by Pamela Fudge
He had disappeared from sight before she was suddenly galvanized into action, and she sped, equally silently, after him. She caught up with him just as his hand reached for the Audi's door catch.
'Not going without saying goodbye, surely, Andrew?' she said acidly, taking great pleasure in watching him almost jump out of his skin, 'How very discourteous of you.'
'I was, of course going to...' he blustered.
'No, you weren't,' she smiled pleasantly, 'and I shall now take the trouble to tell you what a disgusting little - little twerp I’ve finally realised you are, and that I wouldn't marry you if you were the last man - and I use the term loosely - in the whole world. Oh, please,’ she put her hand up when it looked as if he might interrupt, ‘don't say another word – the hole you’ve dug yourself into since you arrived is quite deep enough.'
Andrew was flushed, and then he was pale. He was, for once, speechless, and of the fleeting emotions to slide momentarily across his face, the clearest one was of relief. It didn't even hurt, Roz found, to know that he was so keen to be rid of her.
'Before you go,' she kept the smile firmly in place, ‘there's the matter of the bed, breakfast, and the evening meal that you enjoyed,' she emphasised the word sarcastically, 'in my aunt's establishment. I think,' she named a sum that made his fair eyebrows nearly disappear up into his hairline, 'should just about cover it.'
He paid up without a murmur, and hiding a grin, Roz drawled, 'What? No tip for the excellent service we offered. Oh, well, never mind. We hope you enjoyed your stay, sir. Do come again.'
He drove off with unflattering haste, and, still smiling, Roz went back to her bed-making with a lighter heart. She wished that all her problems could be solved so easily.
'Was that Andrew I heard leaving?' Aunt Ellen came into the room carrying more fresh linen. 'I suppose he wanted to make an early start.'
'Something like that,' Roz agreed, and passing over the wad of notes, she told her aunt, with a straight face, 'and he insisted on leaving you this. He really enjoyed his stay with us.'
Aunt Ellen looked at the money, and she looked very hard at her great-niece, but refrained from comment, which wasn't a bit like her. Roz wondered, fleetingly, if she knew more than she was letting on but she, too, refrained from asking.
They worked together in silence for a while, but Roz didn't miss the worried glances that were coming her way, all too frequently, and so she was quite ready for the question when it came.
'What are you going to do? You and Sam?'
'Us? Oh, don’t worry about us, we'll just go our own sweet ways,' Roz kept her tone deliberately light, and tried hard to ignore the searing pain that saying it caused her, ‘which we’ve pretty much always done anyway.’
'Are you sure that's what you want?'
No, she wanted to scream. That's not what I want. It's not what I want at all. I want him to realise that he loves me the way that I love him, so desperately that it hurts, but I think we both know that it will never happen.
Aloud, she said, 'What I want, is to get back to normality again,' she sat beside her aunt on the unmade bed. 'I wish I could tell you that I could be happy living here with you, but I really can't stay. It would be impossible for me.'
Actually, it wouldn’t be impossible to live with her aunt now that London had suddenly lost its appeal, what would be impossible would be Sam arriving on the doorstep whenever he could get home and having the heartbreak of seeing him eventually settle down with someone else. Oh, no, that would be much more than she could bear.
Her aunt didn't argue, but Ellen didn't fool Roz with her calm attitude because she knew that between them, she and Sam had hurt the elderly lady deeply by their deceit, and she regretted it with all of her heart.
Lunch was eaten almost in silence, with each of them seemingly lost in thought. Roz pushed her food listlessly around her plate but, looking up to find Sam watching her, she forced down a mouthful of pie that she definitely didn't want at all.
Aunt Ellen reached out for the teapot, offering, 'More tea, anyone?' and Roz was horrified to notice that her hand was shaking, and a quick glance at her face told her that her aunt was a little paler than was usual, too.
'Are you feeling quite all right, Ellen?' Sam must have noticed, because he asked the question before Roz got the chance.
'I do have a tiny bit of a headache,' she admitted reluctantly. 'I might go and have a little lie-down - if I could leave you both to clear up for me, that is?'
'Of course,' they answered unanimously, and Roz promised, 'I'll bring you up a cup of tea at about three o'clock.'
'Thank you, dear. Thank you both for your concern, I shall be all right presently.'
'We've upset her,' Roz said sadly as the door closed behind her.
'I know,' Sam agreed, 'and I'm beginning to wish that we could turn the clock back.'
Back to before they had entered into the phoney engagement was what he meant, she knew. Roz glanced at the pretty ring, still firmly in place on her third finger as it always was when she came home to Brankstone, and found that she couldn't, in spite of everything, wish the same. She could only wish, fruitlessly she knew, that she could turn the clock on and make everything turn out very differently for them in the future.
'Do you really intend to tell the papers that it's over?'
In answer, she slipped the ring slowly and with great finality from her finger and, holding it out to him in the palm of her hand, she said, 'I think that's best, don't you?'
Silence hung between them, and Roz found that she was holding her breath, hoping, praying, that he would deny it, and beg her to change her mind about what she was so set on doing. Of course, that didn’t happen.
He accepted the ring without glancing at it, and slid it into his pocket. His steady gaze never left her face, as he said, 'I expect you're right.'
'Should I phone them?'
She didn't have to tell him that she had no idea how to go about speaking to the media, and she looked to him, still, to guide her.
'Leave it to me, and I'll arrange a meeting with the press or - better yet,’ he seemed to hesitate and then come to a decision, ‘since I intend to be there beside you if you insist on going ahead with this – I could approach Solent Radio about extending the forthcoming interview slot to include us both. I’m pretty sure we can trust them to handle our story in a fair and sensitive manner - and allow us to at least have our say – unlike the tabloid hacks who will go out of their way to embroider and embellish every word to sell papers. Yes,' Sam nodded, ‘I think that will be for the best if I can pull it off.’
'Thank you.'
'Will you go back to London, when it's over? You'll probably come in for a bit of attention for a while.'
'I don't intend to hide,' Roz lifted her chin proudly.
Sam smiled, and her heart turned a crazy flip-flop that was a strange mixture of love and grief.
'I didn't think you would for a moment,' he assured her, 'but how will Andrew cope with that sort of pressure?'
He was very careful to keep any hint of criticism from his tone, having previously had his say, and she wondered again, why it had taken her so long to realise just what a special man Sam was.
'He won't be under any pressure,' she said flatly, 'because he won't be part of my life and the press won’t be aware that he ever was if I can help it.'
He looked at her strangely, 'Until all this has blown over, you mean?'
'No, that's not what I mean. He has no place in my life, and I wonder, now, why I ever thought that he did.' Roz managed a wry grimace.
A grin tugged at the corners of Sam's mouth. 'A momentary lapse in your usual impeccable good taste, I guess,' he suggested drily. The next moment they were laughing uproariously, the tension between them dissolving to Roz' infinite relief.
In the midst of the merriment, their glances suddenly and unexpectedly met, and held. Then they weren't laughing any more. In an instant the atmosphere changed until it was charged wi
th an emotion, an awareness that was almost palpable. Neither of them moved, it was as if they were afraid that the spell would be too easily broken.
'Roz?'
There was a question in his hoarse tone, but try as she could, and she did try, Roz wasn't sure what it could be, and she could only stand and stare.
‘Please tell me I’m not imagining...' he swallowed deeply and finished, ‘whatever there is between us right now, because you feel it too, don’t you?'
She couldn't answer for the lump that formed in her throat and could hardly see him for the tears that misted her eyes. She could only hold out her arms in mute surrender.
All the pent up longing of the past few days was there in the hands that reached around his neck, in the fingers that buried themselves in the rich, dark hair and drew his face down to her own.
'Sam,' his name whispered past her lips as she gave herself up to the magic of a kiss that left her shaken to the core of her being.
With a deep groan he gathered her tightly to him, and she knew, quite surely, that this time he would never let her go. In each other's arms they savoured a long moment of true understanding, and all without a word of explanation having as yet been spoken.
Sam lifted a tanned hand to ruffle the fiery red of her hair, 'I’ve known for so long that I love you, and that we could be special,' he murmured hoarsely, 'but I was beginning to think that we would never make it.'
'So was I,' she confessed, and then, staring up at him, 'What did you say?'
'I was beginning to think...'
'Before that,' she was out of his arms now, taking a determined step back, 'You said, "I always knew that I loved you." ' She shook her head, as if to clear it, ‘But when did you know - and how? Why didn't you tell me?'
'Let me ask you a question first,' he cupped her chin with a firm hand, 'When did you know?'
She met his gaze steadily, and nodded sadly, before she admitted, 'It took me a lot longer and I only knew for sure these last few days, but I do think I must have loved you for a long time before that and never admitted it - even to myself.'
'That's what I thought - hoped - when I talked you into the phoney engagement all that time ago. I was sure you felt something more than friendship for me and I had hoped it might help to steer your thoughts in the right direction - my direction. I never dreamed it was going to take years for what was so obvious to me to sink into your pretty head.'
Roz was puzzled, 'Why didn't you just tell me?' It seemed so simple to her.
'And have you feel pressured by me, as well as by your great-aunt, into settling down before you were good and ready. You were so determined that a career in HR without the encumbrance of a family was exactly what you wanted. I felt pretty safe to allow you the time you needed, and then,' he grimaced ruefully, 'right out of the blue, you announced that you intended to end our engagement and marry someone else. Is that any way to reward my patience? I had to take drastic and immediate action.'
'So, you talked me into coming home, but,' she was curious, 'what if I had refused to come?'
Sam gave a growl, and pulled her back into his arms, 'The other plan was to come and get you - on a white charger, if that was what it would take to make you see me in the right way.'
She giggled and nuzzled his chin with her own, 'What a splash that would have made. I think I'd have liked that. I never could resist a hero.'
'And I really do like the sound of that. I might even use it for my next song, and by the way,' he paused and told her seriously, 'everyone single one was written with you in mind. Didn't you ever know that?'
Roz shook her head wordlessly, and so many things suddenly made a lot of sense to her.
'We can have it all, you know,' he promised softly, 'with a little give and take, and compromise, we can do it. I don't expect you to give everything you've worked for up for me.'
'We'll talk about it,' she promised, 'but somehow, I think some of my priorities may have changed just recently and London seems to have lost its appeal. I’m sure I can further my career just as well here in Brankstone and be here to support to Aunt Ellen the way that she’s always supported me.' Grinning Roz said, ‘She is going to be so made up.’ She held out her left hand, 'May I have my ring back now before we make that tea and go and tell her?'
Sam slipped the ring from his own little finger, and placed it firmly back in place. The stern tone was softened by the smile on his face as he asked, 'Before we do can we be quite clear that there is nothing the least bit temporary about this arrangement?'
Laughing Roz dropped to one knee and asked, ‘Perhaps you would like to marry me, Sam, and make this arrangement into a permanent one?’
‘Now why didn’t I think of that,’ he grinned, ‘because there’s nothing in this world I would like more.’
Roz knew that the look in his eyes was mirrored in her own as he lifted her to her feet and drew her into his arms. The certainty of knowing that tomorrow, and all the other tomorrows were there in front of them for the taking, made her heart swell with a joy that, with Sam's kisses, took all of her remaining breath away.
‘And about time, too,’ said Aunt Ellen severely from the doorway. ‘I was beginning to think the pair of you would never get your act together.’
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