by Alix Kelso
“So stop making the same mistake. Stop giving your heart away so easily. Only give it to someone who deserves it.”
“When you say things like that, it makes it very hard for me not to just give my stupid old heart to you.”
She laughed. “Well, Keith—”
“Natalie, I like you. I like you a lot. It would be nice if this – me and you – turned into something, don’t you think?”
“Keith, listen.” She held up a hand, and when she spoke again her voice was soft. “We’re having a lot of fun together. But I’m not the right woman for you, and you’re not the right man for me. And I think you know that.”
Keith didn’t know that. In fact, the more time he spent with Natalie the more convinced he became that she was exactly the right woman for him. And he, with time, could learn to be the right man for her.
“I hoped we could just be friends who enjoyed one another’s company,” she said. “I don’t want anything more than what we have already. I should never have let you kiss me after the opera. And I should never have kissed you back.”
“I hope that’s not true. I enjoyed that kiss.”
Her lips curved, ever so slightly. “I enjoyed it too. And, if I’m being honest, I’d have to say I’d hoped we’d have the opportunity to kiss again, if it could be strictly no strings attached. Kissing you was very cathartic.”
“Cathartic?”
“I haven’t kissed anyone since Angelo. But I enjoyed kissing you. It’s nice to know I still have it in me to kiss a man and to have a little fun. But it’s not fair for me to have a little fun if it’s going to end up with you nursing another broken heart.”
Keith was torn. He was falling for her. He couldn’t help himself. Almost forty years he’d known her, and not once had he thought of her the way he was thinking of her now. She’d been a married woman, and then a devastated widow. But now something had changed.
Yet she was being clear about how she felt. She wasn’t leading him on. He had a chance to step back, because she was giving him one.
He didn’t want that chance.
There were no buyers yet for her restaurant. Wasn’t it possible that she could still be here months from now, waiting to sell? And if they enjoyed each other’s company in the meantime, who knew where things might lead?
“I’d just like to have some fun,” Natalie said. “No strings, no relationship, no nothing. Just fun. Can you do fun and only fun, Keith?”
Keith crossed his fingers beneath the table. “I can.”
“Good. In that case, you’d better get me another glass of wine.”
Chapter 14
The menswear section in the department store was Saturday-afternoon busy, filled with confused-looking men pawing at clothes racks. Bruce was being supervised in his choices by his nieces, who, he’d discovered, were drawn to the most garish colour combinations possible.
“What about this?” Chloe held up a shirt in neon pink that almost had him shielding his eyes.
“No, sweetheart.”
“How about this?” said Isla, waving a shirt covered in a bizarre design of purple whales.
“Um, no.”
Jack reappeared from his own foraging and held up a shirt in steel grey. “This?”
Bruce shook his head. “Too boring.”
“Or this?” In his other hand, Jack held a designer shirt in smart petrol blue.
“Yeah, maybe.”
“Are you wearing a suit or blazer and smart trousers?”
“A suit.” Bruce held up the suit he’d chosen while Jack had been wading through the luxury shirts.
“You don’t think a suit’s maybe a little overboard?”
“The last guy she was with promised her somewhere fancy and then took her to Pizza Hut. I want to wow her. I want to sweep her off her feet. I want her to take one look at me and know I made as much effort as I possibly could to impress her.”
“Sounds like this last guy set the bar pretty low. The suit might scare her off.”
“I’d rather risk scaring her off than disappointing her.”
Jack grinned. “You really like this girl.”
Bruce rummaged through a stack of shirts – and rejected them. “I really do.”
“I can’t tell you how much I like hearing that. But if you’re trying to sweep her off her feet, this shirt won’t do it.” Jack set aside the blue shirt, picked up another in white and held it up against the dark suit. “Yeah, this is what you want. Great suit, white shirt open at the neck, no tie.”
Bruce considered it. “I like it. It’s simple.”
“Just like you, buddy.”
Bruce gave him a look, and Jack snorted. Chloe and Isla bounced over and frowned at the shirt in Bruce’s hands.
“You’re not going to wear that, are you Uncle Bruce?” Chloe said, appalled. “It’s boring.”
“So boring,” Isla agreed.
“This is the shirt, girls.”
“I suppose it’s sort of okay,” Isla said, running her little hand over the sleeve. “Will we choose a tie to go with it?”
“Get this tie, Uncle Bruce.” Chloe grabbed a tie covered in a vivid design of yellow and orange circles from a nearby display.
“No tie, girls.”
“Do you need any of these things?” she asked, pointing to a display of cufflinks.
Bruce considered the question and inspected the range.
“You must have at least a couple of dozen sets of cufflinks,” Jack said, frowning. “Come to think of it, you must own a suit and white shirt that would do the job too. Do you really need all this new stuff?”
Bruce raised an eyebrow, and a look of understanding finally crossed his brother’s face.
“You don’t want to wear anything that might make you think about Heather, so you’re buying everything new.”
“Can you blame me?”
“Not really.”
Bruce chose a set of pewter cufflinks that would look good with the suit shade. “Okay, let’s go and pay.”
Once everything was bagged and paid for, they headed down the escalators to the ground floor and navigated the alluring displays of home accessories fanned out around the exits. The girls skipped along, inspecting items for sale and chattering.
“What’s the lady’s name you’re going out with tonight, Uncle Bruce?” Chloe asked.
“Laura.”
“You should buy Laura a present. You should buy her this!” She grabbed a little vase of artificial flowers from a display shelf.
He paused. “I should buy her flowers.”
“Buy her these ones!”
“I don’t think fake flowers would set the right tone, Chloe. But I should buy her actual flowers. Is there a florist nearby, Jack?”
“Sure, we can go there once —”
“No, wait, not flowers.” He shook his head. “It’s too predictable.”
Walking beside him, Jack looked at his brother and grinned. “You’ve got it bad.”
“Yeah, I do. And I’m terrified.”
Jack frowned. “Why?”
“I just got divorced, Jack. And we hardly know each other. It shouldn’t feel like this already.”
“You still think there’s a set length of time you have to be miserable and alone before good things are allowed to happen to you?”
“No. But I’m scared I’ll push things too fast.”
“Bruce, for God’s sake, you haven’t even been out with her yet. How can you possibly be worried about things going too fast?”
But when Bruce thought of the kiss they’d had in Valentino’s, he knew only too well that things could definitely move too fast between them. All he’d wanted to do was kiss her to see what it would be like. But something had happened in that moment that had been beyond anything he could’ve imagined.
“I think there might be more between us than I expected.”
Jack laughed and checked his girls were out of earshot. “Look, it’s been a while Bruce. You’ve got an i
tch, that’s all.”
“I’m not just looking to hop into bed with some random woman, Jack. I’m nuts about this girl.”
“Okay, cool your jets. Being nuts about her, that’s good.”
“But I’m terrified too.”
Jack spread his hands. “You’re nuts about her, but you’re terrified?”
Bruce shook his head, exasperated. “Jack, what if I’m turning into Uncle Keith, barely out of one disastrous relationship before getting embroiled in another? I love Keith, but I’d hate to make the same mistakes he’s made.”
Jack blinked at him. “That’s what’s worrying you? Look, you need to switch your brain off, Bruce. One minute you want to wow this girl, the next you’re worried it’s going too fast. One minute you’re nuts about her, the next you’re imagining it ending in disaster. Want some advice? Stop thinking, and ...” Jack glanced up and saw the girls over by a display of delicate ornaments. “Hey girls, don’t touch those. You break them, you buy them.”
But Bruce’s attention had been caught by the display his little nieces had crowded around. It was animal-themed and comprised animal-print cushions, gilded bird cages, animal-themed stationary, and a collection of pretty animal ornaments. Chloe was examining a painted glass elephant, while Isla studied a brightly coloured parrot.
Walking over, he honed in on the item that had caught his eye – a lovely, long-necked porcelain giraffe, around six inches in height. Picking it up, he thought of those amusing pyjamas Laura had asked him to find when she’d been sick.
“I’ll get her this.”
While Chloe and Isla clapped their hands, delighted at his choice, Jack only gaped at him. “Why on earth would you give her that?”
Bruce smiled, mostly to himself. “Because her favourite pyjamas have giraffes on them.”
Jack stared at his brother. “What happened to worrying it was all moving too fast? What happened to being terrified?”
Bruce looked up from the giraffe and frowned. “You’re the one who told me to get on with my life.”
“Are you sure you don’t just want to give her a bunch of flowers?”
He shook his head. “I want to give her this.”
Jack considered the little ornament. “You’re sending a message if you give her that on your first date.”
“I know.”
Jack laughed and shook his head. “I hoped you’d start seeing some women now and again and get back into the swing of things. But maybe you’ve fallen head over heels straight out the gate.”
“I think I might have, yeah.”
Jack met his brother’s goofy grin with one of his own. “You really want to sweep this girl off her feet?”
“More than you could believe.”
“In that case, I’ve got an idea.”
Laura angled herself in front of the mirror in the hallway. “You don’t think this dress is too much?”
Yvonne, perched on the edge of the living room sofa, shook her head. “It’s perfect.”
Deciding the dress she’d worn on her final doomed date with John was now tainted by bad luck (not to mention the downpour of rain), Laura had forced herself to go shopping to buy something new. When she’d spied the pale blue dress with gauzy sleeves and embellished cuffs, she’d instantly raided her savings to buy it. Now, though, she was having second thoughts.
“After the last time I got dressed up for a night out with a guy, I’m anxious.”
But Yvonne waved that off. “The dress is perfect, stop agonising over it. Any idea where Bruce is taking you?”
“None, which doesn’t exactly help.” She sighed at her reflection again and poked at the silver circles cascading at her ears. “These earrings are too big. I need something simpler.”
Heading into her room and rummaging through her little jewellery box, she switched the dangly circles for studs. Not diamond – she owned nothing like that – but they were still sparkly enough to catch the light the same way as the embellishment on the cuff of the dress.
She slipped into the heeled sandals she’d chosen and returned once more to the mirror. She didn’t often dress up – she didn’t often have a reason to – and it felt strange being head-to-toe in a whole new outfit. She’d never gone to so much trouble before for a night out with a guy.
Although it didn’t really feel like trouble, not when she thought of the guy the night out would be with.
“Those shoes make your legs look amazing,” Yvonne said. “If I didn’t love you, I’d hate you right now. All that running has given you calves to die for.”
“God, don’t talk to me about running. The race is in two weeks, and it’s the last thing I want to think about. I’m nervous enough about tonight.”
“It’s good that you’re nervous.”
Laura narrowed her eyes. “It’s good that I feel like I might faint?”
Yvonne’s eyes only grew wider. “Yes! It means you really like this guy. God, please tell me you’ve had tummy flutters over guys in the past.”
“Well, maybe a little, but nothing like this.”
Yvonne clapped her hands together. “This just gets better and better! He’s the one, Laura, he’s the one.”
“Oh for God’s sake, we haven’t even gone out together yet.”
“And I’ll be staying at Olly’s tonight, so you’ve got the place to yourself if you decide to bring Mr Hottie back to see him naked.”
Laura blushed and shook her head. “That won’t happen.”
“Never say never.” Yvonne gave her a side-long glance. “Listen, there’s something I want to tell you. I’ve been spending a lot of time with Olly, and we’ve been talking about things, and ... and I’ve decided to move in with him.”
Laura glanced up from the clutch bag she’d been organising. “Really? I mean, that’s amazing, but don’t you think it’s a little fast?”
“I really like him. And I really like being with him. I think he feels the same way about me. Why wait?”
Laura smiled. “I wish I had your courage, Yvonne.”
“You have your own courage, which is exactly the right sort of courage for you.” Yvonne walked over and laid a hand on her arm. “I’ll miss you when I leave.”
“I’ll miss you too.”
They hugged, and Laura felt a lump come to her throat. When she leaned back and looked in Yvonne’s eyes, she saw tears there.
“Okay, that’s enough, or I’ll start crying and have to redo my make-up, and there’s no time for that. He’ll be here any minute.”
“I’ll watch at the window.” Yvonne darted to the other side of the room to peer outside. “Okay, I see a taxi turning on to our street ... no, it’s driving past ... Oh, here’s a car stopping outside our door, but that can’t be it ... wait a minute ... Oh my God! Laura, you have to come and see this, quick!”
“If it’s the neighbour across the street parading around naked again, I’m not interested, and—”
“It’s not the naked neighbour! Just get over here, hurry!”
Laura rushed to the window. “Oh my God.”
A Jaguar luxury saloon car sat outside, its sleek curves waxed to perfection, its signature front grill gleaming. A uniformed chauffeur was opening the rear passenger door. She watched in disbelief as Bruce got out, looked up, and smiled when he saw her at the window.
“Holy crap!” Yvonne said. “He looks good enough to eat! I’m actually salivating! And he came to pick you up in a chauffeur-driven Jag! This is absolutely amazing!”
Laura stepped back, stepped forward again, and checked she was seeing what she thought she was seeing. As the chauffeur closed the door, Bruce waved up.
“I can’t believe this,” Laura said.
“Believe it.”
“I better go down.”
“What? Are you crazy? He’s come for you in a chauffeur-driven Jag, Laura. You wait until he rings the doorbell.”
“I’m not making him wait when I can see perfectly well he’s already here.”
&nbs
p; “Too late.” Yvonne glanced down. “He’s on his way up the front path.”
When the flat doorbell rang, Yvonne raced to answer it. Laura remained rooted to the spot, and Yvonne turned back and led her by the arm to the hallway.
“You are going to have such a wonderful night,” Yvonne said. “Just take deep breaths.”
“He looks pretty good, doesn’t he?”
“He looks fantastic. Okay, go on, open the door.”
Laura took a breath. Her head was spinning. He’d come for her in a chauffeur-driven car. Nothing like that had ever happened to her before.
And he looked good. So good, in fact, it made her knees almost knock together.
When she opened the door, she discovered Bruce looked even better close up. If he’d told her he’d just flown in from a red-carpet premiere at Cannes, she wouldn’t have been even the least surprised. She caught the drift of his aftershave, and it actually made her mind go fuzzy.
“Wow,” Bruce said. “You look gorgeous.”
“You look pretty good yourself.”
He stepped forward and kissed her cheek, reminding her of that first kiss they’d shared in Valentino’s. She pushed the memory from her head, knowing that if she didn’t, they wouldn’t make it out of the flat at all.
“Oh, hi, Yvonne,” Bruce said, when he finally noticed her hovering by the living room door.
“Hi, Bruce.”
But he’d already turned back to Laura. “Shall we?” he said, and offered his arm.
Smiling, she slipped her hand into his elbow, gave Yvonne a wave goodbye, and let Bruce lead her down the hallway stairs and out to the waiting car.
“I can’t believe you hired a chauffeur and a car,” she said when they got outside.
“Actually, I have a little confession to make. That’s my brother, Jack. He has his own limousine company, so he came in pretty handy tonight. Jack, this is Laura.”
Jack held out a hand. “Pleasure to meet you.”
“And he also likes to dress up like this,” Bruce said, as she shook Jack’s hand. “Any excuse, really, to wear that cap. And, of course, drive around in his new toy.”
“My pride and joy awaits you,” Jack said, opening the door, “Ma’am, sir.”
