it would be a while, but we’ll keep Freya here. She’ll be fine,’ the manager reassured him.
‘As long as she’s all right.’ Lex tried to hand Freya back then, but she wailed in protest and clung to him until the manager prised her off him.
Feeling like a traitor, Lex headed for the door. Freya’s heartbroken screams followed him until he couldn’t stand it any more. Stopping abruptly, he pulled out his mobile phone and rang Romy.
‘How long will it take you to get back?’ he asked.
‘I’m waiting for a train now. I’ll get a taxi when I get to Paddington, but I’ll still be about an hour, I think.’ Romy’s voice was riddled with guilt. ‘I shouldn’t have left her.’
‘The manager says that she’s fine, but it’s pretty noisy in there,’ said Lex. ‘Shall I take her to my office? It’ll be quieter there.’
Romy was silent. He could almost hear her instinct not to rely on anyone else warring with her concern for her daughter. In the end, Freya won, as Lex had known she would. Romy spoke to the manager on his mobile, and the moment Lex took her back Freya’s screams subsided. They faded to shuddery little gasps as he waited for the lift.
There were three other people already in the lift when the doors opened. After a startled glance at Lex and his unusual burden, they all kept their eyes studiously on the floor numbers as they lit up one by one, but Lex was sure that behind his back they were exchanging looks. In a matter of minutes, the word would have spread around the building that the chief executive had been spotted in a lift with a baby in one arm, a bright yellow bag sporting teddy bears over the other, and a pushchair in his spare hand.
If Summer was surprised to see Lex reappear with a baby, she gave no sign of it. Coming round her desk, she tickled Freya’s nose, and Freya managed a very little smile for her, but refused to be handed over or put down. Lex ended up dictating as he paced around the office while Summer wisely kept her inevitable reflections to herself.
Eventually, Freya dropped off, worn out. Lex wished he could do the same. He tilted the pushchair back as far as it would go and was laying her carefully in it when the phone rang.
‘That was Romy.’ Summer put the phone down. ‘Apparently there’s some delay on the line. She doesn’t know when she’ll be able to get here now. She sounded frantic, but I told her not to worry, that Freya was fine and sleeping.’
‘Yes, it’s all right for some, isn’t it?’ Lex straightened the blanket over Freya, caught Summer’s eye and stood hastily. ‘Well, perhaps now we can get on with some work,’ he said brusquely.
Summer smiled. ‘Perhaps,’ she agreed. ‘You haven’t forgotten you’ve got a meeting at four-thirty, have you?’
Lex slapped a hand to his forehead. ‘God, yes! I had forgotten.’
What was happening to him? He never forgot meetings. He knew Summer was thinking exactly the same thing.
‘Let’s just hope she stays asleep,’ he said, looking down at Freya dubiously.
He might have spared his breath. She woke up, bang on time, a minute before the meeting was due to start, all smiles and apparently miraculously cured. She was ready for some attention, she indicated, and had no intention of being left out of the action. When Lex left her with Summer to join the directors waiting in his office, Freya’s bellows of outrage could be heard clearly through the wall.
Lex put his head back round the door. ‘Can’t you keep her quiet?’ he demanded irritably.
‘No,’ said Summer, not mincing her words. ‘She doesn’t want to be with me. She wants to be with you.’
So Lex had to conduct the meeting with Freya tweaking his nose or tugging at his ear lobes. It was hard to look intimidating with a baby on your lap.
That was what was left of his reputation shot to pieces, thought Lex in resignation.
It was almost half past five before Romy got there, looking hot and frazzled. ‘Oh, thank God!’ she said as she swept up a smiling Freya and kissed her. ‘I’ve been so worried. How has she been?’
‘Absolutely fine,’ said Summer. ‘In fact, I’m thinking of taking her on as an assistant. She had all those men in suits terrified. They were in and out of that meeting in double quick time!’ She slid an amused glance in Lex’s direction. ‘And she can run rings around our chief executive!’
‘I thought she wasn’t well,’ Lex said defensively.
‘It was quite a revelation. I’d no idea you were so good with babies.’ Summer’s eyes twinkled. ‘I can’t wait to tell Phin!’
‘God, I’ll never hear the end of it once Phin knows,’ Lex grumbled as he walked Romy and Freya to the lift.
The afternoon might have been designed to prove that work and children didn’t mix. Between lack of sleep and having to drop everything the moment a child was ill, it was impossible to get any work done. He was just glad he didn’t have to deal with crises like this one on a regular basis.
‘I’m sorry Freya threw out your afternoon, but I’m so grateful,’ said Romy. ‘I don’t know what I’d have done without you.’
He hunched a shoulder. ‘I dare say she’d have been all right in the crèche.’
‘Yes, but she was much happier with you.’
Romy pushed Freya back to the apartment, feeling deeply uneasy. Yes, she was grateful that Lex had been able to help, but it was disturbing to realise just how comfortable Freya was with him. He wasn’t supposed to be important to her. That was exactly what Romy hadn’t wanted to happen.
She was going to have to do something about it, and soon.
‘Is there any news of the contract?’ she asked Lex that night as she wiped down Freya’s high chair.
‘There is.’ Lex had almost forgotten about it in all the anxiety about Freya. ‘Everything’s going ahead much quicker than we thought. Summer has been in touch with Willie’s assistant, and they’re trying to arrange the formal signing at the end of next week.’
‘Next week!’ Romy was horrified at the way her heart leapt in dismay. She was supposed to be looking forward to ending this awkward situation and moving on. Hadn’t she decided that things needed to change soon? It was just that she hadn’t counted on them changing quite that soon.
She summoned a smile. ‘Well, that’s great news.’
‘Yes,’ said Lex, then, thinking that sounded a bit bald, ‘Yes, it is.’
Romy stashed the chair in the corner and began to pull the waxed cloth off the table. ‘I’ll be able to make some plans now.’
‘What sort of plans?’
‘About the future. I had time to think while I was stuck on that train today, and I’ve realised I can’t go on like this.’ She concentrated on folding the cloth neatly. Lex hated it when she just scrumpled it up and tossed it on the floor beside the high chair. ‘Tim offered me a permanent job today,’ she told Lex, who stilled. ‘But I’ve decided not to take it.’
When she glanced at Lex, she saw that his brows were drawn together. ‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s too difficult being in London. Luckily you were there to take Freya today, but what if she was unwell another time and I couldn’t get to her in time?’
‘I could always help,’ Lex offered stiffly, but Romy shook her head.
‘I couldn’t ask you to do that again. You’re Chief Executive, and I know how busy you are. You’ve got more important things to do.’ She drew a breath. ‘No, I’ve decided I’m going to move to Somerset. If I live near Michael, at least he’d be able to help if necessary.’
She and Freya had met Kate, Michael’s fiancée, the previous weekend. She had seemed very nice, and if she resented the fact that Michael had been suddenly thrust into fatherhood, she didn’t show it.
‘Jenny’s down there, too,’ Romy went on. ‘She said she’d be happy for me to stay until I find a job and a place of my own.’
It made sense, Lex told himself as he lay in bed and tried to ignore the weight pressing on his chest. And not just for Romy. Once she and Freya had gone, life would go back to normal.
He was sick of the edginess that churned continually in the pit of his stomach. He was tired of the way his lungs tightened whenever he caught sight of Romy in the morning, looking sleepy and rumpled and gorgeous. He had had enough of the painful grip on his heart, and the way it squeezed every time she smiled. It was a ridiculous way for a grown man to feel.
He was glad Willie Grant was coming soon, so they could end this absurd charade. He had already ruined his reputation because of it, Lex reminded himself sourly. The whole company would be talking about him carrying a baby in the lift, and if he hadn’t wanted to make it seem as if he cared he would have asked the directors at the meeting to keep quiet about the fact that he had conducted an entire meeting while Freya tugged at his lips and bumped her head against his.
What had he been thinking? It was as if he had taken leave of his senses since Romy had reappeared.
Well, that would end soon. She would leave, and take Freya with her. Let her set up house near her artist, if that was what she wanted. Lex imagined Michael dropping by to see his daughter every day. Freya would have him wound round her little finger in no time. Michael would be the one she held out her arms for. The one she flirted with and played with and wanted when she was teething.
Lex’s jaw set. And that was as it should be. Michael was her father. He would be able to make her happy in a way he, Lex, never could. How could he be a father? He knew nothing about relaxing or laughing or playing. The thought of being responsible for anyone else’s happiness made him recoil. He wouldn’t know where to begin, and he didn’t want to.
No, better that Romy took Freya away as soon as possible.
It was all for the best.
‘That was a fine meal,’ said Willie, leaning back in his chair and patting his stomach appreciatively. ‘If only all business dinners were as good. You’re a grand cook, Romy. And, Lex, you’re a very lucky man!’
Lex’s smile was brief. ‘I know,’ he said. He didn’t look at Romy.
Willie’s visit was going exactly as planned. Willie himself was in high good humour, as well he might be, Lex reflected. He had been delighted to come to the apartment and Freya had been on her best behaviour with him before she went to bed. Romy had remembered that Willie’s favourite food was lamb, and she’d roasted a leg with a herby crust. Lex had handed over a staggering amount of money for a bottle of Willie’s favourite whisky.
Rarely had a major business deal taken place in such a cordial atmosphere. There was no question of Willie changing his mind now. Everything was perfect.
So why was Lex’s stomach knotted with unease? Why was there this uncomfortable feeling between his shoulders?
Realising that the smile had dropped from his face, Lex put it back and forced his attention back to Willie, who was telling Romy about his marriage.
‘Moira and I were together forty-seven years. She was a wonderful woman. Not everyone gets as lucky as you and I, Lex,’ he added with a twinkling look. ‘You’re clearly a man who was prepared to do whatever it took to hang onto a good woman when you found her.’
And that was when Lex realised that he couldn’t go through with it.
‘Willie,’ he said. ‘There’s something I have to tell you.’
‘Oh?’ Willie’s smile faded and he put down his glass. ‘That sounds serious.’
‘It is.’ Lex swallowed. ‘I’ve brought you here under false pretences.’
Romy drew a startled breath and he held up a hand to stop her protest, keeping his eyes steadily on Willie.
‘Romy and I aren’t a couple, Willie, and we don’t normally live together. This is nothing to do with Romy,’ he added. ‘When we realised that you thought we were a couple, it seemed important to you, and I saw a chance to persuade you to sign.’
‘Actually, it was my idea,’ Romy tried to put in, but Lex overrode her.
‘It was my responsibility,’ he said firmly. ‘I told Romy I’d do anything to make this deal, but I should have drawn the line at lying.’
After the first moment of surprise, Willie’s eyes had narrowed, but he said nothing, just watched Lex, who found himself trying to loosen his tie that all at once felt too tight.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I should have confessed all this before, and given you the chance to change your mind about the deal. You still can, of course.’
There was dead silence round the table. Willie looked from Lex to Romy and then back to Lex.
‘Why are you telling me this now?’ he asked at last.
Lex, who had braced himself for anger or disgust or disappointment, was thrown by the mildness of Willie’s tone.
‘I think the deal will be a good one for both our companies,’ he said carefully after a moment. ‘It’s one I’ve wanted for a long time, and I thought I would do anything to make it happen, but…’
He stopped, tried to gather his thoughts. ‘Before, you were just the owner of a chain of stores. I had respect for your business acumen, but I didn’t know you. Now I do, and I’ve realised that your opinion matters to me.’ Lex sounded almost surprised. ‘Now I respect you as a person, and going ahead with this deal while effectively lying to you isn’t respecting you. I don’t want to do it.’
‘I see,’ said Willie thoughtfully. ‘So you’re telling me you don’t love Romy?’
Lex hesitated. ‘I’m telling you we’re not a couple.’
Willie turned to Romy. ‘And you don’t love Lex?’ he asked, sounding genuinely interested, and she bit her lip.
‘I’m so sorry, Willie. We’ve just been pretending all this while.’
‘Well.’ Willie sat back in his chair, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘You’re not a real couple?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
There was a short silence. ‘I’m sorry?’ said Lex.
‘Why aren’t you a couple?’ Willie said, all reasonableness. ‘It seems to me that you’re good together, and I notice you both avoided a direct answer when I asked about love.’
Romy glanced at Lex. ‘Love isn’t the problem,’ she said in a low voice.
‘Then what is?’
She couldn’t tell Willie how her father had swept her up into his arms and called her his best girl, and abandoned her the next day. How could she explain how hard it was to trust when the man you loved most in the world, the man you trusted above all others, let you down? How could she tell him about Lex, who strove for his father’s approval and kept his world under tight control?
‘It’s…complicated,’ she said.
‘What’s complicated about loving each other?’
‘I think Romy’s trying to explain that we’re incompatible,’ Lex tried. This was the most bizarre business conversation he had ever had, but he supposed it was his fault for raising the matter in the first place.
Willie raised a sceptical brow. ‘Is that right? I seem to remember seeing you two walking in the snow at Duncardie and you looked pretty compatible then.’
The colour rose in Romy’s cheeks and Lex set his teeth. ‘We just…want different things.’
‘Haven’t either of you heard of compromise? A fine pair of cowards you both are!’
Willie shook his head and pushed back his chair. ‘I can’t say I’m not disappointed,’ he said, ‘but it’s not the first disappointment of my life and I dare say it won’t be the last. Ah, well.’ He hoisted himself upright. ‘That was still a delicious dinner, Romy, so thank you for that—and for an interesting evening all round.’
Lex and Romy exchanged a glance, and Lex got to his feet. A limousine would be waiting below to take Willie back to his hotel. ‘I’ll see you to the car.’
‘I didn’t have you down for a fool, Alexander Gibson,’ said Willie in the lift down to the basement garage, ‘but I’ve changed my mind!’
‘I can only apologise again,’ Lex said stiffly. ‘I wanted to make the deal so much, I let it override my judgement. I accept that it was a mistake.’
‘Well, I’ve made some mistakes in my own time,’ Willie allowed. ‘I’ve tried to learn from them, and I hope you will too. What you learn, of course, is up to you.’ He clapped Lex on the shoulder as they stepped out of the lift to see the limousine waiting. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘You mean you’ll still sign?’ Lex hardly dared believe that it would be all right.
‘Oh, yes. You’re right about it being a good thing for both companies.’ His shrewd blue eyes rested on Lex’s face. ‘It’s a funny thing,’ he said, ‘how you can feel disappointed in someone and yet proud of them at the same time. I’ve been watching what you’ve done for Gibson & Grieve, laddie. You’ve moved into a whole new league, and you’ve got yourself a fine reputation. If you hadn’t, I would never have agreed to sell, no matter how married you were.
‘And knowing how much this deal matters to you means I can appreciate what it took for you to tell me the truth,’ he said. ‘It was the right thing to do, and I’m glad you did it. So I’m proud of you, and I’ll be happy to sign that contract tomorrow.’
He smiled at Lex as they shook hands. ‘But that doesn’t mean I don’t still think you’re a fool when it comes to Romy!’
Romy was clearing the table when Lex let himself back into the flat. She looked up, her hands full of plates, but put them back on the table when she saw his face.
‘So, no more pretending,’ she said.
‘No.’ Lex dropped his keys onto the side table.
‘Why did you tell him, Lex?’
‘I had to.’
Loosening his tie, he went over to the window and stood looking down at the river. The lights along the Embankment were blurry in the drizzle, and he thought about Willie, driving back alone to his hotel.
He turned to look at Romy, who was wiping her hands on a tea towel and watching him with dark, wary eyes.
‘He’s going to sign anyway.’
Romy’s shoulders slumped with relief. ‘I thought he’d be furious that we’d been lying to him.’
‘He told me I was a fool,’ said Lex. ‘But he also understood what I’ve been trying to do with Gibson & Grieve. He said he was proud of me.’ Ashamed of the strain in his voice, he looked back at the view. ‘Do you know how long I’ve waited for my own father to say that?’
Dropping the tea towel over the back of a chair, Romy went over to stand beside him. ‘Just because he hasn’t said it, doesn’t mean he doesn’t think it, Lex. If Willie can appreciate what you’ve done for Gibson & Grieve, then your father must be able to as well. It’s just more difficult for him to accept that he wasn’t indispensable, and that the company is moving on without him. You know that,’ she said gently.
‘Yes, I know that.’ Lex’s expression was bleak. For a while they stood side by side, looking out across the lights of London. Then he let out a long breath, letting the old frustration go.
He glanced at Romy, then away again. ‘What did you mean when you told Willie that love wasn’t the problem?’
‘It isn’t,’ she said. ‘The problem is that love doesn’t last. The problem is that it isn’t enough.’
‘Willie thinks it is. It lasted forty-seven years for him and Moira.’
‘They were lucky,’ said Romy. ‘We might not be.’ She turned restlessly, rubbing her arms. ‘It’s all very well for Willie to say compromise, but how would that actually work? Do you really want to give up your tidy flat and your nice, ordered life?’
‘We could compromise in other ways,’ Lex suggested.
‘How? A flat like this isn’t suitable for a toddler.’ She gestured around her. ‘How long before I get fed up with all the sharp angles and slippy floors? Before I start resenting the fact that there’s no garden or other children nearby? Before I think that if I have to manoeuvre that pushchair into the lift one more time I’m going to scream?
‘And how long before you’re gritting your teeth about the mess? Until you’re exasperated by the chaos and the noise and disgusted by the dirty nappies and Freya’s runny nose?’
Romy shook her head. ‘Compromise is hard, Lex. And I can’t take the risk that you’ll be able to do it. If it was just me, then perhaps. But I’ve got Freya to think about too. When you’ve got a child, you have to put practicalities before passion. I have to think about Freya and what she needs. She’d be better off in the country, where I can afford to give her a better life.
‘It would be so easy to stay here with you,’ she said. ‘To think, oh, well, let’s give it a go, but you said it yourself: we’re different, and we want different things. I don’t see how it could work, and if we try and it doesn’t work it’ll hurt all of us.’
Lex was watching her pace fretfully to and fro, her arms hugged together.
‘So you’re saying that you love me, but you don’t love me enough to be sure it would work out?’
Romy lifted her chin. ‘Do you love me enough to put up with all the mess and uncertainty that comes from living with a child?’
Fatally, Lex hesitated, and she smiled sadly. ‘I didn’t think so.’
‘I think it might be worth a try,’ he insisted, but she shook her head.
‘I can’t take that risk, Lex. I don’t dare.’
She drew a breath, let it out shakily. ‘Freya and I will go back to my flat tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Jo’s back next week, so the maternity cover finishes then. I’m going to move down to Somerset straight away.’
‘And what do we tell all those people who are now convinced that we’re having a raging affair?’
‘Tell them it didn’t work out,’ said Romy. ‘For once, we won’t have to pretend.’
CHAPTER TEN
‘I THINK that’s everything.’ Lex set down the high chair and the changing mat. The hallway of Romy’s tiny flat was crammed with bags and baby equipment.
It had been a long day. They had both gone to the signing ceremony, and had smiled and smiled for the inevitable photographs. Then they had said goodbye to Willie Grant, who told them to get in touch when they’d come to their senses. And after that there had been nothing to do but to collect up all Romy’s stuff from the flat, and Lex had driven them home.
Except it didn’t feel like home any more. The flat was cold and poky and dreary and Romy’s throat was so tight she could hardly speak. Any moment now, she was going to have to say goodbye to Lex, and she didn’t know how she was going to bear it.
He looked all wrong in this shabby flat.
Freya was sitting on the floor of the living room, puzzled by suddenly finding herself somewhere new. She looked around doubtfully as if not at all sure what she was doing there. Romy knew how she felt.
‘Will I see you before you go?’ Lex asked at last, and she drew a breath to steady herself.
‘I think it’s probably easier if we don’t.’
His eyes shuttered. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’
The silence was excruciating.
‘Well.’ Romy lifted her hands and let them drop. ‘I…er…I should probably give Freya her tea.’
‘Yes. I’ll go.’
Lex squatted down next to Freya and smoothed down the absurd quiff of hair. She looked up at him with those round, astounded eyes, her face dissolving into a smile, and the cold stone where Lex’s heart had once been splintered into shards. ‘Be good,’ he said, and straightened before his voice could crack.
Romy was waiting by the door. Her dark eyes were shimmering with unshed tears.
‘I don’t know how to say goodbye,’ she confessed.
‘Then don’t,’ said Lex. He put his hands on her arms and wondered if this was the last time he would see her for another twelve years. ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘I’ve always loved you.’
‘And I love you.’ Romy was desperately blinking back the tears, but it was a losing battle. ‘I do,’ she insisted as if he hadn’t believed her. ‘I just wish…’
She wished it were enough, but it wasn’t.
‘I know,’ said Lex, and, because there wasn’t any other way to say goodbye, he smoothed his hands up over her shoulders and up her throat to cradle her jaw. ‘I just wish too,’ he said, and kissed her.
Romy leant into him, slipping her arms around his waist to hold him close, and they kissed, a fierce, desperate kiss that said everything words couldn’t.
This will be the last time, Romy thought, even as her senses spun. The last time I touch him. The last time he kisses me. The last time I feel as if I’m exactly where I’m meant to be.
Even as she tried to hold onto the sensation, Lex was giving her one last, longing kiss and dropping his hands. He stepped back and reached for the door. Opened it.
Romy was standing exactly where he had left her, her mouth pressed in a straight line to stop it shaking, and her eyes dark and dazed.
Unable to resist one last touch, Lex wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb. ‘Goodbye, Romy,’ he said gently, and then he was gone.
The phone was ringing as Romy manoeuvred the pushchair into the narrow cottage hall and shut the door behind her. Keys still clenched between her teeth, she ran into the kitchen to grab the cordless phone, only just remembering to spit out the keys in time.
‘Hello?’ she said breathlessly.
‘Romy? It’s Mum. I’m afraid I’ve got some sad news.’
Gerald Gibson was dead. ‘Another stroke,’ Molly told Romy. ‘A merciful release in some ways, but of course Faith is devastated. He wasn’t an easy man, but she adored him and she feels so alone now. She’s got Lex and Phin, I know, but it’s not the same. She and Gerald loved each other so much, I often thought those boys missed out.’
The funeral was to be the following Friday. ‘You should be there for Faith,’ her mother said. ‘She’s your godmother. And Phin was always a good friend to you, wasn’t he?’
And Lex, Romy wanted to cry. Lex mattered most of all.
She had been in Somerset for seven weeks, and everything had fallen into place as if it were meant to be. She had found a little cottage in the same village as Jenny. It was a bit like living in a doll’s house, with tiny rooms and a handkerchief garden, but it was enough for Freya. If Romy sometimes felt as if she couldn’t breathe, and thought longingly of Lex’s spacious apartment, well, that was a price of independence and she was happy to pay it.
Michael lived nearby, but not too close, and he and Kate had taken Freya for the afternoon a few times now. She hadn’t spent the night with them yet, but Romy had no doubt that would come. Michael was making the effort to get to know his daughter, and that could only be a good thing. He had offered Romy financial support, but she had suggested that he invest the money for Freya instead. A relationship between Freya and her father was one thing. Accepting money was quite another. Money would be a tie. Romy wasn’t ready for that.
She had found a job. Only part-time for now, but it was a start. People in the village were friendly. They could live cheaply. She ought to be happy, Romy reminded herself. She had everything she needed.
Except Lex.
Time and again, Romy assured herself that she had made the right decision. She and Freya couldn’t have stayed in the apartment. They would have driven Lex mad. Much better to have made the break now, before either of them had a chance to be hurt.
It didn’t feel better though. There was a dull ache inside her, all the time, like a weight pressing on her heart, and misery clogged her throat so that speaking was an effort and even swallowing hurt.
In spite of the claustrophobically cluttered rooms in the cottage, it felt as if something was missing, and it took Romy a little time to accept that she was constantly looking round, hoping to see Lex. She wanted to see him peering over the top of his reading glasses or tugging at the knot of his tie. She wanted to see the stern mouth relaxing into a smile as he picked up Freya, or holding the tiny hands between his large ones as he helped her to play the piano.
Always in the past Romy had been able to move on without a backward glance, but this time it was different. She missed London more than she thought she would. She had always liked wild, exotic places, but now she missed the buzz of work and the banter with her colleagues. She missed standing at Lex’s window and looking down at the great city spread out below.
She missed Lex most of all.
Freya missed him, too, Romy was sure. She couldn’t say so, but she was lacklustre and fretful. Romy knew exactly how she felt. For the first time in her life, she was lonely. Oh, Freya was there, and she could always pop round to see Jenny, but it wasn’t the same as living with Lex. There was no one to tell when Freya learnt another word, no one to laugh when she put her pants on her head. No one to say hello to in the morning. No one to make her heart leap at the sound of the key in the door.
She wanted to tell him when Freya took her first step. She’d told her mother, she’d told Jenny, she’d even told Michael, but the person she really wanted to tell was Lex. She even picked up the phone and got as far as dialling his mobile before she cut the connection.
What was the point of calling him?
She would hear his voice and he would hear hers, but wouldn’t that just make it worse? And after Lex had said, ‘Great news,’ or whatever you said when a baby took their first step, what then? What would there be left to talk about? She and Lex couldn’t be friends—they were too close for that—but they couldn’t be lovers either. She should leave him to get on with his life, and get on with her own.
But now the father Lex had tried so hard to please was dead, and Romy wished desperately that she could have been there for him when he needed her.
Except Lex hadn’t wanted her there, she reminded herself. If he had, he would have phoned and told her himself, instead of letting her hear it from her mother. Perhaps, like her, he had decided that in the end it would just make it harder. So Romy didn’t ring him either, but wrote a short note that said everything that was proper about his father and nothing at all about what she really wanted to say.
That Friday she left Freya with Michael, and made her way to Gloucestershire. The funeral was to be held in the village where Lex’s parents had lived for forty years. A car was beyond Romy’s budget, so it was a complicated journey involving buses, trains and taxis, and she only just made it to the church in time for the service.
Her mother, so long a friend to Faith Gibson, was sitting behind the family. Romy slipped into the end of the pew, exchanging a glance of apology for her lateness with her mother.
In front of her, Faith sat between her two sons. Summer was there, too, sitting next to Phin. They were a family, and yet Lex looked alone. He was staring straight ahead. Something about the rigid set of his shoulders, the careful way he held his head, twisted Romy’s heart. He was suffering, and there was nothing she could do to help.
The organ struck up, and the priest was moving to address the congregation. Romy saw Lex brace himself, and without giving herself time to think she got up and slid into the pew in front. He shouldn’t have to be on his own, not today.
She caught Lex unawares. The vicar had already begun the service, so there was no chance to talk, but Romy saw the startled look in his eyes change to a fierce gladness, and when she took his hand his fingers closed around hers hard. He didn’t say anything and he didn’t look at her again, but he held her hand tightly all through the service, only letting her go when he got up to give the eulogy.
After the service, Romy stepped back, still without a word, and let Lex take his mother to the graveside, while her own mother eyed her speculatively.
‘Is there something I should know?’ she asked after the burial was over and they were walking slowly to the Gibsons’ house behind the family. It was an inappropriately beautiful day, and the village was so small no one had thought to get in a car to drive the short distance from the church to the house.
Romy flushed under her mother’s scrutiny. She had acted on impulse, and she was glad that she had, but to her mother it must have looked odd the way she had pushed into the family pew.
‘I didn’t want Lex to be on his own.’
Incredibly, neither her mother nor Faith Gibson seemed to have heard anything about the time she and Freya had spent with Lex. Summer had certainly known that they were living together, which meant that Phin must have known too, but evidently he hadn’t passed the news on around the family. Romy wondered whether this was tact on his part, or if Lex had asked him not to say anything.
As far as Romy’s mother knew, Lex was no more than a family friend to Romy. Someone you bumped into at weddings and funerals like this. She knew nothing about that crazy week in Paris all those years ago. She had no idea that Lex knew Freya or that he made her daughter’s heart turn over just by walking into the room.
But Romy had had enough pretending, she realised. ‘I’m in love with Lex,’ she told her mother abruptly, and it was a huge relief just to say the words.
Molly’s eyes rounded and for a moment she looked exactly like Freya. ‘With Lex? But how…? When…?’ She shook her head to clear it. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ And then, unable to help herself, ‘Does Faith know?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘But, darling, this is wonderful news!’ In deference to the other mourners, Molly kept her voice down, but she couldn’t resist giving Romy a hug. ‘Why the big secret? And why move to Somerset? I thought you wanted to get back together with Freya’s father!’
‘No.’ Romy’s steps slowed. She was remembering all the reasons why going to Somerset had seemed such a good idea. Was still a sensible idea. ‘I just wanted to get away from Lex. I don’t want to love him, Mum. You know what Lex is like. We’re too different. Anyway,’ she said, ‘we agreed it wouldn’t work.’
‘Ah.’ Her mother’s gaze rested thoughtfully on Romy’s face. ‘Does Lex love you?’
‘I think he loves me, yes.’ Romy sighed. ‘That isn’t the problem,’ she said, just as she had to Willie Grant. ‘What if love isn’t enough? What if it doesn’t last? You and Dad loved each other, and look what happened to you!’
‘Oh, Romy,’ said her mother a little helplessly. ‘Yes, I loved your father, but it wasn’t all perfect. It takes two to make a marriage, and two to let a relationship break down. I know how much it hurt you when he left, but I’m not sure it would have been better for you if he’d stayed. Would you really have wanted to have grown up in a home where the adults resent each other, knowing that you were the only reason they stayed together? I don’t think so.’
Romy stopped at that and stared at her mother. ‘Are you saying you think it was a good thing that he left us?’
‘No, never that. Not knowing what it did to you. But it wasn’t actually the end of the world, was it?’ Molly took her daughter’s arm and made her keep walking. ‘I was very unhappy for a time, but then I met Keith, and I’m happier being married to him than I ever was with your father. I don’t have any regrets about marrying Tony, though. We had you, didn’t we? How could either of us regret that? And now I can remember the good times.’
She smiled at her daughter. ‘There are no guarantees when it comes to love, Romy. Maybe it won’t work out with Lex, but maybe it will, and if you never take the risk, you’ll never know how happy you could be.’
Lex’s jaw felt rigid but he kept a smile in place as he went to greet his godmother. He had always been fond of Molly, who had luminous dark eyes just like her daughter’s, but he had been avoiding her, just as he had been avoiding thinking about Romy, who stood now by her mother’s side.
He had been feeling so alone in the church, and then suddenly Romy had been there. The feel of her hand in his had been so comforting that Lex had almost convinced himself that he had made it up. His mother had been too bound up in her own grief to notice anything, and Romy had slipped away when they followed the coffin out to the graveside. It was almost as if she had never been there at all.
But he had seen her as soon as she came into the house with Molly, and he had spent the afternoon torn between joy at her presence and despair that he was going to have to get used to her not being there all over again. He hadn’t talked to her. He didn’t know what he would say. The only thing he could think of to say was, ‘Come back, I miss you,’ but what was the point? Romy had made her choice, and he had to live with it. Better not to say anything at all.
So Lex moved through the afternoon like an automaton, talking to guests, agreeing that they would all miss his father, not letting himself think. Especially not letting himself notice Romy, slender and vibrant in the dark suit she had used to wear to work. Today she had substituted a dark purple top for her usual brightly coloured blouses, but she still looked more vivid than anyone else in the room.
She was a flame, constantly catching at the edge of his vision. It didn’t matter that she was only talking quietly to other guests. She spoke to his mother, to Phin and Summer. She did nothing to draw attention to herself at all, but Lex was intensely aware of her all the same. She might as well have been the only other person in the room.
Now Lex kissed Molly’s cheek, and let himself look properly at Romy at last. She looked gravely back at him, her eyes dark and warm, and as his gaze met hers there was such a rightness to it, as if everything were suddenly falling into place, that Lex was sure that everyone in the room must surely hear the click of connection.
His jaw was clenched so tightly he could feel the tendons standing out in his neck. ‘Thank you for coming,’ he said.
There, he hadn’t seized her in his arms. He hadn’t humiliated himself by begging her to come home. It wasn’t much of a victory, but Lex felt as if he had negotiated a long and arduous obstacle course.
‘Faith looks all in,’ said Molly, apparently not noticing the way her daughter and Lex were staring desperately at each other.
With difficulty, he dragged his eyes from Romy’s. ‘Yes. Yes, she is. Phin and Summer are going to take her home with them.’
‘And you?’
‘I’m going back to London too.’
‘On your own?’
‘Yes,’ said Lex, unable to keep the bleakness from his voice. ‘On my own.’
There was a pause. ‘I think I’ll go and say goodbye to Faith,’ said Molly.
Lex was left alone with Romy. The moment he had longed for. The moment he had dreaded.
Romy drew a breath. ‘Can I come with you?’ she said.
‘Where?’
‘To London.’
The dark eyes were drawing him in. Lex could feel himself slipping. Any moment now and he would be falling again, tumbling wildly out of control once more. He made himself look away.
‘I think I need to be on my own,’ he said.
Romy put her hand on his arm. ‘No, you need someone with you,’ she told him gently.
‘Romy, I can’t…’ Lex broke off, groped for control. ‘I can’t say goodbye again.’
‘We’re not going to say goodbye.’
Mutely, he shook his head, and Romy shattered what was left of his defences by stepping closer so that his senses reeled with her nearness, with the warmth of her hand, the piercing familiarity of her fragrance.
‘Lex, you buried your father today,’ she said. ‘I know you’ve been strong for your mother, but you need to grieve for yourself. Now let me be strong for you. Let me drive you. You don’t have to do everything on your own.’
The longing to be with her, to put off the moment when he had to watch her leave, was too much. Strong? He had never been strong where she was concerned. Lex did his best to resist the temptation, but then handed over his car keys. It felt deeply symbolic. He wanted to say, ‘Be careful, that’s my heart I’m giving you there.’
He didn’t, of course, but Romy smiled reassuringly at him anyway. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’m a careful driver.’
Lex was used to being driven. He often sat in the back of limousines, but this was different. He was sitting in the passenger seat of his own car, and Romy was at the wheel, and he was very aware of having ceded control. It felt dangerous. And it felt like letting go.
Letting go of responsibility.
Letting go of the pretence that he could be happy without Romy.
Letting the jumble of feelings overwhelm him. Guilt and grief and resentment for his father. Love and loneliness and joy and despair and desire and everything else that Romy made him feel, everything he had been trying not to feel for so long.
Tears were unmanly. Gerald Gibson had taught his son that long ago, and Lex hadn’t cried since he was a very small boy. He didn’t cry now, but inside he could feel himself crumbling. He stared straight ahead, his face set like stone, his mouth pressed into a rigid line, and his throat too tight to speak.
To his intense relief, Romy didn’t try to make conversation. She just drove him back to the apartment, unlocked the door with the key he handed over without a word, and poured him a great slug of the whisky he had bought for Willie Grant a lifetime ago, all without a word.
Lex sat on the sofa, head bent, the glass clasped between his knees. He swirled the whisky, letting the warm, peaty smell of it calm him before he drank, and its mellowness settled steadyingly in his stomach.
Romy sat quietly beside him, her hand on his back infinitely comforting.
‘He never said well done.’ The words burst out of him without warning. ‘Not once. But do you know what he did? He left me a controlling share in Gibson & Grieve. I had to listen to some lawyer tell me that my father thought I’d done well. That I’d shown I was worthy. He said he was confident that he was leaving the company in capable hands,’ said Lex bitterly.
Romy’s throat ached for him. ‘He was proud of you.’
‘It’s too late for him to tell me now! Why couldn’t he…?’ He broke off, too angry and frustrated to speak.
‘Why couldn’t he tell you?’ she finished for him. ‘Perhaps he was afraid to, Lex. Perhaps, deep down, he was afraid that if he gave you the approval you craved, you wouldn’t need him any more.’
She rubbed his back, very gently. ‘I think you and I need to forgive our fathers,’ she said. ‘I certainly need to forgive mine. I loved him so much, but I wanted him to be somebody he couldn’t be. I didn’t understand that he was just a man, wrestling with his own fears.’
Lex said nothing, but she knew he was listening. ‘And your father,’ she went on, ‘he didn’t know how to be a man who could admit weakness. I think he didn’t know how to tell you how important you were to him, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t love you. He just couldn’t say it. But he did the best he could, and maybe my father did the best he could, too.’
Lex took a slug of whisky, felt it burn down his throat. ‘I thought you would never forgive your father.’
‘I thought so, too. It was only when I talked to my mother today, and she made me think. And watching you bury your father, I was imagining how I would feel if it was my father who had died.’ Romy swallowed. ‘He’s the only father I’ve got. Perhaps I should just accept him for what he is.’
‘He hurt you.’ Lex looked up at her, pale eyes fierce. ‘He left you.’
‘He left my mother, not me,’ said Romy. ‘I think the truth is that I left him when I refused to see him. I thought that he had chosen his other child over me, but now I think that he chose happiness over duty. Perhaps I need to learn from that. Perhaps we both do.’
‘Learn? Learn what?’
‘We could learn to be happy,’ she said.
‘Happy?’ Lex stared into his glass and thought of the long, lonely weeks since she’d been gone. The wasteland he had trudged through every day. He thought of the years he had spent trying to forget her, the years he would have to spend forgetting her all over again. ‘Happy? Hah!’
‘I thought I could make myself happy,’ said Romy as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘I was afraid to rely on anyone else for happiness. I thought all I needed was to be able to provide for Freya and keep her from being hurt, and I can do that now, but I’m not happy.’ She took her hand from his back. ‘I can’t be happy without you, Lex.’
He did look up at that, his eyes narrowed in sudden attention.
‘I don’t know if this is the time for it,’ she said, ‘but there’s something I want to ask you.’
‘What is it?’
‘Will you marry me?’
Lex straightened abruptly, sloshing whisky. ‘What?’
Romy’s heart was knocking against her ribs but she made herself look levelly back at him. ‘Will you marry me?’ she said again. ‘I’ll understand if you say no,’ she said, when he just stared at her. ‘I probably deserve it. I had a chance to marry you and I turned it down. We could have had the last twelve years together, but I was too afraid that it would all go wrong.’
Lex put his glass on the table, very carefully, and turned to look at Romy. She was twisting the bangles around her wrist, her eyes huge and dark. ‘What’s changed? Why aren’t you afraid now?’
‘I am afraid,’ she said. ‘But I’m more afraid of spending the rest of my life regretting that I was too much of a coward to take a chance at happiness. I’m afraid of spending the rest of my life missing you, the way I’ve missed you the last few weeks. I’m afraid of never really being happy again without you.’
‘Romy…’
‘I’m afraid that it might not work,’ she said again, ‘but I want to take the risk, if you will.’
Lex was looking stunned and Romy took her bottom lip between her teeth, all at once regretting the words that had come tumbling out of her. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said remorsefully. ‘I shouldn’t be talking like this, not today. Today should be about your father, not about me. Oh, Lex, I’m sorry,’ she said again. ‘What was I thinking?’
‘Perhaps,’ Lex said slowly, ‘you were thinking that this is exactly the day we should be talking like this. Perhaps it takes death to make us realise how we want to live.’
Might it be all right after all? Romy took a breath and let it out very carefully. ‘I don’t want to live without ever seeing my father again,’ she said. ‘But most of all, I don’t want to live without you, Lex.’
‘Romy,’ he said again, laying a hand against her cheek. ‘Romy, what if I can’t make you happy? You’re so…alive. You need warmth and laughter and love.’
‘You love me, don’t you?’
He half smiled. ‘Yes, I love you. I’ve never stopped loving you,’ he said, unable to stop his fingers slipping under her hair to the nape of her neck. ‘Loving you isn’t the problem. You were the one who said that. But love wasn’t enough before. We’re still different people. I’d like to think I can change to be more like you, but what if I can only be like my father?’
‘You’re not your father,’ said Romy, ‘ and you’re not my father either. You’re you, and I love you the way you are. You don’t have to change. You just have to be brave enough to love me and believe that I love you too, just as I need to be brave enough to trust that you won’t leave me and Freya. Love isn’t enough,’ she said. ‘We need courage, too, just like Willie said.’
Lex’s hand was warm at the nape of her neck. ‘Then we’ll be brave together,’ he said and drew her towards him.
It was a gentle kiss at first, like a first kiss, as if he couldn’t quite believe that she was there, that she was real. Then it was tender and it was sweet, and the world shifted and righted itself at last.
They kissed and kissed in a torrent of relief, sinking down into the soft cushions until the sweetness grew hard and hungry, but when they broke for breath the world was still right. This, this, was right. Romy was lying tucked into him, her arms round him, her face pressed into his throat. Lex could feel her lovely mouth curved into a smile against his skin and the tight band that had been clamped around his chest for so long unlocked and loosened.
He tried breathing in and out experimentally, and the ease of it made his head reel. Wrapping his arms around Romy, he held her close.
‘Romy, are you sure?’
‘I’m sure,’ she said, tilting her head back to kiss his jaw. ‘Are you?’
‘What about all those practicalities that were such a problem before?’
She wriggled up so that she could look at him properly. ‘I suppose we could always take Willie’s advice and compromise. Maybe you could learn to live in a less than perfectly ordered flat, and maybe I could learn to tidy up more. I don’t think it would be easy, but we could both try.’
‘This flat isn’t suitable for Freya anyway,’ said Lex. ‘Why don’t we buy a house in Somerset?’
‘Somerset’s not very convenient for the office,’ she pointed out.
‘Then we’ll have a house in London as well.’
‘But you like this flat! It’s perfect for you.’
‘It wasn’t perfect when you left. I hated it without you,’ he said. ‘I missed you both so much. Every night I’d sit here with the phone in my hand and think about calling you and begging you to come back.’
Romy pulled away slightly, wondering what she would have done if he had called. ‘But you never rang?’
‘I thought you’d say no. I thought you wanted Freya to get to know her father, and I thought that was the right thing to do. Michael’s her father, not me.’ Lex hesitated. ‘You said it, Romy. You said your father was the only one you’d ever have.’
‘But that was me,’ she said. ‘There was no one else for me. Being a parent is about more than biology,’ she told him. ‘I hope Michael will always be part of her life, and if he is Freya is going to be lucky. She’ll have two fathers, and I hope she’ll love you both, but you’re the one who’s going to teach her to play the piano and comfort her at night when she’s teething…oh, and change her nappies, of course!’
Lex laughed at that. ‘When you said I had to be brave, I didn’t think you meant that brave!’
‘Losing your nerve?’ she asked, smiling, and he pulled her against him for a hard kiss.
‘No, I don’t mind what I do, as long as I’m with you. I’ll even change nappies!’
‘Now I know you love me,’ said Romy, kissing him back.
‘Always,’ said Lex.
Pushing herself up so that she could lean over him, Romy rested her hand over his heart. ‘You haven’t given me an answer yet,’ she reminded him. ‘I asked you to marry me. Will you?’ Stupidly, she could hear a hint of anxiety in her voice.
Lex didn’t answer immediately. ‘Are you sure you want to be married, Romy?’ he asked seriously. ‘I know the idea of commitment isn’t easy for you. We can be together without marriage if that’s more comfortable for you.’
‘But that wouldn’t be brave,’ said Romy. ‘I don’t want to keep my options open or to know that I can move on if I need to. Lex. I want to spend the rest of my life loving you and trusting you and knowing that every day you’ll come home and love me back. Marriage is a promise. I want to make that promise in front of everybody, and I want to keep it, with you.’
Lex picked up the hand that covered his heart and kissed her palm before he drew her down to him once more. ‘Then since you ask so nicely,’ he said, ‘yes, I will.’
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